Belonging, Space and the Marginalisation of University Childcare

For many student carers, the availability and capacity of childcare are essential for them to participate in university study. However, childcare for student carers is not straightforward and is often experienced as an institutional gesture rather than comprehensively embedded into the everyday operations of university life. Too often university childcare centres tend to be on the edges, on the outer of campuses which shape the time space and capacity for student carers to participate in higher education. I argue that placing childcare on the geographic margins of university campuses reflects the limited institutional capacity for increasing participation for student carers, rather than centring care for all people that engage with higher education. Rather than its intended outcome for opening up engagement for student carers, childcare centres can also be understood as constraining participation. The spatial limitations of on-campus childcare within higher education spaces demonstrate that universities are largely constituted as 'child-free' shaping the (im)possibilities of student carers for engagement, belonging and success.