Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Widening Access to Higher Education

  • Living reference work entry
  • Latest version View entry history
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions

  • 73 Accesses

Synonyms

Diversity; Equity in higher education; Inclusion; Widening participation

Definition

Widening access to higher education (HE) aims to redress the historical underrepresentation of some social groups in HE. It is addressed in many international contexts through policies and practices aimed at overcoming the barriers faced by students identified as coming from socially disadvantaged backgrounds.

Introduction

Widening access to higher education is a major strand of higher education (HE) policy internationally, connected to discourses of equity and widening participation. Debates tend to focus on providing access to undergraduate studies for those students who come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds but are identified as having the potential and/or ability to benefit from HE. Policy attention to “fair access” has led to an emphasis of policy and practice on providing advice, guidance, and information to support student aspirations and choices. Increasingly, there has been...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abbas, A., P. Ashwin, and M. McLean. 2016. The influence of curricula content on English sociology students’ transformations: The case of feminist knowledge. Teaching in Higher Education 21 (4): 442–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, A. 2004. The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition. In Culture and public action, ed. V. Rao and M. Walton, 59–84. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, L., and C. Leathwood. 2003. Identities, inequalities and HE. In Higher education and social class: Issues of exclusion and inclusion, ed. L. Archer, M. Hutchings, and A. Ross, 171–191. London: Routledge Falmer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ball, S.J., and C. Vincent. 1998. ‘I heard it on the grapevine’: ‘Hot’ knowledge and school choice. British Journal of Sociology of Education 19 (3): 377–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, P. 2011. Discussions across difference: Addressing the affective dimensions of teaching diverse students about diversity. Teaching in Higher Education 16 (6): 669–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bathmaker, A.M. 2015. Thinking with Bourdieu: Thinking After Bourdieu. Using ‘Field’ to Consider in/Equalities in the Changing Field of English Higher Education. Cambridge Journal of Education 45 (1): 61–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berrington, A., S. Roberts, and P. Tammes. 2016. Educational aspirations among UK young teenagers: Exploring the role of gender, class and ethnicity. British Educational Research Journal 42: 729–755.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • BIS. 2011b. Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System, Cm 8122. London: HMSO.

    Google Scholar 

  • BIS. 2011c. Guidance to the Director of Fair Access. Letter issued by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Minister for Universities and Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1986. The forms of capital. In Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, ed. J.G. Richardson. New York: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P., and J.-C. Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brynin, M. 2017. Higher education: Too risky a decision? In Access to higher education: Theoretical perspectives and contemporary challenges, ed. A. Mountford-Zimdars and N. Harrison. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P.J. 2012. The right to higher education: Beyond widening participation. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P.J. 2015. Re/imagining HE pedagogies: Gender, emotion and difference. Teaching in Higher Education 20 (4): 388–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P.J., and S. Jackson. 2007. Reconceptualising lifelong learning: Feminist interventions. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P.J., A. Bennett, C. Burgess, K. Gray, and E. Southgate. 2016. Capability, Belonging and Equity in Higher Education: Developing Inclusive Approaches. Curtin: National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P., G. Crozier, and L.I. Misiaszek. 2017a. Changing pedagogical spaces in higher education. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P.J., A. Bennett, M. Bunn, J. Stevenson, and S. Clegg. 2017b. It’s about time: Working towards more equitable understandings of the impact of time for students in higher education. Perth: National Centre for Student Equity in HE, Curtin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpentier, V. 2010. Public-private substitution in HE funding and Kondratiev cycles: The impacts on home and international students. In Global inequalities and higher education: Whose interests are we serving? ed. Elaine Unterhalter and Vincent Carpentier. Hampshire: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chawla, D., and A. Rodriguez. 2007. New imaginations of difference: On teaching, writing, and culturing. Teaching in Higher Education 12 (5): 697–708.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clegg, S. 2016. The necessity and possibility of powerful ‘regional’ knowledge: Curriculum change and renewal. Teaching in Higher Education 21 (4): 457–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Craig, L., A. Powell, and J. Brown. 2016. Gender patterns in domestic labour among young adults in different living arrangements in Australia. Journal of Sociology 52 (4): 772–788.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crozier, G. and D. Reay. 2008. The Socio Cultural and Learning Experiences of Working Class Students in Higher Education, Teaching and Learning Research Briefing 44. London: Teaching and Learning Research Programme, ESRC.

    Google Scholar 

  • DFES. 2003. The Future of Higher Education. London, HMSO.

    Google Scholar 

  • DFES. 2004. Letter of Guidance to the Director of Fair Access. Letter issued by the Secretary of State for Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • France, A., and S. Threadgold. 2015. Youth and political economy: Towards a Bourdieusian approach. Journal of Youth Studies 19 (5): 612–628.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. 1997. Justice interruptus: critical reflections on the “postsocialist” condition. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. 2003. Social justice in the age of identity politics: Redistribution, recognition and participation. In Redistribution or recognition? A political-philosophical exchange, ed. N. Fraser and A. Honneth. London/New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. 2008. Reframing justice in a globalizing world. In Adding insult to injury: Nancy Fraser debates her critics, ed. K. Olsen. London/New York: Verson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freire, P. 1972. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gale, T., and C. Mills. 2013. Creating spaces in higher education for marginalised Australians: Principles for socially inclusive pedagogies. Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences 5 (2): 7–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gale T., and S. Parker. 2013. Widening participation in Australian higher education. Report submitted to HEFCE and OFFA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorard, S., with N. Adnett, H. May, K. Slack, E. Smith, and L. Thomas. 2007. Overcoming the barriers to higher education. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hage, G. 2011. Social gravity: Pierre Bourdieu’s phenomenological social physics. In Force, movement, intensity: The Newtonian imagination in the social sciences, ed. G. Hage and E. Kowal, 80–92. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harlap, Y. 2014. Preparing university educators for hot moments: Theater for educational development about difference, power, and privilege. Teaching in Higher Education 19 (3): 217–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, N. 2017. Student choices under uncertainty: Bounded rationality and behavioural economics. In Access to higher education: Theoretical perspectives and contemporary challenges, ed. A. Mountford-Zimdars and N. Harrison. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodkinson, P., and A. Sparkes. 1997. Careership: A sociological theory of career decision making. British Journal of Sociology of Education 18 (1): 29–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, R., and L. Thomas. 2005. The 2003 UK government higher education white paper: A critical assessment of its implications for the access and widening participation agenda. Journal of Education Policy 20 (5): 615–630.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leathwood, C., and P. O’Connell. 2003. ‘It’s a struggle’: The construction of the ‘new student’ in HE. Journal of Education Policy 18 (6): 597–615.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leathwood, C., and B. Read. 2009. Gender and the changing face of higher education: A feminized future? Berkshire: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibowitz, B., and V. Bozalek. 2016. The scholarship of teaching and learning from a social justice perspective. Teaching in Higher Education 21 (2): 109–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lillis, T. 2001. Student writing: Access, regulation, desire. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luckett, K. 2016. Curriculum contestation in a post-colonial context: A view from the South. Teaching in Higher Education 21 (4): 415–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maton, K. 2014. Knowledge and knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milburn, A. 2009. Unleashing aspiration: The final report of the panel on fair access to the professions. London: The Cabinet Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreau, M.-P., and C. Kerner. 2015. Care in academia: An exploration of student parents’ experiences. British Journal of Sociology of Education 36 (2): 215–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OFFA. 2012. Website of the Office for Fair Access, http://www.offa.org.uk/about/frequently-asked-questions/#fair%20access. Accessed 25 Apr 2012.

  • Park, A., C. Bryson, E. Clery, J. Curtice, and M. Phillips, eds. 2013. British social attitudes: The 30th report. London: NatCen Social Research. Available online at www.bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk. Accessed 26 Apr 2017.

  • Reay, D. 2001. Finding or losing yourself? Working-class relationships to education. Journal of Education Policy 16 (4): 333–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reay, D., J. Davies, M. David, and S.J. Ball. 2001. Choices of degree or degrees of choice? Class, “race” and the higher education choice process. Sociology 35 (4): 855–974.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reay, D., M. David, and S.J.Ball. 2005. Degrees of Choice: Class, Race, Gender and Higher Education. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, D., G. Hughes, C. Evans, P.J. Burke, C. Walter, and D. Watson. 2014. Learning transitions in higher education. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shay, S., and T. Peseta. 2016. A socially just curriculum reform agenda. Teaching in Higher Education 21 (4): 361–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Southgate, E., and A. Bennett. 2014. Excavating widening participation policy in Australian higher education: Subject positions, representational effects, emotion. Creative Approaches to Research 7 (1): 21–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, J. 2016. Reconceptualising student resilience in HE: Countering deficit discourses, Brian Smith Public Lecture. Newcastle: University of Newcastle.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stone, C. 2017. Opportunity through online learning: Improving student access, participation and success in HE. Perth: National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, Curtin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Dyke, R., B. Little, and C. Callender. 2005. Survey of higher education students’ attitudes to debt and term-time working and their impact on attainment. Bristol: HEFCE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb, S., P.J. Burke, S. Nichols, S. Roberts, G. Stahl, S. Threadgold, and J. Wilkinson. 2017. Thinking with and beyond Bourdieu in widening higher education participation. Studies in Continuing Education 39 (2): 138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, M. 2008. Bringing knowledge back in: From social constructivist to social realism in the sociology of education. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

    Penny Jane Burke

Authors
  1. Penny Jane Burke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Penny Jane Burke .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Jung Cheol Shin

  2. CIPES, Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro Teixeira

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this entry

Cite this entry

Burke, P.J. (2017). Widening Access to Higher Education. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_319-2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_319-2

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Widening Access to Higher Education
    Published:
    28 July 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_319-2

  2. Original

    Widening Access to Higher Education
    Published:
    05 June 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_319-1

Search

Navigation