‘How are we going to do it?’ An exploration of the barriers to access to higher education amongst young people from disadvantaged communities

Abstract

The number of young people progressing to higher education (HE) in Ireland has grown significantly over the last three decades but inequality of access and participation remain a major policy challenge. This article sets out to explore the factors which impact on levels of participation in HE by young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, based on interviews and focus groups with 70 secondary school students and 25 parents in three case-study locations. In line with previous research, we found that financial considerations continue to have an important influence on decisions about whether to go on to higher education. The findings in relation to young people’s aspirations and orientations to HE present a more complex picture. While the majority of students aspired to go on to HE, this was countered by a lack of confidence in relation to certain aspects of college life, both social and academic.

Keywords:

• Access to higher education
• social class
• disadvantaged communities
• barriers to participation

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Irish Research Council and the Department of Education and Skills under the Research for Policy and Society Funding Programme (2015–2017).

Notes on contributors

Dr Margaret Scanlon is a Post-doctoral Researcher in the School of Applied Social Studies and Research Coordinator at the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century (ISS21), University College Cork. She has carried out numerous research projects, both in Ireland and Britain, in the fields of education, children’s studies and youth work.

Hilary Jenkinson lectures in social work in the School of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork. Her primary areas of interest are social work with young people, group work and fatherhood. Hilary is a Board member of EPIC (Empowering People in Care) and an author of ‘Just for Dads’ a group work programme for fathers.

Pat Leahy is a lecturer and director of the Post Graduate Diploma in Youth Work Programme in the School of Applied Social Studies, UCC. Prior to this, Pat was employed in a diverse range of youth work settings. Alongside mainstream youth work, he has had experience of working with specific groups of young people from marginalized circumstances.

Fred Powell is Professor of Social Policy and Chair of the Institute for Social Sciences in the Twenty-First Century (ISS21) at University College Cork. He is an international authority on civil society and has a long-standing interest and commitment to increasing access to higher education for under-represented groups.

Olive Byrne is an Access practitioner in University College Cork. Her work focuses on increasing the number of young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds accessing and succeeding in university.

Notes

1 HEAR offers places on reduced points and extra college support to school leavers from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

2 DEIS schools are located in disadvantaged areas and generally have a significantly lower rate of student progression to higher education. Analysis by the Department of Education and Skills indicates that 24% of students completing the second year of senior cycle in DEIS schools progress on to higher education, compared to 50% for all schools (HEA 2015, 37).

3 Participants were asked about the employment status of their parents and (if applicable) their parents’ occupation. 70% of participants (n = 213) indicated that one or both of their parents worked outside of the home. Taking into account both parents’ occupation, and allocating a classification according to the highest household classification, the socio-economic profile was as follows: employers and managers (10%); higher and lower professional (10%), non-manual (29%); manual (skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled)(30%); farmer (5%); all other occupied and unknown (5%); no response (12%). ‘Non-manual’ was the largest single grouping (29%) and higher professional was the smallest (2%, n = 5, all deriving from the rural schools). Significantly, the non-manual group has one of the lowest rates of participation in higher education (see McCoy and Byrne 2011; McCoy et al. 2010).

4 Teachers in the city schools noted that there were different levels of disadvantage within disadvantaged communities: some young people lived in conditions of extreme poverty and their families faced an uncertain future, for example due to financial debt, the threat of eviction or of becoming homeless. In these circumstances, education is inevitably pushed down the list of priorities, with knock-on effects on school attendance and academic attainment and aspirations (see Powell et al. Forthcoming).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Irish Research Council and the Department of Education and Skills under the Research for Policy and Society Funding Programme (2015–2017).