Three dimensions of equity of access to higher education

Concerns over equity of access to higher education are widespread, but there is significant disagreement over what should constitute a fair system. This article assesses diverse conceptualisations of equity and explores the ways in which they embody themselves in the policies of three systems, those of England, Brazil and Kenya. While showing significant disparities of income level and enrolment ratio, all three have made concerted efforts to expand higher education access, accompanied by increasing stratification in terms of the quality and prestige of institutions. Analysis of policy options and outcomes leads to a proposal of three principles for understanding equity of access: availability, accessibility and horizontality. The third of these principles addresses the little-acknowledged safeguard that disadvantaged students should not be confined to lower-quality institutions, while at the same time allowing for diversity of ethos and disciplinary focus.     

State authorization reciprocity agreement: participation and access to higher education

The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement initiative was launched in 2014 to provide a uniform standard for the regulation of distance education across states in the United States. The system established by the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (NC-SARA) allows willing post-secondary institutions to participate voluntarily through a member state where their home campus is located. Since implementation, several states and institutions in the approved states have joined the interstate agreement. About 36 states and 613 institutions in the United States are participating in the interstate agreement as of January 2016. This study analyzed the pattern of participation among various institution types (public, private for-profit and private not-for-profit) and finds that participation amongst states and institutions has continued to increase since implementation of the interstate agreement. With the flexibility that distance learning offers, increased participation in SARA may translate into greater opportunities for participation in higher education.     

我国不同社会阶层少数民族的高等教育入学机会差异分析

从家庭所处社会阶层、父母受教育程度、家庭收入三方面对少数民族高等教育入学机会差异的实证研究表明:不同社会阶层少数民族接受高等教育的机会及学校的层次、类型有显著差异;在一般公办本科院校中,少数民族的社会阶层差异最小;在公办高职高专院校中,学生父母受教育程度的差异最小;家庭收入高低对于少数民族是否进入民办院校就读有一定影响。     

Effects of a college access program for youth underrepresented in higher education: A randomized experiment

This article describes EXCEL, a program that encourages youth underrepresented in higher education to enroll in higher education, specifically at the sponsoring university. Eighty-three eighth grade students with GPA of B and above and standardized test scores at grade level or above were randomly assigned to the program or to a control group. The program guaranteed a scholarship to the sponsoring university and provided enrichment activities throughout high school. Program students were more likely to enroll at the sponsoring university than were control students. However, program and control students enrolled in higher education at rates that did not differ significantly. No differences were detected in self-esteem or high school GPA. Program students desired more education than control students. The results suggest that scholarship incentive and support programs that target average to above average achieving students in the eighth grade may not raise the overall number of aspiring minority youth attending college, but may be useful to specific universities to raise their minority enrollment.     

规模扩大与高等教育入学机会均等化

This paper explores the role of socio-economic status in determining access to higher education over time. Findings show that the overall equality of higher education opportunity has improved because of the inclusion of more marginal students into lower-tier higher education institutions (HEIs); however, students from higher socio-economic status have benefited disproportionably from the expansion in elite universities. A brief discussion of the potential implications is presented. Translated from Beijing Daxue Jiaoyu Pinglun 北京大学教育评论 (Peking University Education Review), 2006, (1): 24–33     

Expansion without equity: An analysis of current policy on access to higher education in Brazil

Access to higher education in Brazil is to a large extent restricted to the higher socio-economic groups. Public universities have limited places and entry is determined by highly competitive exams, thereby excluding those who have not had a high quality secondary education or attended an expensive preparatory course. There has been considerable growth in the private sector to absorb the excess demand, but the majority of Brazilians cannot afford the fees. This paper develops a concept of equity in higher education in which, firstly, there should be sufficient places in the system as a whole and, secondly, all people should have a fair opportunity of attending the university of their choice regardless of socio-economic background. Recent efforts to expand access are analysed, including incentives for the growth of private universities, student loans and the new Prouni initiative, in which private institutions provide free places to low-income students in return for tax exemptions. While these initiatives have the potential to increase the total number of places, they will not lead to an equitable expansion, as disadvantaged students will still be confined to courses of lower quality or with lower subsequent value on the employment market. Initiatives aimed at the public sector such as the introduction of quotas and changes to entry examinations are also discussed. Finally, some implications for future policy development are outlined. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the World Congress of Comparative Education Societies, Havana, 25th–29th October 2004.     

Committed to learn: student engagement and care in higher education

Efforts to evaluate and improve student engagement have been pervasive in higher education over recent years. Critics argue, however, that troubling affinities are evident between student engagement efforts and a neoliberal agenda which emphasises accountability through performativity. Neoliberalism manifests in policies that focus on the economic benefit to individuals of higher education, rather than the broader social or intrinsic benefits. In this conceptual article, we draw on the work of Martin Heidegger and Nel Noddings in arguing that efforts aimed at promoting engagement and commitment to learn by students should include developing a capacity to care about others and things. Through the lens of care, our aim is to extend current notions of what engagement of students in their learning might look like. Challenging and supporting students entail encouraging them to take a stand on what they are learning and who they are becoming. This enriched conceptualisation has the potential to re-orient student engagement away from a narrow neoliberal agenda, while enabling students to realise the full benefits a higher education can provide.     

荷兰高等教育入学政策变革及其启示

荷兰政府近期从发展学生资助系统、开展信息运动、扩大"未被充分代表"群体的入学率、排除教育系统结构障碍等几个方面对高等教育入学政策进行了一系列重大变革,这无疑是提高高等教育入学率、加快高等教育普及化进程的有效举措。     

On the discrepancy of access to higher education in a province with a large ethnic minority population

Based on a survey of students from different social strata, different family backgrounds and different levels of access to higher education in 10 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Yunnan, an ethnic minority (EM) province, this essay tries to find out the discrepancy in the enrollment opportunity of higher education for children from different strata in the EM province in order to find a breakthrough to narrow the gap. Translated from Changchun Gongye Daxue Xuebao 长春工业大学学报 (Journal of Changchun University of Technology), 2006, (1): 9–16     

Challenging discourses of aspiration: The role of expectations and attainment in access to higher education

Raising the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds progressing to higher education has been a key policy objective for successive governments in the UK since the late 1990s. Often this has been conceptualised as a problem with their ‘aspirations’, with the solution being seen as the provision of ‘aspiration‐raising’ activities to promote higher education to those thought to have the potential to progress. Recent large‐scale studies cast strong doubt on this hypothesis by demonstrating that aspirations are not generally low, that different social groups have similar levels of aspiration and that school attainment accounts for nearly all the differences in participation rates between social groups. This article draws on data from a national project exploring efforts to widen participation across two generations of practitioner‐managers in England, focusing on their conceptualisations of the field and their constructions of ‘successful’ activities. It uses the lens of ‘possible selves’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986 ) to argue that too much policy emphasis has been placed on the aspirations of young people, rather than either their academic attainment or their expectations, which are shaped by the normative expectations of the adults surrounding them. In addition, the more expansive concepts of widening participation that were present a decade ago have become less common, with a shift towards activities with a clear role in institutional recruitment rather than social transformation. The article concludes with alternative suggestions for policy and practice.     

高等学校思想政治教育的人文关怀研究

教育的人文关怀,实际就是关注学生的理想、信念和情感。在新形势下,加强高校思想政治教育的人文关怀,引导学生加强自身修养,提高精神境界,完善自我人格,是培养21世纪人才和实现高校思想政治教育目标的必由之路。     

Some prerequisites for access programmes that contribute to academic success in higher education

Abstract

The balance between the cost and value of access programmes is a concern in higher education. The function of access programmes is to provide support and additional time for under-prepared students to cope with the academic workload during the first year. This article aims to indicate the value students place on participation in an access programme. In this qualitative study, group interviews were conducted and the findings indicate that Engineering students attribute their success in the mainstream to the way in which participation in an access programme had integrated them academically into the university and exposed them to discipline related experiences in a non-threatening environment. The findings of this study indicate what aspects of the access programme students considered helpful for perseverance in mainstream studies. It is recommended that institutions that offer access programmes should not only be aware of the reciprocal influence of the cognitive and non-cognitive factors that affect students' success, but also purposefully combine these factors in the design of their access programmes.     

Understanding higher education access: Inequalities and early learning in low and lower-middle-income countries

Globally, access to higher education has increased, but inequalities by socio-economic background remain. This article explores the relationship between early schooling opportunities (and learning) and progression into higher education in four low and middle-income countries. We analyse data from the Young Lives longitudinal study, following cohorts of young people from age 5 to 22 in four country settings: Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and India. We reveal wide variability in higher education participation between the four countries, with a common pattern of a very strong association between early learning and later higher education participation, even after allowing for a range of demographic characteristics. Whilst early learning is important in predicting later higher education participation, we also find that significant barriers to higher education participation remain for low socio-economic status groups, even if they initially show good levels of learning. We track the trajectories of children who have initial good levels of learning, and hence arguably the potential to progress to higher education, and assess the extent to which socio-economic background plays a mediating role in these trajectories. Pupils with initially good levels of learning at primary school age, but who are from poor backgrounds, fall back in terms of their relative attainment during secondary schooling years. This implies that socio-economic status continues to be a barrier to educational attainment throughout these children’s lives. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy initiatives aimed at narrowing inequalities in higher education access in poorer countries.     

Teachers' care in higher education: contesting gendered constructions

There is little research on care in higher education, and yet for many of those who teach in higher education institutions, care is an important part of their work. Care in the compulsory education sector has traditionally been linked to the feminine, and this paper considers whether this is also the case in higher education. It investigates how care is conceptualised and gendered in the literature and in narratives of teaching staff from New Zealand universities. It finds that there is much more to care than traditional models offer, and shows how this complexity of care challenges gendered stereotypes. It concludes that a broader understanding of care can help break the link to the feminine and acknowledge the value of care in higher education and beyond.     

Changing times of feminism and higher education: from community to employability

This article discusses the creation of space and time for feminist approaches in higher education in the context of shifting community and employment relations and the restructuring of higher education space‐time. It draws on the reflections of three feminist academics concerning aspects of their work biographies in two very different higher education settings. It explores the shift from working in an academic department concerned with community studies to one concerned with education and related employment. The article focuses on the attempt to sustain feminist practices through these changing times and settings and is informed by the work on time and space by Barbara Adam, Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey.     

地方高校发展与高等教育政策调整

近年来,我国地方高校在规模迅猛扩张的同时,普遍陷入了多重发展困境之中。从制度变迁的类型和路径依赖两个角度来看,这种困境产生的制度根源有两个:一是以中央政府为主体的激进式强制性制度变迁的局限性,二是对传统高等教育管理模式的路径依赖。今后高等教育政策调整必须遵循两个基本的指导思想:一是弥补激进式强制性制度变迁的局限,二是摆脱对传统高等教育管理方式的路径依赖。     

Working towards better education for children in care: longitudinal analysis of the educational outcomes of a cohort of children in care in Australia

ABSTRACT

Internationally, reviews of educational outcomes of children in care reveal consistent findings highlighting the need for considerable policy attention to be paid to their education to ensure they achieve optimal economic and psychosocial life outcomes. Important to enhancing the educational achievement of children in care are support, stability of environment, teaching resources and the recognition by all stakeholders – birth parents, foster carers, social workers and statutory authorities — that education is paramount to a child’s future well-being. This paper highlights the perspectives of carers, teachers and children on the fostering experience with particular focus on educational outcomes drawing on a prospective longitudinal study of children in long-term care. Using a multimethod, repeated measures multi-informant design, children were assessed by carers and teachers using the Achenbach Child Behaviour Checklist and its companion, the Teacher Report. The findings indicate demonstrated gains in terms of improved scores and adaptive functioning at subsequent assessments following two years of stable care. Discussion of the findings and implications for practice will focus on the need for a coordinated strategy to improve placement continuity and focused professional and organisational support with respect to the emotional and educational needs of children in care.     

高等教育大众化与提高教育质量

我国高等教育现已基本达到了国际公认的大众化标准,应把提高高等教育质量摆在突出的位置。在高等教育大众化、全面推进素质教育、建设学习型社会的时代背景下,高等教育应当被赋予新的内涵。当前应在体制和政策上为提高高等教育质量努力创造条件。     

The coming of post-institutional higher education

This piece offers two stories and attempts a contrast between them. These are about how UK higher education responded to the economic crisis of the 1970s, and about how it is shaping up in response to the banking crisis of 2008 and its global ramifications. The first is constructed around the rise and fall of ‘public sector higher education’ between the James Report and the Dearing Report of 1997. The second looks at the prospects of higher education’s contributions to a more fluid, flexible and responsive lifelong learning, summed up as ‘post-institutional higher education’.