Who Has The Potential To Benefit From Higher Education?

Abstract

Higher Education is framed as something that should benefit the many opposed to the few. This is emphasised in policy that supports the belief that everyone who has the potential to benefit from Higher Education should be able to (HEFCE and OFFA, 2014a). This notion of ‘potential’ however is adopted in varying ways across institutions.

This paper draws on a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of two access agreements from two institutions (one pre-1992 and one post-1992) situated within the same city. Whilst there were many differences within these agreements, this paper focuses on the notion of potential and who is targeted for these interventions. Examining this in the context of recent evidence on student attainment trajectories within compulsory education, this paper will explore how errant assumptions relating to how to identify potential may contribute to reproductions of inequality opposed to widening participation within Higher Education.