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Students’ Experiences
of Psychosocial Problems
in Higher Education

Around the world, students in higher education suffer from and deal with
psychosocial problems. This phenomenon is universal and seems to be increasing.
A vast number of students enter higher education with problems like stress,
anxiety or depression, or develop them during their student lives, due to, for
example, loneliness, family crisis, mental health or study environment issues.
Battling, belonging and recognition are the focal points of this book’s analyses,
showing how students faced with psychosocial problems experience high degrees
of stigma and exclusion in the academic communities and society as such.
The book is based on research situated in a welfare society, Denmark, where
students have relatively easy access to higher education and to public support
for education as well as special support for students with psychosocial problems.
Taking a student perspective, the book provides in-depth, qualitative analyses of
what characterizes student life, which specific psychosocial and other problems
students experience, how problems are constructed, represented and become
significant in relation to studying and, not least, how students deal with them.
It will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in
the fields of educational psychology, sociology of education and higher education.
It will also be of interest to supervisors and administrators in higher education.

Trine Wulf-Andersen is Associate Professor of youth, education and participatory

research at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Lene Larsen is Associate Professor of youth, education and welfare at Roskilde

University, Denmark.

Annie Aarup Jensen is Associate Professor of learning theory and didactics at

Aalborg University, Denmark.

Lone Krogh is Associate Professor of Higher Education policies and practices,

teaching and learning at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Aske Basselbjerg Stigemo is a postdoc researcher of education and learning,

identity and time-environments at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Mathias Hulgård Kristiansen is PhD fellow of education, mental health and

participatory research at Roskilde University, Denmark.
Routledge Research in Higher Education

Student Carers in Higher Education

Navigating, resisting and reinventing academic cultures
Edited by Genine Hook, Marie-Pierre Moreau and Rachel Brooks

A Philosophical Approach to Perceptions of Academic Writing Practices

in Higher Education
Through a glass darkly
Amanda French

Title IX and the Protection of Pregnant and Parenting College Students

Identifying Effective Communication and Support Practices
Catherine L. Riley, Alexis Hutchinson, and Carley Dix

Higher Education, State Repression, and Neoliberal Reform in Nicaragua

Reflections from a University under Fire
Edited by Wendi Bellanger, Serena Cosgrove, and Irina Carlota Silber

The Past, Present, and Future of Higher Education in the Arabian

Gulf Region
Critical Comparative Perspectives in a Neoliberal Era
Edited by Awad Ibrahim and Osman Z. Barnawi

Students’ Experiences of Psychosocial Problems in Higher Education

Battling and Belonging
Edited by Trine Wulf-Andersen, Lene Larsen, Annie Aarup Jensen, Lone Krogh,
Aske Basselbjerg Stigemo, Mathias Hulgård Kristiansen

Dismantling Constructs of Whiteness in Higher Education

Narratives of Resistance from the Academy
Edited by Teresa Y. Neely and Margie Montañez

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-

Research-in-Higher-Education/book-series/RRHE
Students’ Experiences
of Psychosocial Problems
in Higher Education
Battling and Belonging

Edited by Trine Wulf-Andersen,

Lene Larsen, Annie Aarup Jensen,
Lone Krogh, Aske Basselbjerg Stigemo
and Mathias Hulgård Kristiansen
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Trine Wulf-Andersen, Lene
Larsen, Annie Aarup Jensen, Lone Krogh, Aske Basselbjerg Stigemo
and Mathias Hulgård Kristiansen; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Trine Wulf-Andersen, Lene Larsen, Annie Aarup
Jensen, Lone Krogh, Aske Basselbjerg Stigemo and Mathias Hulgård
Kristiansen to be identified as the author[/s] of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-032-11683-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-11684-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-22102-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003221029
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

List of contributorsvi
Acknowledgementsviii

1 Battling and belonging. Students’ psychosocial

problems and the experience of higher education 1

2 Higher education as a battlefield. Contradictions in the

Danish educational context 20

3 The orientation towards a student perspective.

Methodological framework 36

4 “If I look at myself . . .” Poetic representations of

students’ negotiations of self 51

5 “Like everyone else can.” Shameful identities and the

narrative of the ‘good student’ in higher education 78

6 “I cannot even set the pace.” Asynchronicity and

inequality in an accelerated educational system 96

7 “If you don’t feel at ease socially.” Recognition,

loneliness and communities in higher education 110

8 “I see it as an extra job I have.” Students’ extra work

in making higher education accessible 125

9 From battling to belonging in higher education 140

Appendix156
Index161
Contributors

Annie Aarup Jensen is Associate Professor of learning theory and didactics.

She is senior researcher in the Student Life Project: Psychosocial problems, iden-
tity processes and communities in Danish higher education. She is part of the
research group Center for Education Policy Research and the research pro-
gramme Research in Higher Education at Aalborg University, Denmark. She
has an MA in French and Psychology and a PhD in Intercultural Competence
in Theory and Practice. Her primary research fields are learning processes
in higher education, student-centred and student-directed learning processes,
problem-orientation, co-creation, culture and emotions in education and
learning.
Aske Basselbjerg Stigemo is postdoc researcher in the Student Life Project. He
is a member of the research group LEAP (Learning, Education and Peda-
gogy) at the Department of People and Technology at Roskilde University,
Denmark. He has a Master in Work-Life Studies and Philosophy, and a PhD
in Work-life Studies and Lifelong Learning. He works in the fields of femi-
nist theory, critical theory and institutional ethnographies. He has a special
interest in qualitative methodologies for research into young people’s sense
of place and belonging. His primary research fields are educational research,
learning processes, negotiations of identity and belonging, time and time-
environments, and use of participative methods in research.
Lene Larsen is Associate Professor of youth, education and welfare and senior
researcher in the Student Life Project. She is part of the research group LEAP
(Learning, Education and Pedagogy) at the Department of People and Tech-
nology at Roskilde University, Denmark. She has a master’s in Danish Litera-
ture and Pedagogy, and a PhD in Social inclusion and Lifelong Learning. Her
primary research fields are marginalized youth, identity and belonging, mental
health, young people’s educational choices and transitions, learning processes,
culture and societal and political policy and participation.
Lone Krogh is Associate Professor of Higher Education policies and practices,
teaching and learning. She is senior researcher in the Student Life Project: She
is a part of the research groups Processes and Learning in Organizations and
 Contributors vii
the Center for Education Policy Research, She was for nine years Head of
Learning Lab at Aalborg University, Denmark, with responsibility for teacher
training and development and research in the area. She has an MA degree
in Policies and Administration. Her main research field is higher education
policies and their impact on organizational development, framing teaching
and learning practices, problem-based learning, students as partners and
co-creation.
Mathias Hulgård Kristiansen is PhD fellow in the Student Life Project. He
is part of the research group LEAP (Learning, Education and Pedagogy) at
Roskilde University, Denmark. He has a master’s degree in Welfare Policies
and Management. His primary research fields are welfare policies, education,
mental health and (youth) participation in research.
Trine Wulf-Andersen is Associate Professor of youth, welfare and participa-
tory research and the manager of the Student Life Project. She is part of the
research group LEAP (Learning, Education and Pedagogy) and head of the
Master Programme in Social Intervention at Roskilde University, Denmark.
She has a master’s degree in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Social Inclu-
sion and Lifelong Learning. Her primary research fields are education and
learning processes, identity and belonging, mental health, well-being and
(youth) participation in research.
Acknowledgements

This book is the product of three years’ research in the Student Life Project: Psy-
chosocial problems, identity processes and communities in Danish higher education.
We would like to thank a number of people for their participation in and active
contribution to the research project. First and foremost, we wish to thank all the
students who were generous with their experiences, thoughts and time during
our fieldwork and found the energy to participate in recurring interviews despite
being busy studying or dealing with difficult life situations. Their contribution
is the heart and cornerstone of the research project and this book. We would
also like to thank the project’s partners from student organizations and student
counselling units at universities and university colleges in Denmark, who shared
their knowledge and experience with us in project workshops and in the Stu-
dent Life Project’s advisory group. We are grateful for the inspiring discussions
and constructive feedback we have received from colleagues in our respective
research groups at Roskilde University and Aalborg University. In particular, we
owe great thanks to Søren Salling Weber for his contributions in the early phases
of the project and his continued engagement in the project group’s discussions.
Finally, we would like to extend our gratitude to Routledge for editorial advice
on this book, and especially to the Velux Foundations, Roskilde University and
Aalborg University for funding our research, thus making important research
efforts possible.
1 Battling and belonging.
Students’ psychosocial
problems and the experience
of higher education

The purpose of this book is to bring student perspectives on students’ psychoso-

cial problems to the foreground. Over the last five to ten years, increasing reports
of mental health problems amongst students in higher education have been a
cause of alarm in many countries. In our work, not only as researchers but also as
teachers, academic and/or special pedagogical supervisors and programme man-
agers in higher education, we can also see how students struggle. We, the six
authors, are all researchers in the field of educational studies who share a deep
interest in students and their identity and learning processes. The ambition of the
research project behind the present book was to explore and analyse how differ-
ent students experience a range of psychosocial problems.
While we were preparing our research project, a student sent a quote to one
of us. This quote has become a recurring motif for us. We allude to it with the
book’s title, and its assertion is a common theme in the questions asked in the
analyses in the various chapters. The quote reads as follows1: “Everyone you meet
is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”
The student who sent it wanted to emphasize the positive, significant and
unexpected experience she had of finding understanding at the university, at a
time when she was struggling with many difficult things in her life. As much
as we delighted in this heart-warming story, we were worried and saddened by
the implicit criticism: that finding understanding and kindness at the university
was unexpected and unprecedented for this student. The quote captures, in our
view, the important message also urgently present in our research interviews that
higher education often knows too little about its students’ battles and does not
acknowledge the knowledge, time, strength and courage it takes to fight these
battles. The quote extends to an imperative of continuously relating to students
with the kindness of the courteous realization that we do not always know, we
do not know it all.
We have made it our research ambition to explore how students experienc-
ing psychosocial problems struggle in many different ways and on many levels
within and outside higher education. The book builds on qualitative, in-depth
research of students’ experiences of and perspectives on psychosocial problems in
higher education. In a longitudinal design, we have followed 47 Danish students
over approximately two years. The students are 35 women and 12 men, most of

DOI: 10.4324/9781003221029-1
2 Battling and belonging
them aged 27–29 years, from different study programmes across seven Danish
universities and university colleges. Qualitative research knowledge of student
experiences, representing student perspectives on problems and needs in nuanced
ways, is necessary for the long-term development of higher education practices
that are better equipped to prevent and ease (the consequences of) psychosocial
problems.
The starting point of our book is that defining and approaching the problem
as a question of students’ mental health in a narrow clinical sense is inadequate.
We must understand students’ problems in relation to broader conditions for
participation, recognition and belonging in higher education. Accordingly, the
book provides analyses dedicated to produce knowledge and better understand-
ing of the battles related to specific psychosocial problems and broad everyday
situations that are pointed out by students. It also encourages a curious, inquir-
ing and explorative approach to students’ perspectives, as we want to learn more
about their student life and experiences. What psychosocial problems do students
identify? How do they understand them? How do students find that their psy-
chosocial problems intensify or decrease, are understood or stigmatized, or even
that they originate from the encounter with higher education programmes and
systems, with its teachers, counsellors and other students? What efforts do stu-
dents muster to establish and maintain a foothold and set a direction in higher
education and their own lives?
Discussing these questions, the book explores students’ battles regarding
shame, time, community and extra work, dynamics of (mis)recognition and
belonging and students’ perspectives on what conditions would help reduce and
remedy their psychosocial problems and support belonging in higher education.

Representing the problem as psychosocial

As mentioned earlier, psychosocial problems related to higher education have
gained more attention in recent years. What has been called the ‘university men-
tal health crisis’2 has been in focus, as the numbers of students reporting mental
health problems like stress, anxiety and depression have increased considerably.
Turning to the magnitude of the problem, young people’s mental health problems
have generally been increasing in Western countries, and in the Nordic countries
mental health has become the most important health concern in young people
(Kolouh-Söderlund & Lagerkranz, 2016). Student organizations, student coun-
sellors as well as research report very high numbers of higher education students
with mental health problems. A survey conducted by the Danish Ministry of
Higher Education and Science showed that one in five Danish students ‘always’
or ‘generally’ experienced high levels of stress related to studying (Danish Min-
istry of Higher Education and Science, 2019). Empirical research data show that
university students are a ‘very high-risk population’ for psychological distress and
mental disorders, with up to one-third of all students in higher education suf-
fering from mental health issues (Eisenberg et al., 2013; Lacombe et al., 2016;
Orygen, 2017; Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2011; Stallman, 2010). For instance,
 Battling and belonging 3
Baik et al. (2019) refer to a study of about 6,500 students at selected Australian
universities that documents high levels of psychological distress amongst 84%
of the students. Further, studies in USA (Eisenberg et al., 2013) and in the UK
(Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2011) document a higher prevalence and more
significant burden of mental health difficulties amongst tertiary students than in
society at large (Baik et al., 2019; Ibrahim et al., 2013). However, it is difficult
to gain a clear idea of the extent of the problem. Methods of recording data,
conducting surveys and performing research vary considerably in scope, depth,
categorizations and systems, reflecting the fact that specific problems dealt with
as mental health issues are rather different in nature. This is partly because mental
health problems in general are known to be associated with stigma, taboos and
numerous unreported cases. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic with its restric-
tions and reverberations has disturbed the picture, and it is still unclear what will
be the long-term impact on student psychosocial problems, the educational sec-
tor and student lives.
According to Thomas (2012), the focus on mental health has drawn attention
to a particular group of students in higher education, and one desired result is
a positive attitude towards more students with mental health problems and an
orientation towards support of general student well-being. However, the debate
on the ‘university mental health crisis’ mainly addresses problems in terms of
research, policy and practice, within a field of mental health primarily dominated
by a strong biomedical paradigm. As Rose (2019) points out, this encourages a
formulation of the problem and a framing of a broad range of student well-being
discussions and initiatives in terms of mental health or illness and/or psychiat-
ric diagnoses, rather than in terms of learning and pedagogy, participation and
inequalities in education. McLeod and Wright discuss how the less diagnostically
charged focus on well-being is often associated with (normative) notions of an
ideal state of being and “framed by a sense of alarm and grave concerns about
how young people are faring, with an associated and pervasive policy logic that
action should be taken” (McLeod & Wright, 2015, p. 2). They emphasize that
the concept of well-being, which at first glance appears to be a solid and more
sociological construct, on closer inspection seems ambiguous and fragmented,
and is put to use in different ways for different purposes (McLeod & Wright,
2015, p. 3), sometimes closely intertwined with more biomedical, diagnostic cat-
egories. Explaining students’ well-being problems in statistical variables, or in
biomedical, neurological, biological or diagnostic models, often leads to narrow
understandings and representations of social pathologies, in which the categories
become the explanatory factors (Beresford, 2020; Willig & Østergaard, 2005).
McLeod and Wright aim to rethink youth well-being with a critical examination
of how normative understandings, individualization and pathologization of social
problems and structural conditions and neoliberal responsibilization frame and
affect young people’s experience. They argue for “the need to ground policy and
educational approaches in the reality of young people’s experiences” (McLeod &
Wright, 2015, p. 7). The critical research approach also advocates an orientation
towards the open exploration of students’ own experiences of what they consider
4 Battling and belonging
the problem to be and for whom. Importantly, this includes acknowledging that
psychosocial problems can be experienced as trauma, crisis, loss and suffering but
simultaneously associated with meaning, agency, learning and identity (Harper,
2004; Heney, 2020). Along these lines, we argue that defining the problem as
students’ mental health issues in itself is inadequate, and that students’ problems
must be understood in relation to the broader conditions for belonging, partici-
pation and recognition in higher education.
Important analyses and discussion of these themes have been initiated related
to the ‘widening participation agenda’ in higher education. Battles for social jus-
tice and equality have been a classical topic in educational research and policy.
Under the banner of widening participation, different policy and practice initia-
tives have been implemented directed at broadening the access and participation
of a diversity of students in higher education, including students of, for example,
different gender, ethnicity and class as well as mature students, part-time stu-
dents, work-based students and students with disabilities (Allan & Storan, 2005).
Discussions of students’ psychosocial problems also play out within this frame-
work, focusing on the equal rights to education of people with disabilities. The
United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from 2006
recognizes that “disability is an evolving concept and that disability results from
the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environ-
mental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an
equal basis with others” (Retsinformation, 2017). In 2015, the outcome of the
International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges was
the Okanagan Charter, the purpose of which is to provide and embed health
in all aspects of campus culture. The charter calls for action and collaboration
locally and globally, and across administration, organization and academic staff to
create inclusive learning environments (Okanagan Charter, 2015). Despite such
political initiatives, it is still difficult for students with psychosocial problems to
be recognized and accepted on equal terms with other students. They are often
represented by way of their ‘disabilities,’ ‘functional impairment,’ ‘mental illness’
or ‘psychiatric diagnosis.’ To receive support, they often have to prove themselves
as ‘deserving consumers’ of (widening participation) interventions or to demon-
strate a certain aspiration or resilience when facing adversity. In this sense, widen-
ing participation initiatives are sometimes criticized for being directed at what
young people could do (to do better), rather than what higher education institu-
tions, teachers or politicians could do (Eiras & Huijser, 2021). Notably, Wilkins
and Burke (2013) argue that the language of widening participation draws on
competing discourses, namely a democratic-progressive discourse (equality and
social justice) and a neoliberal one (students as consumers), which might lead to
paradoxical interventions and dilemmas for students.
The exemplary question guiding the widening participation agenda is how a
greater variety of students can experience recognition and belonging in higher
education. For most students, becoming and being a student is associated with
worries, doubts and insecurity, and in general students just wish to learn and to
cope with and complete their education (Barnett, 2007). This orientation is, to
 Battling and belonging 5
some extent, present also in research literature on higher education teaching and
learning, which focuses on the development of learning environments in higher
education and teaching as a wide-reaching endeavour. Students experience and
appropriate the learning environments where they are to develop professionally
and academically, based on their prior experiences and their encounters with
teachers, administrators, leaders and counsellors, who from their respective posi-
tions work to support students in this development (Clegg & Rowland, 2010).
Sambell et al. (2017) underline the importance of students as partners, peer
learning and feedback and engagement, whereas the significance of the encoun-
ter between different students and particular learning environments is central in,
for instance, Biggs and Tang’s alignment model (Biggs & Tang, 2007), Tinto’s
student integration model (Tinto, 2017) and in research on first-year experience,
focusing on students’ transitions from high school to higher education. Holmeg-
aard et al. (2014) point out that students are in an ongoing process of meaning-
making and continuously work on their identity to gain a sense of belonging
when their expectations of their new programme interact with their experience.
Many authors focus on the teachers’ role in facilitating student belonging. In a
systematic review, Allen et al. (2018) conclude (across variations) that “teacher
support and positive personal characteristics were the strongest predictors of
school belonging” (2018, p. 1). Others have emphasized teachers’ listening and
understanding attitudes (Ramsden, 2003), passion and caring for students (Hat-
tie, 2003, 2009; Ornelius-White, 2007), and working to act kindly and create
pleasant environments to support a wide variety of students (Clegg & Rowland,
2010), as crucial factors for students’ integration and belonging. However, in this
line of higher education research, the interest in facilitating student well-being
in higher education teaching and learning often focuses on the conditions that
enable students to enter and stay in higher education, to learn the curriculum as
intended and to become an academic as intended. Therefore, research often has
the inherently institutional purpose of identifying approaches and methods best
used in different academic areas to ensure achievement and academic integration,
and translating research insights into how ‘good’ teaching methods can help to
develop constructive and supporting learning communities. These approaches
all seem to be relevant and legitimate orientations for educational research and
development. However, questions of student belonging are to a lesser degree
formulated from a student life perspective, and analyses of student belonging
are rarely taken beyond a higher education context with an orientation towards
how learning extends to other contexts in complicated, far-reaching and trans-
formative identity processes (such as in the writings of Illeris (2013), building on
Rogers (1983)). Furthermore, this strand of literature does not address issues of
students’ psychosocial problems.
We find an approach that integrates a focus on student experience, psychosocial
problems and identity processes, in higher education and also in other life con-
texts for students, to be of immediate importance in research on educational ine-
quality. Our research project has not focused per se on restating the well-known
consensus that higher education works as a socio-economic sorting machine in
6 Battling and belonging
society, but our starting point is that factors like class, race, ethnicity and gen-
der continue to influence admission rates, even though recent decades have seen
more students from diverse groups enrol in Danish higher education. Drop-out
rates and rates of transition from bachelor’s to master’s degrees also continue to
demonstrate a notable class gap (Thomsen, 2021).
Categories and vocabularies that point to individuals’ constitution and biogra-
phy as the locus of problems, and suggest individuals’ coping strategies as solu-
tions to exclusionary processes, can conceal how class, gender, ethnicity and other
structural dynamics play a part. To include these dimensions in our analyses, nec-
essary steps are the exploration of psychosocial problems in their relation to spe-
cific everyday contexts and examination of the collective and societal dimensions
of coping with and recovering from psychosocial problems. We set out to explore
the role the current focus on students’ mental health and psychosocial constitu-
tion might play as a new sorting mechanism in higher education, intersecting
with the classic categories (cf. Wulf-Andersen & Larsen, 2020). In what ways are
institutionalized patterns of inequality influenced, when categories informed by
psychological and psychiatric knowledge enter the field of education and student
counselling? How do students take on or work to resist divergent, sometimes
contradictory, categorizations of their problems? How are students affected by
social valuation practices and how do they try to orient themselves in relation to
them? How do neoliberal orientations towards individualism, performance and
employability intertwine with questions of students’ mental health and of diverse
students’ belonging in higher education? We are interested in which battles stu-
dents with psychosocial problems fight in higher education and how they fight
them, and if for instance they experience feelings of unworthiness and shame,
which can also be seen as indicators or ‘symptoms of inequality’ (Loveday, 2016).
These are important topics to investigate without reproducing neoliberal trends
and discourses of self-responsibility. It is important to consider how the ways we
frame research problems also actively highlight or conceal certain aspects or per-
spectives, thus contributing to the (re)production or disruption of inequality. We
argue that we should be open and curious about the different kinds of battles for
identity that students with psychosocial problems are undergoing, and how they
intersect and interact or counteract with student life and other kinds of student
problems.
Thus, our ambition in the present book is to address students’ psychosocial
problems in a double perspective. We explore students’ perspectives on their psy-
chosocial problems with the intention of nuancing and deepening our under-
standing of students’ experience of problems: How do students experience the
conditions and implications of being students? How are different kinds of ill-
being part of their student life? We also explore what particular categories of
and actions towards students’ psychosocial problems in higher education settings
mean to students, thus reflecting on students’ experience of problem representa-
tions3: How are students’ problems met and dealt with in higher education? What
are the implications of this from students’ perspectives? An overarching question
is how approaching both dimensions of the problem from a student perspective
 Battling and belonging 7
can generate new knowledge and shed light on new nuances of students’ psy-
chosocial problems, and lead to new forms of representation and new paths to
student well-being. We provide analyses that show, from a student perspective,
how psychosocial problems are thought of, and why students seem “obliged to
think in certain ways” (Somers in McLeod & Wright, 2015, p. 5). We explore
(policy) assumptions behind problems and problem representations and discuss
how students’ psychosocial problems could be understood and addressed differ-
ently (p. 6). We analyse how predominant approaches to psychosocial problems
work on an individual level, and what that might mean for students experiencing
problems and their efforts to achieve a sense of belonging and recognition in
higher education.
The book brings different students’ experiences of everyday student life to
the foreground, exploring the empirical details of problems as well as possibili-
ties for change. This entails critical analysis of “the harsh and brutal dimensions
of human experience, and the structural and historical conditions that produce
them” (Ortner, 2016, p. 49) and also of caring dimensions and the ways people
work to overcome problems. This kind of inquiry focuses also on “what gives
lives a sense of purpose or direction or how people search for the best way to live”
(Walker & Kavedžija, in Ortner, 2016, p. 59). We examine students’ own stories
and explanations of the impact of having psychosocial problems. The relationship
between the subjective and the collective level is at the heart of our choice to use
the term psychosocial problems to represent the central problem dealt with in this
book. When we prefer to represent and discuss problems as psychosocial rather
than in terms of, for example, mental health/illness or well-being, it is because we
wish, on the one hand, to acknowledge and maintain that some students do expe-
rience dire mental and emotional processes, which can be characterized as prob-
lematic and urgent to address, sometimes in the form of psychiatric treatment.
On the other hand, we want to acknowledge and emphasize that such problems
always have essential social dimensions that tend to be understated in concepts
and categorizations associated with the psychiatric field and individual counsel-
ling. The term psychosocial problems moves further to address and understand
a range of ill-beings, including feeling sad, lost or isolated, grief, anxiety and
depression as well as severe clinical mental illness, as a question of people’s subjec-
tive experience in relation to everyday practices and social relations in particular
social, institutional and cultural contexts. This in turn implies that the orientation
towards the student perspective should not be understood as a focus on individu-
als but rather as an orientation towards the material, social, cultural and political
processes being embedded in particular students’ processes and possibilities.
Representing our focus as psychosocial problems identifies student problems
as phenomena that are complex; are associated with a wide variety of contexts,
causes and forms of expression and are conceived of very differently according
to different scientific paradigms. This definition of psychosocial problems implies
that they embrace ambiguity and ambivalence. In formulating a sociological and
pedagogical approach to psychosocial problems, we wish to transgress the dis-
tinction between structural and subjective levels of analysis in our attempt to
8 Battling and belonging
understand students’ everyday definitions and experiences of problems. Follow-
ing the perspective of student experiences of psychosocial problems provides a
crucial prism for critical analysis of belonging in higher education.

Battling for belonging

The analytical focus on students’ battling and belonging begins with the deci-
sion to explore student experience. Battling and belonging emanate as powerful
empirical categories and student orientations in our data. The significance of
experiencing ‘fitting in’ or ‘belonging somewhere’ is a prominent orientation
for the students in our study. In our experience from researching young people’s
participation in educational settings and local communities, as in other studies,
belonging rings familiar and comes close to young people’s everyday experiences
of what gives coherence and direction to life, and what engages and matters to
them (Cuervo & Wyn, 2014; Larsen et al., 2016; Meehan & Howells, 2018).
Likewise, many of the students in our research refer directly to the kind of battles
they have had to fight during their life as a whole and in their student life: battles
against rules, systems and institutions, against themselves and their psychosocial
problems and against cultural values and societal norms and discourses. Other
researchers have also found that students talk of higher education in terms of a
‘struggle’ (see, for instance, Leathwood & O’Connell, 2003).
On another level, battling and belonging represent theoretical concepts, cru-
cial in the rethinking of psychosocial problems as structurally, discursively and
subjectively embedded and in the deconstruction of existing understandings at
work in higher education. This ambition implies an orientation towards a broad
and compound theoretical and methodological approach, containing both realist and
poststructuralist perspectives. Our theoretical concepts for students’ battling
and belonging connect inextricably with our theoretical understanding of student
experience, which draws on the German tradition of critical theory, especially the
writings of Oskar Negt and some of his successors. The main point here is con-
ceptualization of ‘the societal subject’ where experience is a process developing in
a subject-object-dialectic (Negt, 1964; Nielsen, 1997). This approach considers
experience as establishing a substantive place of encounter between subjective
and societal dynamics. Experience is the process through which we cognitively,
emotionally and sensually appropriate reality. Previous life experience as well as
current everyday contexts shape the subject’s understandings, interpretations and
(re)formulations of phenomena and situations. This conceptualization of subjec-
tive experience forms the basis for understanding psychosocial problems as real,
even if subjectively they have very different meanings. It also inspires an analysis
of situated students’ life processes, including psychosocial problems, as linked to
previous life and educational experiences as well as broader learning processes
and social communities related to higher education and societal dynamics. Here,
we are inspired by Dorothy Smith (2005), in rooting analyses in students’ stand-
points, understanding students as knowers of their everyday life but at the same
time oriented towards ruling forces in institutions and contemporary capitalistic
 Battling and belonging 9
society. Working from these theoretical grounds, we focus our exploration of
psychosocial problems on how they manifest themselves in student experience
as simultaneously biographically, institutionally and socioculturally constituted
processes that are constantly developing, as we turn to belonging as our primary
theoretical concept.
Belonging, as a theoretical concern, focuses on students’ efforts to be/become
connected to people, places and issues that matter to them (Cuervo & Wyn,
2014), and an analysis of belonging focuses on how students find a sense of
belonging to be possible or impossible for them in different (educational) con-
texts or landscapes. In our analyses of student belonging, we draw on a range of
authors, and in this section, we will present the main conceptual grounds of the
book.
With the concept of (be)longing (2000a, 2000b), Davies emphasizes the cor-
relation and interplay between belonging, being and longing as a significant
ambiguity and fundamentally processual characteristic of identity and of being
inscribed in a specific landscape. Davies (2000b) understands landscapes as both
geographical and cultural terrains. Experiences and narratives of sensing and
being inscribed in a specific landscape constitute important dimensions of expe-
riencing identity, and in Davies’ conceptualization, body, emotion, language and
social practice are not separate elements. Rather, they are different dimensions of
experience (Davies, 2000a, p. 37), intertwined with each other and in material,
relational and discursive ‘realities,’ which must be understood in their historical,
sociocultural and political contexts.
With an emphasis on spatial-political dimensions, Antonsich (2010) identifies
two central analytical dimensions of the concept of belonging. On the one hand,
belonging describes a personal and intimate feeling of belonging somewhere
(place-belongingness). On the other hand, belonging is a discursive resource in
socio-spatial processes of inclusion and exclusion (politics of belonging) (Anton-
sich, 2010, p. 645). The question of ‘where I belong’ is thus connected to ques-
tions of ‘who I am’ as well as ‘who I would like to be’ or become (Antonsich,
2010, p. 646). Belonging thus implies both the active subject’s need and work
for belonging and the implications of submitting to a discourse of who and how
someone can belong in/to a particular place or community. The distinction
between place-belongingness and the politics of belonging highlights how higher
education settings are also politicized landscapes, determining opportunities and
limitations for different students’ participation and belonging. Belonging is in this
sense a multidimensional concept, including, for instance, gender, ethnicity and
citizenship as well as body, emotion and language as relevant dimensions of status,
affiliation and identity (Antonsich, 2010, p. 645), making belonging unevenly
distributed: Not all students have the same opportunities to establish belonging,
to be recognized as belonging, or alternatively to choose not to belong.
Belonging can also be associated with theories of social learning (Lave &
Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) and of learning as becoming (Colley et al., 2003).
Such processes can lead to identification as well as dis-identification with a com-
munity. One can identify more or less with a community and the need to belong
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