In this seminar, Ben Hart explores the theoretical and empirical contributions of his completed doctoral thesis, which was entitled Pictures on Water: An Exploration of the Policy Cycle of Widening Participation in English Higher Education, this research conceptualises widening participation policy enactment as a dynamic and distorting process which is shaped by shifting market logics, increasingly prescriptive regulation, and institutional hierarchies. Drawing on a novel corpus of institutional policy texts (produced by Ben for this research) and interviews at five higher education institutions, the thesis investigates how access discourses have evolved over the past 15 years under increasing pressure to conform to ‘scientific’ standards.

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