Let the Right Ones In!’
Widening Participation, Academic Writing and the Standards Debate in Higher Education
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12928809 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amanda French (0000-0002-8144-1478, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 236-247 |
| Publication date | 2013-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Power and Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-7438 • E-ISSN: 1757-7438 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2304/power.2013.5.3.236 |
| OpenAlex | W2127881830 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 28 |
This article challenges the frequently expressed concern that widening participation has contributed to a general ‘dumbing down’ of higher education in English universities. In particular, it explores the implications of a long-standing ‘moral panic’ about the poor quality of students' academic writing, particularly in the post-1992 ‘new’ universities, which have been raised in various academic reports and countless media articles. A vampire metaphor is used throughout the article to highlight ways in which assumptions about these falling standards in undergraduates' academic writing feed on the foundations of a long-standing, albeit implicit, distrust of the growth in the sector on elitist, ideological grounds. The article investigates how academic writing practices, whilst difficult to define, nonetheless wield a ‘disciplinary power’ over lecturers and students. This includes a discussion about how a situated, New Literacy Studies approach to academic writing development challenges the view that students' academic writing standards are falling. The article suggests that all universities have a responsibility to acknowledge and develop the different literacies that students, especially widening participation students, bring with them to university
Academic standards · Academic writing · Discipline · Distrust · Higher education · Ideology · Learning development · Literacy · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Public relations · Situated · Social science · Sociology · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Higher Education Practises and Engagement · Law
Beyond Communities of Practice
Local Literacies
Our Vampires, Ourselves
Education Policy
Writing and Identity
A Future for Higher Education?
Diversity, equality and higher education
Literacy in Theory and Practice
Writing, Power and Voice
Michel Foucault
Moral Panics
Expansion, differentiation, and the persistence of social class inequalities in British higher education
Passionate Attachments
The bone in the throat
Higher than Einstein’
Access and widening participation
The Zombie Stalking English Schools
Education and Social Class
It's all becoming a habitus
Student writing in higher education
The "Academic Literacies" Model
Re-Invigorating Democracy
Speculative Fiction and Black Lesbians
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,27 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2025 (11) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |