Working For Social Mobility

Working for social mobility Universities cannot resolve the problems of inequality in society on their own Comments (0) • • •

Kevin Whitston The Guardian, Tuesday 16 September 2008 Article history

Who is responsible for widening participation in higher education? Too often answers to this question - being debated at fringe meetings at the three main political conferences this autumn - shift responsibility between universities and schools, parents and communities. This game of pass-the-parcel doesn't help anyone, but it's easy to see why it happens. Realistically, what are higher education institutions (HEIs) or schools expected to achieve? Educational inequalities correlate closely with just about every other sort of inequality from income and employment to housing and health. Indeed, schools and HEIs are both part of the solution and part of the problem. Many failing schools serve areas of deprivation, whereas research-intensive institutions take four-fifths of their students from better-off backgrounds. Both reflect and reproduce inequality. The real question is not who should be responsible for widening participation to HE schools, colleges, higher education establishments and government all have a role to play - but what we should be doing about it. We should get away from sentimental appeals to middle-class conscience on the one hand, and unrealistic expectations matched by scaremongering about social engineering on the other. Better to focus on what can practically be done. For Hefce (the Higher Education Funding Council for England), the question is: what contribution can higher education make? Growth in poorest communities This article is the first of a series over the coming weeks looking at action being taken by the sector to help widen participation. Interventions include working with schools; supporting learners (mentoring, summer schools and student ambassadors); fair admissions; opening up new kinds of opportunity and ensuring learners' success. So is there any evidence that we are making progress? It is often argued that the middle classes were the ones to benefit most from HE expansion, so much so that social mobility has declined. But this misreads social trends in the last quarter of the 20th century. The

growth of inequality during the 1980s may have cramped the life chances of a generation, but if social mobility has stalled now it is because the growth in managerial and professional jobs has slowed, not because more of the middle classes have degrees. Remarkably, data on HE participation shows a rapid growth among young people who grew up in the 80s in the poorest communities. Since 1998, participation from the most deprived areas has increased by 33% (4.5 percentage points), compared to 4% (1.8 percentage points) from the least deprived areas (see chart, right). The difference in the rate of growth is dramatic. The chances of young people going into HE from the most deprived 20% of areas was increasing around eight times faster than the least deprived 20% of areas. Data on the social class gap tells a similar story. Participation among the top three social groups actually fell between 2002 and 2006, while participation among the lowest increased. This has narrowed the social class gap by over six percentage points. Progress has not been uniform, nor would we expect it to be. In the early 1980s, before the big expansion of HE, the top three social groups entered HE at 4.7 times the rate of the lower socio-economic groups. In the 1990s, the absolute gap in percentage points between social groups widened. Now it is narrowing absolutely and proportionately and there is no doubt about the long-term trend. Social mobility At the end of the century that advantage was reduced to 2.6 times. And when the data is examined more closely, it is participation among people from routine and manual occupational backgrounds where growth is strongest. Higher education has always been an important factor in the social mobility of individuals from communities without the economic resources and social connections of their wealthier neighbours, and it still is. Progress in addressing social inequality is slow, with no short fixes, but clearly crucial for reasons of social justice and economic competitiveness. The rate of progress could be better but there are no short-term fixes. Social inequality is the result of a dynamic set of relationships; gaps closed in one direction repeatedly open up in another. The sector's commitment to widening participation, led by Hefce, weighs in on the side of greater equality and opportunity. It mitigates disadvantage and provides the encouragement, insight and support that releases potential. Higher education cannot resolve social inequality on its own. If institutions are to build on the progress already achieved, incorporating a commitment to widening participation into the way they understand their mission and purpose is key. · Kevin Whitston is head of widening participation, Hefce http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/16/highereducation