The house of cards: equity-group students’ experiences of structural inequity in higher education

Abstract

Globally, correlations are reported between lower academic attainment and university students being a member of an ‘equity’ or ‘historically under-represented’ group. We seek to illuminate how this so-called awarding gap might transpire. Taking a longitudinal qualitative approach, 35 undergraduate students from equity and diverse backgrounds at an Australian university participated in a series of interviews. Using a metaphorical framing, we liken the students’ participation in higher education to building a house of cards, which refers to studying within a precarious, unstable or fragile situation. Students learn to work with the cards they are dealt through much scheduling, ordering and invisible work. Inevitably, when one of the cards wobbles and impacts their study, a partial or complete collapse of the structure can swiftly occur. In the aftermath, students try to rebuild. The house of cards metaphor illustrates how universities reproduce disadvantage through the institutional structural barriers that interact with individual students’ lives. Of concern, students perceive participation challenges to result from their individual faults, instead of from precarious structural foundations on which their house of cards is built. This article makes a contribution to critically interrogating structural inequities that influence students’ participation and, ultimately, success in higher education.