Anna Mountford-Zimdars

Fair Access to Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective

What does “fairness” mean with respect to the distribution of access to higher education? We conceived this special issue as part of a broad conversation to address this and related questions across disciplines and across nations. Within that conversation philosophers have asked what criteria should be used to allocate funding and offers of admission at selective institutions (Fullinwider and Lichtenberg 2004). Assuming the notion of “merit” comes into play when answering these first questions, others have focused on how merit should be conceived and assessed (Daniels 1978; Selmi 1995; Guinier and Sturm 2001). Moving from a normative to a descriptive standpoint, sociologists such as A. H. Halsey (2011) have examined the criteria that countries actually do use—or did use in the past—to decide who will be admitted whenever some selection needs to be made. Given these criteria, to what extent and through which mechanisms do existing inequalities of class, race/ ethnicity, and gender impact university entrance? Such questions motivate many contemporary analysts (Shavit et al. 2007; Charles et al. 2009; Espenshade and Walton Radford 2009). Scholars have also looked into the initiatives now taking place with a view to alleviating these inequalities (Grodsky 2007; van Zanten 2009). Finally, we sought to connect this concern for “widening participation”—to use a ubiquitous British phrase—to the research on the consequences of the marketization of higher education (Callender 2006; Douglass 2007; Kirby 2011). Those are some of the general questions that

Framing Higher Education: Questions and Responses in the British Social Attitudes Survey, 1983-2010.

This article focuses on questions and attitudes towards higher education in the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey series. First, we analyse the changing BSA questions (1983–2010) in the context of key policy reports. Our results show that changes in the framing of higher education questions correspond with changes in the macro-discourse of higher education policies. Second, we focus on the 2010 BSA survey responses to investigate how attitudes towards higher education are related to respondents’ characteristics. Respondents’ socio-economic position predicts attitudes towards higher education. Graduates and professionals are most likely to support a reduction in higher education opportunities, but those who have so far benefitted least from higher education are supportive of expansion. One interpretation – with potential implications for social mobility – is that those who have already benefited from higher education are most inclined to pull the ladder up behind them.

What can universities do to support all their students to progress successfully throughout their time at university

ABSTRACT This article reviews the findings from a UK nationwide project on the causes of differences in student outcomes in higher education. The project was commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and reported in July 2015. We found that universities with an embedded, institution-wide approach that engaged senior managers, academic staff, professional service staff and students as stakeholders and agents in the differential outcomes agenda were most promising in decreasing progression gaps. Universities use targeted and universal interventions to affect change. Initiatives that tackle assessment and the content and meaning of curricula are a promising stream of interventions. Overall, more evaluations on what works and sharing of practice will further enable the sector to support all higher education students in reaching their academic potential.

Is Contextualised Admission the Answer to the Access Challenge

ABSTRACT This article reviews the idea of contextualising applicants to higher education in order to widen access. First, the meaning of contextualised admissions (CAs) is discussed before laying out the rationale for contextualising applicants and the beneficiaries of the policy. The final sections discuss key critiques of CA and conclude by arguing that CA does go some way to addressing the access challenge. To fully realise its potential as a policy intervention though, it is most helpfully part of integrated support for students throughout university and is mindful of the role of universities in wider society to create more equal progression trajectories for young people from a range of backgrounds.

Exploring academic hiring and life in humanities and social sciences at an English research university through a PhD students-as-partners project

Purpose The purpose of this study is twofold: to make explicit academics’ tacit knowledge of academic employment and to develop the educational research and employability skills of 12 postgraduate researchers. Design/methodology/approach Twelve postgraduate researchers from ten different disciplines conducted 24 semi-structured interviews (12 with early career academics, 12 with senior academics). Respondents shared the skills, experiences and attributes sought when hiring and their lived experience of being academics. Findings The importance given to both explicitly stated (publications, teaching experience) and implicit (values, behaviour) factors varies greatly among individual academics. There is a mismatch between stated job requirements and the realities of academic life. A students-as-partners project fosters critical engagement with these questions and offers other benefits to participants. Research limitations/implications Most respondents work at one research-intensive English institution, potentially limiting generalisability to teaching-led and international institutions. Practical/implications Researcher development programmes should make explicit the range of factors considered in hiring while also encouraging critical engagement with the realities of academic work. Through students-as-partners projects, postgraduate research students can uncover first-hand what academic life is like and what hiring committees are looking for. Originality/value Through involving students-as-partners, the research question changed to reflect the actual concerns of those contemplating an academic career. Students gained invaluable awareness of academic hiring and insights into academic life, as well as transferable skills.

Risk, choice and social disadvantage: Young people’s decision-making in a marketised higher education system

Rising tuition fees in England have been accompanied by a policy mandate for universities to widen participation by attracting students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This article focuses on one such group of high achieving students and their responses to rising tuition fees within the context of their participation in an outreach scheme at a research-intensive university in the UK. Our findings suggest that rather than being deterred from attending university as a result of fee increases, these young people demonstrated a detailed and fairly sophisticated understanding of higher education provision as a stratified and marketised system and justified fees within a discourse of ‘private good.’ Our analysis situates their ‘risk’ responses within the discursive tensions of the fees/widening participation mandate. We suggest that this tension highlights an intensified commodification of the relationship between higher education institutions and potential students from disadvantaged backgrounds in which widening participation agendas have shifted towards recruitment exercises. We argue that an ongoing effect of this shift has resulted in increased instrumentalism and a narrowing of choices for young people faced with the task of seeking out ‘value for money’ in their degrees whilst concurrently engaging in a number of personalised strategies aimed at compensating for social disadvantage in a system beset by structural inequalities.