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Notions of Widening Participation to Higher Education are characterised by perceptions of an inherent "goodness" for (Western) democracy. This is based around a premise that predicates social justice upon access to education to ensure sufficient preparation for successful participation in the Knowledge Economy. This correlation between social justice, Higher Education and the Knowledge Economy can be identified as part of the neoliberal ideology that has underpinned political, economic and subsequent educational policies and practices with a rigorous promotion of the Free Market. This thesis examines Widening Participation as a mechanism through which neoliberal ideology has enabled the development of a market model of Higher Education. To understand this, a range of conceptual apparatus is utilised to reframe the common perceptions of what Widening Participation is and what purpose it has, by establishing Widening Participation as a critical part of the discourse relating to the commodification of Higher Education. The proposition of neoliberal Widening Participation is examined through the lens of Commodity Fetishisation (Marx), Educational Fundamentalism (Alvesson) and Stultification (Rancière). Together, these theories form a framework to understand the narratives surrounding the conceptualisation of Widening Participation within neoliberal ideology. These narratives are argued here to have cultivated expectations for a consumerist student population through the transformation of the perceived benefits of a traditional Higher Education into reified concepts of pedagogical practice. As such, Widening Participation is positioned here as a way in which the saturation of Higher Education was justified as social justice. This Widening Participation positions learners and teachers within a Higher Education that is part of a Debt Economy expressed as a Knowledge Economy. The result is a role for neoliberal Widening Participation in propagating pedagogical myths that Rancière describes as suppressing Intellectual Emancipation even when appearing to be facilitating it.

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Partnerships between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Further Education Colleges (FECs) were a specific recommendation of the 1997 Dearing Review and a major component of New Labour's 'Third Way'. Between 1997 - 2010 one of the key policy drivers was to widen participation in higher education with a target of 50% participation of 18 - 30 year olds by 2010. Funded partnerships were seen as the mechanism to achieve this target. Arguably partnerships between higher education (HE) and further education (FE) were not new. Many of the so-called 'post-92' universities which had previously been polytechnics had achieved growth through partnerships with FECs and considered themselves, perhaps, to be leading the way in widening participation. Among a plethora of policy initiatives, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) embarked on its own innovative partnership scheme, Lifelong Learning Networks. Drawing heavily from examples in North America, these were conceived as a way of achieving planned progression into higher education for students with vocational qualifications at level three. The response from the higher education sector to the initiative was equivocal at best and the results uneven. This study draws from Bourdieu's early anthropological studies and combines aspects of these with his study of the fields of the arts and higher education to propose a new reading of the policy response and practice of widening participation in higher education through partnerships.

This nested multi-site case study uses data from interviews with thirty underrepresented students to explore how these students experience elite universities. Although greater numbers of underrepresented students are enrolling in university than ever before, those from non-traditional backgrounds are largely excluded from elite universities. Elite universities in the United States, England, and Scotland are all striving for increasingly higher levels of excellence, status, and funding to raise and maintain their global positions as university rankings continue to affect student choice and perception of value. The expansion of higher education during the past several decades has fostered discussions pertaining to the social characteristics of the student body, and whether enough is being done to include individuals traditionally excluded from higher education. Simply developing widening participation initiatives, however, does not eliminate inequality in the university system. This thesis considers discussions relating to higher education expansion, development of widening participation policy, costs associated with higher education, and the social characteristics and constructions of the underrepresented student in the three nations. The four key findings resulting from the student interviews are organised into the three themes of economic, social, and cultural capital. The first finding was that the students who lacked accessible economic capital were unable to participate in social events. The inability to participate produced feelings of exclusion. The second key finding was that students who were most debt averse reported the least amount of debt. This debt aversion meant some students worked nearly full-time or strictly managed their income. The third key finding was that students who were able to minimise their social and cultural differences, such as changing their accent, were more likely to report feelings of belonging. The fourth key finding was that, although the widening participation policy agenda focuses predominately on economic disadvantage and access, very little attention is given to elite universities’ habitus, which perpetuate privilege and complicate feelings of belonging. One of the most pronounced areas for further research that has come out of this study is whether the fear of stigmatisation in identifying widening participation students outweighs the potential benefits in acknowledging and creating a community for those students. Ultimately, the hope of this study is that, by understanding the experiences of such students who gain access to an elite university, we can learn from their experiences and how, moving forward, not only help a greater number of underrepresented students to attend these elite universities, but also support those students throughout their university years.

yes / Studies of graduate destinations generally report positive outcomes for working-class graduates, particularly professionally validated programmes such as pharmacy or social work, which offer specific career pathways. However, I know of working-class graduates with good degrees from good institutions who are in relatively menial positions in the leisure and retail sector. It is as if such students are unable to move beyond working-class jobs and embrace the middle-class careers that a degree should unlock. / This section of the article 'Can I succeed as a working-class academic?' is reproduced here in line with the publisher's copyright restrictions.

Yes / Plagiarism is a vexed issue for Higher Education, affecting student transition, retention and attainment. This paper reports on two initiatives from the University of Bradford library aimed at reducing student plagiarism. The first initiative is an intensive course for students who have contravened plagiarism regulations. The second course introduces new students to the concepts surrounding plagiarism with the aim to prevent plagiarism breaches. Since the Plagiarism Avoidance for New Students course was introduced there has been a significant drop in students referred to the disciplinary programme. This paper discusses the background to both courses and the challenges of implementation.

In 2001 the then UK Government set a national target to get 50 per cent of young people between the ages of 18 and 30 into higher education by the year 2010. To achieve this goal, higher education institutions were required to deliver Widening Participation initiatives that would target under-represented groups in a bid to raise aspirations and bring them into the sector. The study that underpins this thesis was an investigation into the issues surrounding widening participation from the perspective of students in their final year of compulsory schooling. It began as a year-long longitudinal study of the students’ views as they moved towards a key transitional point in their lives. Nine students were identified from Year 11 in one school. Three were drawn from each of the following three categories or groups of students: (i) ‘traditional students’, these were students who were deemed as belonging to groups that were already well-represented in higher education; (ii) ‘non-traditional’ students, these were deemed ‘non-traditional’ in the sense that they were seen as belonging to groups that were under-represented in higher education; (iii) ‘widening participation’ students, these were recipients of a widening participation initiative delivered by their nearest university which, by implication, also deemed them as being ‘non-traditional’ in the sense that they were seen as belonging to groups that were under-represented in higher education. Each participant was interviewed in-depth three times whilst they were in Year 11; in December 2003, in March 2004, and again in June 2004. Whilst all interviews sought to elicit information about their lives at that point in time, the first interview was intended to gather relevant information about their past lives, the second a more in-depth look at their current lives, and the third focused on their future lives. Follow-up data were collected from some of the participants in 2009, 2010 and 2011. An in-depth interview also took place in June 2004 with the university’s Widening Participation Officer and the school’s Head of Year 11 and Widening Participation Co-ordinator. They are considered to be key informants to widening participation initiatives, more broadly in the case of the former, and specific to the school in the case of the latter. The thesis reports on the process through which participants were selected (or not selected) for widening participation intervention, learning identities in school and out, imagined futures, choices, and ultimately what happened to those students who were tracked beyond Year 11. Flaws in the widening participation policy agenda at the time of the main data collection period were identified as: (i) the individualization of the problem which drew attention away from the structural nature of the problem of under-representation and also from deep-rooted flaws within the education system; (ii) the lack of awareness of the longitudinal nature of the problem whereby entrance into higher education is dependent on prior learning and prior qualifications – this resulted in little or no account being taken in the selection process of widening participation-targeted individuals’ previous patterns of achievements, such that they may not be on a trajectory that makes higher education a viable option, and (iii) the valuing of non-participation in higher education. The thesis concluded by acknowledging that a new legislative framework about to be implemented in 2012 appears to be addressing some of these concerns. Issues that remain unaddressed include deep-rooted problems within the formal education system, the valuing of non-participation and of vocational training, and an appreciation that learning takes place on a trajectory.

À partir du cas des dispositifs d’ouverture sociale lancés en France et en Angleterre, cette thèse aborde la question des effets des institutions d’élite sur les processus de stratification sociale, dans un contexte d’internationalisation de l’enseignement supérieur. En nous concentrant sur la mise en œuvre de ces dispositifs, nous avons apporté trois éclairages sur ce débat : - Le travail d’ajustement des institutions repose sur leur capacité à instituer des liens d’interdépendance, qui assurent une cohésion autour de la lecture commune des inégalités sociales. Plus précisément, les institutions contribuent à affecter le fonctionnement des politiques éducatives en matière d’ouverture sociale, en promouvant des modes de coopération entre des « univers » qui s’ignoraient relativement auparavant. - Par ailleurs, le travail d’ajustement engendre des changements dans les processus de certification. Il conduit les institutions à promouvoir de nouvelles conventions de jugement comme le potentiel. - Enfin, le travail des institutions concerne aussi leur capacité à transmettre des normes scolairement légitimes dans le cadre d’espaces de socialisation anticipatrice, comme le tutorat. La comparaison des dispositifs entre les deux pays étudiés souligne la convergence dans le traitement et la temporalité des ajustements. Alors que la question de la diversification des élites apparaît comme spécifique à chaque espace national, l’analyse comparée souligne l’existence de traits communs entre les institutions et l’impact de l’internationalisation sur cette question.Cette thèse porte sur les cas de Sciences Po, de l’ESSEC et de l’Université d’Oxford. / Widening participation programmes have been launched simultaneously in both France and England in the 2000s. They stem from the idea that it is necessary for elite universities, despite their traditional mission of elite education, to get involved in the field of antidiscrimination and thus develop measures to increase equality of opportunity and diversify their student body. This thesis highlights the impact of these programmes on the way to address social inequalities in the educational sector. In fact, widening participation schemes contribute to the dissemination of a new interpretation of social mobility on the basis of a compensation targeting talented pupils (Pupils identified as “with potential”) rather than sustaining the most deprived of them. It is allowed by the current withdrawal of the traditional role of the Welfare state in education (in a context of financial crisis) which increases the pressure on universities (through financial incentives), in the name of their social responsibility towards society. This work is based on an ethnographic survey led in three French and English elite institutions, including the University of Oxford, Sciences Po and ESSEC.

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.