This paper draws from an institutionally-funded phenomenological study of international PhD students’ academic acculturation, which focuses on the distinctive strengths, challenges, and hidden opportunities facing this cohort within the context of their transition from one academic culture to another. The first section introduces the theoretical base employed in the study and is then followed by exploring the conceptualisations of the hidden curriculum and its associated concepts: ‘the third space’ and ‘darkness in higher education’. Drawing upon our study findings, the second section illustrates practical exemplars of finding and harnessing the hidden curriculum. Without discounting the wide range of formal and informal institutional support provisions designed to facilitate international PhD students’ acculturation to a new academic setting, our study findings strongly endorse that students themselves have a crucial role to play in their complex transitional journey. Our study also offers a unique insight, i.e. if found, the hidden curriculum is an effective tool not only for international PhD students’ coping and survival but even more importantly, in thriving in new societal and academic contexts.

This paper investigates the phenomenological experiences of academic acculturation of selected non-British post-doctoral academics with a retrospective focus on their experiences as PhD students. The participants came from different disciplines and countries of origin to pursue several years of postgraduate research in different British higher education institutions. The typical, yet distinct, experiences of an exceptional group of early career academics offer invaluable insight into the joys, excitement, puzzlement and challenges that international students often encounter as they embark on studying and living in a foreign country such as the UK. Using Urie Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological theory of human development, our paper presents a theoretical perspective that can help elucidate and offer a greater understanding of what appear to be complex incidences in international students’ experiences. These incidences can, arguably, be crucial to the success or failure of students’ sojourns.

Undertaking a PhD is a challenging endeavour. Pursuing a doctoral education in a ‘foreign’ context tends to increase the demands of this intellectual venture. The nature of research-based PhD programmes, often characterised by a lack of formal curricula where academic supervision lasts several years, may add another layer of complexity. Drawing upon an extended version of Urie Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological theory of human development, this paper attempts to offer a greater understanding of both academic and non-academic concerns confronting international PhD students with a view to highlighting their implications for institutional policy and practice. Underpinned by a visual metaphor approach, our research findings advocate embedding the use of ‘a third space’ as a creative pathway and strategy for maximising students’ chances of achieving a successful PhD academic acculturation journey.

To date, open science, particularly open data, in psychology has focused on quantitative research. This article aims to explore ethical and practical issues encountered by UK-based psychologists utilising open qualitative datasets. Semi-structured telephone interviews with eight qualitative psychologists were explored using a framework analysis. From the findings, we offer a context-consent meta-framework as a resource to help in the design of studies sharing their data and/or studies using open data. We recommend secondary studies conduct archaeologies of context and consent to examine if the data available are suitable for their research questions. This research is the first we know of in the study of “doing” (or not doing) open science, which could be repeated to develop a longitudinal picture or complemented with additional approaches, such as observational studies of how context and consent are negotiated in preregistered studies and open data.

Older adults vulnerable to food insecurity are at risk of poor psychological and physical health. Poor public infrastructure or proximity to food sources can exacerbate risk of food insecurity. Reduced statutory services for social care has heightened the responsibility on third sector organisations and community-led volunteering, essential to supporting healthy ageing in place and reducing the inequalities of ageing. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore how older adults' volunteering with a third sector organisation focused on food access supports food security and builds social capital for socially or economically marginalised older adults within rural and food desert communities. The study aims to bridge the knowledge gap of how volunteering in vulnerable geographies affects food insecurity and community. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven older (55+) volunteer 'meal makers' working with the third sector organisation Food Train and its 'Meal Makers' project. Interview recordings were transcribed and thematically analysed. Ecomap methodology was used to illustrate the lived experiences of older adult volunteers as told through the interviews. Two themes were identified by Thematic Analysis: (1) Networks, connectedness, and exposure to social capital, and (2) Supplementary support. This study finds that older adult volunteers are well placed within community interventions supporting food insecure older adults in rural or food desert communities. Ecomaps demonstrated that high social capital volunteers can mediate food access barriers and highlighted points of local knowledge and social connection. Volunteer engagement provides opportunities for food secure older adults to share local knowledge and build networks of food support and social inclusion for food insecure older adults. Older age volunteering should be advocated as a multi-faceted intervention promoting mutual health and wellbeing in volunteer and beneficiary.

Despite UNESCO’s Learning Cities agenda, which argues for the mobilisation of resources to promote education across all sectors and environments, there is little evaluative research on Learning City engagement which is both naturalistic and empirically rigorous. The research on informal adult learning in urban contexts is particularly sparse. This paper provides a case study of informal learning and lifewide literacies amongst Glaswegian adults using three distinct approaches to data collection: a household survey capturing rich data on learning attitudes, behaviours, and literacies; GPS trails that track mobility around the city; and the capture of naturally occurring social media. The work operationalises Learning City indicators, and explores domains beyond education, some of which have not previously been considered in surveys of adult learning, for example, physical mobilities and transportation patterns. We use theoretical concepts of social identity and capital to situate inclusion within explanatory frameworks of marginalisation in less tangible domains of informal learning using multi-stranded data. A triangulated analysis of city-wide participation in lifewide learning reveals a demographic picture of groups marginalised from learning opportunities and practices. We conclude with a call for new approaches to exploring learning participation which offer novel methods to evidence informal learning and lifewide literacies.