ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the Irish context in respect to college access and presents evidence of its impacts using an action-inquiry study from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. It presents evidence that students who participate in an initiative aimed at providing access to specific forms of cultural and social capital are developing capabilities identified as important in realising higher education aspirations. The challenge of expanding college opportunities for low-socioeconomic status (SES) students takes place under a broader canopy that includes rapid technological change, globalisation, and a massified higher education system. In Ireland, measures to address the access challenge have included changes to the legislation governing widening participation and the operation of universities under the Irish Universities Act. The capability approach provides an alternative perspective to theories of social and cultural reproduction that assert that low-SES students need to be engaged in activities that will help them to fill in any 'gaps' in their social and cultural capital.
