Problematising the invisibility of student parents in Australian higher education

Student parents tend to be overlooked by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and do not receive the support required to enter, engage in, and successfully complete their higher education (HE). Student parents, on average, perform better academically than non-parents, but they fail to complete their studies at a higher rate. Yet the future gains from higher education for the student–parent, their child(ren), and society more broadly, are profound. To contribute to a deeper understanding of the policy and practice supports available to Australian student parents, we present evidence from a case study of Australia’s 38 public HEIs. This exploratory work draws on information from publicly available policy documents found on Australian HEI websites and within government policy. The data was analysed using Bacchi and Goodwin’s (2016. Poststructural policy analysis: A guide to practice. Springer) ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) approach to shift the focus away from student parents as a cohort and to instead examine how the problem is constructed. Our results show how student parents are invisibilised in HEIs. Overall, there is a lack of transparent policy and practice to support student parents, difficulty in accessing information about policy and practice supports, and a construction of parenting as a private concern.