Beyond "Raising Aspirations": The Complexities of Choice in Access to Higher Education

• In Event: 34.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 34.095-11 - The Politics of Charters, Choice, and Change: Implications for Inequality and Opportunity

Abstract

In order to address longstanding inequalities in access to higher education, a key strategy in Australia and other OECD countries has been to ‘raise the aspirations’ of underrepresented groups. This strategy assumes a lack of desire for university, thus placing blame on individuals. Drawing on focus group data from school students in New South Wales, Australia, this study provides a more complex understanding of inequalities by considering the relationship between ‘choice making’ and ‘aspiration’ – addressing not only who wants to go to university, but also who wants to go where, and why? We use the data from two schools (n = 86 students) to highlight differing cultural and structural contexts relative to a global field of higher education.

Authors

• Sally Patfield, The University of Newcastle

• Jennifer M. Gore, The University of Newcastle

• Leanne Fray, The University of Newcastle