Embracing the “third space” in higher education

This paper presents a case for integrating students as partners (SaP) within the curriculum of higher education (HE), particularly through the lens of “third space” learning. Drawing on our experiences as a collaborative of educators in Canada and the United Kingdom, we explore the liberatory potential of play, partnership, and co-creation in HE. Through the Becoming an Educationist (Becoming) module, we demonstrate how SaP can empower students—especially non-traditional students in UK post-1992 universities, that is, UK institutions with a strong focus on widening participation, applied learning, and “social mobility” or transformative learning—to find their voice in academia. We argue for embedding SaP within the curriculum to foster a sustainable ecology of collaborative practice for social justice, challenging traditional divisive structures in education.