A Transnational Literature Review on Barriers to Access in Higher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 5
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Improvement of School Systems and Educational Systems to Promote Social Justice and Inclusion

Proposal

This roundtable session will review the literature on the experiences of disadvantaged groups via access to higher education. The various models presented by Tinto, such as his theory of individual student departure, which is related to interactions between students and the rest of the university community (Tinto, 1987), continue to put the onus on the student. Tinto’s theory asserts that for a student to become a successful college student, they must integrate into the university community in which students voluntarily withdraw from their culture to better integrate into the college (Yao, 2015). Through a review of the literature, we will argue that to succeed in a college setting, one’s culture must be integrated into the community, not the other way around.
Our roundtable will explore current research trends, explicitly regarding access using a transnational lens, via the two researchers. One researcher is in North America, while the other is in Europe. Through this transnational lens, we will investigate the works of others searching for gaps and nuances which fail to address issues of access for disadvantaged groups. Themes that may be addressed in the study are (a) a sense of belonging, (b) student engagement, and (c) student participation. In combing the literature, we expect to find that the onus remains on the student, with institutions not doing nearly enough to address access issues.
This literature review intends to lead to a transnational research study where both researchers engage with students and faculty on their respective continents, searching for similarities and differences. It is expected that viable recommendations could be put forth after it is learned what works and what does not. The work of researchers such as Laura Perna, Sam Museus, Terrell Strayhorn, Vincent Tinto, and George Kuh will be interrogated thoroughly to find gaps and address any limitations they may have suggested. Furthermore, we aim to learn from our peers at the CIES annual conference to better aid in developing this study.

References

Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition. University of Chicago Press.

Yao, C. (2015). Sense of belonging in international students: making the case against integration to US institutions of higher education. Comparative & International Higher Education 7(2015), 6-10.

Authors

• Hector Díaz, University of South Carolina

• Papa Kojo Botsio, Department of Education, University of Oxford