Dr Helen Taylor explores the role of a Housing Studies degree for housing practitioners.
Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Housing Studies degree has been running for 26 years, and has many alumni within the Welsh housing sector.
The degree is developed and accredited by the Chartered Institute of Housing and employers play an integral role in the development of the course content. The course is reactive to the changing nature of the sector, and sector experience is embedded within the programme.
Our students are full-time BSc students who complete the degree over three years, or part-time students who work in the sector and complete part-time qualifications to support their practice. Our recently launched MSc Advanced Practice programme also provides a Masters option for individuals who are working at managerial level within their organisation to develop their critical skills further. The course pathways are designed with flexibility in mind as we recognise that individuals with a variety of experiences at different stages in their learning journey want to study Housing Studies.
In learning and teaching terms, Housing Studies as a discipline emphasises the importance of functional knowledge. This type of learning isn’t just being able to repeat facts or concepts that have been taught within the classroom, but being able to embed what has been learnt in a way that impacts on how students engage with the world.
As Biggs writes ‘after graduation all students…should see a section of the world differently, and to behave differently towards it, expertly and wisely’. This type of knowledge informs how we engage with the world and how, as practitioners, we make decisions.
Housing studies then combines that too often seen division between theory and practice. As a discipline, it focusses on creating understandings of issues of community, space, and people, in different ways – ways which can then inform practice. The membership organisation the Housing Studies Association supports this bridging of theory and practice: holding events and disseminating research from within the broad spectrum of Housing Studies to the housing sector and the wider public more generally.
We have all experienced the impact of a lack of understanding of what a housing professional is from the oft-cited ‘I fell into housing’ discussions within the sector, to struggling to define what it means to be a housing professional. There are several reasons for this:
- As Manzi and Richardson (2017) assert, this is linked to the ‘broader erosion in public sector professional identity and status’. Not only does welfare reform and the changing nature of the state impact of what and how we deliver as practitioners but it affects how we as professionals are regarded.
- Further, the emphasis within the public sector on commercialisation has ‘blurred the boundaries between public and private sector institutions’ (Manzi and Richardson, 2017) and led to a weakened understanding of the core professions within the public sector.
- Finally, housing as a profession already faced definitional difficulties as the ‘wobbly pillar of welfare’ (Malpass, 2008). As Manzi and Richardson (2017) also write ‘often viewed as a “common-sense” occupation, housing practice was unable to draw upon a discrete and easily defensible knowledge domain’.
The Housing Studies team at Cardiff Met is addressing this challenge in several ways. We continue to develop our courses in partnership with the CIH and employers via our vibrant Employers’ Forum,which enables us to continue providing a responsive Housing Studies course which meets the needs of the sector. As a result of this we have introduced a free summer school, in-house courses, and a flexible post-graduate pathway.
Year 2 students working as ambassadors at TAI 2017
Our focus on functional knowledge and inbuilt practice experience means that students are learning to critically engage with contemporary issues and concepts that are facing the sector, but in ways which have a practical application. Most recently, the Forum has asked us to consider how we can play a role in developing higher apprenticeships and this work is ongoing.
In order to continue to provide professionally valid courses we undertake extensive feedback from students, employers, and sector partners. We are reassured by the feedback that we have recently received from some of students of the relevance of the course to their workplace.
One student who works in housing management wanted to learn about the background of housing to complement her practical experience. She said that doing the course helps her understand how she fits into the housing ‘jigsaw’ when she goes back into the workplace. She emphasised the importance of meeting individuals from other organisations through the course in terms of developing best practice.
Another student outlined how the course enabled her to achieve promotion within her organisation. She stated that ‘this would not have been possible had I not been taught analytical skills and improved my overall knowledge of housing’.
A final core part of the course is the focus on research-informed teaching. Recent research by the team on value for money and Universal Credit have been highlighted as useful by students to inform their practice. One student who is a member of a tenant scrutiny panel for a housing association, stated that her team are now incorporating value for money into its scrutiny reviews ‘and the lecture that I had in University opened my eyes to this’.
With the raft of challenges facing the housing sector in Wales, and the call from the minister for an innovative approach to solving these issues, being able to think critically is crucial for frontline housing staff. Housing studies as a discipline enables individuals to develop their functional knowledge.
The team at Cardiff Met continue to conduct applied research that will impact on practices within the sector, and fulfil our commitment to being engaged with the Welsh Government’s priority of universities as civic institutions. We look forward to working with our partners further to continue to meet sector needs.
Dr Helen Taylor is a lecturer in housing at Cardiff Metropolitan University. www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/health/courses/Pages/housing-studies-bsc.aspx, @housing_studies. For more on the Housing Studies Association visit housing-studies-association.org/