This seminar comprised of a round table discussion where distinguished researchers at the University of Warwick addressed a variety of concerns relevant to developing understandings of, and initiatives for, widening participation in universities.

 

 

Professor Robin Naylor, Department of Economics, University of Warwick
Professor Jeremy Smith, Department of Economics, University of Warwick

 

Professor Geoff Lindsay, Centre for Educational Development Appraisal and Research, University of Warwick

 

Professor Matthew Watson, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

 

Professor Kate Purcell, Institute of Employment Research, University of Warwick
Professor Peter Elias, Institute of Employment Research, University of Warwick

 

Dr Matthew Clayton, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
 

Neil Murray, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Centre for Applied Linguistics, Warwick University

 

Barbara Merrill, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Warwick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Robin Naylor, Department of Economics, University of Warwick
Professor Jeremy Smith, Department of Economics, University of Warwick
 

 

The main finding of this paper - attracting considerable attention in the press and media, in policy circles, and in university admissions offices - was the now well-known result that students who attended state schools prior to university had a significantly higher probability of graduating with a good degree class than otherwise observationally-equivalent students who had been educated in private schools. Observationally-equivalence here signifies, inter alia: the same A-level subjects and grades; the same social class of family background; studying at the same university; reading for the same degree subject. A clear policy implication of this finding is the following: in order to admit students from across the two sectors in such a way that they have equal probabilities of achieving the same class of degree award on graduation, applicants from the state sector should be asked to have achieved, on average, 2-3 grade points below those of their private school counterparts: e.g. grades BBB instead of AAB.

Professor Geoff Lindsay, Centre for Educational Development Appraisal and Research, University of Warwick

 

 

Abstract:

In this presentation I shall consider the importance of early intervention in order to support widening participation. There are important interrelationships between social disadvantage, early development (eg language) and later achievement. In addition, quality of parenting has an additional effect above that of social disadvantage, moderating the latter’s negative effects. I shall consider the different aspects of parenting that may be relevant and, in particular, the evidence for the impact of evidence-based parenting programmes on parents’ efficacy and skills, and on the development of their children. The widening participation agenda has important short term impact goals based on work with adolescents but the achievement of long term goals also requires a longer term perspective in addition.

 

 

Professor Matthew Watson, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

 

 

Abstract:

At a time when UK macroeconomic policy apparently involves little other than attempted deficit reduction, any increase in debt is increasingly frowned upon as a direct failure of both policy and character. Yet the funding model of UK higher education institutions has simultaneously been reconfigured in a way that places universities at the centre of a very different moral economy of debt. On the one hand, universities’ financial bottom lines are now entirely dependent on selling courses to undergraduate students at a supposed market rate of typically £9,000 per year. This acts as part of a socialisation process through which young people are expected to make their way through life by purchasing one debt after another as student loans give way to debt-financed consumption goods and then to mortgages. These actions are about learning the associated calculative rationalities of an increasingly financialised welfare citizen. If successful, the debts will eventually cancel out and still leave enough to spare to make good the dwindling value of the state pension, thereby allowing young people to take on their assigned role in helping in the deficit reduction efforts. On the other hand, the purchase price of undergraduate degrees by no means covers the market value of their delivery cost. A subsidy is still required, but instead of this being a state subsidy it is now routinely extracted from the goodwill of university staff. This provides an important insight into the process through which young people learn the calculative rationalities on which the UK economic growth model currently rests. This process also relies on the willingness of university staff to voluntarily gift their time to educating their students, both to the specific content of their courses and, less wittingly, to the merits of being a financialised welfare citizen.

 

See also: Watson, M (2011) The Contradictory Political Economy of UK Higher Education', Political Quarterly, 82 (1),16-25.

 

 

Professor Kate Purcell, Institute of Employment Research, University of Warwick
Professor Peter Elias, Institute of Employment Research, University of Warwick

 

 

Using data collected in a large, representative national graduate tracking study, the Futuretrack longitudinal survey of 2005-6 UCAS applicants*, we engage with current debates about the UK class structure, social mobility, the returns to higher education and the relationship between knowledge, high level skills and the changing occupational structure. We provide hard evidence to address the title question, concentrating on Futuretrack respondents aged less than 24 when they began their studies as full-time UK-domiciled undergraduates. In addition to examining the relative impacts of prior education, socioeconomic background, gender and ethnicity, we consider type of university, region of study, subject studied, the extent to which students had been offered and had taken advantage of course-related work experience, participated in other paid or unpaid work, and participated in extra-curricular activities that could provide career benefits. Finally, we look at the outcomes; class of degree achieved, early career trajectories and current employment at the time of the Stage 4 survey, between 18 and 30 months after graduation, of those in employment. In this, we draw on a new occupational classification: the substantially-revised SOC(HE), in which we have devised a taxonomy to assess the relationship between development and use of knowledge and high-level skills normally developed in higher education. Our analyses present challenges to recent educational policies and the ideologies that have driven them, and will contribute to a clearer understanding of the extent to which increased participation in HE contributes to changes in social stratification.

 

 

Dr Matthew Clayton, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

 

 

Abstract:

Notwithstanding an ongoing concern about the low representation of certain groups in higher education, there is reluctance on the part of politicians and policy makers to adopt positive discrimination as an appropriate means of widening participation. My contribution indicates how universities might a) admit the best qualified applicants, or (b) select on meritocratic grounds, or (c) widen participation by departing from (a) or (b). It is important to know how (a), (b) and (c) differ, how each might be justified, and which should be adopted as the right guide to university admissions. This distinguishes arguments from meritocracy, desert, respect, and productivity and shows how these arguments are compatible with the use of positive discrimination in higher education.

 

Neil Murray, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Centre for Applied Linguistics, Warwick University

 

 

Abstract:

The widening participation agenda has inevitably meant that the student body in higher education is becoming increasingly diverse. One result of this greater diversity is that we can make fewer assumptions than was hitherto the case about the levels of language and academic literacy with which students enter university and about the extent to which they are equipped with the cultural capital needed to ‘fit in’ and reach their full academic potential. This is particularly true of those who are the first in their family to go to university and it has important implications for levels of retention/attrition among those cohorts who are most vulnerable. This short presentation is designed to encourage reflection on the implications of this situation for the way in which universities conceptualise, provide and structure language and academic support for these students – and, by extension, for levels of institutional commitment/investment and for curriculum development.

 

 

 

Barbara Merrill, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Warwick

 

Abstract:

Higher education institutions across Europe are transforming as a result of changing state/university relationships, economic and social changes, globalisation and policy interventions such as the Bologna process. Since the 1970s, these changes have resulted in a move away from an elite system, with many countries achieving what Martin Trow called mass higher education. Although the effects of recession are also beginning to impact upon higher education systems, this period of sustained general growth has enabled non-traditional adult students, to a differing extent by institution and country, to enter the world of academia. This in turn has led to new debates about the costs, financing, management and strategic focus of national higher education systems.

It is in this context that the question of retention has come to the forefront. Retention and drop-out are currently high on the policy agenda of national and European policy makers as these issues reflect the efficiency of both a higher education institution and the national system of HE.

This presentation paper reflects on the findings of a European research project entitled ‘Access and Retention: Experiences of Non-Traditional Learners in HE’ (RANLHE) funded by the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme (website: http://www.dsw.edu.pl/fileadmin/www-ranlhe/index.html. The project involved eight partners from seven countries (England, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Scotland, 2 Spain, and Sweden). Using interdisciplinary research we looked at what limits or promotes the construction of a learner identity among non-traditional adult students in becoming, or not, effective learners and how this process may enable or inhibit completion of higher education. The focus of the research was on the use of biographical narratives.

A key question for our project was, therefore, why some adult students ‘keep on going on’ despite in some cases enormous difficulties, while others from a similar background in relation to class, gender, ethnicity, age and disability drop-out. Policy-makers at national level regard dropping-out as a negative process because of the economic loss on investment. For institutions drop-out is a sensitive issue as it has consequences for its status and may also result in loss of finances. For individual students, dropping out may have stigma attached to it as well as personal and family implications. The reasons, however, why adult students withdraw are complex but not always negative as many gain educationally and socially from participating in HE even if they do not complete. The question then is what the decision to quit means in the lives of the students. In some cases, dropping-out may be the start of a new transition and stage in their biography, while in others it may indicate a difficult set-back in what they see as an evolving learning career. These are particularly complex issues in the case of non-traditional learners