In 2007, I embarked on a PhD study to explore diverse students' experiences, representations and understandings of personal development and personal development planning at one British university. The timing of this project was critical because universities were charged with a responsibility to provide opportunities for students to engage with…

Taking an international comparative perspective, the paper seeks to identify conditions that favour or impede participation in continuing higher education (CHE), and to answer the question what lessons can be learned from other countries. To this end we present selected findings of a secondary analysis of data from seven countries and…

A social scientist's perception of subject matter is similar to an individual's perception of reality in that both are set within a cultural context composed of factors such as common sense and scientific fact. Variations in ways of thinking have particular ramifications for feminist scholarship. For example, understanding the importance of…