Our research addresses the sources of inequity at all levels, from individual learners and their families, to schools and other educational institutions and their communities, through to systems and policies.
There is a body of work that traces the history, evolution and development of equity in Australian higher education policy. The work of Gale & Tranter (2011) was very useful in this regard, presenting a historic overview of Australian higher education through the lens of equity/ social justice as well as tracing how higher policy is shaped by (and shapes) social and economic drivers, policies and social justice intentions.
Students with caring/ parenting responsibilities is a sub-set of the broader literature on mature-age students and how gender impacts on students’ access and engagement with higher education studies. There are myriad challenges that student-parents face with regard to their studies, largely thematised in the literature in terms of time, balance, and care, all of which are underpinned by a common finding that universities are considered inflexible, unresponsive and “care-blind”.
The literature highlights out-of-home-care (OOHC) students as one of the most underrepresented groups in higher education (HE). This is evident in the extremely low participation rates of OOHC students in HE, their significantly low educational outcomes and the higher retention rates observed among care leavers in HE.
There has been a strong focus on low SES students in Australian higher education since the then-Labor government chose to focus exclusively on low SES students despite the suggested target groups of low SES, Indigenous and rural and remote students in the 2008 Bradley review.
There is a small body of work that explicitly links equity with language and literacies (often packaged under the unhelpfully reductive ‘skills’ label; see Lea & Street, 1998; Lillis, 2001; Wingate, 2006 for critique of this description of language).
There is a strong focus on Indigenous students’ access to, retention, participation and success in higher education. Eleven of the papers included in the review specifically focus on Indigenous students, but several others include Indigenous students in their analysis. As with other equity groups, research suggests that there are particular demographic patterns.
Following the policy focus on social inclusion, there is a sustained focus on how this notion plays out in the teaching and learning environment. At the policy level, social inclusion was a centrepiece of the Bradley review of Australian higher education (2008), using the terms ‘widening participation’, ‘equity’, ‘access and participation of under-represented groups of students’, and ‘social inclusion’.
Over recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on robust evaluation of widening participation programs to ensure that program planning is based on evidence and not just on “good intentions” and to demonstrate effectiveness to funders.
There is a set of key foci in the literature that explores enabling education, which include: Students’ experiences of empowerment through their studies,transformational learning and transitions into undergraduate studies.
Opportunity and equity within higher education relative gender is a wide-ranging topic that has long been a subject of discussion amongst education and gender scholars alike. The material in this bibliography provides a range of perspectives but several themes pervade across the material as it considers gender and higher education relative both to educators and students.
The emotional dimensions of learning in higher education have attracted an increase in scholarly interest, with clear connections for widening participation and equitable participation.
A key area of scholarship in the fields of higher education and equity/ social justice is a shared concern regarding the impacts of marketisation and neoliberalism on the potential, scope and effectiveness of equity policy and practices.
There is a small body of work in this review that attends explicitly to the digital-technological elements of teaching and learning. This literature examines connections between equity and different technological possibilities, such online distance learning, three-dimensional virtual learning environments, and open educational resources.
Caring is a fundamental component of human relations and connectedness. The significance of care in education is a relatively well-established conversation in the scholarly literature on primary schooling, less so in the work that describes high school, and relatively invisible in the tertiary contexts.
Attention to the ways of assessing student learning is a central element of inclusive teaching, particularly when attention is given to the importance of language and literacies for learning.
Mature-age students are overlooked in the current equity literature, particularly with regard to regional/rural students, who constitute an ‘ignored cohort’. Although relatively under-explored, mature-age students constitute a significant proportion of commencing students in Australian higher education, and they are more likely to come from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Attrition and retention of students are common foci in the equity-related research literature. Many of the findings suggest that there are strong relationships between equity group students and an increased likelihood of, or actual attrition.
The literature on outreach and equity in higher education discussed here focuses on initiatives implemented by universities to foster beneficial relationships with primary and secondary schools whose students come from underrepresented equity groups.