Comparatively few young white males from poorer backgrounds progress to university. This paper considers evidence gathered from a study that explores the educational ambitions of these young men from five areas of educational disadvantage in North West England, at two stages in their learner journeys. The first stage relates to school year 10…

Can verse mediate between the educational institution and the wider community of which it is a part? Utilising a case study of a specific taught module, this essay considers whether the performance of poetry as an experiential learning activity has a role to play in the emerging concept of the university as an anchor institution, a term that…

Anchor movements rest on the premise that people- and place-based initiatives can be mutually reinforcing. The community development movement, however, has been haunted for years by the people-place dilemma -- the idea that efforts to help people harm efforts to uplift places and vice versa. Most of the literature on the anchor strategy has…

The purpose of this study is to identify common traits shared by first-generation college graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds who grew up in the inner-city. This research was inspired by Duckworth's grit research at Westpoint Academy which sought to predict which cadets would graduate (Duckworth, 2007). Sixty-three first-generation college…

Load shedding in South Africa has a profound impact on various sectors, including education, and specifically, South African music education faces significant disruptions. One of the most notable effects is the interruption of music instruction, with load shedding frequently causing classes to be interrupted. This leads to gaps in learning and a…

Deploying Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin's notions of utterances or communicative interactions, we explore the life histories of two administrators at State University, a predominantly White institution of higher education in the Midwestern United States. In particular, we explore how working with White students, peers, and supervisors demands…

This paper explores some of the unique issues in accessing Higher Education (HE) faced by pupils living in some Scottish rural communities in Argyll & Bute, Highland, Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. Many of these communities are hard to reach and in some of the least deprived areas of Scotland. Despite this,…

In this theoretical essay, I argue that the current incidences of backlash to diversity are best understood as a dynamic of complicated, historic and intertwined desires for racial diversity and white entitlement to property. I frame this argument in the theories of critical race theory and settler colonialism, each of which provide necessary but…

Important recent objectives of indigenous education policy in Australia have been aimed at redressing indigenous economic and social disadvantage through increasing student retention, progression and completion rates in both compulsory and post-compulsory education. The two sectors of the tertiary education system, vocational education and…

This case study outlines the emergence of a large higher education partnership in a sub-region of Wales which has for many years been associated with a low skills stereotype involving unemployment, poverty and deprivation. It contextualises the difficulties and challenges of 2008--the time when the Universities Heads of the Valleys Institute…

Higher education in India has witnessed tremendous increase in the institutional capacity since independence. There are many issues and challenges of higher education in the country. Among them one is regional disparity. For instance, the North Eastern Region which comprises of eight states has been declared as an economically backward area and…

The aim of this paper is to examine how the University of Huddersfield embraced the ethos of community cohesion and made moves into a problematic community. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Oldham in Greater Manchester the paper presents insights into how higher education is viewed in the area. The research reveals that higher…

Access to universities across the United Kingdom remains a challenge despite improvements in recent years. Those challenges are still more marked in Scotland than in the other nations, as this report shows. This report lays bare the extent of the challenge. Scotland has a different approach to higher education. It no longer charges tuition fees,…

The Faculty of Applied Linguistics at the State University of Haiti hardly looks like an institute of higher learning. Hidden away on a quiet downtown cross street, the grimy one-story building contains just three classrooms, along with a library, the dean's office, and a teachers' lounge, each no larger than a bedroom. Two years ago, the…

This article summarizes the initial, collaborative implementation efforts of a school-based conflict resolution program. Lowell elementary School is predominately Hispanic and located in one of the poorest areas of Fresno. The University's Kremen School of Education and Human Development partners with local educators to train children in grades…