Session 1 - 11th April 05 11.55 – 12.45

Title of Presentation:         Transforming Institutional Landscapes 

                                           – Mainstreaming the Widening 

                                              Participating Agenda in HE

Presenters:  Peter Brown, Eleri Chilcott & Alyce von Rothkirch                                                         

Organisation:                     Newport Learning Communities, Centre for

                                             Community and Lifelong Learning,

                                             University of Wales, Newport

Summary:

Linked to the conference themes of practice informing policy and of creating an inclusive curriculum, this paper proposes that the widening participation into HE agenda needs to focus on changing educational landscapes in the community as well as changing institutional landscapes in the HE sector.

The paper is both a discussion paper and case study: it looks at the work of the Newport Learning Communities (NLC) project, which is situated at the Centre for Community and Lifelong Learning at the University of Wales, Newport.

NLC delivers HE provision in community settings in various locations in Newport. It seeks to provide “learning at the local level” – one of the functions Bowden and Marton identify when they define the ‘university of learning’ (Bowden and Marton, 2004/1998, pp. 5-6).

The case study shows how learning is always ‘situated’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991) – delivery of HE modules in the community means much more than just a change of location. From the organisational hurdles (especially with regard to childcare) to implications for the curriculum, HE delivery in the community has repercussions for the way universities are run. Crucially, thus, the project also works on a practical and on a strategic level with academic Schools at the University of Wales, Newport to enable radical change in the university’s mainstream provision. The paper thus focuses on the project’s close collaboration and joint curriculum development with the university’s academic Schools.

The research includes interviews with learners, in which they voice their experience of progressing to HE in the community. It also includes interviews with project and university staff (teaching and administrative) to illustrate NLC’s framework of achieving institutional change.

The paper argues that widening participation projects like NLC and, by implication, the lifelong learning departments they are associated with, have to play a key role in changing institutional landscapes to mainstream the widening participation agenda. Apart from the ever-present lament of the way in which widening participation apparently contributes to a ‘lowering of standards’, the widening participation agenda has recently begun to be dominated by the question of how many state school pupils enter university – a focus which leaves the questions of adult participation, the wider benefits of learning and community education out of the equation. This paper seeks to refocus attention back on widening participation through delivery of HE in the community and the necessary steps of mainstreaming this provision to make it sustainable.

Reference:

Bowden, J and Marton, F. (2004/1998) The University of Learning: Beyond Quality and Competence. London, New York: Routledge/Falmer.

Lave, J and wenger, E. (1990). Situated learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.