Access and Widening Participation

The Network aims to:

• develop a reflexive space for higher education lecturers, policy-makers, managers, leaders and researchers to contribute to ways of conceptualising widening participation. The aims and objectives of the Network will be developed through discussions and consultation with members but will be concerned with the ways that research influences, shapes and develops WP strategies, policies, discourses and practices;
• provide a supportive framework to bring together diverse perspectives to the field of higher education studies and to draw on these strengths to develop critical, analytical and theoretical approaches to researching widening participation. It will collectively consider issues of methodology and how to best develop sophisticated methodological frameworks to help us better understand the nature of in/equality, under/representation, mis/recognition in higher education institutions in local, national and global contexts. It will consider how different and competing epistemological frameworks might be usefully drawn together to strengthen the areas of research on widening participation;
• will be interested in supporting research on widening participation including a focus on the following areas: access, admissions, non/participation, quality and equality frameworks, student experiences and identities, staff experiences and identities, inclusive pedagogies, curriculum, assessment practices, class, gender and race relations, funding, choice and transitions, what higher education is and who it is for. However, the Network will be interested to hear from members to develop such approaches and to consider the direction the Network in finer detail.