Journal special issue

Forthcoming! We are co-editing a peer reviewed journal special issue for Open Screens focused on ‘Students on Screen’, expected for publication late 2024.

The special issue brings together screen studies scholars and educationalists to examine the construction of current crises and challenges in education from a range of perspectives. The special issue will explore how constructions of students are shaped and influenced by political, cultural, and social factors, focusing on key current issues relating to equality, diversity and inclusion.

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Research England Participatory Fund

In October 2024 we were awarded £7,285 from the Research England Participatory Fund. The project will run October 2024 to June 2025. Further details below:

Title: Students as co-producers: constructing the university student in British television dramas

Research team: Dr Kay Calver (University of Bedfordshire) and Dr Bethan Michael-Fox (Open University), 4 student research assistants (pending)

Project description: Williams (2010, p.170) has emphasised that media representations of students should be analysed because they ‘reflect back to society some of the dominant ways in which what it means to be a student is understood’. In response to this, we created the ‘Students on Screen’ project which examines how screen representations of university students produce, frame, inform and contribute to complex understandings about what it might mean to be a university student. Initiated in 2019, the project has resulted in a range of peer reviewed publications (see Calver and Michael-Fox, 2021a; 2021b; Michael-Fox and Calver, 2023), two invited research seminars at the Open University and University of Winchester and we are currently co-editing a journal special issue due for publication in late 2024. Building on the success of the Students on Screen project, we have secured funding from Research England to cover the costs of participatory, co-produced research with university students. A limitation of previous research focused on media representations of students is that little of this work involves students in co-analysing their positioning as university students. This funded research study seeks to address this limitation by following Dargahi, Horne and Smith’s (2024) approach of working with students to collaboratively co-produce knowledge, supporting students to develop skills in critical media analysis and to share their own knowledge and experiences. Students will be appointed as research assistants and will be involved in selecting and analysing the television dramas and co-producing the research outputs. 

The aims and objectives of the research study are:

1. To identify and analyse dominant constructions of university students in British television dramas;

2. To utilise existing research to relate these constructions to current political, cultural, and social factors.