Enticing Educationally Disadvantaged Students into Higher Education: An Australian Case Study

Author(s):

Stephen ParkerTrevor GaleDeborah Tranter

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 05 C, Widening Participation in Higher Education (Part 1)

Paper Session Continued in 22 SES 06 C

Time:

2009-09-29

08:30-10:00

Room:

HG; HS 29

Chair:

Lesley Andres

Contribution

Australia is in an invidious position. Having ridden the resources boom up and now down, it now finds that it has fallen back from the OECD pack in the number of its young adults (25-34 year olds) with higher education qualifications. This, just at the moment when it needs more if it is to remain competitive in the global knowledge economy and when economic modelling predictions are that from 2010 demand in Australia for knowledge workers will exceed their supply. As in the UK, the US and several European nations, the policy imperative is now to convince more young people that they should go to university. In particular, the plan is to reach them early, when they are just beginning to form their ideas about their futures. If the plan is to succeed it will require attracting to university people from population groups who in the past have been grossly under-represented in higher education: Indigenous peoples, people from regional and remotes areas, and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. These are the groups, particularly the latter, about whom it is often said lack aspiration (for higher education). Yet aspiration defined in these terms is narrow in that it tends to serve the interests of one (dominant) cultural group. This paper provides a case study of educationally disadvantaged groups and of enlarging their ‘capacity to aspire’ (Appadurai 2004) to higher education. It first explores the self-serving bifurcation of aspiration by the dominant and its outworkings in the context of Australian higher education (and education more broadly). It then considers how we might think differently about the capacity of the educationally disadvantaged and marginalized in society to aspire to university. Informed by Appadurai’s (2004) conception of aspirational capacity and drawing on the case study data, the paper concludes that nurturing this cultural capacity can be achieved through students’ early engagement in real-world debate, contest, inquiry and critical participation.

Method

Australian higher education provides a case study of how OECD nations are responding to the imperative to produce more university graduates in order to compete in a global knowledge economy, particularly in the wake of the current global economic crisis. In particular, it is a case study of educationally disadvantaged groups and of enlarging their capacity to aspire (Appadurai 2004) to higher education. The paper draws on survey data of 26 Australian universities reporting on 59 ‘interventions’ or programs operated by these universities in the compulsory and early years of schooling, with the express purpose of widening and increasing these students’ later participation in higher education. Data is also drawn from semi-structured interviews with participants (program directors and students) in six of these programs and from accompanying documentation. Survey data is presented in graphs and tables, while discourse and content analyses are undertaken of the interview data and documents.

Expected Outcomes

The study seeks to add to knowledge about the nature of aspiration for disadvantaged groups, particularly in relation to their aspiration to study at university. It is anticipated that such knowledge will better inform university outreach programs that seek to attract underrepresented groups into higher education. The paper concludes that successful programs are those characterised by their involvement of students in real-world debate, contest, inquiry and critical participation.

References

Archer, L. (2007). Diversity, equality and higher education: a critical reflection on the abuses of equity discourse within widening participation. Teaching in Higher Education, 12(5): 635-653. Appadurai, A. (2003). Archive and Aspiration. In J. Brouwer & A. Mulder (eds.) Information is Alive, Rotterdam: NAI Publishers. Appadurai, A. (2004). The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition. In V. Rao & M. Walton (eds.) Culture and Public Action, Stanford: Stanford University Press: 59-84. Barone, C. (2006). Cultural Capital and the Explanation of Inequalities in Learning Outcomes: A Comparative Analysis. Sociology, 40(6): 1039-1058. Bradley, D., P. Noonan, H. Nugent, & B. Scales (2008). Review of Australian Higher Education: Final Report, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Reay, D., M.E. David, & S. Ball (2005). Degrees of choice: social class, race and gender in higher education. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Hatt, S., A. Baxter & J. Tate (2005). Who benefits from widening participation? A study of targeting in the South West of England. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 29(4): 341–351. Hernandez-Martinez, P., L. Black, J. Williams, P. Davis, M. Pampaka & G. Wake (2008). Mathematics students’ aspirations for higher education: class, ethnicity, gender and interpretive repertoire styles. Research Papers in Education, 23(2): 153-165. Higher Education Funding Council for England (2006). Widening participation: a review report to the Minister of State for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning. London: Higher Education Funding Council for England. Leathwood, C. and A. Hayton (2002). Educational inequalities in the United Kingdom : a critical analysis of the discourses and policies of New Labour, Australian Journal of Education, 46(2): 138-153. Maras, P. (2007). ‘But no one in my family has been to university’. Aiming Higher: School Students’ Attitudes to Higher Education. Australian Educational Researcher, 34(3): 69-90. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (2007). Education at a glance 2006. Paris: OECD. Viewed 18 October 2008, from Prosser, B., F. McCallum, P. Milroy, B. Comber & H. Nixon (2008). ‘I am smart and I am not joking’: Aiming High in the Middle Years of Schooling. The Australian Educational Researcher, 35(2): 15-35. Ramirez, F.O. (2006). Beyond achievement and attainment studies – revitalizing a comparative sociology of education. Comparative Education, 42(3): 431-449. Thomas, L., H. May, H. Harrop, M. Houston, H. Knox, M. Foong Lee, M. Osbourne, H. Pudner & C. Trotman (2005). From the margins to the mainstream: embedding widening participation in higher education. London: Standing Conference of Principals/Universities UK. Watson, D. (2006). How to think about widening participation in UK higher education. HEFCE. London, Institute of Education, University of London: 13.

Author Information

Stephen Parker

University of South Australia

National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education

Magill

Trevor Gale

University of South Australia

National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education

Adelaide

Deborah Tranter

National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education; University of South Australia, Australia

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