Higher Education and Social Inequalities

This is a hugely important addition to the literature on higher education and social mobility. Through a series of thought-provoking chapters the prevailing assumption that a university experience is both equally experienced and automatically confers advantage on its recipients is meticulously unpicked, interrogated, and dismantled. This must-read book makes a significant contribution to debates on widening participation and social justice at a time of heightened marketisation and stratification of global HE. - Jacqueline Stevenson, Head of Research, Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

This is an important book that brings together many key scholars on the sociology of higher education. It explores, in a detailed manner, the ways in which social factors (and particularly class) continue to shape access to higher education, and students' experiences both during their degree and as they move into the labour market. - Rachel Brooks, Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey, UK

This book provides a most important contribution to the field of equity by interrogating assumptions about the relationship between university access and social mobility. It casts a much-needed light on significant questions of transitional processes through and beyond higher education and the ways that inequities play out in relation to graduate outcomes. - Penny Jane Burke, Professor and Global Innovation Chair of Equity Director, University of Newcastle, Australia

Waller, Ingram, and Ward have produced a timely and critical text challenging the assumption that widening participation is achieved at the point of admission. Through a thoughtful presentation of the higher education journey, we are presented with an empirically rich and theoretically-driven account of the complex and durable relationship between social class and higher education. This book is essential reading for those concerned with social justice and higher education; it has added a prominent voice to the on-going widening participation debate. - Ciaran Burke, Lecturer in Sociology, Plymouth University, UK