Higher Education Equity Literature Database

This blog post is part of the Gonski Institute for Education’s open access annotated bibliography (OAAB) series, a project led by Dr Sally Baker. OAABs offer a snapshot of some of the available literature on a particular topic. The literature is curated by a collective of scholars who share an interest in equity in education. These resources are intended to be shared with the international community of researchers, students, educators and practitioners. The literature has been organised thematically according to patterns that have emerged from a deep and sustained engagement with the various fields.

Context: Inequity in completion rates and graduate outcomes for equity students in Australia; marginal place of equity in university career advice/ employment strategies; equity students are underrepresented/ under use university careers services: Unequal outcomes raise questions of what universities are doing to address student equity within their employability strategies, and what more might be required (p.71).
Employability in higher education = conceived as discipline-specific and generic skills (teamwork, communication, and planning) and career-management skills (navigating the employment market), both Bridgstock, 2009 on p.72. Universities use graduate employment outcomes as proxy for employment, which is likely to impact on potential recruitment. Equity students not only have lower completion rates than peers, they also have poorer employment outcomes, and are consistently underrepresented in higher-paying careers. Careers services differ in size and provision across the country (Harvey et al., 2017) and most are optional. Literature strongly contends that equity students are less likely to use careers services (see p.73), because they are less aware of them (Greenbank & Hepworth, 2008), be less confident about accessing them (Urbis, 2011), and might underestimate the value of careers services (see Redmond, 2006 in UK). Literature also contends that careers services are most helpful when tailored to students needs/ backgrounds.
Aim: To respond to two RQs: What role do university careers services play in improving student employability and equity? What broader university strategies can redress inequities in graduate outcomes? (p.74)
Methodology: Survey of careers services managers (n=29 (78% response rate)
Findings: Multiple reasons were identified for unequal access, including a paucity of tailored services for specific under-represented groups, a lack of staffing and financial resources, and a dearth of data to inform strategies and priorities.
There were also issues of reluctance and ambivalence, fear of negative preconceptions, and other disincentives among some equity groups.
Careers managers also noted the need to mainstream more services and provide greater careers education for all commencing students (p.71).
What role do university careers services play in improving student employability and equity?
Majority of managers recognised inequitable patterns in graduate outcomes, especially for NESB and students with disabilities. Two main issues identified by managers = 1) issues with recruitment processes; 2) employers are unwilling to make reasonable accommodations for people with disability.
70% of careers managers = monitoring graduate outcomes, primarily through national graduate outcomes surveys, but also through LinkedIn, other survey data.
Monitoring of uptake of services: lack of systematic monitoring; only 48% believed that their service monitored uptake according to equity groups, and if they did it was mostly for Indigenous students. Managers reported difficulty in identifying low SES students. Anecdotal data suggest = career services less accessed by equity groups (particularly Indigenous students and students with disability); career services not proactive in identifying students in need. Some evidence of careers services tailoring provision to equity groups; 55% offered tailored provision to NESB students (inc. English language development). Most participants identified benefits to tailoring provision for equity students.
p.76
Staffing = limitation to tailoring, and varies massively according to university group (ATN= average of 25.4 staff; Go8 = 10.3; IRU = 8.2; RUN = average of 4.6)
Core argument:
What broader university strategies can redress inequities in graduate outcomes?
Linked employability + equity strategies: The need for institutional collaboration and a multi-pronged commitment to employability and equity was identified, including increasing the amount of work-integrated learning and providing more accessible placements and internships (p.77)
Embedded employability in mainstream curricula: would help to reach all students.
More effective relationships with employers: every participant university is approached by employers looking to recruit students, often according to disciplines reputation and links. 33% of universities = approached by employers who specifically want to recruit equity students (mostly Indigenous and students with disability) mostly government departments and large companies. Barriers to better engagement with employers: General barriers included the lack of centralised coordination of employer relationships, reflecting a silo mentality with universities, and the lack of staff with direct responsibility for the management of these relationships, such as dedicated employer liaison roles. Major barriers to employers recruiting from under-represented groups related to organisational cultures and potentially lowered expectations about the abilities of these students (p.77).
Also, universities need to employ more staff/ develop tailored careers education and support than can be accessed online (see p.78).

Context: Systematic qualitative review of relevant literature, documents and reports, and critically discusses issues facing international students undertaking work integrated learning (WIL) activities as part of their higher education in Australia
Aim: To further investigation of international students engagement in WIL and what can be done to help this cohort overcome existing problems
Theoretical frame: N/A
Methodology: Qual review
Findings: Amongst a wide range of problems, language barriers and limited understanding of local culture emerged as the two common major issues in all the studies reviewed. These have been widely acknowledged as areas in which international students need additional assistance in order to excel in their studies and to gain the most of their Australian study experiences. Key language issues are accents and technology literacy. Other key barrier is around cultural knowledge of workplaces.
Core argument: Need to rethink how to support international students in WIl, including in relation particularly to language and cultural issues.

Context: Role of emotion on employee health and wellbeing in HE and to offer conceptual framework for understanding emotion. Set in context of well-reported working context of stress and anxiety (linking wellbeing to ethics). Notes that literature on emotions and staff = limited, and where it exists, 'staff' often refers only to academics; all people working in a university are included in this paper. Research into workplaces as emotional domains = relatively new Definition of emotion = includes physiological dimension (see discussion of 'heat', p.175), which has impact on neurobiology (distinguishing affect from emotion, see p.175). This paper foregrounds emotion (rather than stress/ anxiety or attitudes) to obtain "far greater account of the role of the individual in shaping their experience of their social environment in ways that are relevant to health" (p.174)
Aim: To "raise awareness among higher education (HE) scholars of (1) the untapped potential of emotion research as a means of investigating working life in the sector and (2) the implications of emotion for employee health and wellbeing" (p.171)
Theoretical frame: Cognitive psychology (Lazarus (1991, 1999) - current thinking = emotions are interaction between "(1) conscious appraisals of events and (2) unconscious, pre-determined emotional responses to
particular circumstances" (p.176). Appraisal = key process (integration of personal wellbeing, environmental realities, personal interests), and is primary (relevance/ goals) and secondary (coping: problem/ emotions). Also draws on Briner (2005) - emotion in work- and 3 reasons underpinning emotions research: ethical, economic, challenging (therefore intrinsically appealing as research topic).
Methodology: Essay
Findings: Offers conceptual framework based on Lazarus' work (see theoretical frame) - discussed in detail on p.177-180. Offers distinction between felt and revealed emotion (p.182)
Core argument: Emotional responses to/ in workplace = interaction between individual and organisations. A number of emotions can co-exist and are mutually influential (see p.182) - research interest in balance of two = useful way forward

Context: Massification in Higher Education systems has led to new conceptions of what university education is and what it perhaps should be. In the UK, changes in the relationship between HE institutions and the state that (mostly) funds them have led to questions about university qualifications and the constructed notion of 'employability'.
Aim: To interrogate discourses relating to the concept of 'employability' in relation to the role of Higher Education and the shifting power of the state to influence labour markets to privilege existing forms of capital. One discourse sustaining and justifying massification has been that of a Social Justice imperative. The authors challenge this as a truly legitimising discourse, suggesting that massification could be simply the newest way of producing workers so that the UK can compete in the global knowledge economy.
Findings:
Employability is increasingly a function of universities that is shaped by governments seeking to replace labour markets. The authors argue this has three implications:
1). increasing power for employers and employer groups;
2). two tiers of universities (those that produce employees and those that produce employers);
3). adverse impact on pedagogy and curricula.
Relevance to PGCW/ equity: As the modern massification in undergraduate higher education continues, and the so called 'neoliberalisation' of universities continues, how possible will it be for students from differently privileged backgrounds to maintain footing in the qualifications arms race?
Pedagogical intervention suggested? Clear reference to the importance of capacity building education and, for example, Freirean approaches in terms of opposing the 'banking' pedagogical model the authors suggest the discourses being critiqued encourage in the 'neoliberal university'.
Points to future research agenda? Exploring the 'prospect of the reward' from PGCW study among certain groups of students to understand whether they will be reluctant to self-invest in their education when they might not have ready cash or available credit to do so.

Context: Authors premise that higher education is experiencing 'disruptive change' - displacement of existing markets/ customers, and that enabling programs were created to respond to market change. Participation in higher education adds 'national intangible capital'. Authors argue that enabling education = part of global education market. Authors offer summary table of stakeholders recorded in literature, who include students, family, university, government, funding bodies, local community, wider region, media.
Methodology: 'Stakeholder theory' (Freeman, 1984), based on Rosalie's PhD data
Findings: Authors identified 14 stakeholders:
Market stakeholders students, university decision-makers/ administrators, unions, industry/employers
Non-market stakeholders: family and friends, local/ regional community
Combined market/non-market: enabling teachers, support staff, enabling association, government compliance bodies, funding bodies, university partners, media.
Authors identify competing discourses between stakeholders (p.68):

This blog post is part of the Gonski Institute for Education’s open access annotated bibliography (OAAB) series, a project led by Dr Sally Baker. OAABs offer a snapshot of some of the available literature on a particular topic. The literature is curated by a collective of scholars who share an interest in equity in education. These resources are intended to be shared with the international community of researchers, students, educators and practitioners. The literature has been organised thematically according to patterns that have emerged from a deep and sustained engagement with the various fields.

Context: Explores limited success of Indigenous enabling program at CQU facilitating access to higher education. Authors offer description of Indigenous enabling program; suggest new online version = "helping to address geographical and social isolation and improve successful outcomes for Indigenous Australians" (abstract). Accepting an offer into a course = "only the first of many challenges" (p.1), including access to computer, non-Indigenous environment, FinF. Need to also consider challenges of transitioning out of university study (especially issues of rurality and SES disadvantage). Notes importance of Indigenous centres in supporting students.
Aim: To describe Indigenous-specific TEP at CQU in order to argue "that a well-designed entrance program can help to address access barriers, particularly the barrier of geography, and help to support Indigenous students, both through the university entrance process and throughout their studies" (p.2), particularly the flexible, online nature of the provision.
Methodology: Description
Discussion: Approx 50% of Indigenous students entered UG via enabling programs (see Behrendt review). There are two enabling programs: TEP and STEPS. TEP run by Nulloo Yumbah Centre. TEP reviewed in 2011 (separately from STEPS). Data pre-2011 = patchy and shows that only 100 students completed TEP in 10 year period and only a few transferred into UG studies. The reviews in 2011 and 2012-13 suggested that CQU needed to rethink its approaches and support for Indigenous students (to improve success rates). Nulloo Yumbah = became The Office of Indigenous Engagement. TEP is now fully online for urban, regional and remote communities, and for students in correctional centres. TEP encourages students to reflect on own lives and communities, with a "capacity for an in-depth learning about themselves and combining Indigenous learning and non-Indigenous learning in way that make sense for them" (p.7). TEP also has 1-2 week residential block program = intensive learning.
Core argument: That access to HE/ enabling education = "critical tool" for supporting Indigenous students to overcome disadvantage

Context: Widening participation agenda has increased participation in enabling pathway programs with high representation of students from 'non-traditional backgrounds'. In the OnTrack enabling program at Murdoch University a high proportion of students are engaging with STEM subjects, despite concerns about a decline in STEM students across the educational sector, and despite research that has indicated that enabling students tend to have higher levels of anxiety related to mathematics than undergraduate cohorts.
Aim: "The aim of the current study was to characterise the range of past learning experiences, attitudes, emotions and aspirations towards science and maths learning amongst a cohort of students entering an Australian pre-university enabling program" (p. 17).
Methodology: Survey of OnTrack students across two intakes of the program in 2014. Survey collected quantitative and qualitative information and as analysed using SPSS for statistical analysis.
Findings: Students enrolled in STEM subjects in OnTrack had diverse prior experiences of STEM teaching and learning. A positive prior educational experience, and perceived high-quality teaching with a positive classroom teacher, are important factors in fostering positive attitudes toward, and higher levels of confidence about, STEM amongst student cohorts. In light of this, the paper advocates for social and emotional learning (SEL) embedded within the curriculum and a supportive classroom environment, as an important teaching focus in enabling education in order to help students reconceptualise their prior negative experiences of learning in STEM. This study also revealed that students misrecognized the realities of future degrees or careers, for example, misrecognizing the need for prior mathematical training in their degree. This may be related to prior negative experiences with STEM, highlighting the importance of providing opportunities to challenge those prior negative experiences.
Core argument: Greater attention needs to be paid to the affective nature of students' responses to learning in STEM. Prior negative experiences of STEM are important in shaping the attitudes and aspirations of students in STEM; providing opportunities for students to challenge those previous negative experiences should be a priority of enabling STEM curricula.

Context: UK higher education. Paradigm shift in perception of teachers (from didact to facilitator) = also shifted perceptions of teacher as content/subject expert. Argues that these shifts resulted in teaching becoming subordinate to learning, leading to reduced status for teachers. Author issues warning: "...there are dangers in an uncritical embrace of student-centredness, if it undermines the role of the teacher, and undersells the immense contribution of the academy and academic knowledge" (p.170). Academic discourse = difficult to comprehend because they "work with propositional meanings of a decontextualized and abstract nature" (p.172), which do not align with students' frames of reference
Aim: To "consider the intellectual challenges students face in attempting to make sense of a knowledge community's specialist discourse and the teacher's role in helping them to tackle these challenges" (p.171).
Theoretical frame: Nothing specific/ socio-cultural theory
Methodology: Essay
Findings: Argues subject teachers have 3 key roles as subject teachers in helping students to enter the discourses of subject: 1) lending capacity to participate in meaning; 2) designing 'well planned excursions into unfamiliar discursive terrain"; 3) coaching students to speak academic discourse.
1) Understanding and conversation = based on sharing frames of reference and intersubjectivity (Bruner, 1996) - teachers can open up conversations and "sharing in a flow of meaning" (p.173) - socialisation and repeated engagement/ sharing = facilitates students' acquisition of/ internalisation of frames of reference in (new) knowledge/discourse community. Offers example of how this works in practice in OU module on health.
2) Leading excursions: teachers can ask questions using 'everyday discourse' about course materials and introducing new elements: "students internalise [structuring features of the specialist discourse] primarily through participation, rather than from explicit explanation" (p.174). Offers example of how this works in practice in OU module on health - 'designing a vigorous flow of meaning' (importance of narrative: plot, storyline): "Because knowing is a dynamic process, located in flows of meaning, learning experiences need also to be constituted as vigorous flows of meaning" (p.177)
3) Coaching students to speak the discourse 'appropriately' in writing and speaking. With writing, coaching takes place in form of feedback that poses questions and "gives important clues as to how ideas might be reframed to achieve greater force and clarity within the terms of the discourse" (p.178), ideally on a regular basis. Speaking = classroom discussion and teacher = 'live model' of how discourse is spoken
Core argument: Teacher has 3 key roles in opening access to specialist discourses: 1) lend capacity to frame meanings in specialist discourse; 2) plan, organise and lead excursions into specialist discourse; 3) help students to speak the discourse competently

Context: Access to HE/ "worldwide push for equitable and inclusive universities" (p.54)
Aim: To describe the Community Aspirations Program in Education (CAP-ED) Indigenous enabling program at CQU, which was designed to 'build the educational aspirations of Indigenous people' by moving university into community spaces and offering opportunities for people to visit university campuses: "CAP-ED is designed to inspire and enable Indigenous people" (p.55)
Methodology: Essay/ description
Discussion: Imperative for CAP-ED came from Office for Indigenous Engagement - who wanted short, informal program to engage with Indigenous community, which was built to fill a gap in the CQ area for Indigenous specific literacy/ numeracy/ language provision and to increase Indigenous participation at CQU. Discussion of evolution/design of the program (for example, issues with working from a program located in Victoria), local consultation: "The team aimed to build on community practices, rather than impose an external way of working - approaching the project as 'working with' not 'working for' the local communities. This close engagement helped to embed Indigenous cultures into the program as it was developed" (p.58).
CAP-ED offers:
- 5-week 'CAP-ED and Me' workshop program in Rockhampton
- Networking lunches at CQU campuses or community venues
- Information sessions
Core argument: Success of CAP-ED and Me workshops = down to relationships between university and local community/ community elders, which was facilitated by the Indigenous staff working for CQU (because locals were initially hesitant). The flexible delivery is another important factor behind the success of CAP-ED.

Context: Enabling education in Australia; issues with retention/ attrition on enabling students. OLT-funded project.
Aim: The project aims are articulated as:
"1. Investigate the nature and patterns of student attrition across the programs of the five participating institutions - and consult with other Australian enabling programs - to compare attrition patterns from each and identify systemic similarities and differences from patterns of student attrition in undergraduate degree programs;
2. Develop a suite of appropriately targeted evidence-based intervention strategies to improve student retention rates in university-based enabling programs on the basis of the information obtained from our investigation;
3. Develop guidelines of best practice to accompany the suite of strategies;
4. Effectively disseminate the strategies and guidelines for their use nationally and internationally" (p.11).
Methodology: Case studies of 5 university enabling programs at Uni of Newcastle, Uni of South Australia, Uni of Southern Queensland, Uni of New England, Edith Cowan University. Data collection included surveying students, and use of institutional data with regard to enrolments and retention
Conclusions:
- Demographic profile of students: no one factor was found to be significant in predicting whether students would attrit
- Students who are 'engaged' in their program by Week 2 are likely to persist
- Due to diversity of programs and students, 'normal' measurements of retention and attrition are not useful or effective for describing patterns of participation and drop out in enabling programs/ by enabling students.
- Some attrition is 'desirable', "as the enabling program is playing the role of a 'filter' prior to an undergraduate program" (p.5).
- Characteristic 'open door' strategy makes enabling programs a "very successful pathway for non-traditional students into higher education" (p.5).
- Factors ('in-program') that contribute to attrition are noted as:
o Time pressures
o External pressures/ 'life events', especially for mature age students
o Low rate of awareness/ use of support services
o Low student engagement with course and/or other students
Recommendations:
"R1.1 That procedures be developed for identifying non-participating students, contacting them and assisting in re-engagement or a positive exit process or (as a last resort) administratively cancelling their enrolment.
R2.1 That enabling programs investigate pre-enrolment processes to find the optimal mix of information and experiences to best prepare students for what it means to study at university, especially with reference to the kind of time commitment involved.
R2.2 That enabling programs, where appropriate, increase provision of counselling services, with special reference to meeting the challenge of provision in an external program and for students attending lectures in the evening.
R2.3 That enabling programs investigate and develop processes to facilitate student access to existing counselling services.
R3.2 That funding should be sought to investigate the particular challenges of teaching and learning for enabling students and to develop a range of appropriate enabling pedagogies.
R4.3 That enabling programs investigate the manifestations of "time pressure" on their students and develop flexible curriculum and course design responses to mitigate this source of attrition.
R4.4 That the five participating institutions facilitate the development of appropriate benchmarking of student retention in their programs with the aim of extending it to other enabling programs as appropriate.
R4.5 That Australian enabling programs undertake to develop a Community of Practice in addressing student attrition, including a collaborative process of sharing and mutual discussion of retention enhancement strategies.
R4.6 That Australian enabling programs devote resources, including seeking dedicated funding, to develop a more rigorous understanding of best practice in student retention in enabling programs" (p.6).
Core argument: Attrition in enabling programs is high, and appropriate strategies and funding should be developed to assist students to remain engaged in the program and ensure that appropriate benchmarking occurs so that comparisons between programs are accurate. However, attrition is not in and of itself negative, nor does it detract from the effectiveness of enabling programs.

Context: Australian enabling programs: performance and experience of students/ regional Australian university (SCU). Authors work from the understanding that enabling students perform better in their undergraduate studies than their peers who entered their studies via a 'traditional'/ ATAR pathway. Focus on strengths.
Aim: To explore "the performance and experience of students studying a range of undergraduate degrees after completing an enabling programme in a regional Australian university" (abstract).
Methodology: Mixed methods: authors draw on institutional data (enrolments/ performance); qualitative data collection: 1) individual interviews with post-enabling students (n=7) now studying in second year of UG program; questions asked covered:
_ "Choosing to study at the university, their pathway to the university and motivations to study here.
_ Studying at the university, what helps them to learn and how university fits in with their lives.
_ Transition to undergraduate study, the impact of the enabling experience on their undergraduate study.
_ Future thoughts with regards to their plans after studies have finished" (p.4)
2) Interviews with educators working in UG programs (n=5 from 5 different departments: Arts and Social Sciences; Business and Tourism; Education; Environment, Engineering and Science; and Health and Human Sciences).
Findings:
Institutional data: SCU has approximately 50% attrition rate (as per Hodges et al., 2013 and Whannell & Whannell, 2014). Once completed, 80% of enabling students enrol in undergraduate studies [at SCU], 83% of whom go into nursing, education, social sciences, arts, midwifery, psychology or environmental science (see p.5). Post-enabling students have consistently higher success rate than 'traditional' students (mean performance rate = 80.3% compared with 75.4%, over 2011-2017), higher GPA (4.25 compared to 3.91) and higher retention rates (mean retention rate 68% compared to 63%.
Student interview data: major themes = confidence, approaches to studying, managing 'lifeload' (competing challenges), 'skills' [SB: they are better described as practices], appreciation of staff and teaching.
Staff interview data: enabling program = held in "high esteem", particularly with regard to students' digital literacy. Educators also perceived that post-enabling students are more successful [no definition of success offered] - some of this relates to perceived motivation and confidence, and time management. Other themes include confidence and attitudes to study.
Core Argument: Standard argument about enabling programs are important.

Context: Enabling education in Australia; focus on retentions of students/facilitating 'effective student engagement'. Authors use enabling and bridging as interchangeable labels. Draws on 'student engagement' - authors draw on work by Kuh, Kahu, Zepke & Leach and Thomas to articulate a definition of engagement. Authors focus on belonging and foreground the importance of 'warmth and respect' from tutors, embedding interactive learning tasks, and a partnership approach.
Aim: To present a holistic approach - Guidance, Encouragement, Modelling, Structure (GEMS) - developed from a qualitative study with students studying on the 'Preparing for Success' enabling course at SCU.
Methodology: Multi-stage study: 1) online survey post-orientation (n=215; 97% responses rate); 2) online study for students enrolled in 'Managing Your Study' course (n=152; 40% response rate); 3) focus groups (online and offline) with students (n=30/ 15 in each). Grounded theory approach taken. Limitation acknowledged: face-t-face focus groups undertaken by Academic Coordinator, which is likely to explain the predominantly positive responses.
Findings:
Guidance: students reported that tutors respected their ability, gave guidance, challenged their thinking. Overwhelmingly positive response reported, which is likely to be the result of the way the data was collected.
Encouragement: authors derived this theme from language in the data that connected with confidence, supported, tutors' language, approach, attitude, feedback (see p. 30)
Modelling: words that connected with this theme = 'show', 'demonstrate', 'professional', 'examples': "In both the survey and focus groups students noted that one of the things they most appreciated about the PSP was the way lecturers showed them what to do" (p. 30).
Structure: students appeared to perceive the PfS course as well-structured.
Core argument: Authors claim that the GEMS approach "activated student potential" (abstract).

Context: Discusses a model of 'engaged outreach' -based on principles of community engagement to develop stronger links between universities and local communities -as an alternative to traditional outreach. Outreach program is specifically focused on two Pacific Island communities in southeast QLD (area of 'high social deprivation'). Purposes of outreach = building aspirations and increasing access to HE.
Theoretical frame: Initiative based on notion of 'engaged scholarship': "engaged outreach seeks to promote
a framework based on active engagement with multiple stakeholders, who work collaboratively to address factors impacting on higher education access" (p.60) - working with broad group of stakeholders - developing a sense of [co-]ownership of the program
Methodology: 2-year study to develop engaged outreach with two identified communities (based on a view of multiple disadvantage: low SES/CALD). Intentional move away from school-based outreach to collaboration and negotiation with range of stakeholders (see fig, p.63) = community-based participatory action research approach
Stage 1: preliminary scan of area for issues relating to access to HE for CALD communities = informal meetings with 76 different people (via snowball recruitment). Stage 2: interviews/ committee meetings/ literature review. Also recruitment of community liaison officers and community leaders identified. Stage 3: stakeholder analysis, community leaders' workshop, action planning meetings. 24 interviews conducted in Stage 2: 11 young people/ 13 parents
Findings:
1. Access to HE is an issue for low SES/ CALD students
2. Lack of RPL = issue for adults from these communities
3. English language proficiency and time needed to acquire appropriate level for tertiary study = concern for many
Findings specific to Pacific Islander participants:
- Cost = significant issue
- Parental involvement in children's education = minimal
- School engagement and attainment = 'major issue'
- HE perceived to take a lot of time and investment and thus, while highly regarded, HE = not always prioritised
- Few HE-educated role models in the communities studied
Three key strategies identified through community consultation:
Provision of accessible information
Provision of better support at school
Raise aspiration to higher education
Limitations: time-frame of project; research fatigue for community; unreliable participants; concerns regarding validity - possible sample bias because many were reluctant to talk
Core argument: "Key to facilitating increased access is a comprehensive understanding of current community attitudes and aspirations towards higher education and of the specific constraints impacting on higher education access" (p.71)

Context: masters by CW programs as transitions to RHD (not 'terminal' degrees)
Aim: to argue for more flexible PhD pathways (i.e., not just honours)
Theoretical frame: ?
Methodology: document analysis for the description of the cohort of Aust masters by CW students; semi-structured interviews with students, supervisors, deans, etc
Findings: masters by CW can be a PhD pathway
Relevance to PGCW/ equity: Q: can additional support for CW students to encourage them to transition to RHD programs be aligned with equity support goals and strategies?
Pedagogical intervention suggested?: more support, etc
Points to future research agenda?: see response to relevance question above

Context: The first-year experience provides the "litmus test" (p. 1) through which current contestations about the modern university are understood. The composition of the student cohort is changing and McInnis (2001) suggests three strategies through which the university might re-engage students whose attentions might be spread across multiple competing demands: curriculum design, learning communities, infrastructure and support of student experience (p. 3). Engagement with the first of these factors using the work of McInnis forms the contextual and conceptual foundation of the paper and is applied to an examination of the STEPS program, and in particular the Language and Learning course at Central Queensland University.
Aim: To show how the challenge of engaging curriculum is addressed in the Language and Learning course, STEPS program, CQU.
Methodology: Reflection and theoretical exploration of surrounding literature.
Findings: Explores the literature and challenges of transformational learning, arguing that transformational learning is present in this course via the intentional uses of students' experiences, stimulation critical reflection and encouragement of individual development. The curriculum encourages students to see education as constructed and to critically examine their experiences of education. While it is focused on skills it also encourages students to consider knowledge production and its relationship to worldviews, and correspondingly how larger social issues impact on the individual. In this way all knowledge and understanding is interconnected. The curriculum begins with an examination and identification of different learning styles and transitions into whole brain learning. Students deconstruct text-context and develop skills that are transferable. The course emphasises lifelong learning and therefore how to learn and the stimulation of creative and critical thinking that is useful in a range of contexts. The development of writing/reading skills, opportunities to write and receive feedback, develop critical relationships with staff and a community of learners is all emphasised in the curriculum, with the aim of not only developing skills but confidence and personal growth or transformation.
Core argument: The Language and Learning courses engages the student experience and helps students to successfully transition into first year.

Context: Foundation programmes in South Africa (as result of widening participation post-Apartheid) - particularly examining how to open access to powerful epistemologies, particularly with reference to language development.
Aim: To report on an ethnographic study of students' experience in a first year philosophy course
Theoretical frame: Epistemological access (Morrow, 1994)
Methodology: Ethnographic study of first year students at a 'black university': year long engagement (class observation, written work, interviews (formal and serendipitous) with students and staff + evaluation of class. Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday) = analytic lens
Findings: Analysis by field/ tenor/ mode
Field: In interacting with content, students tended to impose commonsense understandings without substantiation = mismatch of expectations
Tenor: 'Lack of knowledge' impacted on text production and engagement with philosophers and audience - students tended to treat content as 'gospel' rather than something to critically engage with/ misrecognise the philosophers' critical engagement with profound and complex concepts/ questions. Also impacts on students as writers (relationship with reader/lecturer). Voice = significant and complex issue.
Mode: connected to conventions of genre; students demonstrate more spoken features in their writing: "it demonstrates a common sense approach to essay writing, which has grown out of students' familiarity with primary discourses rather than an approach that has been developed by more formal, school-based, secondary discourses" (p. 246)
Core argument: Analysis of students' texts through lenses of field, tenor and mode illustrate how students are drawing on different expectations and understandings than their lecturers due to "differences in the cultural contexts serving as reference points for each" (p.649); therefore, epistemological access is more than 'how-to', and more "about bridging the gaps between the respective worlds students and lecturers draw on" (p.649). Has important implications for staffing.