Yvonne Downs: PhD Student

Email: edp07yd@sheffield.ac.uk

Supervisor: Professor Pat Sikes

Working Title of thesis:
What is the Value of Higher Education to White Working Class Women?

Details:

Interest in the participation of `non-traditional´ students in higher education seldom endures beyond graduation. But what do graduates `like me´ (white, working class women who, in the late `70s and early `80s, were the first in their families to go to university) say about their experiences of higher education in the context of the rest of their lives?

Reflecting my commitment to do feminist research with an ethical aim, a moral purpose and a reflexive impetus and using a life history approach, I converse with writings (theoretical and empirical), popular understandings and the official perspectives on the value of higher education, using the capability approach of Nobel economics laureate Amartya Sen.

In this way I hope to open up spaces in which to articulate alternative narratives around participation in higher education.

Publications

Allen, A. Anderson, K., Bristol, L., Downs, Y., O´Neill D., Watts N. and Wu Q. 2009. Resisting the unethical in formalised ethics: perspectives and experiences. In J. Satterthwaite, H. Piper, & P. Sikes, eds. Power in the academy. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books, pp. 135-152.

Downs, Y. 2009. Ethics and narrative research - a contradiction in terms? In D. Robinson, P. Fisher, T. Y. Lee, S. J. Robinson and P. Woodcock, eds. Narrative, memory and identities. Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield, pp. 21-30.

Downs, Y. 2010. Transcription tales. Or: let not love´s labour be lost. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 33(1), pp.101-112.

Downs, Y. 2010 (forthcoming). Ethics review – a student´s tale. Creative Approaches in Research.

Downs Y. 2011 (forthcoming) What Katie did next. The capability approach and graduate lives. In M. Watts, ed. Capabilities and Higher Education. Oxford: Symposium Books

Conference Papers

Allen, A., Anderson K., Bristol L., Downs Y., O´Neil D., Wu, Q., 2008 Resisting the unethical in formalised ethics. Paper presented at the 7th Conference of the Discourse, Power, Resistance Series, Manchester, 30th March- 1st April.

Downs, Y., 2008. Ethics and narrative research: A contradiction in terms?. Paper presented at the 8th Annual Conference of the Narrative and Memory Research Group, University of Huddersfield, 12th April.

Downs, Y., 2009. 'It's a bit like giving birth'. Middle-aged women graduates talk about their experience of higher education. Paper presented at the 8th DPR Conference 2009, Manchester, 6-8 April.

Downs, Y. 2009. Ethics and videonarrative: a personal account. Paper presented at the Faculty of Development and Society Research Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, 19th June.

Downs, Y. and Watts M., 2009. Fatal Attraction? Feminist life history research and the capability approach. Paper presented at the Capabilities and Education Network, St. Edmund´s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 25th June.

Downs, Y. 2010 (forthcoming). Phoenix rising? Minding the gaps? Learning lessons from intimate publics. The 7th Biennial International Auto/Biography Association Conference University of Sussex 28 June-1 July.