ABSTRACT
Despite significant transformation in South African higher education, many undergraduates remain vulnerable to unequal participation because of unjust institutional arrangements. Situated within global concerns about widening participation and participatory parity in higher education, this chapter focuses on participatory research that investigated the freedoms of black 1 female university students from working-class backgrounds. Students’ experiences were theoretically framed by the capability approach and Nancy Fraser’s redistributive theory of justice, in order to explore how students’ freedom to participate as valued members of the institution were diminished by the intersection of racial-, gender- and class-based exclusion. The study challenges a deficit approach to black women from working-class backgrounds, by incorporating women’s own narratives, voices and experiences in a longitudinal participatory research project. The first section illustrates how students who face socioeconomic vulnerability and academic marginality navigate an intersecting range of structural barriers at university. The second section foregrounds student agency by demonstrating how students negotiate these barriers to resist a deficit view of their ability to participate in higher education.
Keywords: participatory research; capability approach; South Africa; higher education
