Improving Opportunities to Engage in Learning: A Study of the Access to Higher Education Diploma

The book addresses a research gap in knowledge about students’ and tutors’ experiences of Access to Higher Education courses, presenting a broad perspective on the importance and difficulties of such courses through listening to the voices of students and tutors undertaking a variety of Access to HE pathways. The authors argue that despite success on their courses benefiting the national economy as well as students individually, the social and financial costs of continuing education is almost entirely shifted onto students’ shoulders by policymakers. Despite the costs, students can still see Access to HE as a chance to improve their lives, reflecting the neoliberal discourse of personal responsibility and risk embedded in broader national social and policy discourses.

Improving Opportunities to Engage in Learning will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of further and higher education, widening participation, social justice and sociology of education, and education policy and politics.