Chapter 10: Conclusion

We set out in this volume to do two things: to establish the political and economic framework within which participation after access work happens (addressing the why questions) and present case studies of how this happens and is evaluated in everyday practice across the English higher education (HE) sector. Beginning with an historical analysis of the policy journey from widening participation (WP) in the 1990s to the emphasis on retention and success after the Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System white paper (Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DBIS), 2011), we saw how institutional competition for applicant consumers within an ever-increasing monitoring and regulatory context drives what the sector does to an ever-greater extent. At the same time, the shift in focus for the WP agenda from ’access to’ HE to ’support within’ HE has enabled a flowering of pedagogical and curricular innovation and support services to not only make HE participation potentially transformative for all students (rather than just those targeted by access outreach initiatives) but also contributed to a more rigorous emphasis on evaluating this work. So, while these developments can be seen as fully in-train with the policy trend to greater market steering of the system, they nevertheless offer fertile conditions for a radical rethinking of how participation can be supported.