Effective Approaches to Enhancing the Social Dimension of Higher Education (original) (raw)
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In recent decades, the move from an elite to a mass higher education system in many countries and the resulting expansion of the higher education sector has not brought about a noteworthy decrease in social inequalities. An important factor that has contributed to the persistence of social inequalities is attributed to the fact that increased access has been accompanied by a differentiated and stratified higher education sector. In this framework, researchers from many countries argue that students from upper and middle class backgrounds, with higher levels of cultural and social capital, are much more likely to attend high status higher education institutions and departments. By contrast, working class students usually choose to attend institutions and departments with a lower status. Class differentials in relation study completion and retention rates also exist, since working class students have lower retention rates than students from upper and middle class backgrounds. Bearing the above issues into consideration, in this paper, we conduct a short bibliographical review of studies examining the reasons for the persisting social inequalities in higher education and the relationship between social class and allocation in the different departments in higher education. We also present critically the most influential explanatory frameworks employed in the analysis and interpretation of the issue. Research findings provide strong evidence social class, and the students’ cultural and social capital play a major role in the persistence of social inequalities. Implications for policy makers are clear. On the basis of the above, we argue that socio-economic inequalities within higher education cannot be dealt with unless we tackle the issue of differentiated allocation in the different higher education departments.
Equity in Higher Education: Evidences, Policies and Practices. Setting the Scene
Equity Policies in Global Higher Education
Widening access to higher education became an issue of political concern after the Second World War. It aimed both at improving social justice by granting conditions of access to all social groups and by improving economic performance because a more educated population would contribute to the economic competitiveness of countries. Equity has two components, fairness—which implies that personal and social circumstances do not hinder achieving educational potential, and inclusion, which means that all are able to attain a basic standard of education. It was believed that social inequalities could be reduced through the massification of higher education and, although some progress has been made in terms of increased participation, inequalities seem to persist. Much of what happens in terms of inequity is related to higher education being a positional good. Social groups from deprived backgrounds are not in a good position to compete for positional goods, which have a tendency to be mon...
Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education, 2019
Higher education (HE) is a global phenomenon that attracts millions of students worldwide. It has expanded on an enormous scale in the last few decades and continues to grow. This phenomenon is replicated in England and what used to be a system for a privileged elite is now available for considerably more students from a broad range of social groups. While these changes mark considerable progress in terms of access, they have not removed a range of inequalities for different social groups and in particular those from the working class. The significant increases in participation that have been seen in the last 70 years have disproportionately advantaged middle-class students. Workingclass students remain less likely to attend, in particular if they are from the poorest sections of society. When working-class students do participate, they are also less likely to attend the most selective and elite institutions. While this situation can be partly explained in terms of inequalities in compulsory education
Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe: Funding and the Social Dimension
2011
Introduction: The Social Dimension of Higher Education Understanding the social dimension The social dimension and the modernisation of higher education Social dimension objectives of the Bologna process Empirical analyses of the social dimension of higher education What can policy do to address this empirical reality? Funding of higher education and the link to the social dimension Student contributions and the social dimension The importance of the national context The structure of and rationale for this study Methodology Chapter 1: Social Dimension Policies 1.1. Under-represented groups 1.2. Drop-out/non-completion of studies 1.3. Flexibility of higher education studies Chapter 2: Developments in Higher Education 2.1. Trends in the participation in higher education 2.2. Levels of public funding and allocation priorities 2.3. Public funding of higher education institutions-a tool not used for the social dimension? 2.4. Funding formulas and the social dimension 2.5. Using performance-based mechanisms to foster social dimension objectives 2.6. The impact of the economic crisis Chapter 3: Student Fees and Support Country specific notes Belgium: Independent private institutions are not included. Germany: ISCED level 6 is not included. Cyprus, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein: Most students study abroad and are not included. Luxembourg: Data are underestimated as they do not cover all ISCED 5A and ISCED 5B programmes.
Higher Education and Social Class
2005
The evidence, as far as it goes, suggests that over the latter half of the 20 th century there was little change in the proportion of university students from lower social classes. Their participation in higher education increased, but so did participation from all social classes and the gap that was apparent in the middle of the last century was broadly maintained to the end. Even the rapid expansion of higher education in the early 1990s had little impact on this. There now exists a wide range of indicators of disadvantage and looking across these over the past five years or so there is some evidence that this gap has started to close. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds have increased their participation in higher education at a faster absolute rate than those from more advantaged backgrounds. However, the gaps in participation remain very large and the rate of change is slow. This note largely consists of data on the social class of students attending university. Latterly a wider range of data has been published to measure how wide participation is in higher education and the success of attempts to increase this. Such information is also summarised in this note, alongside the longer-term data. General trends in entrants to higher education are included in the note Entrants to Higher Education
This work tries to analyze the official discourse on the development of a European Higher Education Area and focuses on the issue of equal opportunities of access to and completion of study in higher education. For this aim official documents of the first decade of the 21st century referring to the Bologna process (communiqués and declarations of the Bologna process ministers responsible for higher education) were studied using the qualitative content analysis. The results of this work showed that the question of equal opportunities was included in the priority of the social dimension and occupied the Bologna process mainly from the year 2005 and on although mentions for equal opportunities to higher education studies exist in all Bologna process communiqués. The priority of social dimension was the outcome of the adaptation of human capital theory and mainly involved notions such as mobility, lifelong learning, students ' socio-economic background, gender and underrepresentation. 265 necessary to face the challenges of competitiveness and the use of new technologies and to improve social cohesion, equal opportunities and the quality of life" (Prague Communiqué, 2001, p. 2).