The harder the struggle, the sweeter the victory!
Peggy Warren and Jenica Richards Peggy Warren currently works within the learning and development department of an inner city UK hospital. Her research interests include the educational development of mature black women, working in roles which are low-skilled and low-paid. Jenica Richards works as a nursery nurse in the community and has completed her Foundation Degree in Health and Social Care.
Background Peggy predominantly works with women employed in low-skilled, low-paid roles within the National Health Service (NHS) Trust. She has journeyed with the participants of this study as they undertook Skills for Life Literacy level 1 and level 2 courses in preparation for vocational and subsequently academic study. Peggy adapted a Freirean approach to adult literacy, especially as the women she worked with had not found compulsory education a positive experience in most cases and they operated on the lowest tiers of the NHS hierarchical structure. Paulo Freire is credited as one of the most influential educational thinkers of the educational praxis of liberation. He advocated that for those teaching the oppressed, they should consider a shift from formal teaching to dialogue, which he advocated should be deep and purposed, therefore resulting in education which is reciprocal, life engaging and life transforming. Peggy introduced critical thinking and critical reading through exposure to a range of authors on the work-based Skills for Life (SfL) programmes. She taught from authors including Booker T, W.E.B Dubois, Maya Angelou and Bessie Head. Her students, well, they taught her insights into life.
Introduction What we aim to do in this article is to explore the literature that underpins a doctoral study currently undertaken by Peggy Warren, exploring black British and black Caribbean women's perceptions and experiences of higher education and the foundation degree qualification. Jenica Richards shares her experience of being a first generation university (FGU) student undertaking the foundation degree in Health and Social Care, and makes recommendations for tutors and FGU mature women accessing Higher Education (HE).
The Widening Participation (WP) debate Widening Participation (WP) policies facilitated the implementation of a number of new undergraduate qualifications which have created new tiers within established career hierarchies, including the fields of education, childcare and allied health. The aims of widening participation in higher education in the United Kingdom (UK) were twofold: to improve the economic positioning of the UK and to ensure fair access from under-represented groups to HE (DfEE 1998). The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) agreed to 'set targets to extend learning opportunities to those who would not generally have the opportunity to access learning and to increase both the accessibility and the flexibility of education' (2006:8).To meet their goal, they aimed to remove barriers to accessing education for many, including those working in low-skilled and low-paid roles.
There has been wide-ranging debate around the rhetoric and praxis of WP policies. Archer (2007), Tierney and Slack (2005), and David (2009) suggest that WP has certainly created the opportunity for non-traditional learners to access higher education courses and institutions. However, these authors have argued that in as much as HE widens provision, the experience and access it claims to provide are not equal.
Leathwood (2001), David (2009) and Archer (2007) explore how concepts - such as diversity, which is so complex - are used to mask some of the inequalities. David (2009) argued that WP policies disproportionately benefit traditional learners. Conversely, Kallenbach (2003) suggests that widening participation might serve 15
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