Disadvantage in Higher Education: A View from the Institutional Careers Service

Abstract

This article explores the principal methods in which higher education careers services around the world are addressing the needs of an increasing proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This study is based on data drawn from focus groups with students and interviews with key personnel and employers. The research demonstrates that higher education careers services are beginning to address the needs of students from disadvantaged backgrounds in a number of key ways. In particular, they are becoming more integrated both with the full range of student services and with the academic curriculum and, as in many other examples of widening participation, limited resources are optimised by effective targeting of specific groups. Arguably, too, higher education careers services are well placed to provide the interface between the academy and employers in order to promote diversity outside academia.

Notes

1. It should be noted that embedding employability into the curriculum is distinct from professional input into more vocational subjects, such as Law and Theology, Medicine, Teaching and Nursing. It has been argued that the universities were originally founded with a clear training purpose that was lost under the influence of Humboldt and von Ranke (Mora, 2001; Perkins, 1983).

2. Mentor was the trusted adviser and tutor to Telemachus, but as Mentor was actually rather unsuccessful as a counsellor and protector, the origin of mentoring as it is understood today is to be found in the eighteenth century. Fenelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque (Roberts, 1999) was influential because it reflected contemporary changes in educational development.

3. The variety of PDP models is reflected in the many projects that are listed in the HEA website at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/960.htm. A number of institutional evaluations are now being undertaken in the UK.