ABSTRACT
The expansion and diversification of higher education described in Chapter 1 raises questions about the comparability of the experiences, learning and credentials available across a complex and differentiated higher education system. We have been asking ‘what is learned at university?’ at a time when higher education in the UK comprises many different kinds of universities, different kinds of courses, and students from different backgrounds (both educational and social) studying in very different circumstances and at different stages in their lives. This is what we meant by ‘social and organisational mediation’ in the project’s title. How is learning affected by the way courses are organised, by the places in which it is taking place, by the people one is learning alongside, by the reasons people have for studying and by the other things that are going on in their lives while they are studying?
