ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to critique the hegemonic discourses currently at play in policy on widening participation and the ways these might serve to perpetuate gendered relations and practices. In the first sections I deconstruct the discourses of ‘raising aspirations’ and ‘fair access’ to examine the underlying assumptions and to reveal the ways these discourses are classed, gendered and racialised. I interrogate these discourses to examine the mechanisms by which educational exclusions and inequalities are reconstituted and to uncover the complex processes of selectivity, which are interconnected with institutional categorisations and conventional academic practices. A key argument is that ‘access’ is an issue that requires attention, not only in terms of admissions and selectivity, but also in terms of epistemologies and pedagogical practices within higher education institutions and in relation to complex gender relations.
