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Higher Education Research & Development
ISSN: 0729-4360 (Print) 1469-8366 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cher20
Towards a structural inequality framework for
student retention and success
Ryan Naylor & Nathan Mifsud
To cite this article: Ryan Naylor & Nathan Mifsud (2020) Towards a structural inequality
framework for student retention and success, Higher Education Research & Development, 39:2,
259-272, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2019.1670143
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1670143
Published online: 11 Oct 2019.
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Towards a structural inequality framework for student
retention and success
Ryan Naylor and Nathan Mifsud
College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
University campuses are increasingly diverse, reflecting substantial
growth in student enrolments, but this has not translated to
equitable outcomes for all students. While much attention has
been focused on student retention and success, particularly for
those from non-traditional backgrounds, dominant theoretical
models rest on a limited notion of cultural capital that places
undue responsibility on students themselves. We suggest that
structural inequality, whereby some people receive unequal
privileges and opportunities, offers a more productive, less
problematic framework for use by academic staff, university
leaders and policy makers to address these challenges. In this
article, we identify three types of structural inequality –vertical,
horizontal, and internal –and include a taxonomy of internal
inequalities to prompt further research and policy outcomes. Put
simply, rather than ask how students can build cultural capital to
assimilate to their institutions, we should ask what institutions can
do to include students, staff, and the wider community.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 16 July 2018
Accepted 9 May 2019
KEYWORDS
Social inclusion; structural
inequality; retention;
attrition; higher education
Introduction
Internationally over the past three decades, the number of people accessing higher edu-
cation has grown considerably (Marginson, 2016). A third of global school leavers now
enter higher education; over 100 countries now enrol more than 15% of the school
leaver-aged cohort in higher education, and over 50 countries enrol more than 50% (Mar-
ginson, 2016; UNESCO, 2015). In Australia, this is reflected in near-universal higher edu-
cation participation. Over one million domestic students were enrolled in Australian
higher education institutions in 2016, plus an additional 400,000 international students
(Department of Education, 2016), compared to only 485,000 total enrolments in 1990
(Naylor & James, 2015). With a national population of only 24 million, this indicates
that approximately 6% of Australia’s total population currently participate in higher edu-
cation. This growth, similar to other developed economies, including the UK, Canada, the
USA and much of Europe, has corresponded with an increasingly diverse population of
students entering university.
© 2019 HERDSA
CONTACT Ryan Naylor r.naylor@latrobe.edu.au College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University,
Bundoora 3086, Australia
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
2020, VOL. 39, NO. 2, 259–272
https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1670143
However, increased access to higher education has not led to equitable outcomes for all
students. Students from some backgrounds still face poorer outcomes than ‘traditional’
students in terms of opportunities for access to higher education; retention, pass rates
and degree completion while enrolled; and employability as graduates (Higher Education
Standards Panel, 2017; Institute for Social Science Research, 2017; Productivity Commis-
sion, 2017; Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2017). This has led, in Aus-
tralia, to increased pressure on institutions to support and improve student attrition,
success, and completion rates without compromising the access and participation of stu-
dents from equity group backgrounds (or ‘equity students’). For example, the amount of
Federal funding for institutions has been increasingly floated as a potential lever to reward
or punish based on student outcomes that may or may not be considered satisfactory by
policy makers (see, e.g., Birmingham, 2017).
Retention and attrition from university, especially the sociodemographic aspects of
individual students, have been an enduring subject of higher education research
(Naylor & James, 2015). Notably, recent work has revealed significant variation in
student outcomes between even those universities with similar student cohorts (Higher
Education Standards Panel, 2017; Nelson et al., 2017). To explain this institutional vari-
ation, Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) has long been the dominant
discourse, and the goal of building cultural capital for students from non-traditional back-
grounds (that is, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic minorities, or
those with disability, rather than white, middle-class students without disability) is the
impetus for many university preparation and support programmes (Bennett et al.,
2015). Cultural capital also forms a key element in Tinto’s near-paradigmatic model of
student retention (Tinto, 1975,1987) and Kift’s (Kift, 2009) and Lizzio’s (Lizzio, 2006)
transition pedagogies.
However, while cultural capital is a widely used theoretical lens, it has shortcomings,
including its frequent misuse in the higher education literature and its potential implicit
notion that equity students have a ‘deficit’(i.e., lack of cultural capital) and require assim-
ilation into the academe. This is a significant problem for institutional policy that aims to
support non-traditional students, because it places the locus of control primarily on stu-
dents and their willingness to engage with support programmes, rather than on the insti-
tutional actors that can be more effectively influenced by policy.
We suggest that structural inequality offers a more productive framework for use by
researchers, teachers, and organisational leaders in the ongoing effort required to
achieve more inclusive institutions. Hence, rather than ask how students can build cultural
capital to leverage their success within an institution, we should be asking what insti-
tutions are doing to become inclusive to all students, staff, and the wider community.
This shifts the onus from students, or from areas associated with outreach and academic
literacy programmes (Devlin, 2013), to all actors within the institution.
Ultimately, it is necessary to both develop ways for individuals to succeed and to modify
institutional culture (Tierney, 2000), but so far the latter has been underemphasised. This
article is the result of a systematized literature review (Grant & Booth, 2009) using Google
Scholar as the primary database, performed as part of a larger project (see Naylor &
Mifsud, 2019 for full details). Following completion of the literature searches, a critical
synthetic approach was taken to develop the taxonomy described at the end of this
article. The aim of this article is to spur greater consideration of the specific factors that
260 R. NAYLOR AND N. MIFSUD
institutions can target to shape themselves, rather than their students, in their drive to
become equitable places of learning. In this article, we begin by detailing the concept of
structural inequality, contrast it with the cultural capital lens as it is most frequently
applied, and then discuss potential areas for policy intervention to reduce internal struc-
tural inequalities for particular students.
Structural inequality in higher education
Structural inequality is a framework that examines conditions in which groups of people
are provided with unequal opportunities in terms of roles, rights, opportunities and
decisions compared to others (Archer & Leathwood, 2003). Giddens (1984)defines struc-
ture as the rules and resources –often not consciously discussed, but instead instantiated
through actions and discourse –that actors draw on as they produce and reproduce
social relations in their activities. Structures feed anticipations about what actors (in
this case, students from equity backgrounds) want and can achieve in their interactions
with other actors. An actor’s attempts to achieve desired goals and outcomes through
interactions with others, and the social meaning given to those attempts, are known as
‘positioning acts’, and the individual’s conceptions of power and institutional roles are
shaped by the discourses and positioning acts in which they are permitted to engage
(Harre & van Langenhove, 1999; Rorty, 1979). These conceptions then affect the
person’s further positioning acts, discourses and practices, and thereby become self-rein-
forcing (Rorty, 1979).
Viewing higher education through a structural inequality framework, one can argue
that institutional staff, students, and even family members and friends distant from the
university, make explicit and implicit positioning acts that determine whether an equity
student has the same opportunities and privileges as those from other backgrounds.
These acts range from exclusionary discourse in the classroom, to developing and enfor-
cing inflexible enrolment and assessment policies, to privileging particular communication
styles or ways of knowing (Gale, 2012; Madden, 2015; White & Lowenthal, 2011). For the
purposes of this article, we identify three types of structural inequality in higher education,
using Australian higher education as a specific example, although the examples given have
parallels in other systems.
Vertical inequalities
‘Vertical inequalities’describes circumstances whereby people with particular character-
istics or backgrounds (for example, but not limited to, low socioeconomic (SES), Indigen-
ous, or non-English speaking backgrounds) have fewer opportunities to access higher
education. Much of the framing of the student equity agenda in Australian higher edu-
cation, including in government policy (Dawkins, 1990), is seen through the lens of popu-
lation parity (that is, that the composition of the higher education sector reflects the
composition of society at large). It is well established that access rates constitute the
major disparities in higher education (Department of Education, 2016; Institute for
Social Science Research, 2017; Naylor, Baik, & James, 2013), with several groups, including
those from low-SES or non-English speaking backgrounds, accessing higher education at
only half the rate predicted by their population share (Department of Education, 2016).
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 261
Much research in student equity and social inclusion has focused on vertical inequalities
(see Nikula (2017) for an interesting cross-national critique), and factors contributing to
these inequalities include, to name a few: financial obstacles, alternative aspirations to uni-
versity (James, 2002), ability to navigate the application process (Gale et al., 2013) and lack
of support from families (O’Shea, 2016).
Horizontal inequalities
People with particular characteristics or backgrounds may also have fewer opportunities to
access prestigious institutions or certain highly selective fields of study. Students from low-
SES backgrounds, for example, are relatively over-represented in some (arguably low-
status) fields, such as nursing and education, and under-represented in fields such as medi-
cine or architecture. Similarly, the elite Group of Eight institutions enrol low-SES students
at approximately half the rate of the newer, suburban ‘red brick’institutions, and a third
that of the regional universities (Department of Education, 2016). Many of the red brick
and regional universities do not offer the full range of high-status fields, which compounds
the exclusion of low-SES students from both prestigious institutions and the higher future
earnings potential offered by those fields.
The lifetime earnings available to graduates from some universities is significantly
higher than those from others (Bexley, 2016; Norton, 2016), resulting in degrees of
different, and not always transparent, value to graduates. While several factors no doubt
contribute to these differences (including how employability is framed within the insti-
tution –Holmes, 2013), such as employers’perceptions of educational quality (as
opposed to educational quality per se), a major factor in horizontal inequalities is likely
to be the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). Although prospective students
can advance via other entrance qualifications in some courses, ATAR remains the mech-
anism of entry for the majority of students. This should be of some concern, given that
ATAR has been shown to correlate more closely with SES status than with success at uni-
versity (Cardak & Ryan, 2009).
A further contributor to horizontal inequality in higher education may be a lack of
transparent admission and outcome information, which prevents students from
making informed decisions about what course to study (if at all). Career education
in schools plays an important role in helping students to choose courses, careers
and institutions best suited to their interests, skills and aspirations. Low-SES students
are nearly twice as likely as high-SES students to leave their studies due to a change in
career plans (Harvey, Szalkowicz, & Luckman, 2017), which may indicate that they do
not have access to adequate career education in schools (or perhaps the capacity or
motivation to access it where it exists –Dunne, King, & Ahrens, 2014). It also suggests
that policies that restrict or make course transfers more difficult are more likely to
negatively impact low-SES students, providing an example of an internal structural
inequality.
Internal inequalities
People with particular characteristics or backgrounds may also be disadvantaged within
the institution itself; for example, by being less likely to complete a degree having
262 R. NAYLOR AND N. MIFSUD
achieved access to higher education. Although the retention and subject pass rates for
students from equity backgrounds are typically close to parity with those for the
wider cohort, the completion or attainment rates are often much lower, at 80–90% of
the institutional average (Department of Education, 2016;Harveyetal.,2017). Even
when equity students are able to complete their degrees, they typically do so at slower
rates than is typical for the institution as a whole (Harvey et al., 2017). Note also that
it is not simply equity group membership that may contribute to internal inequalities.
For example, studying part-time is recognised as a major risk factor for not completing
a degree. While equity students are more likely to study part-time than other students,
part-time study appears to constitute a risk of non-completion by itself. The typical
reasons provided for these differences in outcome may be divided into two broad
areas: recognition of personal or relatively external factors that may impact on ability
to study (for example, financial constraints, caring responsibilities, mental wellbeing),
and a lack of cultural capital that prevents students from being able to navigate the insti-
tution and successfully complete assessment.
Structural inequality as a theoretical framework
Vertical and horizontal structural inequality in Australian secondary education has been
explored previously in terms of how it may be propagated through curriculum and deliv-
ery, as well as the selection of tertiary courses and institutions (Teese, 2007). A recent con-
sultation paper developed as part of the national review of equity groups (Institute for
Social Science Research, 2017) found that roughly a third of the difference in access
rates for students from equity backgrounds (expressed as odds ratios) could be explained
by individual barriers to higher education. These barriers included financial barriers, aca-
demic achievement, poor school experiences, low self-efficacy, lack of family support and
alternative aspirations to higher education, and were selected as a convenience sample
from among the indicators collected as part of the Longitudinal Survey of Youth
(LSAY), rather than specifically developed to assess individual barriers. The fact that
these indicators were so explanatory, particularly given their limited number and conven-
ience sampling, provide proof-of-concept that attending to barriers to success in higher
education is important to understand the underlying mechanisms that produce vertical
inequalities (Institute for Social Science Research, 2017).
To our knowledge, however, the same analyses have not been made for students already
participating in higher education (internal inequalities). Internal structural inequality will
therefore be the primary focus of the remainder of this article.
There is some evidence to suggest that a structural inequality approach might be pro-
ductive in understanding variation in student outcomes within universities. The national
Higher Education Standards Panel (HESP), in their examination of student retention and
success, found that factors at the level of individual students provided only a relatively
weak predictive ability, with only 23% of the variation explained by factors such as
mode of study, type of attendance, age, socioeconomic status and cultural background
(Higher Education Standards Panel, 2017). In contrast, the Tertiary Education Quality
and Standards Agency (TEQSA) has reported that an approach focusing on aspects of
institutions rather than individuals provides far greater predictive power for retention,
with 41% of the variation explained at the sector level, and 86% for the universities
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 263
(TEQSA, 2017). These findings demonstrate the potential power of focusing on insti-
tutional culture and environment rather than deficit models of students.
The use and misuse of ‘cultural capital’
As noted earlier, Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital is a pervasive concept in education
studies, and has been widely applied as a theoretical lens to explain differences in outcomes
for students from various backgrounds. Particularly, ‘building’cultural capital has been a
significant focus in informing prospective students’aspirations and expectations of uni-
versity, and supporting students as they transition through and participate in their
studies (see, e.g., Bennett et al., 2015; Kift, 2009; Nelson et al., 2017).
Bourdieu’s theory was originally advanced to account for the generation of class
inequalities in educational attainment (Bourdieu, 1977), and later formed the cornerstone
of Bourdieu’s theory of social replication (Bourdieu, 1986). This article is not intended to
be a simple defence of Bourdieu’s work, which has been discussed in great detail elsewhere.
However, as Goldthorpe (2007) has observed (see also Emirbayer & Williams, 2005;
Winkle-Wagner, 2010), much confusion has resulted from the use of ‘cultural capital’
in contexts that belie its radical nature and grounding in economic theory. We therefore
seek to more clearly articulate Bourdieu’s framing of the idea, in order to contrast it with
the less theoretically driven, unproblematised usage particularly common in transition
pedagogy and social inclusion literature. That is, researchers have typically used cultural
capital to as a substitute for ‘cultural resources’rather than ‘capital’in its economic
sense, or conflated it with ‘social capital’(McNeal, 1999).
Such use represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Bourdieu’s work.
For Bourdieu, capital (in all its forms, economic, social, and cultural) amounts to power,
and represents accumulated labour, ‘which, when appropriated on to a private, i.e., exclu-
sive, basis by agents or groups of agents, enables them to appropriate social energy in the
form of reified or living labor’(Bourdieu, 1986, p. 241). Children of the ‘dominant class’
are better able to succeed in an education system because, owing to continuity with their
previous experiences, they are already well prepared to succeed within it. Conversely, chil-
dren from other class backgrounds are likely to find schooling (and, for that matter, uni-
versity) an alien and distancing environment that comprises unfamiliar social and cultural
norms (Goldthorpe, 2007). Thus, people from different cultural backgrounds can draw
different profits, or accumulate more or less powerful outcomes, from the academic
markets than others (Bourdieu, 1986). Put another way, people from outside the dominant
class are less able to benefit from education due to difficulties in adjustment, which at best
lead to opportunity costs, and at worst, lead to exclusion for inadequate performance or
self-exclusion, whereas those from the dominant class benefit from mutually reinforcing
outcomes from school and at home.
In this framing, there is little that is controversial in how education research has often
dealt with the concept of cultural capital. However, it ignores the nature of capital as accu-
mulated labour whose value depends on scarcity (Bourdieu, 1986). For Bourdieu, capital
gives privileged access to further capital, allowing the dominant classes to monopolise
resources and reinforce their dominance. Scarcity is essential to the value of education
in social reproduction; widening participation therefore must lead to the devaluing of cre-
dentials for all parties. As Bourdieu says, ‘Because material and symbolic profits which the
264 R. NAYLOR AND N. MIFSUD
academic qualification guarantees also depend on its scarcity, the investments made (in
time and effort) may turn out to be less profitable than was anticipated when they were
made’(Bourdieu, 1986, p. 247). Bourdieu’s theory can, and has, been profitably used to
explain credentialism and the devaluing of Bachelor’s degrees in the modern job market
under universal higher education systems as new forms of vertical inequality (see, for
example, Bexley, 2016; Marginson, 2016). It can explain the emergence and reinforcement
of horizontal inequalities; that is, differences in the value of degrees from particular insti-
tutions, and the relative exclusion of particular backgrounds from elite institutions
(Brändle, 2017; Teese, 2007). It has also been used recently to highlight changes in aca-
demic governance and decision-making (Rowlands, 2017; Watson & Widin, 2015), indi-
cating the breadth of analysis possible with Bourdieu’s lens.
These implications are often not considered within the field of social inclusion in higher
education, where ‘cultural capital’is typically used shorn of its explanatory power as an
expression of ‘symbolic violence’(Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 97). The framing of
many university outreach and development programmes as ‘building cultural capital’
for participants seems profoundly inconsistent with Bourdieu’s theory of capital and
social reproduction. One might argue that these efforts are fundamentally a form of colo-
nialism, or the enforcing of a dominant system of capital over subordinate systems;
however, that is not how practitioners typically conceive of or use the term. Certainly,
almost all would argue against the notion that they were committing symbolic violence
upon students or subcultures by helping them build resources to succeed in higher edu-
cation. Again, this is not to say that this theoretical lens cannot be used to provide insights
into the higher education system, or to critique the social inclusion agenda. It does,
however, suggest that practitioners are often not really engaging with the theory when
they invoke ‘cultural capital’(Goldthorpe, 2007; Robbins, 1993).
Implicit problematization of equity students
A further difficulty for extending Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital into the social
inclusion space, shorn of its connection to his theory of capital, is that it potentially
creates an implicit deficit model for non-traditional students (Devlin, 2013; Winkle-
Wagner, 2010). Students are themselves expected to change to suit the system to
develop their cultural capital, rather than the system accommodating diverse backgrounds
through genuine social inclusion. This, perhaps ironically, reinforces a Bourdieusian
reading of social inclusion in higher education as symbolic violence –but again, it does
not appear to reflect how practitioners seek to use the term.
It is difficult to avoid a deficit model while focusing on individuals within a system
rather than on the system itself (Smit, 2012). Within the field of social inclusion in uni-
versity, the contrast between deficit models and strengths-based models is long estab-
lished. In the former, the focus is typically on building skills through extra- and co-
curricular activities or streaming in order to maximise the chances that students will be
able to achieve their goals within the institution. In the latter, the pedagogical process
and philosophy is different –all students are assumed to have resources that can be mobi-
lised to enable flourishing rather merely surviving, and capitalising on strengths is believed
to be more likely to succeed than similar effort expended on overcoming weaknesses
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 265
(Lopez & Louis, 2009)–but the basic process of enculturating individuals within the
system remains the same.
This process of shaping individuals to flourish within institutional culture is particu-
larly potentially problematic for ethnic and cultural minorities. Tinto’s enduring
student retention model holds that for students to persist through college, they must
‘become incorporated’into its social and academic communities (Tinto, 1987, p. 126).
Rendón, Jalomo, and Nora (2000) point out that this language is analogous to integration,
and more broadly, is linked to an assimilation/acculturation framework. In their discus-
sion of academic literacy and codes of power, White and Lowenthal (2011) use the
lenses of cultural reproduction theory and resistance theory to examine why ethnic min-
ority students may cling to culturally imbued discursive patterns in the classroom and in
formal assessment rather than adopting the formal academic language of their teachers.
White and Lowenthal (2011) conclude that the strong link between language and identity
means that these students may equate the use of academic language as ‘acting White’and
thus negating their own cultural identity. Similar findings about the impact of culture and
resistance on academic self-efficacy have also been reported in the Australian context for
Indigenous students in both secondary and tertiary education (Behrendt, Larkin, Griew, &
Kelly, 2012; Mander, Cohen, & Pooley, 2015). Pechenkina (2017) illustrates an interesting
counter-example, where success at university is framed as resistance to White hegemony,
although the study supports rather than refutes the troubling nature of assimilatory
models of academic literacies and success. Furthermore, other studies have made
similar arguments about gender (e.g., women in engineering; Powell, Bagilhole, &
Dainty, 2009) and class (e.g., upward mobility for working class students; Loveday,
2015). Requiring, or encouraging, students who differ from the traditional model of the
white, upper-middle class, male student to integrate, or otherwise problematising their
participation in universities or specific disciplines, is therefore broadly at issue, even via
well intentioned programmes such as the social inclusion agenda. The need for integration
focuses on perceived cultural differences (such as poor communication or motivation)
rather than systemic barriers such as differences in expectations, support, and funding.
A parallel discourse is emerging in the research literature to counter the assimilation
narrative of retention. Rather than examine the variety of ways in which institutions
assimilate their students, increasing focus is paid to how academic cultures may adapt
to fit the needs of the student cohort (O’Shea, Lysaght, Roberts, & Harwood, 2016;
Smit, 2012; Zepke & Leach, 2005). As part of this shift, structural inequality offers a valu-
able framework to encapsulate these institutional and systemic factors. Moreover, while
cultural capital is largely confined to issues of retention, a structural inequality framework
transects the educational pipeline, providing the opportunity to develop a holistic model of
equity building in higher education –encompassing access, retention, and graduate out-
comes –that is equally applicable to multiple equity groups.
Towards a consideration of systemic factors
We have so far argued that framing social inclusion policy through cultural capital is
unproductive for two major reasons –that the typical usage of ‘cultural capital’robs Bour-
dieu’s original concept of its theoretical power and leads to confusion with a simpler
concept of ‘cultural resources’; and that attempting to assimilate non-traditional students
266 R. NAYLOR AND N. MIFSUD
into a traditional institutional structure may encourage problematic deficit and accultura-
tion models. It is also apparent that a cultural capital model has not reaped substantial
dividends for students from non-traditional backgrounds: national retention, success
(subject pass rates) and completion rates have not moved outside a 3 percentage point
range for any Australian equity group since 2009 (Department of Education, 2016), and
were largely flat for decades before that (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent, & Scales, 2008;
Naylor & James, 2015). One may argue that little to no change in these indicators is a
success, given that this has taken place against considerable growth in the sector, and par-
ticularly in the numbers of students from equity backgrounds participating in higher edu-
cation. However, it is clear that despite significant focus from both national and
institutional policy and significant funding, that there has been little positive improvement
in the student experience for these students.
A structural inequality approach to widening participation and social inclusion pro-
vides two additional advantages. First, the three types of structural inequality presented
here separate out barriers to access and participation more clearly than a cultural
capital lens, which allows more focused policy solutions, and therefore increase the like-
lihood of effective change. For example, vertical and internal inequalities are often
conflated within a cultural capital model to explain poorer completion rates for equity stu-
dents. Within the sphere of internal inequalities, external constraints (e.g., financial con-
straints) may be conflated with financial management skills, time management skills, sense
of belonging or academic self-perception within programmes intended to support low-SES
students. Conflation creates the risk of wasted resources for students, institutions, and
other stakeholders. By more clearly separating vertical and internal inequalities in the
first example, it becomes clearer which types of problems might be more effectively
addressed through government policy, and which might be more effectively addressed
through institutional, or even more local, policies.
A structural inequality framework is also more likely to prove effective because policy
change is located more fully within the locus of control of the institution (or other sta-
keholders). Programmes that aim to build cultural capital in students (or prospective
students) are necessarily limited in that they provide only the opportunity for change,
which is then moderated by the student’s natural strengths, awareness of the pro-
gramme’s existence, level of engagement with the programme if they attend at all, and
so on. That is, the locus of control is with the student (albeit influenced by their inter-
actions with staffand other students) to determine their final outcome, which again
creates the potential for wasted effort, as well as potentially reinforcing negative stereo-
types or student self-perceptions. However, policy intended to reduce underlying struc-
tural barriers (for example, inflexible assessment policies, or a lack of emergency
financial support for students, etc.) remains entirely within the locus of control of the
institution, and therefore is much more likely to result in more efficient, more
effective change. A structural inequality approach therefore leads to different policy out-
comes, as well as more focused responses.
As part of developing policy interventions to address structural inequality in higher
education, it may be productive to identify ‘pressure points’in the system –that is, the
aspects of institutional culture that most promote (or detract from) inclusivity. As an
example, we now provide a brief and non-exhaustive taxonomy of internal inequalities
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 267
based on the various ways that students can interact with their institution, with questions
to provoke research or policy responses as required.
In what ways does the institution reduce barriers for current students from diverse back-
grounds to participate fully in their university experiences?
.Teaching
○In what ways does the institution prepare or offer professional development to staff
for teaching diverse cohorts?
○Is there a focus on structural or implicit bias in teaching stafftraining?
○In what ways do teaching staffmake clear to students their expectations around
workloads, academic standards, grades, assessment deadlines, etc.?
○To what extent, and in what ways, do teaching staffexplicitly engage with the struc-
tures of the academy (e.g., institutional policy requirements, course advice, career
development) as part of their work with students? Are these requirements overtly
contested, discussed or accepted by staff?
○What opportunities are teaching staffprovided to influence relevant policy based on
their interaction with students?
.Students
○What is distinctive about the institution’s approach to helping equity students
succeed compared with other higher education institutions?
○Are students made aware of the inherent requirements of their chosen course? Does
it require proactive effort from students to discover these requirements, or are they
promoted to students?
○How are students taught to act inclusively in their interactions with other students
and staff?
○How do students perceive the institution in terms of equity?
○How do students perceive themselves as members of the university community (e.g.,
as junior colleagues, as partners, as learners, or as consumers)?
○What opportunities are students provided to influence relevant policies, curricula
and other aspects of university activity?
.Curriculum
○How is curricula made accessible and relevant to students from all backgrounds?
○Which aspects of assessment policies at the institution cater to equity students?
○How does the institution provide advice on course content, inherent requirements
and selection to prospective students or current students?
○How is career advice integrated into the curriculum?
.Administration
○What help is provided to students to navigate the administrative side of the insti-
tution? What is done to make these processes accessible, transparent, flexible, and
jargon-free?
○How well does the institution identify and respond to students facing difficult per-
sonal situations (e.g., homelessness, financial hardship, mental health)?
○How well does your institution accommodate part-time study, leaves of absence etc.?
○Does the institution collect and respond to data on why students have withdrawn
from study?
268 R. NAYLOR AND N. MIFSUD
.Campus life
○What are the accommodation options, including emergency housing, available to
students?
○To what degree do students participate in the institution’s broader life outside of
classes? What kinds of experiences are available? How could these be developed?
○To what degree do students interact with the institution’s support services? What
kinds of services are available? How could these be developed?
.Physical environment
○How is the physical environment of the institution used to support or engage stu-
dents with the institution or their educations (e.g., through community spaces,
study spaces, wifiaccess etc.)?
○Does the institution collect data related to commuting? If so, how, and what kind of
impact on the institution has it made?
○What impression do students have of the ‘feel’of the campus?
Conclusion
In this article, we have argued that structural inequality is a productive framework for
understanding and supporting the student experience in higher education for several
reasons. Firstly, the three types of structural inequality presented here –vertical, horizon-
tal, and internal –clearly identifies and distinguishes barriers to access and participation,
which allows more focused policy solutions, and therefore can increase the likelihood of
effective change. Secondly, it frames the problem of social inclusion within the locus of
control of the institution and therefore is much more likely to result in more efficient,
more effective change. Thirdly, the dominant framework in this area, cultural capital, is
often conceptually and theoretically misused, and potentially leads to problematic dis-
courses of acculturation or deficit models. A structural inequality approach therefore
leads to different policy outcomes, as well as more focused responses.
It must be noted that we do not seek to create a false dichotomy between the cultural
capital and structural inequality frameworks, or imply that one provides all the answers.
We do, however, suggest that structural inequality is likely to be a productive, and here-
tofore underutilised, lens to shape effective policy, and thus is worthy of consideration. As
Rothenberg (2000) famously observed, privilege is often invisible to those who hold it.
This may explain why university leaders and academics often overestimate the effect of
individual factors on student retention and success, and underestimate institutional and
structural factors (Lovitts, 1996). Therefore, a change in theoretical perspective may
give rise to new policy solutions to enable greater support and social inclusion, and a
better student experience, across the higher education sector.
Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education’s Research
Grants Scheme.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 269
Funding
The work was supported by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education’s Research
Grants Scheme.
ORCID
Ryan Naylor http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6880-6463
Nathan Mifsud http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7794-8041
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