This moving and thought-provoking exhibition shows a collection of images from the photo-diaries of student carers.
The photos were collected as part of the (CEL) ‘Students who bounce back’ research project, which is funded through Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó’s Fair Access Agreement Management Group.
Aim of the research
‘Students who bounce back’ has the following aims:
- To explore the life experience of student carers at Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó and the impact of caring in their learning experiences
- To determine, in co-production with students, the main motivations and expectations of their university experience, and their contact with the different support mechanisms in place at Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó
- To contribute with empirical data to the development of the concept of psychosocial scaffoldings as enablers of resilience (or the ability to ‘bounce back’)
- To contribute to wider debates and developments about the learning experience of student carers in the Higher Education sector.
Research co-creation
'Students who bounce back' is a collaborative project involving Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó researchers and students in co-production of data collection, analysis and dissemination.
Students were given a camera to take a picture each day for a month. Their goal was to capture a scene that would help the researchers to understand their experiences as students and carers at Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó and how caring impacted on their learning experiences. They were given the freedom to portray anything they felt was relevant to the project.
In addition to this, the students met with the research team for one-to-one interviews, helped the team to better understand how caring and studying interplay in students' lives.
The final collaboration between students and researchers came through an exhibition. Images displayed were selected from a pool of over 300 images produced by the students and captions came from their interviews. The students were given final say over which images and words were used to reflect their experiences.