Contradictory functions in Higher Education’s contribution to social equity

Presentation by: John Brennan, of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information at the Open University, UK.

Abstract

The presentation argues that modern higher education systems simultaneously provide both a mechanism for the reproduction and legitimisation of deep-rooted structures of social inequality and a means for social mobility within such structures. To do so, they require a steep vertical differentiation and stratification of their institutions. The UK will be used to illustrate the argument, providing as it does both steep levels of social inequality and a highly stratified higher education system. The presentation distinguishes between ‘import’ and ‘export’ aspects of higher education’s potential contribution to social equity. The former refers to widening participation in higher education to people from traditionally under-represented backgrounds. The latter refers to the wider social impacts of higher education, through ensuring that the knowledge produced and transmitted in higher education is available for the use and benefit of all.. The ‘rival’ claims of ‘elite reproduction’ and ‘liberal’ theorists are considered, particularly with reference to evidence from the UK case, a society characterised by high levels of social inequality and by a higher education system characterised by steep ‘vertical differentiation’ of its institutions. It is argued that this steep institutional differentiation enables contradictory social functions of higher education to be performed and ‘legitimised’ simultaneously. The presentation also considers some of the policy claims made for the contribution of higher education to the achievement of social equity and some of the empirical literature about whether such claims have validity. Suggestions for a research agenda on the relationship between higher education and social equity are made.

Author Biography

John Brennan is Professor of Higher Education Research at the UK Open University where he also directs the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Bath. He has directed and participated in many national and international projects on higher education addressing topics such as graduate employment, quality assurance, universities and social transformation. By training a sociologist, he is a founder member of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers and an elected Fellow of the Society for Research into Higher Education. He currently chairs the Scientific Committee of the European Science Foundation’s research programme on ‘Higher Education and Social Change’.