This research will be of interest to global higher education policy makers, researchers and practitioners engaged in student retention, widening access and managing strategic interventions to deliver step improvements in performance. Widening access policies continue to have contemporary relevance. Effectively and efficiently reducing student non-continuation rates, without compromising widening access performance, remains a challenge for many HEIs. A new system level Management Model for Improving Student Retention Performance and its supporting performance framework is derived from empirical data gathered from a longitudinal instrumental case study and informed by the literature. They have specific validity for HEIs with strong widening access performances and general applicability to others. The dominant theoretical model informing the research is Tinto's longitudinal model of institutional departure (Tinto, 1993). The Management Model for Improving Student Retention Performance is presented around three primary categories: students, faculty and institution. Each interacts with each other and operates within individual and mutually inclusive environmental systems. There is also a supporting Improving Student Retention KPI Framework and Improving Student Retention Performance Monitoring Information System to provide the mechanisms and tools that influence the effective and efficient application of the model to deliver a step improvement in student retention. Evidence of considerable improvements [50%] in student retention performances1 for widening access students is evidenced by the case institution which is not shared by comparable HEIs in Wales. Two new performance indicators are also derived: the Specific Widening Participation Indicator (SWPi) and the Multiple Widening Participation Index (MWPi). These support a new paradigm for understanding widening access and student non- continuation performances and challenge the algorithm used to calculate institution non-continuation benchmarks. They are included in the new performance framework and inform the third primary research contribution which exposes the significant discrepancies between the funding allocations made by HEFCW, the demands on HEIs relating to widening participation policy and the extent of their MWPi>0 and retention performances. Incongruence between HEFCW funding methodology and Welsh policy is evidenced.

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INTRODUCTION: Students from low-income backgrounds (LIB) have been underrepresented in Canadian medical schools for over fifty years. Despite our awareness of this problem, little is known about the experiences of aspiring physicians from LIB in Canada who are working towards medical school admission. As a result, we do not have insight into the barriers and facilitators that may be used to increase the representation of students from LIB in Canadian medical schools. METHODS: This thesis describes a qualitative description interview study aimed at understanding the experiences of aspiring physicians from LIB as they attempt to gain entry to medical school. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 participants at different stages of their undergraduate, master’s, and non-medical professional education. RESULTS: We used the theories of intersectionality and identity capital as a theoretical framework for identifying barriers and facilitators to a career in medicine. Participants experienced social, identity-related, economic, structural, and informational barriers to a career in medicine. Intrinsic facilitators included motivation, self-confidence, attitude, strategy, information seeking and sorting, and financial literacy and increasing income. Extrinsic facilitators were social, informational, financial, and institutional in nature. CONCLUSION: This study fills existing gaps in the literature by identifying the pre-admissions barriers and facilitators encountered by aspiring physicians from LIB. This information will be useful to medical schools, organizations, and researchers interested in supporting underrepresented groups. Given that medical students from LIB are more likely to serve underserved populations, this is relevant to Canadian medical schools’ social accountability commitment to producing physicians that meet the health needs of marginalized and vulnerable patients. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / GOALS: This thesis describes an interview study aimed at understanding the experiences of aspiring physicians from low-income backgrounds (LIB) as they attempt to gain entry to medical school. Interviews were conducted with 15 participants at different stages of their undergraduate, master’s, and non-medical professional education. CONTRIBUTIONS: This study fills existing gaps in the literature by identifying the pre-admissions barriers and facilitators encountered by aspiring physicians from LIB. Participants experienced social, identity-related, economic, structural, and informational barriers to a career in medicine. Intrinsic facilitators included motivation, self-confidence, attitude, strategy, information seeking and sorting, and financial literacy and increasing income. Extrinsic facilitators were social, informational, financial, and institutional. This information will be useful to medical schools, supportive organizations and researchers interested in supporting underrepresented groups.

The following study categorises, summarises and analyses research on unequal participation of social groups in Nordic higher education. While it does not give an exhaustive account of all research, the ambition has been to capture the main strands of contemporary literature and its results. I categorise the literature into three main research traditions, as well as into studies that may best be characterised by their object of study. This typology forms the structure in which research is presented in the study. The summary of research results show that in parallel with the efforts to expand higher education and include larger parts of the population, the relationship between family background and children’s years of education has weakened and the rate of participation in higher education has increased among underrepresented groups. At the same time, however, patterns where students tend to study different study programmes or at different higher education institutions depending on gender and social or national background have remained largely intact, and in some cases even grown stronger. These differences in participation rates and enrolment patterns can be traced to inequalities in school achievement, unequal access to knowledge and information, differences in family support and expectations from the social environment, different horizons of opportunities, as well as different preferences regarding the length of the study programme, its degree of labour market connection and the importance placed on the geographical proximity to family and friends. One of the contributions of the analysis is showing how questions and methods in different research traditions generate different types of results, which at first glance may seem incompatible. Upon closer inspection, however, the research results in fact paint a highly congruent picture. A consistent theme throughout is how more detailed, multidimensional or intersectional indicators and classifications of education, social background or other social groupings often reveal important differences and inequalities that are invisible in studies that use more aggregated or linear indicators and groupings. / <p>Uppsatsen skrevs ursprungligen i rapportform på uppdrag av Universitetskanslersämbetet (UKÄ) och publicerades 2021 inom ramen för UKÄ:s regeringsuppdrag att utvärdera lärosätenas arbete med breddad rekrytering. Texten har nu när den läggs fram som uppsats på några ställen omarbetats eller justerats, men är i stora drag identisk med uppdragsrapporten, där professor Mikael Börjesson som uppsatshandledare stod som garant för studiens kvalitet gentemot UKÄ.</p><p>Bryntesson, A., &amp; Börjesson, M. (2021). <em>Forskning om rekrytering till högre utbildning i de nordiska länderna, 2010–2021. En kunskapsöversikt</em> (Rapporter från Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi Nr 64). SEC, Uppsala universitet</p>