This paper explores the way in which elite students from Germany and Romania understand the role of talent, effort, and structural factors in shaping educational success and failure. The image of a successful student aligns with the requirements of the selection processes, with Romanian students emphasising effort, and German students projecting…

In creative higher education (HE) undergraduate courses in the UK, women students are over-represented by a proportion of two-to-one. However, music HE shows almost the reverse gender balance, with women students under-represented. This article, theorising HE as hierarchically stratified according to institutional prestige, uses descriptive…

This article explores the often-ignored embodied dimension of rurality and its role in shaping students' transitions into higher education. Drawing on a 'figured worlds' framework, this narrative study examines how rural-background students in China navigate urban universities through embodied practice. Their encounters with university spaces…