ABSTRACT
This chapter centrally explores the notion of the ‘traditional student’ in the UK as a myth that is axiomatic to lay and policy discourse, and as a set of ideas and judgements which, somewhat paradoxically, are perpetuated by students themselves, even when their own experiences do not necessarily correspond with its main precepts. Like all myths, the notion of the ‘traditional student’ immediately invokes a set of cognate oppositions – between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’, ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’, ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’, and so forth. My central aim here is to empirically and analytically deconstruct some of this mythology, and moreover, to explore how such parallel oppositions come to be transmuted into others – between ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’, ‘valid’ and ‘invalid’, ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. The overarching argument is that the slippage between such parallel distinctions, plus core inaccuracies in the mythology of ‘normal student life’ itself, together serve to have a series of consequences which themselves warrant closer consideration. Furthermore, I will explore how and why such mythological conceptions of student ‘normality’ have persisted and endured, despite radical changes to the demographic composition of students in higher education, including, crucially, the role of Universities themselves, fuelled by marketised competition to offer the best ‘student experience’.
