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JAPP: Editorial

Volume 1, Number 1, Autumn 2003

Mary Stuart
University of Sussex

Education research, as other social policy research, is often seen as insufficiently theorised and yet for many who work as practitioners in the field, research reports and articles in journals seem removed from the day-to-day realities of practice. In starting a new journal we are mindful of these dilemmas, trying to imagine you, our audience, and what would be of most use to the development of your work as practitioners and researchers. In this journal our desire is to explore the tension between theory and practice, to highlight the importance of theoretical understandings within an increasingly functionalist world, which does not always question approaches and interventions in practice. At the same time we are also keen to ensure that we are sufficiently grounded in ‘real’ activity and experience.

In the current climate, both in Britain and in other parts of the world, policy-makers are heavily focused on evidence-based policy-making. This approach is based on a theoretical belief that evidence, or factual information, can assist in developing strategy and influence and create ‘good’ practice. This position is more useful than policy-making by dogma, but it creates, we think, a space for a journal that critiques policy and ‘facts’ that determine policy. For example, which facts, how reliable, who collected them, how were they collected and how have they been used, and so on.

This journal arises, we hope, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the Journal of Access and Credit Studies (JACS) which is in many ways ‘a tough act to follow’. However, in some senses, the evolution from JACS to the Journal of Access Policy and Practice (JAPP) also symbolises the changed field of participation in education. The study of access to education initially focused on what was termed ‘second chance education’, now encompassing a broad range of additional issues. Access as a concept and a movement is still important and in the context of widening participation the access remit has been broadened to include what I would call ‘first experience learning’, student success and achievement, and aspects of lifelong learning. In the journal we explicitly want to examine access across all sectors of education, including schools, colleges and universities, to critique practice and partnerships between sectors and examine how progression routes are being developed or restricted for learners.

In this first issue we take the theme of ‘risk’ in widening participation. Rennie Johnston sets out the theoretical debate around the concept of ‘a risk society’ and examines how widening participation to and through higher-level study creates risks for non-traditional students and for the institutions involved in widening participation. Drawing on the work of Ulrich Beck, he argues that our society has moved the responsibility for action from the state to the individual and suggests that in the field of education and widening access the balance needs to shift back. He also argues for joint action between communities and educational institutions to minimise risks for widening participation students. While his article focuses on Higher Education Institutions the messages could equally be applied to either the school sector or Further Education.

Following on from this work Sue Hatt, Arthur Baxter and Neil Harrison, in an empirical study, examine the new widening participation students, by which they mean younger students from poorer backgrounds. These students are statistically high-risk students, particularly at risk of non-completion. There are risks not only for the students themselves but also for the institutions that have accepted them onto programmes. However, from this study, Hatt et al suggest that financial support, through the British Government’s Opportunity Bursary scheme, has enabled these students to succeed. If this research can be replicated elsewhere, it would suggest that the re-introduction of bursaries will minimise the risks for students from poorer backgrounds. This is possibly an example of the balance shifting in the right direction, perhaps not far enough, but a beginning.

Chris Duke, using a case study of access admission programmes in Australia, suggests that institutions need to be prepared to take the risk of changing traditional practices to enable students from poorer working-class communities to enter higher education. He draws out the role of partnerships between schools and HEIs, suggesting that schools know their students; that traditional entry requirements may not always be the best test of a student’s ability; and that through partnership with schools, new ways of identifying potential may be found. He highlights the role of the media in maintaining the status quo by fuelling moral panics about standards. He is not optimistic that all institutions will be prepared to address the widening participation agenda or challenge preconceived ideas of what standards are, which is a salutary lesson for those of us who work in an English environment. This has recently been highlighted by several institutions who have been trying to find more sensitive and useful admissions procedures than the annual round of A Levels.

In the journal’s ‘Debates and Discussion’ section - a feature we hope will enable practitioners and researchers to discuss difficult issues and questions - we have two lectures, one delivered as an inaugural lecture and the other presented at the Phillip Jones memorial lecture series. Lectures are presented live and I have tried to keep the flavour of the live performance in the editing of the articles. It is often the case that interesting discussions are conducted through lecture series and in research seminars and lectures but these seldom are available in the public domain and I hope to try to ensure that some of this academic debate is available to the journal’s readership.

Geoffrey Elliot argues that there is an urgency about widening participation and that unless we move from the levels of exclusion that exist in the sector the social cost will be too high. He also argues that if widening participation is to mean anything the sector must enable students to succeed and, like Duke, he muses on which institutions take poorer working-class students and the costs that are associated with that process.

This theme is further highlighted by Christine King who argues strongly that the British Government’s rash statements about ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ and ‘failing institutions’ are antithetical to their supposed desire for widening participation. She suggests that we are at risk of losing our direction established by the access movement in the 1970s and 1980s. She suggests that some institutions are cynical about widening access and the real project, which needs to be developed, is a transformational access agenda where institutions and students grow, change and develop together. This in itself is, of course, risky and challenging, but then the current climate for widening access is exactly that.