Parents' experiences of HE choice.

Abstract

This paper challenges the dominant discourse that HE choice is a consumer choice and questions assumptions underpinning government policy and HE marketing. HE choice is largely viewed as a rational, decontextualized process. However, this interpretivist study found it to be much more complex than this, and to be about relationships and managing a transition in roles. It focuses on parents, an under-researched group, who play an increasing part in their child’s HE choice. It finds that they experience this process as parents not consumers, and that their desire to maintain the relationship at this critical juncture takes precedence over the choice of particular courses and universities. The role of relationships, and in this context relationship maintenance, is the main theme. This is experienced in two principal ways - relationship maintenance through conflict avoidance and through teamwork. These are significant findings with implications for the way governments and HEIs consider recruitment.