Higher Education Equity Literature Database

Context: Sydney, Australia
Aim: Identify examples of institutional good practice when considering how students from a refugee background access and experience higher education. Focuses on factors that influence the decision to enter university, where SFRBs access information and advice, how they use access courses and special entry schemes, the recognition of their prior learning and overseas qualifications, and the support and sensitivity shown by the institution.
Conclusions:
Recommendations:
- Recognises the need to gather specific statistical data to be systematically gathered on the number of applications from SFRBs, their success rate for entry, the courses studies, and completion rates
- Institutions should become proactive in distributing information about non-traditional entry routes via refugee community groups and migrant resource centres
- Creation of a "one-stop-shop" offering advice and information about opportunities for study in further and higher education can be established, offering free and impartial advice and guidance
- Offer refugees "bridging" and "taster" courses targeting specific refugee communities
- Institutions can offer more "cultural sensitivity" training to staff, including making that training compulsory
- Criteria and procedures for assessing applicants previous experience and learning be made explicit and open
- With student agreement, relevant staff should be informed from the outset about a SFRBs background. Appoint sensitive staff and tutors.
SFRBs should be able to access all of the support services available to international students, and that they should be made aware of these services from the beginning

Context: Explores academic writing experiences of 7 sfrb at a private liberal arts college in USA. 'Hope College' offered 7 full scholarships (including accommodation = live-on campus) to 7 sfrb who were put forward by local refugee advocacy group. College offered full suite of support (textbooks etc.) and also designed and ran a pre-freshman/ summer bridging course (2 modules: Speech and World Religions) and students lived together during that time. Study looks at how students use support that is offered (human support), students immediately offered a peer tutor (normally students seek out rather than having allocated) - this peer tutor was freshman student one course ahead of participants. Students could also access writing centre and the Academic Support Director. Students also asked for peer support. Study also explored different types of texts students were required to produce (writing practices)
Theoretical frame: Uses Street's (!984) ideological model of literacy/ social practices view of literacy.
Methodology: Longitudinal qualitative repeat interview 'multiple case' study with 7 students and some faculty members over a year
Conclusions: There was diversity in how much support the students accessed but they all sought support for writing and had some form of support: "it is quite remarkable that, in general, these students did not face many difficulties coping with their writing assignments. The fact that writing did not become a major challenge to them is largely a result of the fact that all seven participants were very proactive in drawing upon the resources that were made available to them" (p.47). Level of support needed/ requested appeared to depend on students' previous educational experience
Core argument: Useful conceptual frame of 'Generation 1.5' drawn on to position study/ sfrb. Focus on types of and access to support.

Context: Four refugee students engaged in HE study in the UK, in a university-based course which was specifically designed and developed to support refugees with higher-level and professional qualifications to access either HE or employment commensurate with their existing qualifications. Focus on 'highly educated refugee professionals' who flee to the UK.
Aim: What are the HE experiences of highly educated refugee professionals who flee to the UK, but who must then gain a qualification in the UK in order to re-establish a professional qualification.
Conclusions: Use of Bourdieu to contextualise theoretical framework of article (habitus; doxa). The HE experience of HEB students is diverse and cannot be homogenised, yet also encompasses specificities from mainstream students that need to be accounted for in developing strategies to support them. Pre- and post-migratory experiences shape how these students encounter higher education. Avoid over-generalising and universalising the needs of refugee students. Experiences of: racism; need to send remittances to family; etc. led refugee students to feel marked by their HEB background; but becoming part of the University system, and made to feel a sense of belonging there, led to this marker of their identity being less salient.
Core argument: Feeling a sense of belonging with the HE institution is key to having HEB students succeed and have better overall quality of life. This could be drawn on as a framework to justify why we are doing the project, and what we hope to achieve with it (i.e. strategies for equity and belonging). When treated carefully, HE can be a space where marginalisation and exclusion are mediated and transcended for refugee students.

Context: Lower rates of access for students from refugee backgrounds in Canadian post-compulsory education, contributed to by lower rates of schooling (achievement). Adult SfRBs are more likely to attrit than people who migrated during childhood. Lower access rates = lead to reduced economic and social mobility (resulting in more likely to live in poverty/ impact on mental health). Authors make strong argument for providing education so that refugees can contribute more (and more meaningfully) to Canadian society. Outlines issues that SfRBs face (compared with non-forced migrants). Issues include: lack of capacity to prepare for leaving/ lack of evidence of identification and qualification/ lack of information = resulting from lack of preparation/ lack of English fluency: longer study time, less information for making educational and career decisions/ mental health and associated low self-esteem
Aim: "The purpose of the qualitative study was to explore the experiences, needs, barriers, and expectations of survivors of torture and/or war, interested in entering post-secondary education in Canada" (p.56).
Methodology: Community-based participatory action research: interviews with participants from Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (n=38; 18 m, 23 f), 10 interviews with CCVT staff and a focus group with 3 x Tamil participants (then translated into English). Participants received $25 honorarium. Project had 3 phases: 1) exploration of experiences, needs, barriers, expectations; 2) development of innovative program intended to address needs; 3) pilot implementation of program. Paper focuses on phase 1. Analysis = constant comparative approach. Participatory part = interview schedule negotiated by steering committee. Thematic, iterative and axial coding for analysis. Importantly, no demographic information was collected to ensure the participants felt safe and unidentified.
Findings: All participants had completed secondary school -either pre or post-arriving in Canada, participants had varying proficiency with English, diverse educational/disciplinary backgrounds and previous employment experiences. Some participants had gaps in their education due to flight, and they had diverse educational goals [take away = not homogeneous].
Information barriers: Many participants = lack of information available about how to navigate educational pathways, including: "a lack of information on what types of secondary school and/or post-secondary education programs are available to them and for what purpose, what requirements they must meet
in order to pursue post-secondary education, how to apply to post-secondary education, which institutions are better suited to their needs, the differences between private and public post-secondary institutions, what educational options they have to continue in the professional careers they had in their country of origin, and how future employment might be linked to their educational choices" (p.59). One participant said "you don't know where to begin" (p.59). Lots of participants asked research assistant for advice.
Access to professional support: some participants received useful information, often from settlement/ shelter workers or school guidance counselors/ academic advisors they encountered at open days/ campus tours. But, lots of participants reported = received "unreliable, unhelpful, or inaccurate guidance, from social service, education, and government institutions" (p.59). Others received wrong information, particularly being mistaken for international students. Misinformation about immigration status and educational entitlements = persistent.
Participants relied on word of mouth advice
Participants reported lack of transparency about credentials/ qualification assessment (from home country to Canada). Also misinformation about financial support and varying proficiencies with English and computers = problematic for some (lower proficiency level).
Impact = "disappointed, confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed" (p.61) and saw themselves wasting time.
Recommendations from participants: individual support person; customized supports to help with navigating textual gatekeepers (forms etc.); peer mentorship (for human connection)
Core argument: Lack of preparation for flight: "lack of preparation and support can make refugees vulnerable to informational barriers" (p.57).

Context: Six refugees all currently or recently studying in a UK university.
Aim: What barriers do refugee students face when integrating into the university? What practical approaches can be developed to suit their particular needs?
Conclusions: Little specific support provided to refugees to access HE. Difficulties in calculating the number of refugees in HE because, like in Australia, they are often classed domestic students without context of their HEB. Because refugees in UK often have highly professional background their inclusion in the university system needs to be addressed (could be different to the Aus context). Issues of VISA category are mentioned (i.e. length of stay - could be useful in the context of asylum seekers and TPV in Aus). Application process and types of courses available to refugee students are also barrier. Refugees can be amongst the poorest people in the society, and university can be seen as a financial risk. These are all barriers to access university. Refugees require specific kinds of emotional and pastoral care that may not be available to them as domestic students. Student experience becomes highly individualised, and can lead to exclusion and attrition because of a lack of targeted support. Difficulties socialising, a lack of trust may also influence how students interact with other students. Placement and WIL is also considered to be a barrier to students from HEB. The independence required of students in HE can be a barrier to their success, and lead to attrition. But, there is also the problem of stigmatising refugees: many do not want to be categorised through the label. So this is a paradox that needs careful attending to in HE institutions. Otherwise, refugee students may not be aware of the support they can access.
Core argument: Provides a list of recommendations, including:
- Raising awareness of refugee issues through community events
- Offering staff development courses and workshops to communicate rights, entitlements, and support needs of refugees. Involve outreach groups in this training.
- Ensure that there are several staff with expert knowledge of refugee and asylum issues to provide advice and support to staff (and to refugees?!)
- Automatically making additional and targeted support measures available for students with HEB
- Appropriately sensitive contact made with students who are HEB, even if they have not self-declared.

Context: Examines the policy context of student-parents in English HE. Set in context of diversified academy that remains beholden to patriarchal, hegemonic policies and practices that privilege the experience of 'traditional' students - discussion of historic exclusion of women from education; Westernised masculine rational thought (denial of embodied, affective knowledges). Moreau offers a critique of the impacts of neoliberal/ entrepreneurial university on student-parents (see p.911). Offers analogy of parenting as 'greedy institution' (see Moreau & Kerner, 2015 for the same argument about universities): "Both appear to be time rather than task-driven and always leave room for bettering one's own (academic and parenting) work" (p.911). Parenting = characterised as 'private matter' (increased parent choice; increased scrutiny of parents)
Aim: To explore "the role of university policies in compounding the experiences of student parents - a group which remains under-researched" (p.908); examining whether university policies 'normalise' the care-free student.
Theoretical frame: Feminist theory (Crompton, 1999) -intersectionality; three-part levels of care: care orders (macro), care regime (meso), care practices (micro); sociology of (higher) education/ widening participation
Methodology: Data in paper gathered in Nuffield Foundation-funded project on student parents in HE (fieldwork in 10 different English universities) = desktop audit, interviews with staff and student-parents, demographic questionnaire for students. Policy = macro-institutional level; "institutional and national policies are conceptualised as creating a terrain allowing particular scripts to emerge" (p.909).
Findings: Dissociation of care in HE = evident in what's not visible - lack of representation of student-parents and children on campus. Dominant characterisations of students = carefree, young and careless. Overlap between student parents and mature students = partial, and not immediately visible in imagery or policy, which also plays out in awareness of student-parent friendly policies and services (from interview data with staff). Parental status = often disclosed at point of crisis - meaning the likely label of 'problem student' = ascribed.
Analysis of institutional policies
Children's access to HE = varied significantly (offers examples of where children = not permitted into libraries; see p.914)
Three different approaches identified in 10 universities:
1) Universal/ 'careblind': 2/10 universities had no policy or provision for student=parents; reference to children = prohibit their presence
2) 'Targeted': 5/10 universities had 'some specific provision'; reference made mostly in context of nursery and financial/ means-tested grant
3) 'Mainstreaming': 3/10 universities attempted to mainstream; extensive references to student parents (child care, children allowed on campus, spaces for student parents
Moreau notes limitation of design (aka case study universities = not likely to be representative of whole sector)
Results of analysis of policyscape - seemingly 'neutral' policies can (further) marginalise student parents: "As generic policies are usually designed with the childfree student in mind, their negative effects on parents, including at academic, financial, social, health and emotional levels, risk being overlooked" (p.916). Spatial-temporal domain = significant barrier despite being 'fair' or 'neutral' (e.g., timetabling and unsuitable spaces for breast feeding). Issues persist at level of cost (e.g., for childcare/ lack of financial support), leading to students being viewed as deficient, needy, special. For 'mainstreaming' to be successful, it needs to be well-resourced and systematically implemented
Core argument: The hegemonic shape of HE = masculine and care-free: "By rendering carers, children and pregnant bodies invisible in academia, media, national policy and university 'texts' regulate (the) student body/ies and normalize the association of the 'bachelor boy' with HE" (p.913).

Context: Regional Australian university = participation of students from refugee backgrounds in undergraduate studies
Aim: To contribute toward the developing national conversation around access to and participation in higher education by students from refugee backgrounds by creating a dialogue with refugee-background students with respect to their experiences of undergraduate study, particularly in terms of the ways they sought support and their sense of belonging to their programs and the university in general.
Methodology: Qualitative, interpretive. Participatory action research. This project sought to strengthen the refugee voice in the university community through a participatory and reciprocal research design; student-participants contributed to the development of the interview schedule, offered their thoughts and opinions through interviews, participated in a student panel at a national symposium on students from refugee backgrounds and have member-validated preliminary findings and publications that have arisen from this project.
Findings:
- Studying can be inclusive and empowering, but also exclusionary and disenfranchising;
- Interactions with other students and staff are, for the most part, experienced as positive but less frequent encounters of distance, alienation, and racism have a significant impact on students from refugee background, making them feel that they do not belong at university; and
- Whilst this sense of alienation is not a product of overt expressions of exclusion, it is implicated in the ways in which spaces and structures of interaction on campus are set up to cater to students who are not recognisable to our participants.
The sense of exclusion that our participants experienced stemmed from a variety of causes, including: digital gatekeeping of services; a lack of understanding from staff in relation to the experiences of refugee-background students and assumptions of deficiency; and an affective sense that spaces on campus-including support services-are designed for an ideal, homogenous student body which does not cater to the distinct and complex suite of needs that students from a refugee background have. Moreover, current institutional mechanisms for identifying students from refugee backgrounds are not nuanced or consistent enough to give an accurate picture of the diversity within and size of this student group studying at UON.

Context: Examines relationship between widened education, quality and policy in Australia from 2008-2014 - in context of voiced concerns about massifying and dropping standards/ levels of 'readiness'
Aim: To analyse "how, throughout 2008-2014, various higher education stakeholders reframed their descriptions of higher education quality, in response to new policies of mass education" (p.349). Quality = what is means and what it describes is broad and contested, resulting in shifts from defining what it is to explanations of how to measure it. All notions of quality need to be considered = not just those that are favoured by stakeholders. Measuring quality in HE: input, process, output: three relativities = threshold level, reference value, institutional target on, for example, no. students in, % who pass, % who gain work + deadlines; "to examine how certain framing discourses of mass higher education were employed to promote, defend or attack specific discourses of quality in higher education" (p.350-1).
Methodology: Critical discourse analysis of policy frameworks political commentary and public submissions (draws on Blommaert/ Fairclough). Documents analysed = Bradley Review, the 37 open submissions made by Australia's public universities in 2008; then the 2013 review (of the DDS) and associated 30 open submissions; and the final report and budget response in 2014.
Findings:
"the discursive relationship between mass higher education and higher education quality shifted from conceptualising quality as a function of economic productivity, through educational transformation and
academic standards, to market competition and efficiency" (p.363).
Bradley Review recommended that universities set their own entry requirements/ standards - devolving quality assurance from national standards but allowing for sector level oversight by creation of QA agency, using these measures: student progression and completions rates; post-graduation (employment and further study) outcomes and student satisfaction surveys. Author argues this created a hierarchical quality HE sector that "supplied students and the market with in-demand skills (fitness for purpose); retained and graduated a high proportion of students (efficiency); and generated positive student feedback (customer satisfaction)" p.352). Concern noted in public submissions with proposed (insufficient) indexing of funding, which would lead to perceived drops in quality (with regards to payment for staff and support etc.). Gov't = positioned quality as sector's ability to get/employ enough staff (and legitimated by suggesting a crisis = too many older academics); the sector reframed quality as in danger through lack of funding: "Quality would be measured ultimately by hard numbers; namely enrolments, graduates and skilled workers" (p.355).
Post-Liberal win (2013): quality used as a reason to maintain funding (Labor) or cut funding (Liberals) =
Review of the Demand Driven System: one of the three terms of reference was to examine whether the DDS was impacting on the quality of HE, a second was to check what measurements universities were using to check the quality of teaching and learning. Again, majority of universities did not consider the DDS/ massification to have impacted on quality (23/30 submissions) - using attrition and success data to support this argument. 5 universities suggested a possibility of drop in quality (all Go8). As Review of DDS recommended expanding DDS to sub-bachelor and private providers, it appears that the review did not find a slip in quality. Review of DDS recommended dropping centrally determined equity targets: "Under the logic of the market, 'arbitrary' targets were irrelevant since competition would be enough to ensure participation would grow overall. In such an environment, a key metric of higher education quality would be students'
satisfaction with teaching" (p.357) - customer satisfaction = primary measurement of quality.
Student = servant to quality (when quality = WP and national productivity, student = means to an end; when quality = academic standards = student is at risk; when HE = market, students need to contribute to cost of quality by paying more and behaving rationally (all p.359)
Core argument: Quality "is a term that has been reinterpreted by various stakeholders to either defend a particular interest or adapt to changes in public policy" (p.359). Bradley Review = saw quality as part of widening participation and national economic productivity; Review of DDS saw HE as market in its own right "and mobilised discourses of competition and efficiency to delineate quality" (p.359), which the government used to argue for greater student responsibility for costs of HE. Student = servant to quality rather than the other way round: "It is only when quality is understood as a transformational process that the student is seen as benefitting from, rather than being responsible for, higher education quality" (p.360).

Context: South Sudanese men and women from refugee backgrounds in HE in Melbourne and Adelaide.
Aim: To explore how notions of western knowledges and 'traditional' knowledges intersect to form a gendered, and inequitable, experience for HEB students in HE. Men are viewed as problematic and aggressive; women as struggling and victims. Their own skills and knowledges are ignored, and this assumption of the 'melancholy' migrant becomes a barrier to their participation and success in HE.
Conclusions: resettlement puts refugee communities into contexts where their past traditions, educations, and knowledge are questioned, both by themselves and their host country. The 'liberatory' framing of western education posits cultural knowledge as inferior, and this is a problematic that is reproduced in HE but also forms part of the resettlement dialogues taken on by refugees. The role of motherhood in particular is devalued in the resettlement context and in HE (contrast this perspective that values this cultural knowledge, to previous studies of gender, refugees, and HE that consider cultural roles of motherhood to be inherently problematic - i.e. these are assumptions that reproduce the Western knowledge hierarchy). The idea is that HE reproduces forms of racialisation, through assumptions of gender and implicit hierarchies of cultural knowledge.
Methodological comments: Broad context, could have more specific instances of the barriers that the refugees consider to be significant to their HE experience.
Core argument: Refugee experiences of HE are not neutral, but are shaped within a lens of gender and cultural knowledge that reproduce power hierarchies, and which effect the potential for belonging and inclusion in the HE setting.

Context: Focus on low SES students in context of increasing participation targets (post-Bradley) and in regional setting (Murdoch University). Findings foreground importance of student-staff relationships: positive relationships = sustain engagement; negative relationships = work against WP agenda. Set against context of under-representation of equity groups. Argue that to create a participatory and empowering educational context, need to understand students' social histories, particularly in context of metanarratives/ 'schooled knowledges' (Alexander et al., 2005) that dictate who should have access to university - based on well-rehearsed scripts ("'competition', 'failure' and 'sorting'", p.485).
Aim: To explore the "cultural and pedagogical conditions that promote, support and enable their continuing participation and engagement in higher education" of low SES students in a regional university
Theoretical frame:
Methodology: Qualitative: 'purposeful conversations' with 16 low SES UG students. All participants in study = came from enabling pathways and were mature aged (21-45), most = FinF. All participants = in 2nd/ 3rd year
Findings: Relational pedagogy = important for enhancing student learning; it foregrounds the importance of relationship building. Findings arranged around support & resources/ constraints & interferences
Support & Resources
Interaction (in lectures, tutorials, informal interactions) = key for developing rapport and permitting a sense that academics are available to students (helps students to feel supported, to stay on track. Navigating who is approachable = important part of transitioning. Participants found that not all academics are open to interaction and "academics' wishes are difficult to interpret and often contradictory" (p.486), which is likely to be result of poor communication. Participants' descriptions = highlight importance of clear communication = 'participatory model of communication' = best (dialogue, horizontal relationship - Freire) + funds of knowledge. Interaction with lecturers = prevents sense of alienation. Notes power of academics ('relational trust' = Bryk & Schneider, 2002; or 'relational trust' =Warren, 2005)
Constraints & interferences
Relational pedagogy = shaped by institutional norms = impact on academic work and possibilities for relationships to develop. Mention casualization of workforce: "working conditions minimise opportunities for engagement with students" (p.488). Curriculum design = important for creating moments of connection: "When the emphasis is on delivering a large amount of content in a lecture setting, there is less opportunity for student interaction" (p.488) = "absence of dialogic encounters with students" (p.488). Participants described feeling dismissed and unimportant. Importance of feedback foregrounded (as in lecturers don't want to give it) - onus = on students to seek feedback. Some academics = 'stand-offish' = critique of banking model.
Authors briefly note context of neoliberal logics = "Relational dimensions of pedagogy are being seriously eroded and diminished by the anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies of neoliberalism" (p.491)
Core argument: Relational pedagogy (relations and connections between staff and students) = particularly important for students who may experience cultural and economic issues (e.g. child care, balancing work and family, not knowing the ropes) and for students who have previously felt marginalised or isolated in their educational experiences. Feedback is particularly important. "When academics do not recognise the potentially exclusionary impact of their pedagogies and thus fail to engage in a relationship that can provide support when it is needed, they may unconsciously perpetuate existing social inequalities" (p.492).

Context: Examines teachers' emotions and approaches to teaching particular courses in Australian higher education - previously two areas of inquiry that have not been brought together. Approaches to teaching (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999) - linked to conceptions of teaching: teacher-, content-, or student-focused approaches. Teacher-focused = transmission of knowledge model; student-focused = facilitative based on knowledge-construction processes and scaffolded according to existing schema. Teaching approaches = linked to ways that students learn to learn (teacher-focused connotes with surface approaches to learning; student-centred = with deep approaches). Student-centered = more likely when teachers have manageable workload, more uniform student group, smaller class sizes, autonomy over curriculum + more likely in Humanities; in contrast, teacher-focused = when teaching is not perceived to be valued and lack of control + more likely in Sciences (see Trigwell, 2002). Academic development and strong leadership = significant for developing student-focused approaches. Scopes literature on emotions in education = considered to be ubiquitous - discusses classification of positive and negative emotions; discusses importance for teachers, and university teachers in particular. Notes the paucity of research on HE teachers' emotions
Aim: To examine relationship between teachers' emotions and approaches to teaching
Theoretical frame: None explicit
Methodology: Quantitative: on-line survey with 2 parts: Emotions in Teaching Inventory (ETI) and Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI-R) = see p.611-12 for overview. 175 HE academics (f/t teaching staff) responded. Pearson Production Moment correlation analysis, Principal Component Analysis and a Hierarchical cluster analysis undertaken.
Findings: Data suggest relationship between approach to teaching and emotions experienced: "teachers' experiences of positive emotions (motivation and pride) are positively associated with the adoption of more of a conceptual change/ student-focused approach to teaching" (p.616); negative emotions (anxiety/ embarrassment) = teacher-focused/ transmission approaches = supported by correlational/cluster analyses.
Core argument: Approach to teaching has strong and significant relationship to teachers' emotions; student-focused teaching correlates with more positive emotional range

Context: Examines WP in elite universities in the UK; offers differing analysis (from idea that equity = 'intractable problem') whereby WP = viewed as aspect of pedagogy rather than administrative issue through case study of Foundation Year in Arts/ Humanities in Uni of Bristol. Authors refer to Russell Group statement, which blames underrepresentation of equity groups in high status unis/ disciplines on schools. Authors note that academics = also disenfranchised by increasing neoliberal pressures on HE. Foundation Year = "a way into university for people without conventional educational qualifications" (p.4). Students = recruited via community engagement/ short courses/ local advertising. Foundation Year = informed by WP, by critical review of existing HE system, and by radical adult education tradition.
WP = seen as administrative process: "Widening participation as process is also a consequence of the increasingly target driven culture in universities" (p.7). Gives example of OFFA access agreements (which deny/ reduce impact of unsanctioned/ compound disadvantage): "While this renewed focus on widening participation was welcome, in practice it encouraged universities to aim for 'low-hanging fruit', such as middle-class students who fulfil the 'state-educated' criteria" (p.7)
Aim: Asks questions of elite universities in context of WP: "what is the role of an individual elite university, and of larger groups of such institutions? Do they have sufficient agency to widen participation or does the climate militate against creative attempts to diversify intake?" (p.2). Ultimately, it asks whether WP = 'intractable' or can elite universities be changed from within, and can a small-scale shift (Foundation Year) have broad ripple effect? (see p.6)
Theoretical frame: Critical theory
Methodology: Case study (no explicit discussion)
Findings: When designing FY = designers wrote 'pen portraits' (imaginaries of particular kinds of excluded students) and used these fictional case studies to ask pre-emptive questions of the course. Also helped to mitigate interviewer bias: "The pen portraits forced us to focus on specific individuals who face specific obstacles to engaging with higher education, with consequences also for how they might realise other possibilities in their lives" (p.10).
Successes: first cohort (n=27) was diverse (mature age, no A-levels, local). 89% completed the year and qualified for progression to undergraduate study and strong improvement in grades on written assignments.
Qualitative data = suggests growth in confidence (see example of Rosie on p.11). 21/27 students in undergraduate studies when paper was written. Anecdotally, students were "acting as a magnet for other non-traditional students" (p.11). Furthermore, there were many positives for staff - not just course designers, but also other staff who taught into the course.
Discussion of risks (p.13-15)
Discussion of limitations: funding, small cohort numbers, course content = designed according to volunteer lecturers (it "tended to focus on Western interventions or legacies" despite efforts otherwise, p.15), arguably does not do enough to disrupt traditional teacher-student relationships
Core argument: Resistance against creeping uniformity: "within a mass higher education system in which uniformity is increasingly emphasised (and necessary for administrative purposes), there is an urgent need for forms of pedagogy that resist and revitalise the dominant university culture" (p.6).
WP as pedagogy "abandons the idea that it is some other part of the educational system that is responsible for low participation in the elite institutions - the schools, the applicants, or the families and social backgrounds of the applicants" (p.10).
"[It is clear that] elite universities are clearly culpable for failing to admit a more representative group of students. It is clear that widening participation is not an 'intractable' problem: in fact, it is something that can be addressed quite readily with materials and expertise that universities have in abundance" (p.17).

Context: Examines WP in elite universities in the UK; offers differing analysis (from idea that equity = 'intractable problem') whereby WP = viewed as aspect of pedagogy rather than administrative issue through case study of Foundation Year in Arts/ Humanities in Uni of Bristol. Authors refer to Russell Group statement, which blames underrepresentation of equity groups in high status unis/ disciplines on schools. Authors note that academics = also disenfranchised by increasing neoliberal pressures on HE. Foundation Year = "a way into university for people without conventional educational qualifications" (p.57). Students = recruited via community engagement/ short courses/ local advertising. Foundation Year = informed by WP, by critical review of existing HE system, and by radical adult education tradition.
WP = seen as administrative process: "Widening participation as process is also a consequence of the increasingly target driven culture in universities" (p.60). Gives example of OFFA access agreements (which deny/ reduce impact of unsanctioned/ compound disadvantage): "While this renewed focus on widening participation was welcome, in practice it encouraged universities to aim for 'low-hanging fruit', such as middle-class students who fulfil the 'state-educated' criteria" (p.60)
Aim: Asks questions of elite universities in context of WP: "what is the role of an individual elite university, and of larger groups of such institutions? Do they have sufficient agency to widen participation or does the climate militate against creative attempts to diversify intake?" (p.55). Ultimately, it asks whether WP = 'intractable' or can elite universities be changed from within, and can a small-scale shift (Foundation Year) have broad ripple effect? (see p.55)
Theoretical frame: Critical theory
Methodology: Case study (no explicit discussion)
Findings: When designing FY = designers wrote 'pen portraits' (imaginaries of particular kinds of excluded students) and used these fictional case studies to ask pre-emptive questions of the course. Also helped to mitigate interviewer bias: "The pen portraits forced us to focus on specific individuals who face specific obstacles to engaging with higher education, with consequences also for how they might realise other possibilities in their lives" (p.10).
Successes: first cohort (n=27) was diverse (mature age, no A-levels, local). 89% completed the year and qualified for progression to undergraduate study and strong improvement in grades on written assignments.
Qualitative data = suggests growth in confidence (see example of Rosie on p.11). 21/27 students in undergraduate studies when paper was written. Anecdotally, students were "acting as a magnet for other non-traditional students" (p.64). Furthermore, there were many positives for staff - not just course designers, but also other staff who taught into the course.
Discussion of limitations: funding, small cohort numbers, course content = designed according to volunteer lecturers (it "tended to focus on Western interventions or legacies" despite efforts otherwise, p.18), arguably does not do enough to disrupt traditional teacher-student relationships
Core argument: Resistance against creeping uniformity: "within a mass higher education system in which uniformity is increasingly emphasised (and necessary for administrative purposes), there is an urgent need for forms of pedagogy that resist and revitalise the dominant university culture" (p.59).
WP as pedagogy "abandons the idea that it is some other part of the educational system that is responsible for low participation in the elite institutions - the schools, the applicants, or the families and social backgrounds of the applicants" (p.63).
"[It is clear that] elite universities are clearly culpable for failing to admit a more representative group of students. It is clear that widening participation is not an 'intractable' problem: in fact, it is something that can be addressed quite readily with materials and expertise that universities have in abundance" (p.70).

Context: Explores students' experiences of transitions to later-years schooling and post-school futures in the particular ('specialness') context of remote islander inhabitants who attend school on the island until Year 10 and then have to migrate to mainland for Year 11 and 12. Paper focuses on "place attachment". Discusses educational issues that rural students face; notes the mitigating influence of home schooling (but with challenges). Offers history of Tasmania (p.3)
Aim: To examine "social, cultural and locational factors which result in low post-compulsory retention rates of remote island students" (abstract) and also to explore perceptions of and aspirations for post-school futures, relating to senses of identity and belonging in context of migrating from rural to urban environments
Theoretical frame: Works from notion of place as a social construct connected to cultural values and social capital that also acknowledges emotional connections (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) to the land. Authors note [similar to Roberts & Green, 2013] the deficit positioning of rurality against metropolitan norms. Similarly, authors note the importance of 'place conscious education' that "recognizes spatial as well as cultural diversity in education and challenges the locational homogenization associated with economic globalization" (p.2), but without romanticizing rural places and the challenges that people face.
Methodology: Longitudinal ethnographic research (mixed methods) using grounded theory. Study followed group of Year 10 students from a small island off Tasmania to Year 11 in secondary school on the mainland. One third of participants = Indigenous. Research site = 'very remote', where trend of 'out-migration' is local concern and which represents a physical and psychological journey (need to fly to mainland); also issues with internet/ communication reception = isolated and remoteness.
Research design: Stewart = teacher of 25 years on the island (see page 5 for explicit unpacking of her positionality). Research set around Year 9 'work studies' module and project around aspirations/ experience of island life. Stewart's observation = students with high aspirations and achievement did not always complete Year 11 or 12. All 16 students (9 girls, 7 boys; all NESB) took part in subsequent interviews in Year 10 prior to leaving and then in Year 11 after moving. Questions included topics such as education and employment aspirations, what they thought they would be doing and where, the following year, in five years time and in 10 years time.
Findings: Data identified "socio-spatial ambiguities experienced" (p.1) and factors that influenced students' transitions into later years of high school and factors that contributed to persist or disengage: "Attachment to the island as their home place and the emplacement of their cultural ties to family and community contrasted with the displacement experienced in the urban environment" (p.1). This sense of community and attachment = more for Indigenous students.
Tracking students over three years showed strong continuation from Year 9 - 10 (100%) but discontinuation happening in Year 11 (8 completed Year 11; 7 completed Year 12) - lower academic achievers more likely to return home without completing (but acknowledgement that moving away to attempt Year 11 = an achievement in itself). Where students stayed on the mainland = significant.
Data from Year 10 (interview 1)
5 students thought they would progress to VET or university and 3 wanted to join the military. Only 3 thought they would return to the island. Students expressed vague (and sometimes unrealistic) = "relationships, marriage and family, but more often they imagined being able to own and drive cars, have money, drink alcohol and to enjoy a "good lifestyle" (p.7).
Academic transition viewed as less challenging than practical challenges of moving - students feared being 'dispossessed' of place and identity and anxieties about practicalities of living away from home and managing a budget
Data from Year 11 (interview 2)
Most were feeling good about their studies (minority finding it tough). Students exploring new opportunities and "the demands of academic study did not in themselves create pressure to discontinue" (p.8), rather the issues were located in the size of campus and complexity of course offerings. Students = supported by teachers and Home/School Liaison Officers (but not always + lack of familiarity with teachers = challenging). Students found punctuality difficult and they got lost often + fear of crowds. Accommodation = problematic (not like home), as was difficulty in finding part-time work and homesickness/ place-sickness (missing way of life) was common: "The highs and lows of place attachment and detachment made settling-in a very slow process. It also contributed to feelings of losing social competence and concern that teachers might see them as not coping" (p.9).
Authors offers dualities:
- Location and displacement
- Freedom and lack of freedom
- Fear and lack of fear
- Familiarity and lack of familiarity
- Support and lack of support
- Mastery and lack of mastery
Home and college = created 'hybridities of place and identity'
Core argument: "The island students' experiences of the educational transition process, and their subsequent academic outcomes, emerged as closely linked to their attachment and sense of belonging to place and community in both the sending and receiving places, and to their experiences of location and dislocation" (p.1). Whole of institution approach needed to help compensate for challenges faced by students who need to migrate to study, particularly for school age children (suggestions made in last section of paper). Rural and metropolitan education should not be "regarded as separate and unequal but as interconnected and of equal value, and resourced by governments as such" (p.12)

The Gonski Institute for Education has been awarded $25,000 from the CAGES Foundation to research “What Does Success Mean for Aboriginal Children in NSW Preschools?”

This project aims to comprehensively explore the quality of education that young Aboriginal children receive in early childhood care and will focus on what constitutes ‘success’ to Aboriginal parents and communities. This initial funding will be geared towards a scoping and relationship building phase and will provide the opportunity for community voices to inform a long-term research methodology and approaches to be used in the second phase of the project. This funding will assist researchers in scoping the current state of affairs in Aboriginal early childhood education.

The CAGES Foundation is a philanthropic foundation that is passionate about providing equality of opportunities for Aboriginal children. They have identified that focusing on early years in Aboriginal children’s lives is the most effective way to improve their life course, and henceforth funds organisations that work within this area. The CAGES foundation demonstrates a strong desire to create a positive, educational environment that enables Aboriginal children to reach their full potential, which aligns with the Gonski Institute for Education’s mission statement – to address growing inequality in Australian education.

The Gonski Institute for Education’s aim is to produce recommendations for systemic change in the way that early childhood education is approached by government, teacher training entities, peak bodies and individual institutions, with a focus on Aboriginal children. We are extremely proud to be collaborating with the CAGES Foundation, who have developed a vast network of meaningful relationships, values the voice and input of Aboriginal communities and demonstrates passion for educational equity for Aboriginal children.  

Context: Traces the history of the Bridging Mathematics Network (BMN): an informal group of practitioners working in bridging mathematics. Focuses on the question: 'What is bridging mathematics?" and look at the development of bridging mathematics in the context of its history. Locates the work in a context of a "wide diversity of programs and approaches" because "Each university sets up and manages its programs at its own discretion." (p. 2). Importance of Bridging Mathematics as a field of enquiry due to continuing lower high school achievement in maths and lack of entry prerequisites at university level means bridging programs gain greater importance. (p. 9-10).
Aims: To evaluate the success of the BMN in addressing its research goals; and to answer five questions: What do we teach? How do we teach it? Who will teach it? What do we do about the changing technologies? Is Bridging Mathematics still necessary in 2005 and beyond?
Methodology: Conference participation and Conference proceedings analysed (number and nature of papers) between 1992 and 2002. Proceedings analysed using grounded theory.
Findings: Number of papers remained constant at between 11 and 32 per year with most papers about teaching and practice (44%) and all papers (even those described as 'research') usually descriptive with only one or two using an underpinning theoretical framework. The BMI hasn't fulfilled their research mission, but reasons may be lack of connectedness of practitioners and the under-theorisation of adults learning mathematics (p. 6).
Relevance: Five questions are posed at the end of article which are the launch pad for this project: How is success defined in bridging mathematics activities? What are the numeracy demands on entry to 'non-mathematical' university study? What are effective ways to support that study? Are successful bridging students successful university students? Is there more than mathematics? (p. 10)

Context: Professional doctorates. Care as virtuous but perhaps incompatible with academic research when doing practitioner research? Practitioner researchers have to negotiate blurred boundaries between professional/ practice and research domains/ colleagues.
Aim: To look at the ethical and epistemological tensions that arise when researching one's own work context; to argue for an 'ethics of care' in practitioner research to account for own position in research site/context and to safeguard others involved. To respond to this question: "how should the researcher behave when the
findings of the research might affect or even injure those to whom the research has a special professional, functional or emotional bond?" (p.89)
Theoretical frame: Heidegger: techne and aboding
Methodology:
Discussion: Three communities are involved in/ benefit from professional/ practitioner research: the workplace/field site, the academy, the researcher themselves.
Ethic of care = 'most potent' at intersection between self, work and academic, which may all invoke different codes of ethics: "the research as indicated in a research proposal, from our experience, may forsake researchers' ideological and ethical stances as non-researchers, and replace it with a particular set of epistemological values whose authority is based on a context-free rationalization" (p.92).
The ethic of caring (p.93-94) - authors cite Noddings (1984): care = 'feeling with' others, based on engrossment, empathy and disposition to advocate. Authors argue that caring can therefore be taught to researchers.
"These acts of caring are not without anxiety, for they require one to anticipate and where possible lessen the burden on the cared-for. Thus, caring is more than a superficial clarification of one's actions achieved through a voluntary consent form; it is the reframing of the research project as a mutual activity which has personal consequences other than a research report, and which has its own legitimacy" (p.94).
Caring as researcher = form of "existential trust", which is "involving, not observational" and carries a moral obligation, and assumes benevolent motives. However, it is not sentimental, it is about meeting caring responsibilities (p.94). An ethics of care requires reflexive realignment of power dynamics
Core argument: Ethics of care = process of being (see p.96 for use of Heidegger's aboding): "It involves a 'real-world' consideration of our interaction with others, and an examination of the context of the research which informs and constructs the social realities of the situation and the identities of practitioner researchers and researched" (p.96).

Context: Explores political and methodological challenges of researching social justice and rural education. Inequity = result of considering rural and metropolitan schools as same = "geographical blindness" (Green & Letts, 2007). Social justice in rural education = distributive form of justice aimed at overcoming economic differences. Result = essentialised view of rural education (treated as homogenous) "determining the needs of the rural in relation to the cosmopolitan values of urban elites" (p.765).
Aim: To explore social justice in rural education through use of space and place. "Distance and geography are entwined in the socio-historical construction of the rural" (p.766) + considerations of the fertility of the land in constructions of place. Rural = constructed as 'backward' and in need of 'rescuing' (p.766) and rural capital viewed as deviant and deficient by state's paternalistic lens = has equity consequences: "Such inherently
metro-centric and cosmopolitan views of equity and quality have resulted in deficit views of rural educational
achievement, along with simple redistributive equity approaches that take no account of the particularities and
affordances of rural social space" (p.766). Quality of rural education = judged against metropolitan [and increasingly global] conceptions and measurements - often explained by low SES make up and lack of resources (teachers). Existing notions of distributive social justice fail to recognise lived experiences of rural communities and do little to disrupt entrenched patterns of 'disadvantage' or underperformance. In discussions of rural disadvantage, geography (space/place) = factored out and "is not considered as a significant matter in relation
to equity and social justice in its own right" (p.767). Disadvantage happens with/ because of the powerful deciding on behalf of the disenfranchised = issues of recognition (Fraser, 1995). Authors argue that the rural has not achieved the same level of recognition as other equity groups. Rural students = constructed by virtue of their geography ('out there') as deficient, in need, and needing to master metro-centric curriculum. Rural connotes with local; metropolitan connotes with global in notion of standardization as marker of quality
Theoretical frame: Draws on Soja's notion of spatial justice to explore particularities and subjectivities of rural places (remembering that there are people in these places). Rurality = viewed as "a concept that is at once geographic, demographic, and cultural, and hence as cutting across disciplinary and (meta-)methodological lines and boundaries" (p.766). Spatial justice = "distributive, recognitive, and representational justice are regarded as addressing either historical or socially constructed inequities and, as such, are limited in their ability to recognize and interrupt disadvantage" (p.768). Also works from Cuervo (2012) to acknowledge more forms of capital. Draws also on Bourdieu notion of field.
Methodology: Argues for methodological polytheism (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1998) = variety of data and methods, working with reflexivity to unpack preconceptions and experiences of rurality. Authors propose "a philosophical position informed by a spatial understanding of the rural and social justice" (p.770) - rural = constructed in trialectic of perceived, conceived, and lived space on different scales and within a skewed power dynamic. Also works with a critical pedagogy of place (Gruenewald, 2003) = values particularities rather than generalisations.
Discussion: In terms of educational policy, placing rural at the centre would disrupt the metro-centre power over rural schools. Authors argue that "rural meanings have been overlooked as valuable ways to understand the modern global world" (p.771)
Need to consider scale when discussing and describing what counts as rural and what counts as disadvantaged: "Thus, we get a picture of various intersecting scales of educational advantage: nationally, from remote to urban, and inland to coastal; state-wise, from rural to capital, large rural towns and their satellite villages, and the distance out from the capital in terms of centralized bureaucracies; and citybased, in terms of inner city-outer city and geographic distribution of capital across suburbs" (p.771).
Also need to consider the temporal - metro efficiencies through technological innovation challenge rural lifestyles and ways of knowing and being and doing
Core argument: Need to develop understandings of how rural is distinct but not recognised and is "culturally dominated by urban cosmopolitan ideals" (p.767). Rural education = judged against a set of standards that rural actors have little/no input into.
Methodologically, bringing together "Bourdieu and Soja allow us to expand on existing concerns about the distribution of economic capital, recognitive or recognitional justice to also include the particularities of places and spaces, and the geographical determination of social and economic disadvantage" (p.772) and facilitates a focus on context.