Educational Inequality in Higher Education (original) (raw)
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Higher Education
Fifty years ago, higher education globally had started to change radically in terms of the proportion of young people enrolled in the system as well as society’s expectations for what this would deliver. From the outset, Higher Education has featured research interrogating various aspects of inequality in higher education, including institutions and staff as well as students. This article offers an overview of that work. Our analysis is structured around three levels at which major questions on this topic have been framed and investigated. The macro level focuses on national systems and looks at widening participation, especially the increase in access to higher education for young people. The meso level mostly focuses on institutions and their engagement with organisational inequality. The micro level focuses on the lived experiences of academics, in this case focusing on gender and race. We adopted a thematic and purposive approach to article choice, ultimately selecting key paper...
Understanding and measuring inequality in Higher Education
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Higher education has always been part of the global human rights framework put forward by the international community. It is expressly mentioned in article 26 of the Universal declaration of Human Rights, and in article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The latter in particular states that “Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education”. Yet, except for the implicit gender equity aspect mentioned in goal 3 of the Millennium Development Goals, higher education has never been part of the development agenda. The upcoming post-2015 global development agenda might change this trend. Within the most recent proposals higher education is mentioned explicitly in at least two of them. The Open Working Group (OWG) for Sustainable Development Goals includes higher education under its proposed goal 4, in target 4.3; “By 2030...
Inequality in Higher Education
The idea of university as the great equaliser, promoter of social mobility, and vehicle of self-actualisation is not a new one. However, current criticism of higher education as a magnifier of inequality has become better understood. Current research on inequality in the UK’s higher education system often focuses on socio-economic factors, parent’s education, ethnicity, and other more abstract topics. Inequalities between different genders and the two sexes is more often discussed in developing countries, but it’s worth continually assessing the true equality of higher education in the UK. This paper will discuss the ideal methods to be used when exploring the ways and extent to which females experience sexism at the Universities at Medway campus. The following report will include a loose outline of the optimal techniques to be used and recognition of potential weaknesses. In this particular study, ‘higher education’ will refer to a university-level programme enrolment. The focus will remain on “sex” which is solely biological, rather than “gender,” referring to the range of physical, behavioural, and mental characteristics, since the latter is overly complex for this study’s purpose. This research will provide a small-scale account of sexism in the university system, which can later be compared to larger studies. The results will reveal to what extent the simple defining factor of one’s biological sex creates a different university experience.
Higher Education and Privilege : 21 st Century Issues
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This literature review analysis revealed that governmental and non-profit foundations have promoted racial equity to enhance the life of people who live in poverty in the United States. These institutions intended to provide opportunities for low-income individuals, such as education. Despite improvements for historically underrepresented students in higher education, there are still gaps in college attainment between White non-Hispanics and minorities. This paper discusses how system polices in the workplace and schools create social economic disparities in society.
Higher Education and Privilege: 21st Century Issues (Special Section)
2015
This literature review analysis revealed that governmental and non-profit foundations have promoted racial equity to enhance the life of people who live in poverty in the United States. These institutions intended to provide opportunities for low-income individuals, such as education. Despite improvements for historically underrepresented students in higher education, there are still gaps in college attainment between White non-Hispanics and minorities. This paper discusses how system polices in the workplace and schools create social economic disparities in society.
THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION HAS NOT BEEN TELEVISED: Educational Inequalities and the Impact of Change
Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education, 2006
The historical evolution of education and impact of its inequalities have not been televised. The world is more often exposed to "overcomology"society's assertion that oppressed peoples or so-called minorities have overcome past injustices and are now able to access the same educational opportunities as so-called majority groups. This paper provides a Gil Scott-Heron-esque review of the effects of inequalities on this key social institution.
Equity, status and freedom: a note on higher education
Cambridge Journal of Education, 2011
Strategies to enhance socio-economic equity in higher education embody one or both of two objectives. The first strategy is to advance 'fairness' by changing the composition of participation, bringing higher education into line with the ideal model of a socially representative system. The second strategy advances 'inclusion' by broadening the access and completion of under-represented groups. Governments often focus on both objectives. For example current Australian policy mentions both objectives while giving priority to fairness. But as Amartya Sen notes, the two approaches embody heterogeneous traditions of social justice. They also have diverging implications for freedom, and for social status in education (the 'elephant in the room'). The utopian fairness approach emphasises the proper functioning of institutions. The realist inclusion approach emphasises the agency of those excluded. OECD country experience suggests that while measures of fairness provide useful information, a programmatic focus on enhanced inclusion is both more achievable and more fruitful.
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...
Theory and Research in Education, 2004
This article seeks to apply Adam Swift"s (2003) critique of private and selective schooling to higher education in the UK. The higher education sector in this country is highly differentiated, with high status, research-led elite institutions at the top of the university hierarchy, and newer universities, with far lower levels of funding and prestige, at the bottom. The extent of this differentiation is illustrated by an analysis of six universities at different ends of this spectrum. It also becomes apparent that the student profiles of these institutions are very different, with privately educated, white, middle class students particularly over-represented in the elite universities, and working-class, minority ethnic, and to some extent, women students concentrated in those institutions with far lower levels of funding and prestige. Considerable benefits accrue to those who have attended the elite institutions, and it is argued that the hierarchy of universities both reflects and perpetuates social inequalities, with the middle-classes retaining their privileges and the elite continuing to reproduce itself. The discourse of meritocracy that is used to justify this institutional differentiation is also discussed, and the article concludes with a call for a more socially just and equitable future for the higher education sector.