{"id":2826,"date":"2024-02-16T11:25:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T11:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/itl\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2024-05-20T13:04:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T12:04:51","slug":"the-role-of-student-partnership-in-creating-a-sense-of-belonging-the-case-of-the-undergraduate-education-research-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/itl\/2024\/02\/16\/the-role-of-student-partnership-in-creating-a-sense-of-belonging-the-case-of-the-undergraduate-education-research-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"The role of student partnership in creating a sense of belonging: the case of the Undergraduate Education Research Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Authors: Karen Healey, Xinyue Zhang, Lingyi Zhou, Chang Gao, choen Yin Chan, Kate Sapin and Sara Jackson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\" Policy construction of students in higher education as instrumental consumers has led to increasing demands for student participation in the formulation of metrics as the consumer citizen (Mendes and Hamnett, 2020).\u00a0\u00a0 Together, as staff and students at the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE), we wanted to go beyond this consumer partnership to create one where, as \u2019active citizens\u2019 in partnership (Arnstein, 2019), we could imagine, organise <\/em>and deliver <\/em>our Undergraduate (UG) Education Research Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0In seeking student volunteers to co-construct the conference, we wanted to understand what participation in that student partnership would involve.\u00a0 What we hadn\u2019t considered at the start of our journey was how this evolving partnership would generate a sense of belonging for all those involved in this collective endeavour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Partnership framework. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Partnership became our way of working throughout the planning, delivery, evaluation and dissemination of\u00a0 learning from our experiences. \u00a0In trying to understand this participation, Arnstein (1969, 2019) \u2018Ladder for Citizenship Participation\u201d recognizes the sharing of some power in partnership at Rung Six of her ladder.\u00a0 With the redistribution of power through negotiation between citizens (students) and powerholders (staff), planning and decision-making responsibilities are shared. For Arnstein, partnership can be extended at rung seven with Delegated Power<\/em> by giving up at least some degree of control, management, decision-making authority.\u00a0 It was with this conceptualization of partnership, of redistributed power and delegation that enabled our autonomy in a collective endeavour, to imagine, organise<\/em> and deliver<\/em> our conference.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The conference planning team: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our initial core planning team comprised of staff members from the BSc Education programme,\u00a0 student volunteers from the BSc programme and\u00a0 post graduate research students.\u00a0 The undergraduate student volunteers were recruited via a Microsoft form activity in class whereas the PGRs were recruited via existing relationships.<\/p>\n

T<\/strong>he space we sought as we planned our conference recognized that expertise sat in each of us by interconnecting that we could grow together (Massey 1994) .\u00a0 Perhaps the words of one of our student volunteers best describes our way of working as:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018a network that sought to understand and value each other’s contribution, recognising that our differences were our strength as a partnership<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

The use of digital spaces to meet, such as Zoom, WhatsApp to connect, and Padlet to share information and plan schedules were important in the redistribution of power and developing our partnership. The freedom to access, use and contribute also acknowledged the reciprocal nature of our partnership, further shifting the planning team to climb the rungs of Arnstein’s ladder (Arnstein, 2019)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What we did<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With an established conference date together, we created our project plan. A commitment to choice and autonomy were important \u00a0for decision making as we worked individually or in small teams based on interest and expertise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Where university structural arrangements created barriers, such as ordering catering, it was accepted a staff member would lead.\u00a0 However, where this was not the case, volunteers led, such as the social media strategy, decisions on poster competition rules and student volunteer roles for the day of the conference.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The planning group student volunteers worked as a team to recruit and mentor other UG students for roles on the day of the conference to secure the successful delivery<\/em>. \u00a0\u00a0Our meetings as student volunteers were about collectivity, flexibility and autonomy of choice (see Fig.1).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Figure 1: Collectivity, Flexibility, Autonomy: three of our volunteers reflect on the student volunteer team approach<\/p>\n

Reflecting on our partnership.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We recognised roles of planners, deliverers, supporters, evaluators; and disseminators as an outcome; from within and beyond the partnership, with the recruitment of others by our volunteers with the dissemination of both information and experiences, such as this blog and our ITL conference paper presentation!<\/a> Student volunteers have since co-founded the new BSc Education society.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(https:\/\/instagram.com\/uom_step4ed?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The sense of belonging that we have felt resonates with a \u201csubjective feeling of deep connection with social groups, physical spaces, both as individual and collective experiences\u201d (Allen et al, 2021: 71).\u00a0 This is best described by one of our volunteers as \u2019something larger than this conference\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n

The main take-aways from conference feedback:<\/p>\n