Penn State

Consortium forSocial Movements and Education
Research and Practice

Access and Targeting: An Exploration of a Contradiction

Access and Targeting: An Exploration of a Contradiction

Roseanne Benn, Rob Burton
1995
1995

Abstract

To attempt to understand Access to Higher Education provision as an educational social movement is to become caught up in a dialectial dilemma. Is Access allied to the older radical traditions of adult education through a collective emancipatory role or is its role to serve the educational needs of the individual student and/or the economic needs of society? Research carried out at the University of Exeter has shown that while there is a strong rhetoric within the Access movement that supports the more emancipatory approach, practitioners contradict this when questioned about the prime purpose of Access. Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony can be used to address this contradiction by examining how sub‐cultures, such as the group of Access practitioners, create a mosaic of meaning or a reality map which is drawn from the conflicting ideologies which surround them.

Abstract

To attempt to understand Access to Higher Education provision as an educational social movement is to become caught up in a dialectial dilemma. Is Access allied to the older radical traditions of adult education through a collective emancipatory role or is its role to serve the educational needs of the individual student and/or the economic needs of society? Research carried out at the University of Exeter has shown that while there is a strong rhetoric within the Access movement that supports the more emancipatory approach, practitioners contradict this when questioned about the prime purpose of Access. Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony can be used to address this contradiction by examining how sub‐cultures, such as the group of Access practitioners, create a mosaic of meaning or a reality map which is drawn from the conflicting ideologies which surround them.

Social Movements

Higher Education Reform

Keywords

Class, Europe, Higher Education, Policy

Theme

Social Movements Within; Through; and for Public Education