ABSTRACT
Differentiation and stratification are widely acknowledged features of mass higher education (HE) in England. The differentiation of provision to meet the needs of varied student groups, and the stratification of the system, whereby there is a division of labour amongst different institutions to meet the needs of these varied groups (Scott 1995), appear to run hand in hand (Gallacher 2006). A positive reading of this seeks to support new and alternative forms of HE, in order to embrace student diversity (see, for example, the collections edited by Duke 2005; Duke and Layer 2005). Literature concerned with inequalities in HE suggests a more critical reading of these developments, and points to how stratification may compound disadvantage whilst apparently widening opportunities (for example, Bhatti 2003; Bowl 2003; Reay et al. 2005; Naidoo 2004). This chapter does not seek to reassert claims that mass HE brings inequalities along with diversity, but explores the tensions incurred through differentiation and stratification in practice, focusing on a growing area of higher education provision, that offered by ‘dual’ sector institutions (Garrod and Macfarlane 2006). By this we mean institutions that offer not just higher education, but what in England is referred to as ‘further education’ (FE), that is, a variety of forms of tertiary education at sub-degree levels. We are interested in how higher education in such contexts may be shaped, and also may work to shape understandings and experience of higher education in the twenty-first century. We do this through a focus on transitions, which we consider at three different, but interrelated levels: institutions in transition, transitions in institutions and students’ experience of transition.1
