Widening Higher Education Participation: A Global Perspective - Softcover

Governments have introduced policies to widen the participation of disadvantaged students in higher education. Widening participation policies are also introduced to ensure that higher education contributes to social and economic outcomes. This book includes important insights from 23 leading scholars across 11 countries on a wide range of topics that focus on government policies, institutional structures and the social and economic impacts of widening participation. While widening participation policies and outcomes in developed countries are more widely documented, the policies, achievements, and challenges in other countries such as Brazil, China, Indonesia, South Africa and Palestine are not so widely disseminated. Therefore, the ‘untold stories’ of policies and outcomes of widening participation are a key part of this book. The chapters are organised according to three overarching themes, which include national and transnational studies of the history of widening participation and current policies; inclusive learning and academic outcomes; and socioeconomic structures, concepts and theories.

• engages prominent academics, earlier career researchers, and research students
• provides a wide range of topics related to widening participation
• explores social and economic impact of widening student participation
• presents untold stories of widening participation in developing countries experiencing growth in youth population

Mahsood Shah is an Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. In this role Mahsood is responsible for strengthening research capacity with staff who are engaged in teaching open access courses to young and mature age students from various equity groups. His area of research strength include: quality in higher education, student experience, student feedback, student retention and attrition, student engagement in quality assurance, and private higher education. Prior to joining the University of Newcastle, Mahsood led strategic planning and quality assurance in a number of Australian universities and private higher education providers.