Competing conceptions of fair admission and their implications for supporting students to fulfil their potential at university

Boliver, Vikki; Powell, Mandy

Abstract

This paper explores how fairness was conceptualised by those responsible for admission to highly selective undergraduate courses at 17 universities in England. Fairness was conceptualised principally with reference to the traditional meritocratic equality of opportunity paradigm, which holds that university places should go to the most highly qualified candidates irrespective of social background. There was sympathy for an alternative meritocratic equity of opportunity model of fairness, involving the assessment of prospective students’ qualifications in light of their socio-economic circumstances. However, our interviewees reported institutional resistance to reducing academic entry requirements for socio-economically disadvantaged students for fear of setting them up to fail, and acknowledged that existing pedagogical practices and academic support structures were inadequate for the task of supporting disadvantaged students entering with lower grades to fulfil their potential at university.

Citation

Boliver, V., & Powell, M. (2023). Competing conceptions of fair admission and their implications for supporting students to fulfil their potential at university. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 27(1), 8-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603108.2022.2063429

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Apr 24, 2022
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Jul 5, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 10, 2023
• Journal: Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education
• Print ISSN: 1360-3108
• Electronic ISSN: 1460-7018
• Publisher: Association of University Administrators
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 8-15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603108.2022.2063429
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1200158