Widening participation     

This literature review is shaped by the experiences of the non traditional student, and their attempt to access educational capital (Bourdieu, 1977).  This increase in non traditional students participation in higher education is partly through New Labour’s policy initiative to widen participation (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/speeches/, March 20007).  Partly as a result of this government policy, effective study strategies (of which note-making arguably is a key tool for active and critical engagement) for non traditional students are topical as a result of higher education institutions enrolling students who historically have been excluded from higher education, i.e. the working classes, females, mature students and ethnic minorities (Burns, Sinfield and Holley, 2006).  When New Labour returned to government in 1997, prime Minster Blair stated that his party’s key priority was “education, education, education” (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/speeches/, March 20007).  As part of this commitment to education, New Labour “set a target for 50 per cent of the under-30s population to have participated in HE by 2010” (Medway et al, 2003, p.7).  This increased provision of higher education is

“based on the belief that a nation’s economic competitiveness can be enhanced if a greater proportion of its population gain the kinds of knowledge, skills and understanding fostered by higher education and a social justice rationale where the concern is to extend the benefits of higher education beyond a middle-class elite” (Woodrow et al, 1998, cited in Medway et al, 2003,  p.7). 

Whilst some might interrogate these purely economic rationale, there is also a need to interrogate what is meant by participation in higher education – does it refer to an academic university education, or does it refer to a vocational collegial education?  If widening participation is an attempt to level the playing field between the classes, the type of higher education on offer is hugely important in a society which places differing values on different subjects.  For example, within compulsory schooling, mathematics, science and English command compulsory status, whereas art, textiles, home economics, geography and history command only optional status (Barlett, Burton & Peim, 2001).  According to Bourdieu and Passeron note that (1979, p.190) education could be “the royal road to the democratisation of culture if it did not consecrate the initial cultural inequalities by ignoring them”.  Thus, it is crucial that, in process of widening participation, a two tier system does not emerge, which favours one social group over another and consequently maintaining the status quo.  It is important to note that there is an emerging body of argument that says that the widening participation policy is actually creating this two tier system (Thomas, 2001).

WIKI Community – do you think it would be useful to locate this paper in policy terms?  If so, which policy?  Widening Participation?  Top up fees? Assessment guidelines?

My initial writing up of non traditional students 

Non traditional students

The term non traditional student has been used increasingly during New Labour’s term in government (1997-present), referring to a diverse group including the working classes, females, mature students and ethnic minorities.  This paper will focus on increased opportunity to access higher education, in the context of New Labour’s policy initiative to widen participation amongst school leavers. 

Whilst non traditional students include the working classes, females, mature students and ethnic minorities, due to the limited space in this paper, I will focus on the working classes increased access to higher education.  According to Reay (2001, p.1) working-class relationships to education have always been deeply problematic and emotionally charged, inscribing academic failure rather than success”.  Therefore, it seems crucial to attempt to understand how and why the working class subject tends to fail, rather than succeed, particularly in light of their increased participation in higher education.  The concern here is that experiences of higher education via widening participation could also inscribe failure rather than success.  

Another key issue is that of degree value; if more working class people get degrees the qualification’s integrity is arguably questioned by middle class parents, who themselves, have “an educational inheritance with which to endow their children” (Jackson and Marsden, 1962, p.42).  Moreover, if we agree with Kuhn (1995, p.98), that “class is something beneath your clothes, under your skin, in your reflexes, in your psyche, at the very core of your being”, then class can be seen as a powerful discourse which affects every aspect of an individual.  However, whilst this paper will offer a partial account of the complexities associated with non traditional students’ participation in higher education, any analysis offered within this paper can be complicated and problematised by issues of gender, ethnicity and age. 

At this point it is possible to see that such a deficit model is bound up in the concept of institutional habitus, where working class students are on the outside of the institution’s habitus (Reay, 2001).  Indeed, according to Medway et al (2003, p.16), 

"HEI’s (higher educational institutions) need to undergo more deep-seated changes in their ‘institutional habitus’, that is the nature of the cultural practices, values, priorities and social relationships which characterise the institution”. 

This deficit model can shape and influence non traditional students’ perception of themselves as learners.  A non traditional student’s learner identity tends to be fragile, perhaps unsurprisingly given the way they are positioned within the wider discourses of the higher education institution (Reay, 2001).  Arguably, the non traditional student tends to find themselves as needed within higher education to meet the governments targets, yet perhaps not wanted, evident via the exclusionary practices of institutional habitus.

Finally, it is worth noting Freire’s (1977) criticisms of traditional education and the way it positions learners as accepting and passive in his text Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  Freire (ibid) views education as an opportunity for ‘empowerment’, where there are links between “knowing, learning and action” (Thomas, 2001, p.32).    Crucially, “Freire sees the primary function of education and educative processes to be the dynamic development of critical consciousness, which involves critical thought and action” (ibid, p.32).  Therefore, Freire (1977) sees learning as a reflexive and critical endeavour, and if these tools are developed, they operate as a means to challenge disempowering, political practices.  If we accept Freire’s (ibid) view, the consequences for the non traditional student (who is becoming less and less empowered by their class or gender or ethnic position), indicates a student body being actively disposed of its means to contest and struggle against dominant political discourses.  Thus, equality of opportunity remains elusive.

My initial writing up of the power of the text  

The power of the text

Within the context of higher education, the text book is frequently viewed as a powerful medium for knowledge transmission.  This can mean that students, particularly non traditional ones, are sometimes unsure of how to take ownership of their reading because the text is positioned as all powerful and they can feel like outsiders to this insider knowledge (Burns, Sinfield, 200? – CHECK REF).  Whilst this is unavoidable in a university because of the key role that the written text plays in the process of knowledge transmission, it is useful to challenge the power of the text and find practical strategies which have the potential to enable students to take control of their reading.  To critically unpick the power of the text, it is useful to draw on Foucault’s notion of discourse.  According to Ball (1990, p.2),

“Discourses are about what can be said and thought, but also about who can speak, when, and with what authority.  Discourses embody meaning and social relationships; they constitute both subjectivity and power relations”.

Whilst discourses can be spoken, they also exist in textual form.  Thus, it follows that the university text book can be seen as a form of discourse and is subjected to those power relations outlined by Ball (ibid).  More pressing is that this means,

“Discourses constrain the possibilities of thought.  They order and combine words in particular ways and exclude or displace other combinations” (ibid, p.2).

So, what do these power relations and constraints, exclusions and or dispositions mean for the non-traditional student who is attempting to navigate their way through the academy?  It means that to provide non-traditional students with the academic toolkit necessary to progress through their undergraduate courses, they need understanding about the purpose of their reading and moreover, practical ways to engage with it, which can simultaneously serve to dismantle, or perhaps less ambitiously to problematise, the power relations embedded in the discourse.  To summarize then, it seems necessary to unpick the power of the text, particularly in terms of uncovering strategies that will allow students to critically engage with their reading. 

The role of coursework