Throwing your brains at it: Higher education, markets and choice

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Contemporary education policy has demonstrated a dramatic shift towards marketisation. The discourses associated with this marketised provision emphasise empowerment for consumers. But within the higher education context, does the rhetoric of this ethos articulate with the realities of choice? This paper draws upon qualitative data generated from an ESRC funded doctoral study of sixth form students engaged in the choice process in order to consider these issues. Despite the limitations of the size of the sample, the findings are highly significant since they are derived from a study of some of the last cohort of students to have entered university under the Robbins (1963( principle. Focusing on the families who are engaged in the choosing process allows for the differential levels of market based competencies to be demonstrated. The empirical grounding of this paper then provides opportunities for the complexities and inequalities which are produced by a higher education market to be rendered visible.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: