Reframing 'Hard to Reach' Student Engagement

What does it really mean when we say a student or student group is ‘hard to reach’? This piece aims to question this way of phrasing student engagement, by challenging the assumptions inherent within it. Using learning from The Student Engagement Partnership’s ‘Student Engagement in the Context of Commuter Students’ (Thomas and Jones, 2017), this piece argues that using ‘hard to reach’ to define a group of students serves to absolve practitioners of their responsibility towards engaging these groups. In addition it argues that reframing engagement around spheres and levels enables a more nuanced understanding of students in their context.