Across the western world the higher education sector has grappled, with limited success, to increase the participation of students from working class, or lower socioeconomic status (SES), backgrounds (Reay, David and Ball, 2005; Gale, Tranter et al. 2010). In this paper I identify some of the ways in which the secondary school curriculum contributes to this outcome, and how universities are complicit in this process. Using data collected at three high poverty secondary schools located on the urban fringe of an Australian city (Tranter, 2010), I argue that the hierarchy of subjects and the increase of vocational education options, together with the expectations of schools and teachers, conspire with tertiary selection processes to prevent all but a very few working class students from gaining entry to university. These students are not well positioned in relation to cultural and social capital (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992) to negotiate the complexity of the competitive school curriculum (Connell, 1998) and the educational strategies that facilitate university entrance. When university places are limited and access is based on relative (apparent) merit, the secondary curriculum orders young people into a social hierarchy of post-secondary options where the success of more privileged students comes at the cost of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Teese & Polesel 2003). The paper concludes with an exploration of alternative modes of entry that disrupt the established curriculum hierarchy by valuing a broad range of knowledges for entry to university. Initial outcomes suggest that low SES students admitted through such pathways are able to thrive in higher education.

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