Logo image
The Challenge of Change: Access and Opportunity in Mass Higher Education
Book   Open access

The Challenge of Change: Access and Opportunity in Mass Higher Education

David Davies Professor, James Nyland Professor and Verity Firth Professor The Hon
Professor David Davies and Professor James Nyland
2024
url
The Challenge of Change: Access and Opportunity in Mass Higher EducationView
Published (Version of record) Open Free to Read

Related links

Metrics

1 Record Views

Abstract

Access once referred to special courses for adults designed to secure access to universities for people who had been denied chances to study earlier in life. Its ethos was egalitarian and offered routes to learning and opportunities often denied. The 1970s saw the growth of mass higher education and Access across many parts of the world was part of that upsurge of opportunity. The book pivots between this foundation period and urgent contemporary issues facing higher education in the 2020s and a connection is made through the idea of ‘threads through time’ between then and now and between Great Britain and Australia which had both similar and shared yet different concerns as democratic societies facing challenges. Key themes include the problematical nature of human capital theory in explaining HE growth and change, the changing character of the public sphere, persisting inequality, meritocracy and elite formation and the public good. The book deals with how knowledge is both a catalyst for change and is deeply problematical for marginal groups in society and forces us to engage with issues, including race, racism and ethnicity alongside the impact of climate change. Access exists both within and beyond formal sites of learning and still gives us possibilities.

Details

Logo image