The University of Brighton is the home for the Centre for Higher Education Equity Research (CHEER), whose objective is to research the  ‘systems, structures, cultures, experiences and consequences of inequities within higher education’. I was able to chat with Dr Emily Danvers, Dr Tamsin Hinton-Smith and also, Professor Louise Morley (Head of CHEER) to reflect upon their… Read More


That’s probably a conditioning from a working-class family that didn’t see university as an option.  Honestly, when you sat down as a child and you said, “I want to be an astronaut” – that was not something that… that’s great when you’re five but by the time you’re 13, 14, living in a country town,… Read More


At many institutions, these weeks mark the beginning of university for a new cohort of first year students. Orientation Week (or O Week) is when we invite our commencing students onto campus, generally bombard them with lots of information, perhaps even feed them and generally squeeze as much exposure to the institution as is possible… Read More


Welcome to 2018! Following a slight hiatus on the First-in-Family blogs, I have prioritised a regular blog after receiving data on how many people actually read the blogs in 2016-2017 – with just under 2,000 reads I have been inspired to keep writing! One of the reasons the blog entries diminished was due to my… Read More


  We’ve been working really hard to refine and bring together these overarching principles. They are the result of some great contributions from practitioners given through feedback and workshop activities across the country. The 7 Overarching Principles are: PRINCIPLE 1: Changing conversations: Engage with family and community. PRINCIPLE 2: Take the mystery out of university PRINCIPLE 3: Make… Read More


  As part of the Engaging Families to Engage Learners (EFEL) OLT Fellowship, I have been conducting workshops at various universities across Australia. These workshops are designed to both disseminate findings from previous research conducted with first-in-family learners and also, ‘start conversations’ about how this cohort can be best supported as well as how institutions… Read More


“Rather than focus on what people lack, better understanding is gained from focusing on strengths in order to develop ways of understanding first-in-family students that seek to challenge notions of access and participation.” (O’Shea,2015) In November 2015, I was invited to the QUT Caboolture Campus to run a workshop on first-in-family learners. During the day,… Read More