Beyond ‘skills through equity’ and ‘the hope of redemption’: Contesting neoliberal Australian widening participation policy and hegemonic evaluation practices

Abstract

This article problematises established rationales for widening participation in Australian higher education which pursue neoliberal national economic agendas. Rather than valuing the subjectivities of those it seeks to include, widening participation practice and evaluation has predominantly fashioned individual agency in terms of the skills required to compete in a globalised economy. This discourse is punctuated by regular higher education policy reviews which have informed government efforts to improve access to university for key equity cohorts, including students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Culminating in the ‘skills through equity’ logic of the Australian Universities Accord, widening participation’s success has as a result been progressively measured against national economic outcomes guided by hegemonic evaluation practices. This has placed an unnecessary burden upon the students widening participation aims to support, determining the legitimacy of their university aspirations within a narrow frame of national economic success or failure. Students from underrepresented backgrounds are thus cast as redemptive figures in the pursuit of a more ‘inclusive’ (and competitive) society. To fully understand the experience of higher education for students from underrepresented backgrounds in their own terms, this article advocates for, evaluation practice which embeds social justice commitments and prioritises researcher reflexivity.