ABSTRACT
Historically, higher education has been the domain of a privileged, predominantly white, male elite, both in terms of participation and the construction and privileging of its representational resources. In terms of participation, it was only at the middle of the nineteenth century that women were allowed entry to higher education, and more recently still that men and women from working-class and Black groups have begun to gain access (see discussions in Stiver Lie and O’Leary 1990; Brooks 1997: Weiner 1998). Just as particular social groups have been privileged in their historic access to higher education, particular ways of meaning have been privileged through the continued validation of particular representational resources. This was discussed in the previous chapter, where dominant meanings, and relationships around meanings, in essayist literacy texts were explored.
