Access to Higher Education

Anna Mountford-Zimdars is a senior lecturer in Higher Education and Head of Research at King's Learning Institute, King’s College London, UK.Neil Harrison is a senior lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of the West of England, UK.

• Section 1: Access to higher education Chapter 1 – Global trends of access to and equity in postsecondary educationChiao-Ling Chien, Patrick Montjouridès and Hendrik van der PolChapter 2 – The stratification of opportunity in high participation systems (HPS) of higher educationSimon Marginson Section 2: Theoretical perspectivesChapter 3 – Capitals and habitus: a Bourdieusian framework for understanding transitions into higher education and student experiencesCiaran Burke Chapter 4 – Explaining inequality? Rational action theories of educational decision makingRon Thompson Chapter 5 – Student choices under uncertainty: bounded rationality and behavioural economicsNeil HarrisonChapter 6 – Higher education: too risky a decision?Malcolm BryninChapter 7 - Widening access with success: using the capabilities approach to confront injusticesMerridy Wilson-StrydomChapter 8 – Reflexivity and agency: critical realist and Archerian analyses of access and participationPeter KahnSection 3: Contemporary challenges Chapter 9 – Framing and making of access policies: the case of Palestinian Arabs in higher education in IsraelAyala Hendin, Dalia Ben-Rabi and Faisal Azaiza Chapter 10 – Widening access in a vast country: opportunities and challenges in AustraliaAnn JardineChapter 11 – Accessing postgraduate study in the United States for African Americans: relating the roles of family, fictive kin, faculty, and student affairs practitionersCarmen M. McCallum, Julie R. Posselt and Estefanía LópezChapter 12 – Participation and access in higher education in Russia: continuity and change of a positional advantageAnna Smolentseva Chapter 13 – Can Holistic and Contextualised Admission (HaCA) widen access at highly selective universities? Experiences from England and the United StatesAnna Mountford-ZimdarsChapter 14 – Diversifying admissions through top-down entrance examination reform in Japanese elite universities: what is happening on the ground?Beverley Anne YamamotoChapter 15 – The mobility imperative: English students and 'fair' access to international higher educationRachel Brooks and Johanna WatersConclusion