Higher Education Equity Literature Database

Context: Neoliberal/ neoconservative model of higher education and staff members' "conscious, unwitting and coercive complicity" (Shore & Davidson, 2014) - examination of points of resistance in order to not 'lose heart' "by creating safe havens of collective compassion" (p.222)
Aim: To autoethnographically analyse experience in order to "reconceptualise what it meant to be an academic in the heartless world of the neoliberal university" (p.221) by finding pockets of resistance
Theoretical frame: Collusion as conceptual framework (Shore & Davidson, 2014): conscious, unwitting and coercive complicity
Methodology: Discussion between two academics (authors) following their experience of co-teaching a course on social justice and diversity in teacher preparation
Findings: Collusion in neoliberal university: illustrations of conscious complicity in management/ administrative positions, unwitting complicity from "well-intentioned lower managers" and students, and coercive complicity in colleagues who try to push back against neoliberal logics. Three themes: (a) universities as instruments of neoliberalism; (b) academics as managed subjects; and (c) students as entitled consumers
Universities as instruments of neoliberalism: focus on publications/ outputs and 'quick' (as opposed to 'slow') scholarship, with teaching openly subordinated. Manipulation of the system (e.g. through advice to focus on research and 'just get through' teaching) = likely to be a combination of conscious and unwitting collusion through the promise of individual/ self-advancement.
Academic as managed subjects: shifts in the way that teaching is governed (and rewarded) have also promoted individual self-promotion, and the surveillance of performance have promoted conscious complicity "as academics monitor each other" and coercive complicity "as the academics under surveillance fear for their reputations, positions and futures" (p.229). Standardisation of teaching hours = commodifies teaching into a game.
Student as entitled consumer: neoliberal systems position students as self-interested consumers, which plays out in the kinds of unkind/ unhelpful feedback students feel entitled to offer/ question the academics' knowledge/ teaching. This left the authors wondering about whether they should deliver less challenging material. Other examples offered include a student using emotional blackmail and inappropriate methods to beg for a higher grade
Core argument: Strategies to avoid complicity:
Co-teaching (between experienced and new teachers), even when it means more unrecognised work = "one example of coercive collusion against the system" (p.231)
Providing care for sessional tutors
Establishing an award for supportive teaching
Advocating in Senior Leadership meetings
Supporting colleagues to resist heartless policies through writing submissions/ subverting harmful practices

Context: US context = language learning of Somali Bantu refugee. Foregrounds asset discourse educational resources and potential rather than deficit (dominant focus in literature). Overview of history of conflict in Somalia, and the Somali Bantu in particular (positioned as in deficit in Somalia as minority ethnic group, and in refugee settlement discourses) - positioned as backwards and needy. Most Somali Bantu = often have interrupted formal education and often described as preliterate.
Aim: To examine how the narratives of one refugee student challenge deficit discourses about sfrb
Methodology: Narrative inquiry: storytelling as epistemology; narratives = rhetorical artifacts, "offering insights into how participants view themselves, their communities, and the social institutions in which they are situated" (p.2). Case study of Nijab. Data = chapters of his personal memoir (written while doing an Associate Degree in community college), semi-structured interview, recording of public radio interview, news articles about him. Data segmented and coded as deficit, neutral, assets and then thematically coded the asset data
Findings:
Codes for asset in data:
- choice/ agency,
- value/motivation for education
- educational history
- language/ literacy resources
- success in school
- service/ leadership
In his memoir in particular, Najib foregrounded his own assets and family assets:
Agency - asset discourse foregrounds strategies and resources 1) when family escaped Somalia (examples of agency exercised) and in camps (e.g. making and selling footballs to support family); 2) in his education in US (being best ESL learner [interesting: he got stuck in ESL due to performance in standardised tests]
Critical awareness = Nijab's accounts counter the idea that refugees are passive victims. He demonstrated critical awareness of inequities in camp life (systems, lack of knowledge of climate, corruption) and school (e.g. realising that early writing had been given unjustly high marks for motivation). He also viewed his underpreparation for university critically: "he also suggests that he should have had more guidance in preparing for postsecondary education: " The problem is that when you don' t know anything about college, and nobody talks to you, you' re, like, blind. You' re just making choices like, ' Whatever they' re telling me.'" (p.9) - reference to perceived low expectations
Contribution = Najib discussed how family had skills to contribute in the camp (making cow dung plaster; lengthening the life of camp tent roof); in US, family respected for music, interpreting, star athlete, mentor to other ESL students
Limitations: Authors note limitations of single case study and reliance on Najib's discursive representations (rather than seeking to validate his comments through triangulation) and own representations/ positionings
Core argument: Foregrounds possibilities of methodology and focus on asset discourses: "creating the discursive space for alternative stories in our research can contribute to the redistribution of power within our scholarship and within our schools" (p.11). Authors call for pedagogic strategies to help students develop their own asset discourses; "their own agency, resourcefulness, and resilience and to reflect critically on their schooling and other life experiences" (p.11)

Context: High attrition rates in higher education have been a concern for many years in the US, the UK and Australia. In Australia, from 2002 to 2012, the retention rate for domestic commencing Bachelor students barely moved, declining from 19.8 to 19.5% (Department of Education 2013). Despite pedagogical, technological and analytic advances over the past decade, attrition levels have remained consistently high at national level. Despite the universities' capacity to influence both the circumstances and consequences of departure, universities are often neglectful of their departed students, which carries reputational and recruitment consequences.
Aim: To highlight the importance of efforts to re-engage departed students, whose voices continuously influence institutional perceptions.
Theoretical frame: Not specified in study.
Methodology: Article draws on two reports within one Australian institution. Report 1 (Investigation of institutional attrition): Mixed-methods approach; Data collection methods: Interviews (300); focus groups (five- one per faculty); in-depth interviews (10); Participants: Discontinued university students (n=1643, 18% participation rate), Age: Between 18 - 25; Report 2 (Analysis of attrition within Bachelor of Arts programme at the same university): Mixed-methods approach; Primary data collection method: Semi-structured telephone interviews; Participants: Former Bachelor of Arts domestic students (n=17), enrolled as full-time first year students in 2010, but not enrolled in any course in 2011. Data analysis: Thematic analysis via NVivo
Findings: 1)Withdrawal reasons - Personal reasons: Employment, finances, health, personal relations; Personal/circumstantial reasons: 52% of students; Combination of personal & institutional-related reasons: 36% of students; Reasons directly related to institutions: 1 in 8 participants; Logistics (Difficulties travelling & accessing university campuses): 17% of respondents; Mismatched course expectations/lack of enjoyment: 15% of participants. Work commitments: 12% of participants; Financial difficulties: 7% of interviewees. 2) Perceptions towards universities (university retention report): 55% of participants viewed the university positively; Over 70% of participants would recommend the university to friends & colleagues; 13% increase in negative perceptions towards the university between pre-enrolment & post-withdrawal.
Recommendations: a) Strategies for re-engagement of students: 1) Exit interviews should be complemented with on-going communication with departing students via university newsletters/generic materials. 2) Exit interviews can be supplemented by materials specifically targeted to promote future enrolments & engagement 3)Further statistical work at the federal level 4)Follow-up surveys as standard practice at either the institutional/national level b)Practical steps to be taken by universities: 1)Extending Leave of Absence (LoA) provisions to enable students to defer studies for 2 -3 years without dropping out 2) Preserving student numbers & institutional email addresses to expedite future re-enrolments 3)Developing 'nested undergraduate degrees' & simplified process to recognise prior learning so that students can re-enrol with appropriate credit.
Core argument: The findings reveal a need for universities to 'recognise the reality of student uncertainty, acknowledge the validity of the decision to withdraw and engage more deeply with departed students' (p. 94). This would not only improve institutional reputations & recruitment levels, but would also enable students to view departure as a stage of life, instead of a 'mark of failure' (p. 94).

Context: Examines issues of equity and access in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Aim: To "examine issues related to access not only in terms of the theoretical debate just outlined but also in terms of the way financial and other constraints impact on the higher education system itself" (abstract).
Theoretical frame: Not explicit
Methodology: Critical reflection/ historical account
Discussion: Notes how SA's long history of apartheid cannot be ameliorated quickly by/ in the higher education system. Scopes history of attempts towards equity: in 1980s small number of liberal and elite universities used loopholes to admit small number of black students - focus on black students to address their 'deficiencies'... later in decade, discourse shifted to universities changing (curriculum, pedagogies, assessment literacies) - but met with resistance. Gee's work in 1990s opened up new ways of thinking about discourse(s) and identity(ies) and 'epistemological access' (Morrow, 1993). This coincided with pushes to develop curriculum, where staff were marginalised, as were 'academic support units', resulting in underdevelopment of critical theories to support shift of responsibility. National policy reforms and creation of National Qualifications Framework = led to lots of curriculum reform. Political changes post-Apartheid led to massive expansion in student numbers, but with commensurate (if not more) attrition, and SA gov't could not continue to fund increasing student numbers. Consequences = increased competition between universities as 'successful' student numbers dropped (+ impact of HIV/AIDS); setting of enrolment targets.
Core argument: Equitable access to HE = problematic in SA due to historical separation of people and underdeveloped understandings of equity and access.

Context: 'Non-traditional' students entering higher education from further education; context = stratified higher education system and only 34% of student body = 'non-traditional'; also, retention rates are comparatively high. Scopes literature on transition and higher education(p.391)
Aim: To argue that transition is not a one-off event, but instead is an ongoing process over time; To respond to two RQs:
- "What do a cohort of non-traditional students' perceive to be the key transitions that they experience on entry to, and during, their university studies?
- What do the cohort perceive to be the impact of their studies on their identities?" (p.392)
Theoretical frame: Sociocultural theory/ CoP (Lave & Wenger)
Methodology: Authors returned to 'the field' 10 years after initial data collection; elite university which admitted group of FE/ HNQ articulants (unusual) = part of WP mission. Original project = semi-structured interview with students who entered university with HNQ via FE (n=35 + 10 following year; 82% = f; 49%= over 30 years) over four years of degree. Authors attempted to contact participants in 2015 (10 years later): n=15. Analysis = critical moments and themes identified from literature/ emergent themes from interviews.
Findings: Four perceived 'critical moments' identified in data: 1) loss of a sense of belonging on coming to university, 2) learning to fit in by the end of the first year, 3) changing approaches to learning and belonging in the final years of study, and 4) changing selves in the years following graduation.
Critical moment 1: initial expectations, uncertainties about what = to expect/ is expected; feedback and standards; where to start = 'learning shock'
Critical moment 2: role of peers, role of tutorials, academic work, accessing support, support from family and friends.
Critical moment 3: understanding the system, adapting/ adjusting approaches to learning/ strategies, managing time.
Critical moment 4: staying in the system (not dropping out), changing selves, other lives (family/ personal)
Core argument:

Context: To describe the Macquarie LEAP refugee mentoring program. Sets up paper with reference to marketing literature about 'retaining customers'. Scopes literature on sfrb in higher education and mentoring.
Aim: To examine the impact of outreach mentoring on high school sfrb to provide 'smooth transitions' (personal, social, academic)
Methodology: Qualitative evaluation: 5 x focus groups + individual interviews with 54 mentees (Years 10 & 11) and 45 mentors (all sfrb). Grounded theory = analytic frame
Findings: Student-mentees give positive appraisals of their experience (feeling part of university, clear idea of how to study) and mentors (more confidence, helping others). Authors make connection to "consumer organisation identification" (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004) - p.20 = ref to identification/ belonging. Data suggests students have developed a sense of purpose and belonging (but vignettes = related to academic goal setting and doing homework)

Context: 'Post-socialist' conflicts such as cultural domination and material inequality have given rise to social justice movements for both recognition and redistribution. Uses gender and race to formulate the 'redistribution-recognition dilemma' which seem on the face of it at odds. Rather than reject one for the other, Fraser calls for 'developing a critical theory of recognition, one which identifies and defends only those versions of the cultural politics of difference that can be coherently combined with the social politics of equality." (p. 69). Fraser's assumption is that both redistribution and recognition are required for justice.
Aim: To examine the relationship between redistribution and recognition by problematising the tension between equity/social justice movements which seek redistribution (on one hand) and movements which seek recognition (on the other). Redistribution movements call for a stripping away of specificity (for example gender equality arguments which argue for abolishing traditional divisions of labour); whereas movements which promote increased recognition rely on group specificity and 'affirming the value of that specificity' (p. 74). She seeks to examine alternative 'remedies' for social injustice which cross the redistribution-recognition 'divide' and introduces 'affirmation' and 'transformation' which will resolve the 'dilemma'.
Methodology: In order to achieve the aim Fraser develops an analytical heuristic in which redistribution and recognition are distinguished from each other, however, she acknowledges that in reality this is not the case.
Conclusions/Findings: Proposes a four-cell matrix through which to explore the 'redistribution-recognition' dilemma (see p. 87). However concludes that there is 'no neat theoretical move by which it can be wholly dissolved or resolved." (p. 92), it can only be 'softened'. "Socialist economics combined with deconstructive cultural politics works best" (p. 92)
Fraser expresses concern about the lean to the Right in US politics. She concludes thus: "Our best efforts to redress these injustices [cultural and economic subordination] via the combination of the liberal welfare state plus mainstream multiculturalism are generating perverse effects. Only by looking to alternative conceptions of redistribution and recognition can we meet the requirements of justice for all." (p. 93).

Context: Set in context of equity/ widening participation to higher education in Australia and students' transitions into higher education/ student attrition. Scopes literature on first year experience and age differences between students (assumption being that older students have more time pressures than younger students). Students' behaviour = understood to have psychological (academic orientation = includes time perspective = "a mostly non-conscious dimension of human functioning that influences decisions and actions and, therefore, exerts an influence on student engagement", p.705) and behavioural (academic application, or lack of) dimensions, and to examine students' age as factor.
Aim: To explore interrelationships between the various dimensions of student engagement, impact of TP on behavioural/ psychological dimensions of student engagement.
Theoretical frame: Time Perspective = TP (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999) = theory of time orientation (time = basic part of human life): "experiences from the past can influence actions in the present and expectations for the future, especially in relation to perceived costs in the present connected to the reward in future" (p.706). - preference for particular temporal dimension = personal but generally considered to be fluid and contextual. Imbalance in TP = hypothesized to be more influential than intelligence/ intellectual abilities re: attrition = strong relationship between TP and academic activity (perceived value = increased work). Hypothesis = "future-oriented students are more intrinsically motivated and, thus, more likely to employ deep approaches to their studies" (p.706).
Methodology: Survey using Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) with first year students (n=347 with acceptable data)
Findings:
1) There was a significant relationship between dimensions of student engagement with productive educational behaviours
2) Students with Orientations to the future = higher levels of academic application and academic orientation:) "Future TP was a key element in predicting students' deeper engagement with their university studies" (p.715)
3) There were significant patterns in the ages of participants with older students more future focused, more able to multitask, had greater personal agency

Context: Australia, African women migrants
Aim: Examine the experiences of African women migrants in higher education in Australia in a context of increasing enrolment, and particularly how this challenges more "traditional" cultural roles and identities
Conclusions:
- The kinds of traditional cultural roles that African migrant women expect to take on are not recognised, or only cursorily, in education and health contexts. This forms a barrier for African Australian women in transitions of resettlement
- Gender is a significant consideration when examining experiences of HE (and others)
- Rurality, gender, and class (poverty) influence participation in knowledge construction around education and employment: needs to be taken into account in research on refugees
- Reasons for exclusion of African migrant women in HE: race-based exclusion by dominant culture members; language and conceptual knowledge challenges; challenges along cultural lines, particularly regarding tensions relating to gender role expectations.
- Participation in HE represents a hope for women's futures on one hand, but a threat to existing gender roles on the other. Ambivalence: high aspirations, but gendered expectations for home and family
- Points out that gender roles are shifting anyway: lie in Australia demands the collapse of a gendered division of labour
- Women often consider being married and childless as a result of being education: it is a "price to pay," it is a sacrifice. And when pursuing education other women contribute to a sense of guilt and family responsibility over personal fulfilment.
- Brings up ideas about gendered and postcolonial factors that shape the educational experiences of African migrant women in Australia
Core argument:
- Points to the significance of gender in considering experiences of education - something that is not frequently recognised
- Challenges common research agendas that focus on low literacy and interrupted schooling, focus on gendered experiences and culture instead
- I really like that this article considers African migrant women: not refugee specific, and this is purposeful to show shared aspects of culture beyond the assumptions of disrupted education
- Recognises that pursuit of education is complex, shaped by often competing factors related to culture. Cannot be taken in isolation from culture

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: Affective/ emotional dimensions of higher education and their absence/presence post-massification of the academic ('new students'). Authors note that higher education is perceived as "an emotion-free zone" (p.429), characterised by dichotomies ("rational/emotional, mind/body, public/private, masculine/feminine", p.429). The so-called 'affective turn' has led to concerns about the therapeutisation of higher education.
Aim: To "engage with [debates about critical pedagogies, feminist pedagogies, women's studies] to examine the significance of the power of the emotions and their theoretical_ political acknowledgement for the field of higher education" (p.430); to "focus [on] the need to interrogate how the academy is itself an object of the affective and use some of the more interesting theoretical vocabularies to pay attention to certain registers of emotion" (p.431)
Theoretical frame: 'Psycho-sociological academic imaginary', with emotions a central component. View of emotions informed by Ahmed (2004) - focus on what emotions do rather than as possessions; Boler's (1999) work on sociology of emotions and connections with control/ resistance
Methodology: Essay
Findings: Authors review literature on emotions/ affective turn (and how it challenges rational accounts). Authors note how aspects such as gender, social class etc. play out in discourses/ practices of employability (see p.433), which plays out in certain ways for certain people, and focuses on paid work, rather than caring work. See Lynch, Lyons & Cantillon's (2007) work on producing carer citizens rather than focus on productive citizens: "Employability initiatives, therefore, are not benign - as higher education practitioners, we need to be aware of both the gendered constructions and symbolic capital of the performance of differentially embodied ' people skills' , and recognise the ways in which the social and economic are invested in programmes of emotional management" (p.434). Feminist pedagogy refuses to split support out from teaching and learning (ref to Leathwood, 1999) - which stands in contrast with arguments about affective accounts reducing 'hard critical thinking' (Hayes, 2005): invoking further binaries (hard/soft; masculine/ feminine; pure/applied; careless/caring). Authors argue that resistance to attending to the affective is relating to panics about 'diluting' the academy: "Both resistance to the affective turn in HE and resistance to the incursion of the masses draw on a discourse of dumbing down, a pollution of the ivory tower, and evoke a powerful binary: purity/danger, pristine/contaminated, rational/irrational" (p.435).
Core argument: We [collectively - feminists, critical educators, WP scholars] need to include the affective in our analyses, "but to do so in a way that critically engages with the neo-liberal (and any successor) projects which use a discourse of feelings and personal skills in an effort to micro-manage the educational trajectory of subjects" (p.436), which is related to challenging and resisting dominant/ dichotomous views that seek to subordinate the feminine/ the resistant/ the affective.

Context: Focus group data from 14 Sudanese refugees who had been resettled in Australia for at least two year (a period where some social adjustment is expected)
Conclusions: Pre-flight educational experiences for HEB students are often disrupted, which makes learning the expectations of HE difficult to understand at first. But because of this, education is highly valued for HEB students who did not have the same opportunities (link this to the higher 'aspirations' for education that refugee students have, as noted in other literatures for this group). Education in Australia is also seen as an incentive to return back to the home country, in order to get status there and also support community development. 'Traditional' Sudanese culture situates women as homemakers, yet in resettlement these gender are roles are being shifted to allow daughters particularly (what about wives?) to access educational opportunities (as another vector of gaining status for the entire family). This agency is less explicit for the mature age women and wives who resettle in Australia, who have less exposure to HE. The rootedness in a culture of family expectation whilst aiming to gain agency through education in Australia is, therefore, a problematic for this group that can cause tension and conflicts. While the Aus government provides a range of educational support programmes, HEB participation in them is often limited by social, economic, and cultural factors that are deeply linked to pre-migration and post-arrival contexts.
Methodological comments: 'The main challenge is to shift the traditional gender roles so that women can take full advantage of educational opportunities, while staying mindful of the potentially irreconcilable cross-cultural conflicts between the host society and long-established gender roles' (157), i.e. the experiences of these women is being assumed, and not so much explored from their own perspectives (ironically removing their agency, to an extent).
Core argument: Again, shows that the particularities of the HEB experience manifest in particularised experiences of HE for this group. Gender, in particular, needs to form a focus of exploring how HE is experienced, because cultural particularities shape the HE experience for this group.

Context: Post Bradley Review/ Transforming Australia's HE System, has focused attention on 'students from disadvantaged backgrounds' but large number of NESB/ LBOTE students continue to have issues with language proficiency and academic preparedness = "Generation 1.5 (Rumbaut & Ima, 1988), are students who migrated to Australia from a non-English speaking country during childhood" (p.1) - educators assume such students have similar language and literacies to other NES students and most literature focuses on international students. Most literature that explores Gen 1.5 is American (but see Starfield/ Chanock in Aus). Discussion of LBOTE (in all many guises) = underpinned by assumption of homogeneity (p.3). Much research fails to differentiate between international and domestic LBOTE students. Generation 1.5 often display strong oral communication and use "a rich, varied and flexible idiomatic vocabulary, complex forms and reduced forms...often without a discernable accent" (p.3) but have issues with written proficiency (grammar mentioned), making academic literacies difficult. Gen 1.5 "not necessarily literate in L1 due to very little formal education in that language" (p.4)
Discussion of 'eye' v. 'ear' learning
Discussion of bilingual and biliterate (related to diglossia) - students can speak two or more languages but are not literate in those languages
Language proficiency v. socio-demographic factors = not necessarily due to SES. Long-term migrant children may be disadvantaged with schooling by lack of parental support due to low levels of L2 proficiency (Borland & Pearce, 1997), leading to a "cultural fracture between generations which centred around the specifics of their education" (Borland & Pearce, 1997: 107, cited on p.6) - although Williamson makes point that this is not specific to LBOTE students. Silva (1993) "concluded that L2 texts are less fluent (fewer words), less accurate (more mistakes), and less effective" (cited on p.6) and L2 writing is "characterised by less use of passive voice, nominalisation and subordination (in favour of more coordination), less lexical cohesion and more reliance on conjunctive cohesion" (p.6) - this is broad and does not differentiate between international/domestic.
'Basic writer' v. L2 writer: Friedrich (2006): "basic writer status concerns academic development whereas ESL status is about proficiency in English" (cited p.6). Gen 1.5 very similar to 'basic writer' features. Williamson argues "The few differences to be found are to do with fact that Generation 1.5 students may have a potentially conflicted and ambivalent relationship between their L1, L2 and mainstream culture that could impact on their ability to succeed in first year university and that many have the added frustration of persistent ESL-type errors" (p.A7).
Assumptions about monolingual academy "As a result, students' multilingual-influenced writing is often viewed by institutions as "unwelcome deviations from a monolingual standard of English usage" (Harklau, 2003, p. 155)" - p.8)
Core argument: "Generation 1.5 represents a significant blind spot in current discourses of social inclusion and educational disadvantage" (p.9)
"The question of whether to identify as ESL or CALD at university is often a difficult one: will it afford an advantage (e.g. more accommodation given by lecturers) or will it be stigmatising?" (p.9)
Academic pathways = different for Gen 1.5
Gen 1.5 = ear learners who are bilingual but rarely biliterate
Issue of what counts as 'acceptable English' needs to be debated - part of problem is neoliberal approach to commodification of education, which has forced EAP practitioners to the margins by faculty colleagues, as are LBOTE students.

Context: Examines access to higher education in Australia and England works from understanding that access for 'socially disadvantaged' groups = more complex than a social democratic or neoliberal explanation. Authors "take the view that, if higher education as currently constituted is taken for granted as a desirable 'good' for some social groups, it should not be systematically denied to others" - but not the right thing for everyone (p.44). Attends primarily to traditional school-leavers. Offers brief historical account of WP in England and Australia (cites Whitty et al. 2015), focusing more extensively on New Labour (UK) with 50% target, and post-Bradley (Aus) with 20/40 targets
Aim: To compare Australia and England in terms of policies and measurement of access/ WP
Theoretical frame: Not explicit; critical sociological account of higher education
Methodology: Essay
Discussion:
'Quantitative inequality' - at level of how participation/access =measured. Notes that in UK, a new measurement was introduced in 2007 that painted a more positive picture of WP, but when analysed in-depth = "major disparities and differences in participation between diverse social groups when you dug beneath the surface" (p.46). Offer argument of 'Maximally Maintained Inequality' = saturation from 'traditional' sources of students [see Pitman, 2015; Gidley et al. 2010 for same argument]
'Qualitatively inequality' - explained by theory of 'Effectively Maintained Inequality' = more privileged look for new ways to enhance advantage [see argument made by Marginson, 2011 about rich Australians travelling to Ivy League universities to gain competitive advantage]. In UK = "clearly uneven distribution" of students at Russell Group universities- similar picture noted in Australia with Go8.
Authors argue that two countries appear to be competing at level of policy and view each other as "laboratories for testing out policies that they may want to introduce" (p.47) - e.g. introduction of higher student contributions in UK and abolition of Aimhigher.
Barriers to 'fair access' = student finance arrangements (not enough), aspiration and awareness (dispels idea that low SES students have lower/fewer aspirations), school attainment (strong links with SES), importance of social and cultural capital (including access to information - choice/ advice)
Core argument: WP should be reconceptualised as social justice in widest sense possible (see Gale, 2015 & Burke, 2012) but need more policy direction around encouraging entry/ narrowing attainment gaps/ 'radically improving' quality of information given to young people about HE, strengthening links between schools and universities. Research priorities = need "more sophisticated research and datasets" (p.52) and how to link different datasets and more work that questions normative assumptions about WP: "We need to improve access to what exists and change what people gain access to. In our view, social justice demands both" (p.52).

Play is an important part of children’s lives. We all agree with that. But when it comes to practice, play is often considered to be something that gets attention when real work or learning is done. This is particularly true in many schools now. According to our research most Australian parents think that children play less today than before and that too often we adults are expecting our children to grow up too quickly. In this short article, we explain what play is, how we all benefit from letting the children play more, what Australians think about play, and what parents and teachers can do to get our children, and all of us, to play more and better in and out of school. We advocate for a ‘golden hour of play’ for every child every day. 

Read GIE CONVERSATION KICKER # 1: An hour of play

The problem

We don’t know enough about the experiences of gifted students in rural schools. We suspect they might have different experiences from gifted students in urban schools because in rural areas there is a greater prevalence of small schools, higher rates of teacher and principal turnover, a lower average level of teachers’ experience, and a greater likelihood of teachers teaching out-of-field.

While small schools and classes can facilitate more individualised instruction, the peer group for social interaction may be smaller. Supports for gifted students may also be less accessible in rural schools.

What we did

To identify the current state of knowledge about rural gifted education, Jae Jung, Geraldine Townend, Peta Hay, and Susen Smith from GERRIC did a systematic review of peer-reviewed journal articles that reported the results of peer-reviewed journal articles that reported the results of empirical studies of gifted students in rural schools. 103 studies from 14 countries were included in the GERRIC team’s review, all of which were studies published in the English language from January 2000 to October 2020.

Key findings

• Culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged rural students are under-identified as gifted.
• Gifted education provisions are less commonly available in rural schools.
• Provisions for gifted students in rural schools tend to be slow-paced, repetitive, insufficiently challenging, and irrelevant to students’ experiences.
• The socio-emotional wellbeing of rural gifted students may be higher than the socio emotional wellbeing of urban gifted students.

Read the full research brief

This blog post is part of the Gonski Institute for Education’s open access annotated bibliography (OAAB) series. OAABs offer a snapshot of some of the available literature on a particular topic. This post was written by Gonski Institute Research Fellow, Amy Graham. A link through to full article is provided at the bottom of this page. 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: Editorial. Focuses on intersections between student equity and globalisation. Collection of papers that represent 'new imaginary of student equity', which occurs via massification and transnationalism (OECD - higher education policy = example of 'neoliberal imaginary'), so that "national HE systems now increasingly operate as localisations of a global HE space" (p.1). Globalised HE systems = fuelled by increased student mobility and 'increased flows of knowledge mediated by new technologies' (p.1)
Findings:
"In the current privileging of market efficiency, academic excellence, and national investment in human capital, student equity tends to be justified, even conceived, as an objective in their service" (p.1). Rizvi & Lingard (same issue) = assemblage of values. Marginson (same issues) = critique of reliance on numerical measurements of student equity that have limited significance beyond national borders - Marginson argues for expanding participation. Sellar, Gale & Parker (same issue) argue that in Australia, the policy context and global economic context have resulted in more explicit focus on and funding for equity work, therefore opening possibilities for more transformative community-based programs that respond to community needs. Rizvi & Lingard's critique of 'policy as numbers' (nation-centric, 'equity by numbers') = illustrates how such approaches = "lind to the advantages and disadvantages produced through transnational student mobilities, at a time when mobility has
become a significant stratifying factor" (p.2) - students studying abroad to gain positional advantage in employment market
Core argument: New globalised academy = requires new imaginaries of student equity, demanding more nuanced and responsive analytics and frameworks. This/these new imaginar(ies) should include:
(a) an expanded conception of equity;
(b) resources for interrogating the production of policy or knowledge across multiple scales;
(c) attention to the lived experience of inequality in particular localisations of global HE;
(d) a re-conception of the relationships between tertiary sectors;
(e) new designs and rationales for equity programs; and
(f) an understanding of the risks and possibilities afforded by new communication technologies. (p.3)