www.monash.edu
Presented by Professor Sue Webb, Faculty of Education, Monash University
Strategic Management of Widening
Participation:
Institutional Distinction and
Vocational Entry Routes
www.monash.edu
A perspective from some UK research
The focus:
How are vocational qualification routes
and the UK policy mechanism of Lifelong
Learning Networks (LLNs) operating to
widen participation to research intensive
universities?
www.monash.edu
Overview
-
Policy context in the UK
Literature on Vocational Routes F/HE
An empirical case of F/HE transitions
Key issues and findings
Strategic management concerns
www.monash.edu
Policy context
1980s – 1990s
• Grassroots expansion of ‘access’ to HE
• Shift to regulate expansion
Late 1990s – 2006
• Policy levers to reward outreach, inreach
• Benchmarking as a relational measure
• Targeted expansion of the system – 50% of 18-30
year olds, low SEC & low participation
neighbourhoods; disabilities; sub-bachelors
degrees with employers
www.monash.edu
Vocational learners…a new target
2006 on…the turn to high skills
• HEFCE (2004) funding driver – LLNs call for
initiatives for WP & high skills
• Leitch (2006) Global skills and the KBE
• DIUS (2008) Higher Education at Work
Skills
www.monash.edu
Policy assumptions…
High skills (university education) increase
• Employability
• Productivity and national prosperity
• Individual prosperity
• Social inclusion and social justice
• Focus on supply side
• Apply neo liberal market policy and leave
the demand side – labour markets alone
www.monash.edu
Research narratives
Research about participation in HE tells us…
•
System massification, differentiation and
stratification (Trow, 1999)
•
Institutional discourses & practices (Foucault;
Burton Clark, 1966)
•
Patterns of participation and equity
(Bourdieu;Tomlinson, 2005)
Individual experience –risky transitions (Bourdieu;
•
Reay et al 2001)
www.monash.edu
Vocational transitions literature…
• Relatively little research has focused on the vocational
transition, but we know,
• Those entering UK HE through alternative (e.g. vocational
qualification routes) tend to enter less prestigious
institutions Foster, 2009; Hoelscher et al., 2008; Crozier et
al. 2008; Connor & Little, 2007.
• This is an enduring pattern that replicates earlier system
expansion (see Webb et al 1994)
• It is a pattern found in other countries (Australia) with
similar vocational- academic segmentation in upper
secondary and post compulsory education (see Moodie &
Wheelahan, 2009)
www.monash.edu
Lifelong learning networks
•
•
•
•
•
Usually F/HE consortia
Most HEIs engaged
Focus on vocational route to HE
Changing demand and supply
Focus on curricula in F/HE, cultures and
practices, expanding new sub-bachelors in
FE (additional funding for FDs)
www.monash.edu
Vocational routes to HE
• Differential patterns of entry to high and low
tariff institutions (Purcell, 2010)
• LLNs made little difference since 2004
• Expansion continued in FE and middle and
lower tariff universities
www.monash.edu
The case study…
Drawn from one regional LLN in England
• Student-level work comprised
• Analysis of admissions data
• Survey of vocational entry students in two
faculties (Medicine & Engineering)
• In-depth qualitative interviews with subsample and their networks of influence
www.monash.edu
At institutional level,
• Interviews with key leaders & managers
• Interviews with practitioners & student
transition support staff
• Analysis of documents
• Interviews with other Network members
including advice and guidance workers
www.monash.edu
The case study HEI…
•
•
•
•
A global university
Mid range elite HEI
Tension between global & local
WP – a strong commitment, and long
institutional narrative
• Yet WP – a ‘cream’ skimming activity
• Bursaries to reward the highest achievers &
access only to highest tariff
www.monash.edu
Findings (1)…
• Tensions heightened at faculty & departmental
level closest to L&T
• Department learning cultures premised on
traditional A level entrants characteristics
• Assumes high levels of social & cultural capital and
selection of the most able
• Characteristics of academics similarly very
selective & prime focus on research activity rather
than teaching
www.monash.edu
Findings (2)…
Students report learning culture dissonance
compared to FE as in…
• Large student cohorts
• Intensification of workload
• Lack of personalised support
• Support is voluntaristic
www.monash.edu
Findings (3)…
Staff report…
• High commitment to WP
• Developing institutional arrangements
• Responsive behaviour to make it work
• Frustration at the difficulties faced by
themselves and students
• High transactional costs
www.monash.edu
Bourdieu on Distinction
The struggle to keep up…
“The overproduction of qualifications, and the
consequent devaluation, tend to become a structural
constant when theoretically equal chances of obtaining
qualifications are offered to all the offspring of the
bourgeoisie while the access of other classes also
increases in absolute terms. The strategies which one
group may employ to try to escape downclassing and
return to their class trajectory, and those which another
group employs to rebuild the interrupted path of a
hoped-for trajectory, are now the most important factors
in the transformation of social structures” 1979, p147
www.monash.edu
The struggle to keep up…an example
Internalising classifying practices…
Rebecca discusses a course failure and the need to repeat
My problem…didn’t put in enough work because I just couldn’t. But
also…it’s nerves, especially with exams…which is actually one of the
points the access course doesn’t address.
It’s not as if I’m not capable but they won’t let you do that here. They
do in some universities but they don’t here, that’s the bottom line.
Basically it’s not the 39% that you know, it’s the 61% that you
don’t…I thought about it, she’s right…how can you move forward if
you haven’t got the bas[ics]…you haven’t got the grounding, the
basics, to underpin it all?
www.monash.edu
The struggle to keep up…
• Is played out by individuals & groups
• & consequently by institutions where
individuals and groups engage in classifying
practices…
Result:
• Institutional distinctions
• Staff and students manage tensions
between equity and ‘core business’
www.monash.edu
Strategic management concerns
Looking ahead…how can institutions widen access?
• under heightened competition
• privatised market-based funding model
• increase in student fees
• withdrawal of teaching grant
• reductions/cap on HE places
…how will different institutions act?
Will high tariff selecting institutions question the
sustainability of WP activities or will there be a shift in the
classifying practices across this part of the sector?
What are the lessons for Australia?
www.monash.edu
References
Connor, H., & Little, B., (2007) When will diversity of higher education mean diversity of entry routes for young people?, Journal of
Access Policy and Practice, 4 (2), 134-156
Bourdieu, P., (1987) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press
Clark, B., R., (1960) The “Cooling-out” Function in Higher Education, The American Journal of Sociology, 65 (6), 569-576
Crozier, G., Reay, D., Clayton, J., Colliander, L. & Grinstead, J. (2008) Different strokes for different folks: diverse students in
diverse institutions - experiences of higher education Research Papers in Education, 23(2), pp. 167- 177.
DIUS, Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (2008) Higher Education at Work High Skills, High Value, London, The
Stationery Office
Foster, T., (2009) Alternative Routes into and Pathways through Higher Education, London, Department for Business Innovation
and Skills
Hoelscher, M., Hayward, G., Ertl, H. & Dunbar-Goddet, H. (2008) The transition from vocational education and training to higher
education: a successful pathway?, Research Papers in Education, 23(2), pp. 139-151.
Leitch, (2006) Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills, Final Report, London, The Stationery Office
HEFCE (2004) ‘Lifelong Learning Networks’ (Joint letter from HEFCE and the Learning & Skills Council) HEFCE circular letter
12/2004, dated 3 June 2004
Reay, D., Davies, J., David, M. & Ball, S.J. (2001) Choices of Degree or Degrees of Choice? Class, 'Race' and the Higher
Education Choice Process, Sociology, 35(4), pp. 855-874.
Trow, M., (1999) From Mass Higher Education to Universal Access: The American Advantage, Minerva, 37,303-328
Tomlinson, S.,(2005) Education in a post welfare society, Maidenhead, Open University Press/McGraw Hill
Moodie, G., & Wheelahan, L., (2009) The Significance of Australian Vocational Education Institutions in Opening Access to Higher
Education Higher Education Quarterly Special Issue: The College Contribution to English Higher Education: International and
Contextual Commentaries, Volume 63 ( 4), 356–370
Webb, S., Davies, P., Williams, J., Green, P., & Thompson, A., (1994) Access and Alternative entrants to higher education: routes,
tacks, triggers and choices, Journal of Access Studies, 9(2) 197-214