Advancing Theory and Research in Widening Participation

Issues of access, social exclusion and widening participation dominate educational policy agendas and are a shared global challenge. Participation in higher education and adult lifelong learning activities can be a life-changing experience that opens up new opportunities. However, access remains unequal. People from lower socio-economic backgrounds, those living in the most deprived areas and people from minority ethnic groups are underrepresented. In this book, we focus on how we can move the field of widening participation forward, paying specific attention to the theories and methods we can use to better understand and tackle the problem of underrepresented groups in post-compulsory education, and how individuals and institutions can be supported. We argue that in order to make sense of these issues, it is important to engage in both the findings of widening participation research and the theoretical foundations which underpin them. This way, alternative perspectives on the widening participation agenda and emerging research and policy can be explored from alternative perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Continuing Education.

Introduction: Special Issue: advancing theory and research in widening participationEllen Boeren and Nalita James 1.Beyond aspirations: deploying the capability approach to tackle the under-representation in higher education of young people from deprived communitiesLaurie Anne Campbell and John H. McKendrick 2.Thinking with and beyond Bourdieu in widening higher education participationSue Webb, Penny Jane Burke, Susan Nichols, Steven Roberts, Garth Stahl, Steven Threadgold and Jane Wilkinson 3. Understanding adult lifelong learning participation as a layered problemEllen Boeren 4.Systemic obstacles to lifelong learning: the influence of the educational system design on learning attitudesJeroen Lavrijsen and Ides Nicaise 5.Recognition of prior learning: the tensions between its inclusive intentions and constraints on its implementationLinda Cooper, Alan Ralphs and Judy Harris 6.Accessing and assessing appropriate widening participation data: an exploration of how data are used and by whom Natalie Holland, Ann-Marie Houghton, Jo Armstrong and Claire Mashiter

Ellen Boeren is lecturer at Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She obtained her PhD in Educational Sciences in May 2011 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Her research interests are situated in the field of higher/adult/lifelong education. She conducts (European) comparative research and has a special interest in survey methodology. She went through the Thomas J. Alexander fellowship with the OECD (funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundation) and is the Edinburgh team lead on the Horizon 2020 funded project ENLIVEN - Encouraging Lifelong Learning for a Vibrant and Inclusive Europe as well as on the Erasmus+ project New Adults’ Competencies for Skills Revolution. She is sole author of 'Lifelong Learning Participation in a Changing Policy Context: an Interdisciplinary Theory' for which she won the 2017 Cyril O. Houle Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Adult Education Literature. Nalita James is Associate Professor in Lifelong Learning at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research interests include: access to higher education, adult education, lifelong learning, educational transitions, and educational policy and she is published widely in this area. She is currently conducting research on adult learners and the impact of ESOL on learner identity (funded by the Department for Local Communities and Government) with Leicester Adult Education College. She is co-author with Hugh Busher of Improving Opportunities to Engage in Learning: A study of the Access to Higher Education Diploma (Routledge, 2018), and with Ellen Boeren of Being an Adult Learner in Austere Times (2018).