Emotional Educations: Students’ Views of the History of Belonging and the Lessons That Can Be Learned From the History of Student Mental Health, 2021-2022

This data is drawn from the transcribed focus groups held with five groups of students at four universities across Britain as part of a project to explore the potential utility of histories of student loneliness. Put another way, this project sought to understand the 'so what?' of research into student mental health histories. The students were invited to examine archival material that was authored by students in the 1960s and 1970s that detailed experiences of loneliness and isolation at universities, and were guided by the researcher to explore their resonances in the present. The first part of the workshop involved introducing the history of student mental health and giving students a brief guide to the use of archival material - setting out some brief comments on how to read for context, audience, and potential aims of the text. The second section honed in on students' responses to the material. The aim was to understand how contemporary students might make use of, interact with, and explore student loneliness in the past. The motivation for the study was a desire to understand the potential role of enhanced historical understanding in contemporary discussions about how to improve student wellbeing - asking whether, for example, increased knowledge of past student experiences might de-stigmatise loneliness in the present. The data contained in this set contain the transcribed conversations held in the second part of the workshops. Student participants came from a range of backgrounds, though all were undergraduates and all studied either a humanities or a social science degree. One student was an international exchange student, and another was an American student spending the entirety of their degree in the UK. The topics covered include freshers' weeks; accommodation; resident and non-resident students; going home at weekends; friendships; the permissive society; academic and staff interactions. The resulting academic article, which analysed this data alongside the archival materials, argued that increased historical knowledge was felt by students to offer new ways of understanding their experiences and to diminish the pressure around the 'university experience'. It argued, though, that this needs to be a complement to the other, holistic and more ambitious attempts to grapple with disconnection in the academy.This project worked with undergraduate students to illuminate the history of belonging at British universities and to establish the potential impact of this knowledge. Its aim was to understand the lessons that the history of student belonging and loneliness have for the present. This project's methodology was collaborative and co-production focused. The project was driven by a desire to understand the role that student histories could potentially have in efforts to address student loneliness and disconnection; to understand and trace evidence of past student loneliness; and to explore the particular themes from student histories that resonate with contemporary undergraduates. Through a series of five workshops at four universities in England, Wales and Scotland 2022 it gave participating students the opportunity to critically examine the experiences of previous generations of students – as shown in student newspapers and Student Union ephemera. The first section of workshops introduced students to archival material and to the longer chronology of concern about student mental health (a section that was not recorded or transcribed). The second half of the workshops gave students time to read archival material written by students in the 1960s or 1970s and to discuss it. It encouraged students to assess how expectations of themselves and universities have changed in recent decades, asking them to reflect upon the particular ideas and strands of the historical writing that rang true for them. The project argues that historical knowledge has a potential role to play in destigmatising student loneliness and to adjusting the romanticised image of the sociable student, but that this needs to be a complement to other efforts to address the fragmentation and disconnection that can be a part of undergraduate life. Student contributors were invited via posters and written information circulated by lecturers and professional services staff. Their participation was incentivised; students were given the opportunity to contribute a reflection to a 'student exhibition' on the project website https://studentmentalhealthhistory.swansea.ac.uk/ and those who did were in with a chance of being awarded one of five lots of £150. The data is the transcribed workshop discussions that explore the archival material and the students' experience of freshers' week, accommodation, friendship and university teaching. This project is funded from the ESRC, via SMaRteN, https://www.smarten.org.uk/, as part of its ‘answering students’ key questions’ funding call. Grant Ref: ES/S00324X/1.