ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which students are constructed as family members within newspaper articles and the narratives of a range of policy influencers across five European countries: Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland and Spain. These two sources have been chosen because of their often-important contributions to establishing the parameters of public debate and the substantive content of dominant discourses. Using content analysis and thematic analysis, important similarities and differences across and within the countries are analysed. Three main constructions of students as family members are introduced: (1) students as integral family members, (2) students as independent actors and (3) students in a position of ambivalence. In explaining these constructions, cultural and structural influences are identified and explained. It is argued that the north–south dichotomy in family relationships, discussed in much of the literature, is played out in more complex ways with respect to higher education.
