Widening Participation in Higher Education

Dear Colleagues,

Despite decades of effort in many OECD countries to widen participation in higher education (HE), for the most part, very stark socio-economic and ethnic inequalities in HE participation remain firmly entrenched. Although a range of widening participation initiatives have been attempted in most countries, ranging from national programs to small-scale charitable initiatives, the extent of their success has been highly variable. While some individual initiatives have been successful, this has not been reflected more generally, and the aspirations driving the widening participation agenda have not been realized to the extent hoped and envisioned. In this Special Issue of Education Sciences we seek to publish research on why widening participation efforts and attempts to secure fair access have not led to more success. We also invite contributions that provide insights in to how we might make more progress on what is a complex and, for some, contentious issue. We seek rigorous research papers that address these issues using a range of methodologies, and we welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions. We particularly encourage researchers to submit work looking at these issues in a range of different country contexts or indeed taking a comparative perspective.

Anna Vignoles
Neil Murray
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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