The past, present

1
The past, present future of widening
participation research

• Nigel Kettley
• Faculty of Education
• University of Cambridge
• nck20_at_cam.ac.uk

2
Introduction

• Patterns of participation progression in HE
  have interested researchers for some considerable
  time
• 2. However, recent legislative changes to HE have
  produced a burgeoning access, widening
  participation lifelong learning literature
• 3. This paper evaluates major trends in
  historical contemporary approaches to patterns
  of participation progression to consider the
  future of widening participation research

3
Aims of the review

• 1. To establish the legislative educational
  context of specific research approaches to
  widening participation
• 2. To highlight the core contributions of
  particular research approaches to assess their
  relative merits
• 3. To review the methodological theoretical
  base of particular research approaches
• 4. To apply the conceptual principles of the
  Cambridge school of sociology to the topic of
  widening participation (Holmwood and Stewart
  1991)

4
Note of caution

• it is important that any review which
  attempts to look forward to developments in the
  future is based upon a fair critique of the
  current state of play
• (Gipps 1998 69)
• It is also important to recognise that balanced
  criticism is rarely method or theory-neutral
• Therefore, the principles that underpin this
  evaluation of widening participation research
  should be explained

5
Evaluation criteria the Cambridge school

• 1. Productive research should be grounded in
  empirical evidence related to everyday experience
  rather than, for example, attitudinal data alone
• 2. Social phenomena should be located within
  temporal, structural and institutional processes
• 3. False dichotomies and oppositional categories
  should be avoided e.g. barriers and bridges
  to participation
• 4. The investigation of social relationships and
  the unity of experience should be given priority
  in research
• 5. The object of empirical research should be the
  construction of productive theoretical
  explanations

6
Central arguments of the review

• 1. The development of widening participation
  research has often reflected the prevailing
  structure of HE, political debates and
  predominant theoretical positions
• 2. These delimiting factors have often inhibited
  the development of explanations which give equal
  weight to different stages in students learning
  experiences and careers
• 3. Research should seek to generate inclusive and
  holistic accounts of student participation,
  progression and outcomes

7
The origins of widening participation research

• 1. Concern is as old as the universities e.g.
  early personal, church and state concern over
  entry to Oxbridge and positions of power
• 2. Growth of civic universities in the 19th
  century led to a concern for the needs of
  industry and a growth in middle class
  participation (Cole 1955)
• 3. The notion of accessibility was used in
  Scotland by the Argyll Commission in 1868
  (McPherson 1973)
• 4. The demands of first wave feminism for
  citizenship rights to enter university also
  exhibit a concept of access
• 5. The expansion of HE in the early 20th century
  led to concern for barriers to opportunity for
  the working class (Floud 1961 94)

8
Recent notions of access and widening
participation

• 1. Citizenship right to attend university and
  receive financial support e.g. 1960s USA Civil
  Rights Movement
• 2. The study of differential participation (and
  progression) rates by social class, gender,
  ethnicity, disability etc
• 3. Access as courses designed to facilitate
  entry of mature students to university
• 4. Widening participation as outreach,
  curriculum and monitoring initiatives in HEIs
• 5. The notion of discourses of widening
  participation
• 6. Widening participation as cohort diversity
  and a euphemism for social justice

9
The past functionalism and educability studies

• 1. Functionalist research dominated in the USA
  from the 1950s to the early 1970s and was mainly
  concerned with value consensus and the division
  of labour (Parsons 1959)
• 2. Educability studies predominated in Britain in
  the 1950s and 1960s and were concerned with the
  relationship between IQ, educational opportunity
  and performance (Floud 1961)
• 3. In the USA and Britain secondary education and
  HE expanded in the post-war period, but HE
  expansion was more rapid and egalitarian in the
  USA (Anderson 1961 Trow 1967)

10
The concerns of functionalism

• 1. Functionalism social class differences in
  value orientations, their impact on
  school-based attainment progression into HE
  (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck 1961)
• 2. The decline of material deprivation after 1945
  led functionalists to concentrate upon the
  normative order of society
• 3. Working class culture as collectivist,
  present-oriented and resulting in a failure to
  master tasks
• 4. The barriers to working class
  participation in HE were poor educational
  practices and aspirations, which reflected family
  and community values (Rosen 1956 Strodtbeck
  1961)

11
The concerns of educability studies

• 1. Largely rejected the cultural deprivation
  hypothesis
• 2. Access to the universities was viewed as a
  route to social mobility a removal of the
  barriers to opportunity would avoid wasting
  talent
• 3. Generated substantial evidence confirming
  unequal access by social class e.g. Robbins
  Report (1963) Kelsall, Poole Kuhn (1972)
• 4. No consistent evidence on social class
  differences in degree results (Eckland 1964
  Reid 1977)
• 5. Often generated lists of factors that
  inhibited working class attainment and HE
  progression e.g. home facilities, parental
  education, disharmony in the home and the quality
  of teaching (Douglas 1964 Dale and Griffith
  1965)

12
Contributions and criticisms

• 1. Established social class inequalities in
  participation furnished concepts that are still
  used in widening participation research today
  e.g. factors barriers
• 2. Criticisms
• An asymmetrical view of barriers
• Factor-based approach to the causes of
  differential participation (a lack of theoretical
  modelling)
• A neglect of other non-traditional groups and,
  in their early stages, processes in the school
• Focus on the cultural sometimes separated from
  the material
• Contradiction between cultural deprivation
  implicit commitment to equality of opportunity

13
The past the new sociology of education

• 1. The 1970s saw a paradigm shift in
  educational research associated with the
  development of phenomenological, neo-marxist and
  feminist approaches (Young 1971 Brown 1973
  Moore 1988)
• 2. In part, the emergence of this new sociology
  reflected political debates related to
  comprehensive re-organisation, increasing the
  school leaving age, the extension of the
  examination system, curriculum initiatives to
  promote, for example, science education and the
  expansion and broadening of HE

14
Contributions of the new sociology 1

• 1. Unsurprisingly, the new sociology had an
  impact on studies of HE, access and widening
  participation
• 2. Feminism resulted in a concern for gender
  differences in attainment, access to the
  universities, subject choice in the universities
  and the recruitment of mature students (Keeves
  1973 Carnegie Commission 1974 Banks 1976)
• 3. Neo-marxists primarily viewed HE as
  reproductive of social class relations in
  capitalism, which implied that the barriers to
  participation were differences in cultural and
  social capital (Althusser 1972 Bourdieu 1973
  Harris and Holmes 1976)

15
Contributions of the new sociology 2

• 1. There were contradictions in new
  sociological approaches to HE. For example,
  Bourdieu (1873 85) depicts HE as the monopoly
  of the ruling classes, but Harris and Holmes
  (1976) argue that the openness progressive
  liberalism of the Open University are
  hierarchical exploitative.
• 2. However, the new sociology did provide some
  inclusive and consistent research which was
  sensitive to the history, context, openness and
  experience of students in HE e.g. A. McPhersons
  Selection and survivals in Brown (1973)

16
Contributions and criticisms

• 1. The new sociology focused attention on the
  experiences of women, ethnic minorities and other
  non-traditional students. It also drew
  attention to the curriculum and processes within
  HE.
• 2. Criticisms
• Often failed to measure access inequalities by
  social class
• Dichotomous explanations of differential
  participation e.g. social and cultural
  capital
• Emphasis on social reproduction largely ignored
  the possibility of social transformation
• Occasionally contradictory Bourdieu (1973) vs.
  Harris and Holmes (1976)

17
Contemporary approaches to widening participation

• A plurality of approaches to access and
  widening participation have emerged including
• 1. Access studies and student choice models
  as a form of political arithmetic e.g. Watts
  (1972), Hearnden (1973), Fulton (1981) Brendo,
  Foersom Laursen (1993)
• 2. Official, managerial monitoring approaches
  e.g. Woodrow (1999), Woodward Ross (2000),
  Woodrow Yorke (2002)
• 3. Ethnographic, life course and feminist
  perspectives e.g. Haselgrove (1994), Silver
  Silver (1997), Parr (2000)
• 4. Discursive post-modern approaches e.g.
  Bloomer (1997), Williams (1997) Burke (2002)
• It is often difficult to classify research,
  since scholars sometimes combine divergent
  positions

18
The contemporary context

• The content of contemporary widening
  participation research has often been driven by
  legislative changes
• Early 1980s New Right cut backs to finance
  led to a concern for the level of overall
  participation (APR) and the barriers faced by
  the working class (Moore 1983)
• The removal of the binary divide (1992) has also
  generated research into the composition of
  universities (Jary 2002)
• 4. Contemporary changes to student finance have
  led to a proliferation of research related to
  student finance, decision-making and social
  class (Knowles 2000 Callender and Kemp 2000
  Callender 2003)

19
Some contemporary contributions 1

• 1. Unsurprisingly, recent research has confirmed
  the link between socio-economic background
  participation in HE (Farrant 1981 Stafford,
  Lundstedt and Lynn 1984 Tonks 1999 Connor
  Dewson 2001)
• 2. Initially, this relationship was explained by
  reference to social and economic factors
  which inhibited working class participation
  drawing upon educability approaches (Gordon
  1981)
• 3. However, more recent research has explored
  those factors that both encourage and
  discourage for example the participation of
  students from lower social class backgrounds
  (Connor 2001 Connor and Dewson 2001).
• 4. These factors include belief in the labour
  market worth of a degree the costs of studying
  the necessity to work part-time concern about
  academic workloads and gaining entry
  qualification.

20
Some contemporary contributions 2

• 1. Qualitative and ethnographic research has also
  sought to explain why the participation rates of
  lower socio-economic groups remain relatively
  low (Hutching and Archer 2001).
• 2. A variety of reasons have been identified
  including low school achievement low
  aspirations financial constraints students
  knowledge and perceptions of HE and students
  discourses related to entry qualifications,
  finance the experience of HE
• 3. Whilst the product of different theoretical
  positions, these reasons often reflect the
  findings of educability studies, although they
  are usually explored in more depth (and less
  breadth)
• 4. In the context of gender and ethnic
  differences, consideration has also been given to
  the role of staff in HE as gatekeepers, the
  relevance of the curriculum, support services for
  students the trauma experienced by some
  students (see Moodley 1995 and Parr 2000)

21
Strengths of contemporary approaches

• 1. A concern for the measurement of patterns of
  participation e.g. related to official monitoring
  
• 2. A concern for the production of models of
  student choice decision making
• 3. Some exploration of the everyday experience of
  being a student at university
• 4. Extended exploration of the factors which both
  encourage discourage participation
• 5. Firm rejection of a cultural deficit model
  move, for example, to an exploration of financial
  factors
• 6. Increased concern for managing monitoring
  access

22
Weaknesses of contemporary approaches

• 1. Dichotomous thinking reified oppositional
  categories still dominate research e.g. working
  and middle class, factors encouraging
  discouraging, reasons for and against
  participation bridges and barriers
  participation separated from outcomes etc
• 2. A lack of holistic research there is little
  research combining context-specific quantitative
  qualitative data few studies explore students
  social characteristics simultaneously there is a
  lack of indepth research that compares
  institutions across the sector
• 3. Social relationships the social conditions of
  learning are a product of social relationships ,
  therefore, more emphasis is needed on the
  studentship and learning careers of potential and
  actual entrants
• 4. Empiricisms theory- building longitudinal
  mixed methods studies are needed which generate
  social theory grounded in an analysis of patterns
  of students everyday experience

23
The future of widening participation research

• Access widening participation research
  requires
• Productive empirical research that expands the
  explanatory resources of social science (Holmwood
  Stewart 1991)
• An inclusive definition of the social
  relationships and processes that produce
  differential participation, progression
  outcomes, ranging from those that inhibit to
  those that promote HE
• Contextually sensitive studies considering a
  range of student social characteristics and
  educational experiences, which explore both the
  patterns and causes of differential HE
• A longitudinal account of the social conditions
  of learning in HE
• An exploration of the ways HEIs reproduce
  transform social relationships and differential
  outcomes
• This is, of course, a personal vision a
  demanding research agenda
• It should avoid being driven by legislative
  research funding issues

24
A potential model for future research

• A comparative study of the patterns and causes of
  differential participation, progression and
  outcomes in three HEIs, which represent different
  positions in the higher education sector
• A conceptually unified approach examining all
  students including traditional and
  non-traditional applicants entrants
• A mixed methods inquiry that deconstructs the
  quantitative-qualitative divide
• An examination of the curriculum, learning
  experiences studentship of undergraduates
• A mapping of students responses to the
  curriculum and to institutional widening
  participation practices
• Recommendations based on what students actually
  do rather than data descriptive of their states
  of mind and attitudes