Stretching the Academy: The Politics and Practice of Widening Participation in Higher Education

In government rhetoric, 'widening participation' in Higher Education is a way of stretching a system that was once designed for an elite, to accommodate a wider social mix of students in order to encourage economic regeneration through education and social inclusion. For those who work in, or who want to study in Higher Education, the government agenda raises issues about purpose and provision in ways that present both an enormous challenge and an opportunity. In her introduction to Stretching the Academy, Thompson asks how we can make the most of the opportunities created, now that participation and democratic renewal are back on the political agenda. She considers the extent to which we can: not only 'stretch' but also 'turn' the academy; create the space; re-theorise the discourse; influence the practice; operate dialectically and strategically within and against the systems in which we work. This collection of twelve essays provides a major new intervention in the widening participation debate by academics active in radical politics. Collectively they bring together critical analyses and inspirational prose, rooted in the authority of experience and practice. They promote a distinctive social theory of knowledge, deriving from a politically committed analysis and theory of power. These are ideas which inform pedagogy that is concerned with democratising knowledge-making and learning, in ways that re-define the parameters of what counts as higher education.