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How Do Different Types of Schools Prepare Students for Life at Cambridge?

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Title: How Do Different Types of Schools Prepare Students for Life at Cambridge?
Language: English
Authors: Perez-Adamson, Clara, Mercer, Neil
Source: Cambridge Journal of Education. 2016 46(1):19-35.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 17
Publication Date: 2016
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Secondary Education
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Undergraduate Students, Private Colleges, Student Attitudes, Interviews, Educational Background, College Preparation, Student Adjustment, Anxiety, Independent Study, Coping, Self Efficacy, Cultural Capital, Socialization, Stereotypes, Public Education
Geographic Terms: United Kingdom, United Kingdom (Cambridge)
DOI: 10.1080/0305764X.2015.1009364
ISSN: 0305-764X
Abstract: Twenty students from different educational backgrounds within the UK were interviewed to investigate how well they considered their secondary school education had prepared them for the educational and social demands of an "elite" university and life within its most traditional colleges. The study asked them how they perceived students from different educational backgrounds and how they thought they were perceived. Entering a traditional Cambridge college was found to be easiest for students from prestigious "public schools" within the private educational sector. State school students were more likely to experience anxiety, and those who adapted successfully were likely to have strong independent learning skills and a robust sense of self-efficacy. The study suggests that students coming from state schools to Cambridge are making a more difficult academic and social transition than students from private schools, for which they are given no special support.
Abstractor: As Provided
Number of References: 35
Entry Date: 2016
Accession Number: EJ1089514
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0112641642;caj01mar.16;2019Feb20.14:27;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0112641642-1">How do different types of schools prepare students for life at Cambridge? </title> <p>Twenty students from different educational backgrounds within the UK were interviewed to investigate how well they considered their secondary school education had prepared them for the educational and social demands of an 'elite' university and life within its most traditional colleges. The study asked them how they perceived students from different educational backgrounds and how they thought they were perceived. Entering a traditional Cambridge college was found to be easiest for students from prestigious 'public schools' within the private educational sector. State school students were more likely to experience anxiety, and those who adapted successfully were likely to have strong independent learning skills and a robust sense of self-efficacy. The study suggests that students coming from state schools to Cambridge are making a more difficult academic and social transition than students from private schools, for which they are given no special support.</p> <p>Keywords: elite university; state schools; private schools; cultural capital; self-efficacy</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Recent times have seen a lot of interest in the British media about how accessible and attractive the 'elite' universities of Oxford and Cambridge are to potential students from different social and educational backgrounds. Much of this interest has focused on the selection procedures and entrance requirements set by those universities. Those matters, though important, are not our concern here. Our interest is in what happens when students from different educational backgrounds – that is, different types of school – arrive at Cambridge, and in particular when they have joined one of the more established, traditional colleges of the university. (We will explain the nature of the Cambridge college system below).</p> <p>In this study, we interviewed undergraduate students who had been educated at either private or state-funded schools in the UK, who had become student members of two such established colleges and who had completed at least one year of study at the university. We asked how well they felt their educational experience at school had prepared them for both applying to and studying at Cambridge; and how well they felt able to cope with the social and educational demands of university life once they had arrived. We also tried to discover how students from different social backgrounds perceived each other, and how they thought students from their own background were regarded by the others. Although some of these questions have been addressed in prior research, to our knowledge they have not been addressed simultaneously in one study.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-3">The Cambridge college system</hd> <p>The University of Cambridge operates a college-based system for admitting, accommodating and teaching undergraduates which is almost unique, being very similar only to that operated by the University of Oxford.</p> <p>There are 31 colleges, of which all but five admit undergraduates straight from school. To slightly oversimplify the process, applicants who wish to study at Cambridge can express a preference for a college, and are assessed and interviewed by a college, not by the relevant academic department (as is normally the case in British universities). Once admitted to a college, they are offered by it not only living accommodation (as in the halls of residence of other universities), but also personal supervision in their course of study and involvement in a range of college-based social and academic activities. The colleges have a degree of independence from the central university, having autonomous charitable status, and can vary in size and ethos. Some colleges were founded as long ago as the fourteenth century, while others came into existence only within the last hundred years. With relevance to our concerns here, the colleges also vary considerably in the proportion of students from state schools and private schools in their student body.</p> <p>We chose to interview students at two of the oldest and most traditional colleges at Cambridge. The colleges take a high proportion of students from English 'public schools' (the highest status and most expensive schools in the private sector, such as Winchester, Eton and Harrow), so that (compared with the general population) public school students are disproportionately represented in the college enrolment. As we shall explain, our research suggests that making a distinction not only between state and private schools, but also between the public schools and other less prestigious private institutions may be important for understanding the ways students adapt to Cambridge life. Our data came from recorded semi-structured interviews carried out with 20 students of each of these two colleges, all of whom had been educated in schools in Britain. Ten came from state schools, which included eight from comprehensive state schools (that is, schools which do not set academic requirements for entry) in England, and two from selective state schools in rural Northern Ireland. Ten students came from schools in the private sector, which included five students from public schools and five students from less prestigious private institutions.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-4">Prior research and conceptual framework</hd> <p>Some sociological and psychological concepts are useful for understanding the ways students from different social backgrounds adapt to life at an 'elite' university. These are <emph>cultural capital</emph>, <emph>social identity</emph>, <emph>intergroup relations</emph> and <emph>self</emph>-<emph>efficacy</emph>. We shall discuss each in turn.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-5">Cultural capital</hd> <p>The educational landscape in the UK is characterised by hierarchy and inequitable educational opportunities that cause social divides. For example, families who send their children to the lowest performing schools in Britain generally share the experience of being unable to afford housing in areas that host 'good schools' or have access to resources to make the best use of information about schools (Reay, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref1">21</reflink>]). Furthermore, sending young people to schools in the private sector has been one of the dominant ways in which social divisions are formed and maintained in England. Moreover, even quite wealthy middle-class parents would not be able to afford the level of school fees set by the public schools, though they might well be able to send their children to less prestigious schools in the private sector. On the whole, students at both the public and private schools tend to achieve better grades at 'A level' (the school examinations used to select for university entry) than those attending state-funded schools. This is one reason why, in relation to the proportion of the English school population that they represent, students from state-funded schools are significantly underrepresented at Cambridge as a whole (and not just in particular colleges).</p> <p>Most students experience some anxiety when transitioning to university (Nelson & Kift, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref2">18</reflink>]; Penn-Edwards & Donnison, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref3">19</reflink>]). Prior research suggests that the transition may be especially demanding for state school students, especially those from schools which do not typically send students to Oxford or Cambridge (which are often jointly referred to as 'Oxbridge'). These students often become aware and anxious about their identity through exposure to the distinctive accents and material wealth of their privately educated peers. (Aries & Seider, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref4">1</reflink>]; Lawler, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref5">14</reflink>]; Macaro & Wingate, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref6">15</reflink>]; Sani, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref7">24</reflink>]; Stewart & Ostrove, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref8">27</reflink>]; Watts, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref9">33</reflink>]). Though this self-awareness can create opportunities for adaptation, students may have to cope with feeling alienated from their backgrounds, while still feeling that they do not really 'belong' in an elite university environment (Reay, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref10">20</reflink>]; Watts, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref11">33</reflink>]).</p> <p>State school students in the UK entering elite universities have been reported as commonly feeling they were making a significant 'leap' from A-level to undergraduate study, and having a crisis of confidence when they arrived at university – despite the fact that they must have achieved academic success at school to gain entry to an elite university (Aries & Seider, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref12">1</reflink>]; Reay, Croziet & Clayton, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref13">22</reflink>]). This seems to reflect an uncertainty about what is expected of them at university, and a lack of effective strategies for dealing with the workload they face in their first year (Macaro & Wingate, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref14">15</reflink>]). State school students also describe having to make a difficult adjustment from being academic stars at school to being just one of the many academically able students at an elite university (Granfield, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref15">12</reflink>]). As a result, some of those students have expressed fears of feeling inferior to their privately educated peers. In some cases, this can result in decreased motivation and confidence (Macaro & Wingate, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref16">15</reflink>]).</p> <p>Bourdieu's ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref17">3</reflink>]) concept of 'cultural capital' has been used to understand the experiences of working-class students in higher education by other researchers (Reay et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref18">22</reflink>]), and it is highly relevant here. Essentially, it refers to the resources of knowledge and social skill needed to operate successfully in a given social environment, resources that are normally gained through the socialisation processes of childhood. It includes 'ways of talking, acting, and socialising, as well as language practices, values, and types of dress and behaviour' (McLaren, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref19">16</reflink>], p. 193). Cultural capital which may have been acquired as useful in one social environment (such as school) may, or may not, be useful in a new social environment (such as university), depending on the extent to which those two environments operate to similar social norms. It is generally considered that the academic support by Cambridge to its undergraduates is more intensive and personalised than in many, or probably most, other British universities. Staff–student ratios are good, and individual 'supervision' meetings with a college tutor are normally available to all undergraduates. However, for students to take up this college-based support they need to be aware of it and appreciate how it works. Depending on their social and educational backgrounds, students entering a Cambridge college may have more or less of the kind of cultural resources that will enable them to negotiate, as soon as they arrive in Cambridge, the use of this support system. They may also find it more or less easy to participate in social events in the new cultural setting (and to be perceived as a knowledgeable participant by those within it).</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-6">Social identity and intergroup relations</hd> <p>Watts ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref20">33</reflink>]) argues that in order to engage successfully with a new community it is necessary to participate in its cultural practices and treat any blunders as learning opportunities. Some students may attempt to engage successfully with the new context by, for example, 'faking' cultural capital through their choice of clothes, modifying their accents and cultivating interpersonal skills and behaviour that they associate with high society (Granfield, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref21">12</reflink>]). Such adjustments can be problematic, according to Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref22">28</reflink>]), which postulates that we understand ourselves, at least to some extent, in terms of the groups we belong to, with our identity and behaviour being shaped by characteristics of these groups (Tajfel, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref23">28</reflink>]). People are driven to maximise positive distinctiveness and they commonly have a strong preference for their own group (Tajfel & Billig, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref24">30</reflink>]). In order to maintain a positive self-esteem and identity, we compare our group favourably with other groups and bolster our sense of self in order to hold the belief that our own group is superior. Conversely, having to recognise the 'home' group as inferior compared with another, or feeling unable to maintain a distinctive and positive identity as a member of a group, may damage an individual's self-esteem (Brown, Vivian, & Hewstone, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref25">6</reflink>]; Wilder, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref26">35</reflink>]).</p> <p>The groups we belong to may impose <emph>identity contingencies</emph> on us (Steele, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref27">26</reflink>]). Identity contingencies are the obstacles to participation an individual encounters in a particular social situation because of his/her social identity. For example, one of the participants in this study told us that she wanted to join a drinking club at her college. However, because she had not attended a public school, she was not admitted. Because of this rejection, her awareness of the salience of her identity as a state school student, and as such a marginal participant in college life, increased. This and other cues (such as the minimal presence of students and university lecturers from a similar background to her at college) seem to have diverted her attention and mental capacity from important tasks (academic, social) and caused an increase in anxiety, further intensifying her vigilance for threats and the diversion of her attention.</p> <p>The crises of confidence amongst state school students reported in the studies by Reay et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref28">22</reflink>]) and Macaro and Wingate ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref29">15</reflink>]) could indicate a lack of opportunity for state school students to maintain a distinctive, positive identity within the elite university setting. Those researchers note that the crisis was alleviated for some students by the end of the first term, while for others it lasted beyond the first year and led them to seriously consider leaving the university. It is claimed that state school students who fared well were atypical in that they tended to display 'super human' levels of resilience, motivation and determination. These students also displayed high levels of self-awareness and an inclination for self-improvement. These traits are key in helping students to succeed academically in a poorly performing school and to flourish in an unfamiliar university context (Macaro & Wingate, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref30">15</reflink>]; Reay et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref31">22</reflink>]; Robb, Dunkley, Boynton, & Greenhalgh, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref32">23</reflink>]).</p> <p>It follows that the transition for state school students to a Cambridge setting deserves further investigation, in order to understand the perceptions of students concerning this transition. This could inform the design of teaching and support structures that respond to the mismatch between students of that background and the elite university context (Macaro & Wingate, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref33">15</reflink>]). Such structures do not seem to be evident at present. The research literature suggests that it is the student from the state school who must adapt and change in order to participate in the elite university culture. Many state school students successfully negotiate their entry into this culture, by drawing on traits of high levels of self-awareness, self-efficacy and personal independence. These are in fact the kinds of traits that are likely to have helped them succeed as students in, say, a large comprehensive school. However, there are also reports that exposure to the elite setting can lead to a crisis of social and academic confidence.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-7">Self-efficacy</hd> <p>Self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capacity to organise and execute a given course of action that is required to solve a problem or accomplish a task (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref34">2</reflink>]). It is claimed that self-efficacy determines perseverance in the face of obstacles, resilience to adversity, self-hindering or self-aiding thought patterns, levels of stress and depression in coping with taxing environmental demands and level of accomplishment realised (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref35">2</reflink>]). Self-efficacy varies in strength and generality, with some people having beliefs that encompass many situations, and others having domain-specific efficacy beliefs (Eccles & Wigfield, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref36">8</reflink>]). Students will enter university with some initial conception of their academic self-efficacy, based on their school experience (Schunk, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref37">25</reflink>]). If they recognise the parameters of the new academic environment, so that they can see how to succeed, their level of self-efficacy will be maintained, as will their motivation and persistence. If the new environment seems alien and confusing, however, their sense of self-efficacy may be affected negatively. In the next section, we explain how we obtained data that would allow us to use this and the other key concepts to attempt to understand the experiences of students.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-8">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0112641642-9">Participants and procedures</hd> <p>As mentioned earlier, the participants were selected from two Cambridge colleges which are amongst the oldest and most traditional in style, and which (compared with Cambridge colleges as a whole) recruit a high proportion of students from schools in the private sector (and particularly from the English public schools). A recruitment notice was posted in an undergraduate weekly bulletin, which set out the criteria for involvement in the project. It explained that students would receive £5 in recompense for each half hour of their time, and that interviews would last between 30 and 60 minutes. In British university-based research such as this, it is conventional for students to be offered a small financial incentive. There were 55 responses and participants were selected for interviews on the basis of having seven or more years of British state or private education immediately before attending Cambridge.</p> <p>In total, 26 students were interviewed. The interviews were recorded on a digital recorder placed on the table between the speakers. The goal throughout was to draw out the participants' perspectives on the issues raised by the interviewer, and the interview was conducted in a manner that gave participants the opportunity to dispute and expand upon these issues. Sample interview questions included the following: In what ways did you feel your school prepared you for study at Cambridge? How do you feel about the Cambridge culture? Have there been any instances where you have experienced difficulties with your studies? When you have encountered difficulties, how have you coped?</p> <p>Six interviews were not included in the final analysis because we wanted to include an equal number of students from state and private schools, and so we chose to focus on state school students who had attended schools that had a history of sending no more than two students to Oxbridge each year. Further participant details are outlined in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1. Participant details.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr valign="top"><td>Participant</td><td>School type</td><td>Gender</td><td>Age</td><td>Year</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr valign="top"><td>1</td><td>State</td><td>F</td><td>20</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2</td><td>State</td><td>F</td><td>20</td><td>2</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>3</td><td>State</td><td>F</td><td>20</td><td>2</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>4</td><td>State</td><td>F</td><td>21</td><td>3</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>5</td><td>State</td><td>F</td><td>22</td><td>4</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>6</td><td>State</td><td>F</td><td>22</td><td>4</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>7</td><td>State</td><td>M</td><td>18</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>8</td><td>State</td><td>M</td><td>19</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>9</td><td>State</td><td>M</td><td>19</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>10</td><td>State</td><td>M</td><td>19</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>11</td><td>Private</td><td>F</td><td>18</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>12</td><td>Private</td><td>F</td><td>19</td><td>2</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>13</td><td>Private</td><td>M</td><td>19</td><td>2</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>14</td><td>Private</td><td>M</td><td>22</td><td>3</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>15</td><td>Private</td><td>M</td><td>22</td><td>3</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>16</td><td>Public</td><td>F</td><td>20</td><td>2</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>17</td><td>Public</td><td>F</td><td>22</td><td>4</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>18</td><td>Public</td><td>M</td><td>19</td><td>1</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>19</td><td>Public</td><td>M</td><td>20</td><td>2</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>20</td><td>Public</td><td>M</td><td>20</td><td>3</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0112641642-10">Data and analysis</hd> <p>The average length of the 20 interviews was 50 minutes. All the talk was transcribed by one of the co-authors.</p> <p>The data were examined using a process of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref38">4</reflink>]) with a view to understanding how participants accounted for themselves and their experiences at Cambridge. The first author made an initial coding of relevant and interesting features of the talk. Following joint discussion of the transcriptions by the authors, specific themes related to the research questions and key concepts were identified and used to guide the analysis. It was not considered necessary to use any specialised data analysis software. The analysis did not merely treat the content of what participants said as a simple representation of their thoughts, but as contributions to the interactive process of creating shared understanding between them and the interviewer (Kvale, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref39">13</reflink>]; Mercer & Longman, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref40">17</reflink>]). For the sake of brevity, however, we have included few of the interviewer's contributions in the transcribed extracts below. The names of participants have been changed to protect their anonymity.</p> <p>It is widely accepted that aspects of social identity of both interviewer and interviewee may influence the nature and content of interactions (Coolican, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref41">7</reflink>]). In this study, an interviewer who was unaffiliated with British state and private education might have an advantage in eliciting students' views related to such matters over one with a personal knowledge and historical affiliation with one or the other sector. The co-author who conducted the interviews (CPA) was, like the participants, a student at Cambridge (though a postgraduate) and British. Unlike the participants, however, she had been educated abroad. She could authentically claim little detailed knowledge of aspects of the British state or private school systems, and could not be assumed to share the prior educational and social experiences of any participant. This was made clear at the beginning of each interview. Our expectation was thus that she would be likely to be perceived not only as relatively uninformed about British schools, but also as a 'neutral' figure with regard to school background. On the other hand, the fact that both interviewer and interviewees were students at the same university provided a useful grounding of shared understanding for the interview, and one which might be expected to provide a basis for trust.</p> <p>In analysing the interviews, we used the concepts of cultural capital, intergroup relations and self-efficacy (as described earlier) to try to understand the experiences of the participating students. We can make no strong claims here for the typicality or representativeness of this relatively small sample; our analysis represents only how the students we spoke to accounted for their experiences, and the strategies they used to deal with their situations. The accounts have generality in so far as they are recognisable to readers as having a broader currency (Wetherell, Stiven, & Potter, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref42">34</reflink>]).</p> <p>Ethical principles described in the Code of Ethics and Conduct (British Psychological Society, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref43">5</reflink>]) were used in the design of this study. Participants were informed of the nature and purpose of the research, assured that confidentiality would be maintained and reminded of their right to withdraw. If participants described continuing concerns about managing their experiences at Cambridge, the interviewer guided them to information on pastoral and counselling support that the university provides.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-11">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0112641642-12">School as preparation for Cambridge</hd> <p>Striking variations were apparent between those from different educational backgrounds regarding whether or not they felt that their schools had made entry to Cambridge seem accessible and normal. In this section we will examine how the academic experience of students, from public (PS), private (PrS), and state (SS) schools seemed to have prepared them differentially for study at Cambridge. (For the sake of brevity, we refer to 'PS students', rather than 'students from PS backgrounds', etc., when presenting our findings). We found that PS students primarily reported a very liberal and supportive school regime that gave them the kind of cultural capital required for academic life at Cambridge. For example, they reported that they were encouraged to think critically and to read widely. The PrS students reported narrower, examination-focused, intensive teaching, which did not seem to encourage independent, critical or original thinking. The SS students also rarely reported an encouragement for critical thinking, but also rarely reported personal support through intensive teaching. Although they appeared to possess strong skills as independent learners, they seemed to be the least well resourced of the three in terms of effective strategies for dealing with the volume of work at Cambridge.</p> <p>As reported by Watts ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref44">33</reflink>]) we found that PS provided students with a form of cultural capital and social identity that eased their transition into Cambridge. PS students claimed that they were taught by teachers who were often Oxbridge graduates with higher degrees, and who did not define curriculum content narrowly. Some PS students described supervision systems at school that were very similar to those that operate at Cambridge and they also described working at university level in their final year at school. Furthermore, many claimed they were encouraged to pursue specialised interests at school which added to the 'roundedness' of their education – one PS student we interviewed was an accomplished musician and another had already learned Arabic and Russian. In addition, students described a highly competitive school atmosphere that promoted excellence. They expected other students from their schools to accompany them to the university and they saw going to Cambridge as part of their normal and expected life story. For example:</p> <p>There was almost an expectation really, um, and I think I'd been significantly academically successful at school for it to be almost an inevitability, I think. I didn't ever, I mean I'm embarrassed to say that it was the only place on my UCAS form, first time round, so that's that really. (Dominic: PS)</p> <p>PS students also described an explicit infrastructure that prepared them for study at Cambridge. Upon declaring that they intended to apply, they were reportedly matched with an adviser in their subject who oversaw the application process by, for example, organising extra classes and formal mock interviews. In addition, PS students talked about a culture in school where teachers were 'on call' to assist them, for example by marking extra essays and offering one-on-one tuition and interview practice as needed. Therefore, it is unsurprising that PS students accounted for the transition from school to Cambridge as a predictable and expected continuation of the PS academic world, as one student explained:</p> <p>Cambridge is very much quite a study-hard place, so, it's a similar sort of work ethic.</p> <p>[Interviewer: Have you had any academic challenges or things like that?]</p> <p>I guess sometimes you feel the deadline is getting heavy but I guess [PS] was a good preparation for that because there they put a big workload on you, so you're sort of used to it, it's a continuation of the workload. (Rupert: PS)</p> <p>Students from other schools in the private sector (PrS) mainly reported that they also saw going to Cambridge as part of their normal life story, although they claimed that their school's examination-focused teaching did not encourage independent, critical or original thinking. For example, Eric stated that he 'suffered' through his first year because he felt had to take on extra studies in order to keep up with his PS peers. He also stated that he felt 'bitter' that his first year could have been 'drastically easier' if he had experienced a PS education because he would have had access to a more rounded education providing him with the knowledge required to succeed more easily in his first year. Marion, a PrS student, claimed that she struggled in her first year at Cambridge when she discovered that she was required to apply, rather than merely report, ideas:</p> <p>Yeah I'm not doing so well, I don't think private school, well, my private school, taught me, taught us, to think independently ... you get spoon fed and then you regurgitate, so it's just a different style of ... so I think there's just a bit of a leap, so I'm struggling a bit. (Marion: PrS)</p> <p>Overall, most PrS students felt frustrated about their achievements (and some also reported a crisis in academic confidence) when they arrived at Cambridge because they experienced a sharp leap from an exam-oriented academic culture to an academic culture that expects students to think critically, originally and independently.</p> <p>For state school (SS) students, applying to Cambridge was not usually a part of life's normal narrative. It came about as a result of surprising grade results, or special encouragement by a teacher, rather than it being the norm. Furthermore, like the PrS students, some SS students also reported a significant mismatch between the courses offered at their schools and the knowledge and coping strategies (especially for dealing with the volume of work) required at university. Thus one SS student commented:</p> <p>There are real differences, like, in general knowledge. I just don't have as wide a knowledge of like history or like I didn't learn Latin or I didn't study the Greek myths or anything. And, like, for a theology student, most people in my classes had really good awareness of all those things, and I didn't because it just wasn't on my curriculum. And I'm not from the kind of family that anyone would be like 'read this book about ancient Greek', nobody would ever do that, so that became apparent. (Sara: SS)</p> <p>In addition, some SS students claimed they were shocked to encounter the Cambridge study culture of 'overperformativity, arcane practices and slightly autistic behaviour' (Reay et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref45">22</reflink>], p. 1114). Therefore, they reported feeling threatened by the work habits of their public and privately educated peers, and expressed fears of academic inferiority. For example:</p> <p>I thought I was working hard until I came here ... but they all seemed just used to working 12 hours a day or whatever and nobody could empathise with the fact that I couldn't talk to anyone really about, 'God how hard is all this work', 'cause they were just so used to it, and when they finished work at 10, they go do like an hour of piano practice and then wake up at five in the morning for rowing or something, and I just couldn't, things like that I struggle to get my head around. (Leo: SS)</p> <p>Furthermore, SS students were less likely than other students to recognise or feel able to access the academic support structures at Cambridge. Leo described his tutors as unsympathetic, or aloof. They seemed not to understand his circumstances when he fell behind with his coursework in his first year for not having had access to the same level of maths at school as his privately educated peers. Moreover, Leo highlighted that generating a 'feeling of belonging' seems important when students enter an unfamiliar environment, and are working at the limits of their skills:</p> <p>I think people try to help, but I don't think the actual help I need is there, like kind of, well, I suppose I need someone who is used to teaching comprehensive school people at my level, how to get to the Cambridge level of statistics, you know, I need someone like, from, like that basically. But I don't know if that's available from what I've found, basically. (Leo: SS)</p> <p>Given the uncertainties about what was expected of SS students at university, their lack of effective strategies for dealing with the workload, and the adjustment from being among the best performing students at school to one of many able students at Cambridge, it is perhaps unsurprising that six out of the 10 SS students reported having a crisis of academic confidence after arrival at Cambridge. These findings reflect those of Reay et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref46">22</reflink>]) and Macaro and Wingate ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref47">15</reflink>]) in this sense. However, many SS students also reported that the relative lack of intense support at their school had allowed them greater opportunity for independent learning and development. Some SS students described making exceptional progress in their self-selected areas of interest at school through the support of a single teacher, family member or friend. Laura claimed that her teacher entered her for extra A levels outside of the syllabus because he wanted to support her curiosity and talent for independent learning. Similarly, Asif discussed the way independent learning skills obtained in his SS served him at Cambridge:</p> <p>If you're from a state school, and you have larger classes whatever, you're not going to get like one-to-one stimulation, you maybe just have to work on stuff yourself and the reason you would be good at your subject is because you're passionate about it and because you worked on it yourself because you want to do that ... and maybe then coming here [Cambridge], I mean, that's what you have to do. (Asif: SS)</p> <p>In sum, there was a wide variation in the way the different groups of students accounted for their academic preparation for Cambridge. For the PS students, Cambridge seemed like an expected continuation of their academic experience. PrS students reported that their school's narrow focus on achieving good grades meant that the critical thinking and originality expected of them at Cambridge required a significant academic leap. The SS students reportedly lacked access to personalised teaching support or rigorous preparation for application to, or study at, Cambridge. In addition, the SS students reported feeling that they lacked the work habits and strategies for dealing with the volume of work displayed by their PS peers, and were less likely to recognise and access the support structures at Cambridge.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-13">Entry into the Cambridge social world</hd> <p>SS students generally claimed they were less adequately resourced in terms of cultural capital (though they did not use that concept) for entry to the Cambridge social world than their privately educated peers. Life in a Cambridge college seems to give most of the SS students a cultural shock and sense of alienation; and there was also evidence indicating that differences in cultural capital created a separation between students from different educational and social backgrounds. Because the college setting so clearly aligned with the group identity of PS students and not with theirs, SS students appeared to be at greater risk than the PS and PrS of developing a state of high vigilance and anxiety when dealing with college social life.</p> <p>We have previously reported that several of the PrS students in this study recounted a crisis in academic confidence. However, we found that they felt better equipped to cope with Cambridge social life. Like the PS students they were able to readily take advantage of the cultural experience at Cambridge, because this seemed to be aligned with the practices in their school and home communities: debating societies and sports such as rowing, which are central aspects of Cambridge university life, were not unfamiliar activities to them. Moreover, they expected to see some familiar faces. For instance, Georgina talked about 'not bothering' with the freshers' activities because she already knew a large number of people at Cambridge. Furthermore, the recognisability of the social environment to her seems evident as she describes the activities she has been involved in during her first two years:</p> <p>Well I'm on the Magpie committee for [the college] which is the debate club so I do the like organising those events, and I was the musical director for the concert society last year so like planned all the productions and stuff, and I play in CUMS [Cambridge University Musical Society] which is the Cambridge University symphony orchestra. Which is really amazing we've done stuff with like ... world famous conductors, that's really cool and I've got a jazz band. (Georgina: PrS)</p> <p>By contrast, Juliet, a SS student, talked about being 'put off' from extra-curricular activities in her first year because PS and PrS students recognised the cultural practices of the university more easily and arrived with greater experience and clearer expectations about what they must achieve.</p> <p>Differences in cultural capital resources seemed to account for a sense of alienation among SS students when they arrived. PS students tended to form their own groups, doing so easily because they had either gone to the same school, mixed in the same circles or had common experiences growing up. In contrast, some SS students reported that they were unable to access already established networks, while others worried about not finding 'people like them' to help them bridge their comprehensive school background with life at Cambridge. For example:</p> <p>They were just people I'd never met before ... and I didn't really know how to interact with them ... they were really, really posh and southern and I had nothing in common with them ... and it made me think, like, what am I doing here? (Leo: SS)</p> <p>There was further evidence of the division between groups in the way PS and PrS students described and reported experiences with SS students. Despite participating in a study that they were told was concerned with differences between students from the state and private school sector, PS and PrS students did not express views about SS students without being prompted. When prompted, those students generally minimised differences between the groups. PS students typically represented themselves as egalitarians who recognised their privilege and, consequently, constructed themselves as committed to engaging with students from all backgrounds:</p> <p>I fully admit that the majority of my social circle before I got to Cambridge was private school educated and I'm afraid to say it probably still is, um, but I don't think, I mean, in a sense, I don't think my state school friends have many private school friends you see so it's an issue of interaction. (Dominic: PS)</p> <p>The implication, however, seemed to be that SS students were, in some ways, guests in the Cambridge social world and, as such, they had to find a way of making it work for them. SS students were more likely to refer to this explicitly than their PS or PrS peers. Their accounts ranged from claims that the habits of the PS were 'awful' and 'weird' to them feeling added pressure to 'posh up'. Furthermore, most students also described extra pressure to perform and not 'waste their opportunities', because for them Cambridge was a fortunate event that might make their hopes come true rather than an expected part of their life story. In addition, for Bradley (SS), succeeding at Cambridge would prevent 'richer families [than his own] from turning around and saying they were only let in because of a government quota'.</p> <p>We have previously mentioned that some SS students reported that their self-confidence had suffered on arrival at Cambridge, when they realised that they had not had the same educational experience as their PS/PrS peers and so were less familiar with the academic support structures of the university. In this section we have also discussed how the lack of cultural capital among the SS students seems to hinder them from fully engaging with the social life in the university when they arrive. In addition, differences in cultural capital seem to account for a division between SS and PS (and to some extent the PrS) students, in that the environmental cues at Cambridge signal that the PS students are 'insiders' while the SS students are 'outsiders'. The latter are therefore at greater risk of experiencing a state of high vigilance and anxiety on arrival. Our data suggest that, in the Cambridge environment, SS students do not feel valued for having achieved a harder climb to get into Cambridge than their private sector peers. Rather, they feel they must adapt in order to make the elite university context work for them.</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-14">Adapting to academic and social pressures</hd> <p>As explained in the previous sections, SS students in this study have typically reported that they found the Cambridge environment and culture more alien than their PS and (to some extent) PrS educated peers. For this reason, we will mainly focus on the process of adaptation for SS students in this section. To explain how the SS students adapted to life at Cambridge we shall use the concepts of self-efficacy and social identity, as discussed earlier.</p> <p>In order to excel in school circumstances that offered relatively limited support for individual achievement, it seems that SS students need traits of resilience, adaptability and high self-efficacy. They needed to develop skills in independent learning and reflective self-evaluation, and also the ability to frame difficulties in such a way that they generated opportunities for learning (Gardner, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref48">11</reflink>]). For instance, as a SS student, Juliet described struggling through a crisis in confidence, triggered by the perception that other students were 'naturally cleverer than her' by restricting her involvement in extra-curricular activities in order to give herself the opportunity to acclimatise and prioritise her academic work. She then reassessed other commitments, once she could make better sense of the new social world.</p> <p>Some SS students described instances where they became able to perceive difficulties as challenges rather than obstacles. It is likely that this enabled them to maintain a positive state of mind and achieve a renewed sense of self-efficacy, thus enabling them to improve their academic performance (Schunk, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref49">25</reflink>]). In the following excerpt Sally appears to acknowledge the circumstantial causes for her difficulties and makes a practical commitment to tackle, rather than internalise, these difficulties:</p> <p>A lot of these people who went to a private school can actually read the original Latin, and they discuss that, and I sort of, sometimes I'm envious of that. But I'm going to, you know, next year I'm going to study Latin, so it doesn't bother me to, I haven't had the chance to do that, it's, well, 'I can't do that', but I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go study that myself. (Sally: SS)</p> <p>This reflective process of adaptation seemed to enable some students from state schools to successfully combine a feeling of belonging to Cambridge with the maintenance of their SS identities – thus achieving a strong and distinctive social identity. This is in accord with social identity theory's claims that group members are driven to maximise positive distinctiveness, and success in doing so has positive psychological benefits for an individual (Tajfel, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref50">29</reflink>]; Tajfel & Turner, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref51">31</reflink>]). Some students from state schools accomplished this through re-evaluating the narrative of their journey from their home background to Cambridge. They also engaged in creative acts, such as forming their own societies and learning new skills that expressed their values and skills in the new social context. For instance, Juliet talked about a turning point when she started to see her academic results, found that she was achieving towards the higher end of what everyone else was achieving, and was able to think about the advantages at Cambridge of being state-school educated. Juliet also describes maintaining a positive self-esteem and social identity by comparing herself with others and bolstering her sense of self:</p> <p>They seemed really, really confident and when I first got there I thought that they were the cleverest ones but actually I think that they'd been, not spoon-fed, but like helped so much that they didn't know how to work completely independently? Like when the guidance of school teachers and counsellors was taken away they didn't really know what to do ... I don't think it's always helpful to have loads and loads of help, if that makes sense. (Juliet: SS)</p> <p>Moreover, the better adapted SS students balanced their university experience by engaging in creative acts, such as forming their own dinner societies, learning new skills and taking part in university access work that expressed their values and skills in the new social context. Such social activities seemed to strengthen their friendship groups, provided an outlet for reflection on their academic endeavours, offered an alternative source of success and made them feel as if they had acquired full membership of the university. This may facilitate social integration, providing opportunities for increased self-efficacy in the setting (Walton & Cohen, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref52">32</reflink>]).</p> <p>Regarding social identity, then, many of the students from SS backgrounds claimed that, after a period of adjustment, they developed the ability to move successfully between the very different social contexts of home and university, maintaining strong social connections to family and friends while also successfully accommodating Cambridge norms. They were thus able to take on relevant social identities in each context. This is in accord with the findings of Reay et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref53">22</reflink>]) in their research on working-class students at an elite British university. However, within this group of students from SS backgrounds there were also accounts of sustained episodes of anxiety or depression (Bradley, Laura, Leo and Sara). For Leo and Sara an apparently overwhelming sense of alienation led to them seriously considering leaving the university. Lack of social fit, difficulties with academic work, and/or an inability to access support seemed to account for their difficulties. As Sara (SS) explained:</p> <p>I was like, well, why do they know each other? Like we've all just arrived? Like but obviously a lot of them went to the same schools, and some of them played each other at sports in the London schools, and I was just a bit like, well, how do you um infiltrate that, socially? So, I guess that was my first perception of it. I was quite overwhelmed I think, generally ... I definitely didn't like it here for about, um, probably around this time last year. So well into half, more than half of my degree.</p> <p>Bradley (SS) added:</p> <p>I've definitely had a recurring theme going on that I don't want my supervisors to be disappointed in me and regret giving me that place because I can't keep up to it, because I didn't have like such a rigorous education preparing me for Oxbridge that public school students would have had ... I lost like a ton of weight this year ... I felt sort of out of control of myself, that I could never keep to deadlines. I could never go and see people and I just formed this little cocoon in my room and I didn't really want to go out at all and I was just eating really badly and I was stressed a lot of the time.</p> <p>Students from all backgrounds may of course experience isolation and anxiety related to the need to form new social relationships and handle the high-pressure academic environment of Cambridge. Four out of the five PrS students also reported difficulties with their academic work attributable to the change from PrS to Cambridge, with one student experiencing an extended period of low mood. However, PrS students in this study did not report any significant difficulties making social adjustments to life at Cambridge. Among PS students there were no reported problems adapting to the new academic environment and no reported significant difficulties with social adjustment.</p> <p>As previously explained, arrival at Cambridge appears to have propelled some students from state schools into a state of high vigilance and anxiety (as with Bradley, Laura, Leo and Sara, above). When trying to understand these difficulties, it also seems important to acknowledge that six students who came to Cambridge from similar SS backgrounds reportedly made a very successful adjustment over time. Perhaps their accounts offer some ideas for how people may deal successfully with identity threat at Cambridge. We suggest that these students have managed to maintain a sense of personal agency and adaptability because they have, through years of being 'exceptional' (i.e. the best performing students in less than ideal academic circumstances), developed a high resilience for dealing with difficult social encounters (Reay et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref54">22</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0112641642-15">Discussion and conclusions</hd> <p>The findings of this study support the view that making a successful entry into Cambridge, and especially into life within a traditional Cambridge college, is typically more problematic for students from both state-funded schools and non-elite private schools than it is for students who come from one of the prestigious 'public schools' within the English private education sector. The public school group did not seem to experience the 'shock of the elite' (Reay et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref55">22</reflink>]) to the same extent as other (private and state school) students. However, our findings also show how state school students who do succeed at Cambridge are likely to be independent learners with a strong sense of self-efficacy. In this respect, our findings are in accord with studies of successful working-class students in such environments (for example, Reay et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref56">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>Our findings also provide some insights into how successfully the public schools generate a sense of entitlement to a Cambridge education for their students. Our participants' comments confirm that the cultural practices of English public schools are highly compatible with Cambridge academic and social practices (at least in those two colleges involved in the study). Students from public schools can easily recognise and access the social environment and support system of a Cambridge college, because of so many features that resemble their school experience. They therefore feel little need to adapt and are unlikely to feel that they do not belong. The relevant cultural capital includes not only specific skills such as being able to speak English with a Received Pronunciation accent (rather than a regional accent), but also an awareness of the 'ground rules' or implicit social norms that operate in any social and educational environment (Edwards & Mercer, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref57">9</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref58">10</reflink>]). Moreover, the interviews show that public school students have a sense of entitlement to an Oxbridge education that is not shared by state school students. It is notable that the only interviewee who reported just applying to Cambridge, and not to any other university, came from a public school. While some state school students may arrive with confidence in their academic functioning, most probably do not see themselves (quite correctly) as having the necessary cultural capital to enter the social and educational practices of the elite community because of the disparity between those practices and those of their schooling.</p> <p>The interviews with students from both state and private school backgrounds confirmed the existence of negative stereotypes of state school students amongst public school students, though these were not offered readily. However, all the state school students described adjusting their identity in order to conform to the customs of Cambridge; and all claimed they experienced some pressure to disprove negative stereotypes associated with their background. Some reported coping strategies for dealing with this that resulted in inefficient working strategies and anxieties that interfered with their well-being.</p> <p>In summary, adapting to the academic and social pressures of Cambridge is more of a struggle for state school students than for private sector students because the former lack the cultural capital to engage fully with Cambridge life from the beginning. Moreover, it seems that the university support systems for new students show no recognition of this difference amongst those arriving. Some state school students appeared to get drawn into a cycle of higher vigilance and anxiety and it is possible that the relative inability of these students to recognise or access academic and social support contributed to their difficulties. However, after experiencing an initial 'crisis of confidence' many state school students seem to have adjusted well. It seems that, as high achievers in a comprehensive state school context who had set their sights on an elite university, they had developed the ability to reflect critically, learn independently and overcome issues of social identity management. In other words, their eventual success in adapting to Cambridge can be attributed much more to their high levels of resilience and self-efficacy than to any recognition of, or support for, their special circumstances by the university.</p> <p>It is worth noting that our study is based on students from two of the oldest, most prestigious Cambridge colleges, which have high proportions of public school undergraduates. Some colleges with a different balance are likely to offer a different experience for state school entrants. 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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 177–194.10.1016/0022-1031(84)90019-2</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Clara Perez-Adamson and Neil Mercer</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref9"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref24"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref39"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref40"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref48"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref50"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref51"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref52"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref58"></nolink>
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  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: How Do Different Types of Schools Prepare Students for Life at Cambridge?
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Perez-Adamson%2C+Clara%22">Perez-Adamson, Clara</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Mercer%2C+Neil%22">Mercer, Neil</searchLink>
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  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Cambridge+Journal+of+Education%22"><i>Cambridge Journal of Education</i></searchLink>. 2016 46(1):19-35.
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  Label: Availability
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 17
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2016
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Secondary+Education%22">Secondary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Undergraduate+Students%22">Undergraduate Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Private+Colleges%22">Private Colleges</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Attitudes%22">Student Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interviews%22">Interviews</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Background%22">Educational Background</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Preparation%22">College Preparation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Adjustment%22">Student Adjustment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Anxiety%22">Anxiety</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Independent+Study%22">Independent Study</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Coping%22">Coping</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Efficacy%22">Self Efficacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cultural+Capital%22">Cultural Capital</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Socialization%22">Socialization</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Stereotypes%22">Stereotypes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Public+Education%22">Public Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+Kingdom%22">United Kingdom</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+Kingdom+%28Cambridge%29%22">United Kingdom (Cambridge)</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/0305764X.2015.1009364
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0305-764X
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Twenty students from different educational backgrounds within the UK were interviewed to investigate how well they considered their secondary school education had prepared them for the educational and social demands of an "elite" university and life within its most traditional colleges. The study asked them how they perceived students from different educational backgrounds and how they thought they were perceived. Entering a traditional Cambridge college was found to be easiest for students from prestigious "public schools" within the private educational sector. State school students were more likely to experience anxiety, and those who adapted successfully were likely to have strong independent learning skills and a robust sense of self-efficacy. The study suggests that students coming from state schools to Cambridge are making a more difficult academic and social transition than students from private schools, for which they are given no special support.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
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  Data: As Provided
– Name: Ref
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  Data: 35
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2016
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1089514
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      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/0305764X.2015.1009364
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      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 17
        StartPage: 19
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Undergraduate Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Private Colleges
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Attitudes
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      – SubjectFull: Interviews
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      – SubjectFull: Educational Background
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      – SubjectFull: College Preparation
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      – SubjectFull: Student Adjustment
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      – SubjectFull: Anxiety
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      – SubjectFull: Independent Study
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      – SubjectFull: Self Efficacy
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      – SubjectFull: Public Education
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      – SubjectFull: United Kingdom
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      – SubjectFull: United Kingdom (Cambridge)
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      – TitleFull: How Do Different Types of Schools Prepare Students for Life at Cambridge?
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