A strong feature of the widening participation agenda is improving the aspirations of groups that are underrepresented in higher education. This paper seeks to reposition the utility of this as a focal point of educational interventions by showcasing the success of a mentoring program that takes a different approach. The Australian Indigenous…

The expectations of first-year students are becoming more widely researched and understood. How to realign perceptions and prepare students for the transition from secondary school to tertiary education is less well considered. This paper presents an account of a pre-university preparation programme embedded in the senior years of secondary…

Recent Australian government targets for higher education participation have produced a flurry of activity focused on raising the aspirations of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. In this paper we test two key assumptions underpinning much of this activity: that students from low-SES backgrounds hold lower career…

This paper reports how one Australian university and the Queensland Department of Education and Training (DET) are working together to increase the number of school students from low socio-economic backgrounds enrolling in undergraduate university degrees. This innovative program involves university lecturers and school teachers working together…