… redefining student equity in higher education …
From barriers to capacities: reconcieving
aspiration-focused student equity strategy
Sam Sellar
National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education
Hawke Research Institute
University of South Australia
sam.sellar@unisa.edu.au
Reconceiving the problem
1. Problem: Persistent low rates of participation in HE among
people from low SES backgrounds, partly due to
motivational barriers.
2. Tension: Raising aspiration removes motivational barriers to
participation in HE but places excellence in question if
aspiration outstrips achievement
3. Reconception: Aspiration not simply the means to realise
ends, but the capacity to influence them
4. Implication: Outreach activity should develop research
capacities that support people to plan, articulate and realise
socially valuable ends
From motivational barrier…
•
Aspiration an issue of individual motivation
– ‘The major barriers to increased higher education participation by
students from low socio-economic backgrounds include previous
educational attainment … [and] little aspiration to participate’
(Australian Government 2009:13)
•
Negative freedom: ‘consists just in there being no obstacle’
(Taylor 1985: 213)
•
Student equity is a question only of means and can place the
ends at risk
…to aspirational capacity
•
Aspiration is a cultural capacity to (a) navigate normative
contexts toward desired ends and (b) to participate in
shaping these contexts and ends (positive freedom)
•
Strengthening the capacity to aspire:
•
(1) Challenging deficit views; (2) teaching and learning; (3) linking
immediate desires to broader narratives; (4) cultivating voice
•
Positive freedom: ‘[O]ne is free only to the extent that one
has effectively determined oneself and the shape of one’s
life’ (Taylor 1985: 213)
•
Student equity is a question both of means and ends
Aspiration demands research
• Aspiration and research:
– ‘Without aspiration, there is no pressure to know more. And without
systematic tools for gaining relevant new knowledge, aspiration
degenerates into fantasy or despair’ (Appadurai 2006: 176-177)
• A broad definition of research:
– ‘the capacity to systematically increase the horizons of one’s current
knowledge, in relation to some task, goal or aspiration’ (Appadurai
2006: 176)
• The quality of social scientific knowledge production is
dependent upon its inclusivity (Connell 2007)
Conclusion
•
Strengthening the capacity to aspire and the capacity for
research:
1.
A strong social justice strategy
2.
A sound approach to preparing citizens for knowledge
economies
3.
Opens up new ways of thinking the relationship between
increasing participation and increasing the quality of
knowledge production