Title of study: Studying law on the fast-track: working-class, mature students’ constructions and experiences of their two-year undergraduate degree.

This PhD study draws upon the qualitative research conducted over an 18-month period at one ‘private’ law school in the south of England. Using qualitative methods, this study attempts to provide some answers to an under-researched area. Set within a Foucauldian theoretical framework, the analysis of the data (so far) suggests that the working-class, mature students in this study constructed their student experience via discourses connected with ‘intensity’ and ‘consumerism’ (among others) – all of which are hegemonic, complex and shifting. The analysis of the data also indicates that the power embedded within their discourses (re)positioned the students as more or less powerful and had an impact on their subjectivity and student experience.

Supervisory team: Professor Jayne Osgood and Professor Paul Gibbs

Email: SP1607@live.mdx.ac.uk