Chapter 7: Sadiya’s Story

I (Jacqueline) first met Sadiya, a former journalist from Iraq, when she was involved in a 10-week course funded by a refugee support organisation, set up to help refugee women develop their CVs and to write employment, FE or HE applications. As a tutor on the course, I interviewed Sadiya to help better understand her hopes and expectations for her future. She then joined the same mentoring scheme as Aaliyah and I mentored her for a further six months and interviewed her again twice. The chapter draws on these three interviews to offer a critical account of her attempts to gain a place on a Masters’ degree course, as well as her subsequent experiences of undertaking graduate-level study. In particular, the chapter describes Sadiya’s struggles to have her prior academic qualifications, as well as her English language proficiency, recognised, as well as her struggles with navigating the academic and social mores of UK HE. The first interview with Sadiya took place she was 38 years old and had been in the UK for two years.