Supporting University Entry In The Age Of Widening Participation

Designed for those working with widening participation students, this key guide provides all of the information needed to support learners from widening participation backgrounds and ensure fair admission to university can be effectively delivered. Providing the reader with a theoretical and practical understanding of how to reach non-traditional students, this book addresses the realities of the challenges the modern university widening participation applicant faces. Each chapter offers a fresh and engaging insight into widening participation and explores the fascinating range of factors that determine whether students from non-traditional backgrounds successfully access university and benefit from it. This book systematically considers the barriers, approaches and solutions required to reach university and encourages a ‘best evidence’ approach that could enable the people of tomorrow to have more equal access to learning and through that, a positive and healthy future on a planet under severe challenge. Ideal reading for all those working in widening participation or committed to expanding the diversity of their student populations, this book offers the insights, advice and considerations needed when deciding how best to help often highly vulnerable and unsupported students transform their lives through learning.

“This book does not focus simply on the employment prospects of first generation higher education entrants but rather engages with the wider possibilities of social engagement and transformation that can arise from participation in higher education. It provides essential reading for administrators, policy-makers, managers, academics and indeed anyone else interested in how to widen the socio-economic base of higher education so that the process is informed by a significant concern with social justice and reducing inequality.” Rosemary Deem, Professor of Education, University of Bristol This book examines the proposition that parental education is a key factor contributing to the access and success of students, but that insufficient attention is paid to this by researchers, national systems and institutional interventions. Analysis of research findings from ten countries, plus a UK wide study, indicates that parental education is more important in determining access to higher education than parental employment or financial status. The book provides a clear conceptualisation of first generation entry, exploring its complex interrelationship with social class. Furthermore, it demonstrates that when first generation entry is used as a lens, it disrupts the taken for granted assumptions regarding widening participation and helps produce much more effective approaches to targeting access and supporting student success. First Generation Entry into Higher Education provides a unique and insightful examination of how first generation entrants are supported or otherwise by different national approaches and institutional responses. The book is essential reading for all with an interest in widening participation in higher education.

First Published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection offers an authoritative, up-to-date commentary on the challenges facing higher education today across both the UK and internationally. The book charts the impact of global economic trends and recent policy developments for students, academics, providers and changing course provision.

This book will provide an in-depth look at the development, functionality and appeal of pre-arrival platforms to aid transition into higher education, including a range of provisions. Ensuring a smooth transition into higher education study is increasingly seen as key to both retention and success, both in the initial weeks of study and beyond. Pre-arrival platforms offer students a range of opportunities, which might include the chance to familiarise themselves with the practices and policies of their new institution before teaching begins. This book will explore these platforms from three different angles: their development, use and appeal to diverse audiences in higher education, and case studies illustrating their incorporation into practice. It will provide a comprehensive overview of not only the different ways in which such platforms add value to the transition process but also the way they embrace diversity and widening participation in higher education from the very beginning of an individual’s higher education career. With chapters written by individuals from a variety of roles in higher education, this text will also provide the reader an insight into issues arising from the use of these platforms. It will be essential reading for educational, academic and staff developers working with departments and their institutions to develop their support structure for new students as well as for those directly involved in widening access/participation programmes.

This book is a narrative of conversations between two professors, with different backgrounds, academic disciplines, life experiences, and from different continents. It shows how their discourse has brought them to a single destination defined by a mutual interest in the social purposes of universities, and a hope in common that their academic efforts will somehow do good in the world. The seventeen internationally-agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide focus for aspirations and plans regarding sustainability, but notably, the SDGs’ targets and indicators rarely provide detailed accounts of who is expected to enact change. This book addresses the role of higher education in this context and explores the social purposes of universities and their relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. It presents an academic analysis of this complex situation, based on insights from published literature on higher education, and the personal but very different experiences of two professors with this shared interest.

Some progress is being made in encouraging under-represented groups to continue into higher education, but particular sections of society remain significantly under-represented and too little is known about the link between measures taken by institutions and any improvements in access. The attainment of qualifications at secondary school is the principal reason for the difference in participation rates but social class remains a strong determinant of higher education participation. Women are better represented than men and those from non-white ethnic groups are better represented than white people. The report finds that white people from lower socio-economic groups are the most under-represented group in higher education institutions. There are also significant variations between academic institutions in how good they are at widening participation. In 2006-07, one sixth of institutions made less progress than expected in recruiting students from areas with low participation. Those that became universities post-1992 generally do better than the Russell Group universities (an association of 20 self-selected major research intensive institutions). Incomplete data on student background hinders accurate assessment of which groups are under-represented. There is insufficient information about the full range of activities aimed at widening participation, making it difficult to identify which activities are most effective. Higher education is not always provided in ways that make it accessible to individuals from under-represented groups. Some students and potential students have limited understanding of the different types of financial support available to them. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills should lead efforts to create a comprehensive and accessible source of information to support potential applicants from under-represented groups.

Improving Opportunities to Engage in Learning investigates the experiences of mature adult learners returning to formal education. The book challenges the policy discourses in which Access to Higher Education survives by suggesting that continuing education is more about determination by students to alter their identities and career opportunities than meeting narrow performative criteria of financial targets. Chapters explore students’ struggles with institutional and social structures in the current political and socio-economic climate, before identifying how the transformation of their learner identities is facilitated in the courses by collaborative cultures and supportive tutors. The book addresses a research gap in knowledge about students’ and tutors’ experiences of Access to Higher Education courses, presenting a broad perspective on the importance and difficulties of such courses through listening to the voices of students and tutors undertaking a variety of Access to HE pathways. The authors argue that despite success on their courses benefiting the national economy as well as students individually, the social and financial costs of continuing education is almost entirely shifted onto students’ shoulders by policymakers. Despite the costs, students can still see Access to HE as a chance to improve their lives, reflecting the neoliberal discourse of personal responsibility and risk embedded in broader national social and policy discourses. Improving Opportunities to Engage in Learning will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of further and higher education, widening participation, social justice and sociology of education, and education policy and politics.