Widening participation research and practice in the United Kingdom on the twentieth anniversary of the Dearing report, reflections on a changing landscape

Abstract

This paper is a reflective and critical review of research relating to widening participation (WP) in higher education (HE). The motivation for undertaking this was the twentieth anniversary of the Dearing Report Higher Education in the Learning Society (1997); a document that ignited a wide range of WP activity and policy. Dearing’s report was published in the United Kingdom and represents one of the most significant reviews of higher education in this country since the Robbins’ Report of 1963. His vision for HE included a “compact” between local and regional communities and their universities, and emphasised WP and greater student diversity. I draw on my own research in WP since Dearing, compare with other research projects, and compare with my experiences as a practitioner and researcher in various contexts, including most recently in a post-1992 university known for being a WP institution. This paper identifies several core themes that emerged from WP activities over the last 20 years and leads to the development of an added dimension in WP research. It calls for more consideration of the complex and heterogeneous identities of WP students today. It then returns to some of Dearing’s original themes and considers how WP is situated in the current neoliberal climate affecting HE; it presents a set of ideas for discussion with respect to the future of WP research

Negotiating a Sense of Fit in Elite Higher Education: Exploring the Identity Work of “Widening Participation” Students

“…The UK is one of the least socially mobile societies in the OECD (Sutton Trust, 2017), with the best-paid and most influential roles in society being dominated by individuals from the most affluent backgrounds (Sutton Trust, 2019). The 1997 Dearing Report entitled 'Higher Education in the Learning Society' provided the impetus for the contemporary focus on widening participation at UK universities (Archer, 2007;Kimura, 2014;Thompson, 2019). The recommendations made by this report included the expansion of HE provision and targeted activities to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups (for example, low socioeconomic status, ethnic minorities, care leavers, mature students and students with disabilities) (Thompson, 2019).…”

“…The 1997 Dearing Report entitled 'Higher Education in the Learning Society' provided the impetus for the contemporary focus on widening participation at UK universities (Archer, 2007;Kimura, 2014;Thompson, 2019). The recommendations made by this report included the expansion of HE provision and targeted activities to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups (for example, low socioeconomic status, ethnic minorities, care leavers, mature students and students with disabilities) (Thompson, 2019). These recommendations were enthusiastically enacted by the Labour government, which linked the expansion of HE to national economic success (Archer, 2007).…”

“…As purveyors of 'high standards' and merit-based entry procedures (Warikoo & Fuhr, 2014), highly selective universities in the UK have been criticised for taking a deficit approach to nontraditional students (Thompson, 2019) and for explaining their absence as due to their inability to meet the high entry grade requirements, their poor choice of A-level subjects and/or a general lack of ambition and aspiration (Archer, 2007;McLellan, 2016). Many selective institutions mobilise a rhetoric of diversity in their widening participation efforts.…”

“…The twenty English Russell Group universities responded to increased government pressure to widen access by committing £265 million to widening participation activities in the 2019/20 academic year (Russell Group, 2019). However, elite universities have been criticized for adopting a 'deficit approach' in their discourse around diversity and inclusion and hence towards students recruited through such schemes (Archer, 2007;Thompson, 2019), and viewing them as lacking the required academic skills and attributes (Archer, 2007;Gibson et al, 2016;McLellan, Pettigrew & Sperlinger, 2016). Research has shown that some WP students who enter elite institutions feel 'out of place' in academic, social and recreational spaces (Reay, Crozier & Clayton, 2009).…”

Widening participation and a student “success” assemblage: The materialities and mobilities of university

“…In the United Kingdom, WP has been a policy concern for over 50 years, occupying an increasingly prominent position on the HE agenda (Thompson, ; Younger, Gascoine, & Menzies, V. and Torgerson, C., ). Sustained policy interventions by recent governments have concerned student access, diversity, and retention (Jones & Thomas, ).…”