Working-class Women on Access to HE Courses Two Decades Apart: A Comparative Analysis of Risk, Opportunity and the (Re)Construction of Identities across a 20-year Period

Widening participation (WP) in higher education (HE) remains a significant component of UK education
and wider social policy landscapes. It aims to create a university system addressing the
underrepresentation of particular social groups. Mature working-class students are one such group, yet
they have recently largely disappeared from policy discourse. The journey for those entering university
via an Access to HE course provides valuable context to the WP agenda. This paper presents a
comparative analysis of two narrative studies conducted 20 years apart. It evidences the ongoing value
of progressing into HE for mature working-class women taking an Access course, and the continuing
reflexivity and risk, confusion and contradictions experienced by mature students during their course.
The findings of the 2022 research echo those of the 2001 project and further challenges the assumption
that a changing learner identity necessitates a corresponding shifting class identity. However, 20 years
on, the second cohort faced increased financial risks, further compounding the students’ class positions,
especially those who were parents. This is significant to the WP agenda because it highlights particular
barriers for this group of students and suggests that getting into, and engaging with HE, remains
challenging and presents significant specific risks to them.
The research makes visible the realities of ongoing class, gender and aged-based inequalities,
highlighting how they are experienced and how they continue to shape educational and employment
trajectories. We present practitioner-led enquiry as a valid epistemology offering important insights into
mature women students’ journeys into and within university.