Kelly Edwards Kirsten Merrill-Glover 30 th April 2014

1. Widening participation through higher education workplace learning as a route to powerful knowledge? Kelly Edwards Kirsten Merrill-Glover 30th April 2014

2. Widening Access to Higher Education ‘Widening access is about increasing opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds to benefit from higher education’ (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales 2013). ‘Widening Access is about offering every person, regardless of circumstances, the opportunity to a higher-level learning experience that is appropriate, relevant and valuable – widening access to all with the potential to benefit’ (Welsh Government 2013:15)

3. Widening Access - Rationales • Social Justice • Economic imperative Work-Based Learning The delivery of University short-courses in workplaces. Instrumental curriculum offers as a means of upskilling adults

4. Exploring knowledge • Durkheim (1967) ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ knowledge • Bernstein (2000) ‘official knowledge’ & ‘horizontal and vertical’ knowledge • Neo-conservative traditionalism ‘v’ Technical-instrumentalism • ‘Learning is more & more being linked to productive or economic activity’ (Lave 1991) • Moore & Young (2010) Social Realism: social theories of knowledge need to transcend the historical context of its production to incorporate objective knowledge. • ‘Powerful knowledge’ and ‘knowledge of the powerful’ (Young 2010)

5. Powerful knowledge as a sociological concept and a curriculum principle. ‘We differentiate knowledge because in important ways not all knowledge is the same…. .We intuitively feel that some knowledges are ‘better’ – epistemically, morally or aesthetically – than others, and that they represent criteria about us which is true, what is beautiful and how we should treat our fellow human beings and the non-human world that are more universal than others. If we accept the fundamental human rights principle that human beings should be treated equally, it follows that any curriculum should be based on an entitlement to this knowledge.’ Young & Muller, 2013:231).

6. Revisiting Widening Access quotations ‘Widening access is about increasing opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds to benefit from higher education’ (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales 2013). ‘Widening Access is about offering every person, regardless of circumstances, the opportunity to a higher-level learning experience that is appropriate, relevant and valuable – widening access to all with the potential to benefit’ (Welsh Government 2013:15)

7. Powerful knowledge • Providing reliable and testable explanations of ways of thinking; • A basis for suggesting realistic alternatives • Open to challenge • Acquired in specialist educational institutions staffed by specialists • Often but not always discipline based. (Young 2010)

8. Centre for Community Learning Work-based Learning Provision • Two WBL projects supported by EU’s Convergence ESF funding, backed by Welsh Government • DEHOV (Digital Economy Heads of the Valleys) http://ccl.southwales.ac.uk/dehov/ • Bite-sized, accredited modules in ICT subjects – 20 credits at CQFW Level 4 • Elevate Cymruhttp://www.elevatecymru.co.uk/ - pan Wales project led by USW • Business and Management curriculum offer at CQFW Levels 4 - 7 • UHOVI (Universities Heads of the Valleys Institute) http://www.uhovi.ac.uk/

9. Models of delivery • Open • Local delivery venues • Fixed date delivery • Participants deriving from a broad range of organisations • Peer learning • Informal academic skills support • In House • Delivered in the workplace • Negotiated start & end dates • Flexible contact hours • On site tutorial support • Increased opportunities for employer involvement

10. Pedagogy & Assessment • Pedagogy • Applied Teaching & Learning strategies • The workplace provides the context for subject-specific learning • Emphasis on reflection, investigation and critical thinking • Embedding of study skills into module delivery • Peer support & learning • Informal tutorial support, online contact and weekly ‘IT café’ • Critical role of the WBL tutor • Assessment • Broad Learning outcomes support a negotiated project-based assignment • Assignment tasks relate to working practices • Accumulative assessment strategies - portfolio-based

11. Routes to powerful knowledge…? • Can / does an instrumental curriculum offer such as that offered via short courses in workplaces provide routes to powerful knowledge? • - If so, how? What are the roles played by curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in this? • - Do such widening access learners feel they have developed any of the skills associated with powerful knowledge by their short-course engagement with higher education in the workplace? • Do participating students feel that the characteristics of powerful knowledge are of relevance to them in the workplace and/or in relation to personal development? 11

12. ccl.southwales.ac.uk Kelly.edwards@southwales.ac.uk Kirsten.merrill-glover@southwales.ac.uk

13. References Beck, J. 2010 Promoting Official Pedagogic Identities: The Sacred and the Profane in Maton, K., & Moore, R. Social Realism, Knowledge and the Sociology of Education: Coalitions of the Mind. London: Continuum International Publishing. Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (http://www.hefcw.ac.uk/policy_areas/widening_access/widening_access.aspx) accessed 27.9.2013 Lave. J.,& Wenger, E. 1991. (eds) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, R., & Young, M. 2001. Knowledge and the Curriculum in the Sociology of Education: towards a reconceptualisation. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22: 4,445-461 Welsh Government 2013. Policy Statement on Higher Education. Cardiff, Welsh Government Young, M., & Muller, J. (2013). On the powers of powerful knowledge. Review of Education, Vol.1, No.3,October 2013,pp 229-250