Stratification, Marketisation and Social Inequalities:
Widening Participation in Higher Education in
England
Pauline Whelan
http://www.wphe.org
Centre for Social and Educational
Research across the Life Course
Leeds Metropolitan University
Overview
 Institutional Stratification and Widening Participation
Intensification of marketisation of English HE -> Intensification of
processes of institutional stratification (Brown, 2012)
 What are the implications for WP?
 How does institutional stratification relate to WP?
 Institutional mediation of national WP policy
 How do institutions variously adopt and reject elements of national
policy?
 How do approaches/interpretations/discourses of WP vary across
the sector?
 Two Key Areas of Analysis
 WP ‘Performances’
 Institutional discourses across official documentation (WPSAs: 20
institutions: 2009)

Marketisation and Stratification
 Intensification of marketisation -> increased institutional
stratification:
“If there is one thing on which nearly everyone who has
studied the Government’s reforms agrees, it is that these will
produce a more stratified sector, with much greater differences
in institutional resourcing and esteem” (Brown, 2012)
 “the…pursuit of stratified forms of institutional
diversity…mitigates against the fostering of (an equitable form
of) student diversity (i.e., a system in which all students are
equally valued and have access to equal status forms of
provision)” (Archer, 2007)
 The ‘perverse’ enactment of WP (Jary & Thomas, 1999)
 Majority of WP students located at ‘less prestigious’
universities
 Where/what are WP students gaining access to?
WP Context
 National Policy
Within a broad national policy context of competing definitions and
conflicting agendas, there is considerable institutional autonomy
around approaches to WP
 Institutions
“Elite institutions are able to maintain their power and
prestige precisely because they are largely released
from any responsibility to substantially engage in WP”
(Archer, 2007)
 Students
 “Working-class young people and adults possess a
commonsense knowledge of the hierarchy of
institutions and they ‘know’ that this hierarchy offers
them a ‘bum deal’ in that only ‘crap’ universities…are
open to them” (Archer, 2007)
o
WP and Institutional ‘Type’
 Variation in WP Approach by Institutional ‘Type’
Location, mission, history, market position and institutional selfidentity (Shaw et al, 2007)
 Tripartite HE system: ‘Bronze’, ‘Silver’, ‘Gold’ institutions (Ainley
2003; Archer, 2007)
 ‘Selecting’ vs ‘Recruiting’/‘Old’ vs ‘New’/Pre and Post 92 Universities
(Graham, 2010)
 Russell Group vs All Other HEIs (Boliver, 2012)
 Oxbridge focus (e.g. Oxford Admissions: Zimdars, 2010)
 Mission Groups (HESA Statistics, Mission Group Publications)
 Different discourses/models of how WP is approached within HEIs
 Academic, utilitarian, transformative approaches (Jones & Thomas,
2005)
 Academic, differential provision, transformative models (Shaw et al,
2007)

Exploring Variation across HEIs
 Critical Mixed Methods Approach: combining
quantitative analysis of WP ‘performance indicators’ and
discourse analysis of institutional documentation
 WP ‘Performance’ Data of HEIs


Official HESA statistics for all English HEIs for 2002-2010 analysed
by mission group
Analysis of institutional discourses around WP ‘performances’
(Access Agreements, 2009)
 WP Institutional Discourses


Widening Participation Strategic Assessments (2009)
Aspects of stratification constructed/perpetuated by WP institutional
discourses of admissions
WP ‘Performance’ Data
 Dearing Report (1997, Recommendation 58):

“Funding bodies and representative bodies develop appropriate
performance indicators and benchmarks for families of institutions
with similar characteristics and aspirations “
 Accountability, inform budgeting, information
dissemination, incentivise institutions (Pugh et al, 2005)
 PIs and benchmarks published annually; HEFCE 19992002; HESA 2002->
 OFFA established in 2004, ‘safeguards fair access’ via
approval of Access agreements, 2 powers to sanction
institutions (never used); 4/5ths of HEIs used WP PIs
in 2010 to report to OFFA
WP Performances and Mission Group
The ‘Nuclear Option’
 Les Ebdon appointed as Director of OFFA in March 2012
 “Professor Ebdon…responded by laying down the gauntlet to
highly-selective universities with “patchy” records on access,
saying that he would be prepared to use the “nuclear option”
of stopping institutions from charging higher fees if they did
not measure up.” (Times Higher, 8 February 2012)
 “We sincerely hope that the new director of OFFA will come
to recognise the tough challenges we face in trying to widen
access” (Wendy Piatt, Russell Group, 2012)
 “it is right that they[universities] should continue to consider
how well they are doing and this is one of the important roles
for the new Director for Fair Access.” (Prof Michael Driscoll,
million+, 2012)
WP ‘Performances’– HESA View
 Performance Indicators published annually by HESA for each
HEI
 “Performance Indicators are a range of statistical indicators
intended to offer an objective measure of how a higher education
institution (HEI) is performing. They are not 'league tables' and
do not attempt to compare all HEIs against a ‘gold standard’ or
against each other …”
(HESA, Guide to PIs, 2011)
 Widening Participation Performance Indicators of HEI’s


Young (under 21) full-time undergraduate entrants by 3 social-class
proxies: state schools, low participation neighbourhoods and NS-SEC
4-7
Performance indicators are also produced for disabled students,
mature students and part-time students
WP Benchmarks – HESA View
 Benchmarks, produced annually by HESA, “allow direct
comparisons to be made both between institutions, and between
an institution and the sector” (HESA, 2012)
 Two benchmarking aims:
1.
“To see how well an HEI is performing compared to the HE
sector as a whole.”
2.
“To decide whether to compare two institutions” (HESA,
2012)
 “The benchmarks are not targets.” (HESA, PIs: Adjusted sector
benchmarks, 2012)
 (…but we know that they are generally used as targets: 4/5ths of
HEIs used PIs in 2010 to report to OFFA)
PI and Benchmark HEI Example
 Example, 2010/2011, Percentage of young (under 21)
full-time undergraduate entrants:
HEI
State Schools
(%)
NS-SEC 4-7
(%)
Edge Hill
University
98.7 (95.9 / 97.1)
41.1 (38.4 /
38.6)
University of
Cambridge
59.0 (71.1 / 68.8) 10.6 (15.9 / 15.9)
Low Participation
Neighbourhoods
(%)
19.8 (14.1 / 18.2)
3.1 (4.8 / 4.2)
Institutional WP ‘Performances’
 Analysis of all Performance Indicators for all HEFCE-funded
HEIs in England for the period 2002-2010 by mission group


PIs - one of the key ways by which institutional widening
participation ‘performances’ are assessed and monitored
4/5ths of HEIs used PIs in 2010 to report to OFFA
 Analysis of the institutional discourses around Widening
Participation Performance Indicators
 Mission Groups




Russell Group: “leading UK universities”
1994 Group: “internationally renowned, research-intensive universities”
University Alliance: “a group of 23 major, business-engaged universities”
million+: “enable people from every walk of life to benefit from access to
universities that excel in teaching, research and knowledge transfer”
WP PIs and Benchmarks 2002-2010
 WP PIs and Benchmarks from 2002-2010; averaged for
each mission group


Relative differences between missions groups for WP PIs and
benchmarks
Relative differences in average performance levels against average
benchmarks by mission group
 Intersection of mission group and WP ‘performances’
 Note: not concerned with intra-mission group
differences or absolute measures of ‘performance’


Focus here is on the mission group level not on individual
institutions
Proxies for social-class have changed over the years, therefore
incomparable
PIs 2002-2010
 See website
http://www.wphe.org/wp-benchmarks/2002-2010-nssec-with-weighted-location-adjusted-averagebenchmark
 Relative differences across mission groups consistent
over the last 8 years
 General mission group trends:




Consistent relative mission group ‘performances’ over time
Russell Group and 1994 Group consistently perform below their
benchmarks
Russell Group and 1994 Group have average benchmarks which
are considerably lower than other groups
Million+ and University Alliance consistently achieve above their
benchmarks
PIs, Benchmarks and Status
 Different benchmarks for ‘similar’ institutions principle legitimises the
disparities across institutions and mission groups
 Different expectations for WP performances across mission groups
contributes to social inequalities in HE and exacerbates hierarchical
stratification of HE sector
 Language of justification for missing ‘targets’ indicates how PIs
intersect heavily with discourses of status e.g.:
 “According to the latest performance indicators (2005/06 data),
75.9% of the University’s young full-time first degree entrants came
from state school backgrounds. Uni B’s benchmark for their
admission was 78.4%. This figure is higher than the benchmark
applied to almost all of the research intensive, highly academically
selective institutions with which the University would normally
compare itself. Uni B is therefore proving more attractive to state
sector students than many of its peer institutions.” (Access
Agreement, 2009, Uni B)
WP Institutional Discourses
 How do WP institutional discourses relate to the
stratification of the HE sector?
 Official WP Institutional discourses: Widening
Participation Strategic Assessments, Access
Agreements (2009)



Dominant Discourses of Targeting/Admissions
How do dominant discourses relate to institutional positioning
in a stratified sector?
Evidence of the pressures of marketisation or stratification of
the sector?
Institutional WP Discourses
 WPSAs of 20 HEIs:
 7 Russell Group, 5 1994 Group, 4 million+, 2 University
Alliance, 2 Not Aligned
 RG & 1994 Group HEIs occupy top league table positions (All
in Top 200 ‘World Universities’) ‘Selecting’, ‘Old’, Pre 92 HEIs
 >30% of HEFCE Recurrent Grant for Research (RG & 1994) vs
<=5% (Post 92s)
 2009 Widening Participation Strategic Assessments
 ‘a flexible form of reporting’ (HEFCE, 2009), which could
reflect the diversity of approaches to WP practices and policies
across institutions
Dominant Discourses of WP
Recruitment/Admissions
Required Individual Ability + Required Individual Potential =>
Desirable WP Student
• “We will recruit our students solely on the basis of their ability and
potential to succeed within the learning environment that we offer”
1.
• “We must therefore continue our broad-based admissions policies,
selecting on merit alone, but always with a view to the potential for
achievement”
Required Individual Potential => Desirable WP Student
• “attract and retain students, from a wide and diverse community, who have
the potential to succeed and benefit from the experience”
2.
• “it remains committed to providing opportunities for those from
historically excluded sectors of the population who have the potential to
succeed in higher education”
Academic Ability in Admissions Discourse
 Present only at Elite/Selecting/More Prestigious





Institutions (Selecting by ability uncontested and
inevitable as a means to distribute limited places)
Academic ability is assessable (by HEIs)
Hierarchized and unevenly distributed among students
Individualized
Predictive of future performance
One exception: Gifted and Talented Discourse present
across all 20 WPSAs (78% of HEIs listed Gifted &
Talented students as a target category, the third most
frequently invoked category; Action on Access, 2009)
Ability Discourse at ‘Leading Institutions’
 Exclusively appealing to the highly ‘able’ and ‘talented’:
 “helping to ensure that [Russell Group University] is accessible
and attractive to all talented students, irrespective of
background”
 “attract and retain academically gifted and highly motivated
students from a wide range of backgrounds, creating a diverse
and international University community”
 Ability Discourse intersects with Discourses of
Institutional Status


“to attract the very best learners from around the UK and the
rest of the world and offer them a world-class education.”
(Russell Group University)
”To continue to attract and develop the most able students and
staff worldwide” (Russell Group University)
Dominant Discourses and Institutional
Positioning
 Academic ability bound to widening participation
discourse across ‘elite’ institutions (Russell Group, 1994
Group)
 Market pressures to be perceived as a ‘high quality’
institution enacted in discourses of heightened ability
attributes - ‘most able’, ‘brightest and best’ students which are seen as necessary characteristics of leading
institutions

“Aims to attract and recruit those students with the highest academic
ability”
 Absence (and in some cases explicit rejection) of ‘ability’
discourses at Post 92 universities:
o “For this university, widening participation was not just a
process of ‘talent spotting’ ” (Post 92, WPSA, 2009)
Conclusion
 WP is variously discursively enacted across the sector, permitted by
competing national policy agendas, conflicting philosophies and a
considerable degree of institutional autonomy around how WP is
approached/enacted.
 Existing mechanisms and measures of WP ‘performances’ legitimise
disparities, intersect with discourses of institutional status, and
exacerbate sector stratification
 ‘Ability’ discourse of WP bound to accounts of institutional
image/status/prestige and linked to the pressures of the market
 The current intensification of the marketisation of English HE
increases the importance of understanding the relationship between
institutional stratification and WP
Is there still hope for WP in an increasingly marketised and stratified
sector?