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JAPP: Abstracts

Volume 1, Number 1, Autumn 2003

Widening participation, higher education and the risk society
Rennie Johnston

Abstract

This paper examines access and widening participation initiatives in Higher Education from the perspective of the Risk Society. In the first part it identifies what we mean by a Risk Society and outlines some of the risks involved in Widening Participation: for HE institutions, for students and for society at large.

The second part advocates a stronger Lifelong Learning focus as a way of coming to terms with these risks. This entails the development of greater reflexivity on the part of HE institutions in their approach to different types of knowledge: disciplinary, vocational and experiential. This needs to be allied to a greater individual reflexivity on the part of students as they begin to forge new identities and biographies as active and critical learners.

The paper concludes by examining the policy implications of these intertwining processes, linking this to the possibilities of a wider role for Higher Education in relation to social exclusion: an enhancement of the civic mission of universities and a re-invention of the idea of an ‘educated public’ in the interests of national prosperity, equity and a more inclusive society.

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The new widening participation students: Moral imperative or academic risk
Sue Hatt, Arthur Baxter and Neil Harrison
University of the West of England

Abstract

This article will examine the progress of the first cohort of students to enter a post-1992 university with bursary support. Opportunity Bursaries were introduced in 2001 to provide a financial incentive to encourage young people from low-income backgrounds to progress to higher education (HE). Although the university in the study supplemented this scheme by providing an additional bursary for low-income students, bursaries reached only a small proportion of low-income students. Despite fears that widening participation to students from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds might damage retention rates, this study found that those from low-income backgrounds are just as likely to continue their studies beyond the first year as the traditional entrants to HE - namely, those from more affluent backgrounds. Furthermore, the award of a bursary had a significant and positive impact upon the continuation rate of students from low-income backgrounds, making them more likely to persist with their studies. Both of these findings from this limited study suggest that widening participation will not reduce retention rates or compromise an institution’s performance indicators.

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Compacts and Access: Lifeblood or Teflon?
Chris Duke, RMIT University Melbourne

Abstract

Local region engagement and schools partnership are important for universities and communities. They can enhance access and raise local aspirations, yet for many universities such commitment seems difficult to make and may be merely skin-deep. In this study of a large new university in the socio-educationally disadvantaged region of Greater Western Sydney, its early admissions or School Compacts Scheme originated as an immediate response to a crisis stigmatising a local school and its students. It grew rapidly to become a highly successful alternative admissions scheme open to, and used by, all secondary schools in the region. Large numbers of students took advantage of the alternative scheme, which removed the pressure of competitive examinations to apply successfully to this and other Sydney universities. Other strands of the organisational and professional partnership between schools, teachers and the University were being added, when a change of leadership and policy resulted in the subversion and closure of the Scheme. This paper analyses the dynamics within the particular story, and draws out more general implications for school-university partnership and the obstacles and risks to their success.

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