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This study analyzed trends in access and success of students admitted through the Top 10% admissions policy. The study employs a comparative analysis between public universities from the Borderland region and the two top-tier public universities in Texas. This Texas admissions policy provides students in the top 10% of their graduating high school class admission to any state 4-year public university. Therefore, this policy implies that being a top 10% student equates to being college ready for any public university in Texas, regardless of selectivity or top tier status. Research on the Texas Top 10% policy has focused on its success in improving diversity and student performance at the two top-tier public universities in Texas, The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. However, enrollment disparity continues at these elite institutions between Whites, Latina/os and Blacks. Additionally, the Texas Borderland region is an intersection of large Latina/o demographics; distance from top-tier institutions; and great disparities in economic development, health, and education. Combining the aforementioned conditions, we know little about the access and success of Borderland top 10% students, particularly in comparing the two public top tier universities in Texas to the alternative choice of their local Borderland university. This study used mixed methods to compare the trends in access and success of Borderland students admitted under the Top 10% admissions policy at Borderland universities and at top-tier public universities, and additionally controlled for student characteristics in explaining student persistence and graduation. The quantitative analysis used student-level descriptive and inferential statistics with data facilitated by Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The qualitative section of this dissertation used focus-group interviews with 36 students at 5 Borderland universities and 1 top-tier university to explain their success. This study applies Bourdieu's theoretical framework of social and cultural capitals and habitus to interpret the findings. Results indicated student differentiation between institutions in access, success, and explanations. Ethnicity, gender, family income, and college generation status influence differences in enrollment between institutions, in which all together influenced differences in graduation and persistence. On the other hand, the interviews revealed that personal effort and institutional resources also explained differences in student success. This study provides implications for further research and policy considerations. / text

The policies that higher education institutions (HEIs) operate when choosing whom to select for admission raise profoundly important issues of social justice. Until recently, HEIs in England have selected applicants for admissions offers primarily on predicted and actual examination achievements. However, newer approaches to selection called ‘contextual admissions’ have emerged in some HEIs that attempt to view the examination achievement of applicants in a wider social context. For example, an increasing number of England’s most selective HEIs are prioritising admissions offers to applicants from less advantaged backgrounds, such as state schools students or those living in areas of low participation in higher education (HE). Despite increasing attention by government and HEIs to enhance ‘fairness’ in admissions through the use of contextual admissions policies, academic studies of this important phenomenon are curious by their absence. Using a policy scholarship approach, this study explores, describes and explains the contextual undergraduate admissions policies of England’s most selective HEIs in relation to the concept of social justice. Documentary content analysis of the policies of 20 English universities in the Russell Group is employed to originate an ideal-type classification system for how selective HEIs are enacting social justice through contextual admissions. Drawing principally on the work of Sharon Gewirtz and Alan Cribb, in-depth interviews with senior policy actors and qualitative documentary analysis are used across three purposively selected sites to suggest social justice can be thought about in three ways. Firstly, it is a multi-dimensional concept (having distributive, cultural and associational forms) where different dimensions can conflict with each other. Secondly it is mediated by structural constraints and other norms, which limit the pursuit of justice. Thirdly, it is context- and level-dependent. This study suggests that no philosophical resolution can be found for what counts as social justice in contextual admissions. Instead, justice in admissions should be understood in its real contexts of enactment and through its propensity to provide empirical outcomes in admissions-offers for less advantaged students that are at least equivalent to their more advantaged counterparts. A number of macro, meso and micro-level factors, that enable or constrain the pursuit of just outcomes for less advantaged learners through contextual admissions, are suggested. These provide the basis for a fruitful range of new potential quantitative and qualitative studies by scholars of social justice, stratification and mobility to an important but under-researched area of education policy.

The Dominican Sisters of St Catharine of Siena arrived in South Africa in 1877. White women joined the congregation. In 1928 the first black woman entered the congregation but because of the policies affecting the different race groups in South Africa, the full integration of black and coloured women was not achieved until 1983. Chapter 1 introduces the topic of the integration of the black and coloured sisters. Chapter 2 traces the origin of the congregation and looks at its development. A brief overview of the story of the black sisters is given in Chapter 3. In the next chapter archival sources are used to understand what happened. Interviews that were conducted with some of the sisters involved in the story are given in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 there is a look at the current situation and some of the implications for the future as the process of integration continues. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Systematic Theology)

The Dominican Sisters of St Catharine of Siena arrived in South Africa in 1877. White women joined the congregation. In 1928 the first black woman entered the congregation but because of the policies affecting the different race groups in South Africa, the full integration of black and coloured women was not achieved until 1983. Chapter 1 introduces the topic of the integration of the black and coloured sisters. Chapter 2 traces the origin of the congregation and looks at its development. A brief overview of the story of the black sisters is given in Chapter 3. In the next chapter archival sources are used to understand what happened. Interviews that were conducted with some of the sisters involved in the story are given in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 there is a look at the current situation and some of the implications for the future as the process of integration continues. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Systematic Theology)