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Trailblazing: Motivations and Relationship Impacts for First-in-Family Enabling Students

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First-in-Family Students, University Experience and Family Life

Abstract

This chapter investigates the experiences of first-in-family (FiF) enabling students as they reflect on their participation in university. Due to the widening participation agenda, this cohort is increasing annually in Australia although they are little researched. The data have been harvested from interviews and surveys and analysed using biographical method to explore these enabling students’ motivations and relationship impacts. The chapter shows how their motivations are deeply embedded and complexly formulated within temporal and relational contexts as well as within their broader social, cultural and economic locations. Their trailblazing engagement in higher education (HE) is shown to be a social as much as an individual action, having impacts far beyond the transformations that the enabling learner personally experiences.

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O’Shea, S., May, J., Stone, C., Delahunty, J. (2017). Trailblazing: Motivations and Relationship Impacts for First-in-Family Enabling Students . In: First-in-Family Students, University Experience and Family Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58284-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58284-3_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58283-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58284-3

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