In January 2024 the Office for Students added two groups of students with care responsibilities to their Equalities of Opportunity Risk Register: young carers and students with parental responsibilities. However, student carers form a broader group that includes young carers in school or in further or higher education, and higher education students with parental or other care responsibilities. All might experience inequalities that limit progression at each stage of their educational journey. This new Working Group will offer an opportunity for members to share and discuss their research and practice in an informal setting with like-minded colleagues, and provide a forum for discussion on how to effectively support outreach activity and access, success and progression for these students.

This first meeting will include:

- an introductory talk from the Working Group's Academic Advisor, Professor Marie-Pierre Moreau

- a lightning talk from Olivia Ward about Newcastle University's acclaimed Carers Passport initiative

- a discussion on topics that members would like to explore through the Working Group in 2025-26.

Our Speakers

Marie-Pierre Moreau is Professor in the Sociology of Education, Work and Inequalities at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, where she is also the Education Research Lead and Director of the Centre for Education Research on Identities and Inequalities (CERII). Her current research concentrates on two key areas: teachers’ identities and careers, with specific reference to gender and the ‘feminisation thesis’, and the relationship between care and academic work, with specific reference to the way that students and staff with caring responsibilities are positioned in academic discourses. Professor Moreau is a member of the NERUPI Academic Advisory Board.

Olivia Ward is a Disability Practitioner in Newcastle University's Student Health and Wellbeing Services and is the main point of contact for its Carers Passport initiative. Olivia was a speaker in the Practice Spotlight Session at the Carers Trust Conference Fair futures for young carers: Transforming educational opportunities for young carers in 2024.

Background Reading:

Moreau, M.P. & Wheeler, L. (2023) Through a glass, darkly: Gazing into the field of carers in academia. Review of Education, 11, https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rev3.3387.

Hook, G., Moreau, M.P. & Brooks, R. (eds) (2022) Student carers in higher education: Navigating, resisting and redefining academic cultures. London: Routledge.

Moreau, M.P. & Galman S.C. (2021) Writing/drawing care-based equity into practice: A research- and art-based collaboration about caring responsibilities in academia [Special Issue]. Access: Critical Explorations of Equity in Higher Education, 9(1), 59-73, https://novaojs.newcastle.edu.au/ceehe/index.php/iswp/article/view/163.

Henderson, E. & Moreau, M.P. (2020) Carefree conferences? Academics with caring responsibilities performing mobile academic subjectivities. Gender and Education, 32(1), 70-85, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540253.2019.1685654.

Moreau, M.P. & Robertson, M. (2019) 'You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours'? Support to academics who are carers in higher education. Social Sciences [Special Issue: Family and Work: Parental Leave and Careers], https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/6/164.