"The Road Not Taken..." : A critical perspective on exploring the lifeworlds of non-traditional students in online transnational higher education

Szilagyi, Anna and Ingram, Nicola and Oztok, Murat and Saunders, Murray (2025) "The Road Not Taken..." : A critical perspective on exploring the lifeworlds of non-traditional students in online transnational higher education. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This interdisciplinary research that integrates cultural and social psychology, sociology of education, sociocultural analysis, and comparative education in the field of transnational online higher education, aims to explore from an intersectional and critical lens the lifeworlds of non-traditional students studying in UK-based, transnational programmes residing in Nigeria, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom or being citizens of these countries. The term ‘non-traditional’ indicates underrepresented groups whose participation in higher education is constrained by structural barriers, such as students from minority ethnic groups, mature-aged students, or students from low-income families. The context chosen is the online, international postgraduate programmes of three universities in the UK, which provide a ‘data-rich’, multicultural learning environment in which the students study in their own countries. The countries are selected to mirror a global online classroom. The scope of the study is to uncover the multidimensional nature of inequality varied by geographical and national context, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, previous educational cultures, and gender and how these inequalities become visible and intersect through student voices. The research applied hermeneutic phenomenology, and lifeworld studies in the methodology as well as intersectionality and critical pedagogy as theoretical frameworks to address issues of empowerment and agency, marginalization and cultural domination, privileges, stereotypes, the development of critical consciousness, social presence or absence, and cultural inclusion or the lack of it in online transnational education. The methodology provides rigorous and evocative data presentation methods that generate cognitive and emotional understanding, which is one of the original contributions of this study. The findings reveal that unequal socioeconomic and cultural conditions shape online learning experiences in unequal ways and highlight that any form of overgeneralization or overcategorization in research, policy, and educational practice is mistaken. A precise analysis of highly situated realities is necessary for nuanced understanding, improved policy making, and a more tailored practice that truly recognizes and deals proactively with inequalities. Students’ online learning experiences have just as many varieties of sounds and meanings as the music and poetry in different parts of the world. Female and male voices are not the same in all parts of the world. The intersection of geographic location, socioeconomic status, and gender or previous educational culture creates patterns in the narratives of nontraditional learners and determines power dynamics, experiences of privilege and subordination, marginalization and empowerment, oppression and agency. Age and ethnicity provide further nuances to the picture. In contrast with previous qualitative studies, this thesis offers a detailed and nuanced representation of the diversity of female voices in the Global South and Global North, through which online learning is becoming a new form of female resistance against being silenced, but in various ways depending on the cultural context. The study demonstrates that the importance lies in the detail: every concept about learning is culturally situated and bears a different meaning depending on who says it and in which cultural context. The given cultural contexts create unequal learning conditions that can no longer be ignored. Without recognizing the unequal conditions, non-traditional online students are forced to assimilate into the dominant Western educational culture, which represents a form of cultural hegemony imposed on them.