Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 15:43:49 +1100
From: saeed urrehman <think-AT-riseup.net>
Subject: elitism


Damned by elitism

Blinkered academics are narrowing access to key subject areas, says Lee 
Elliot Major

http://education.guardian.co.uk/oxbridge/article/0,5500,512464,00.html


Tuesday June 26, 2001
The Guardian

Prestigious universities and subjects such as dentistry, medicine, law and 
the creative arts remain the preserve of the social elite, a study will 
reveal later this year.
These areas remain impervious to government efforts to attract more 
students from poor backgrounds, finds the study, which paints a damning 
picture of outmoded and narrow academic attitudes. Many academics appear 
stuck in a world of old cultural stereotypes when selecting students, while 
others argue that widening access is not their problem. The talent-spotting 
access schemes favoured by the government only reinforce the elitism in 
universities, it concludes.
The interim results of a survey of university projects helping to widen 
access was presented by Dr Maggie Woodrow at a conference last week. 
Woodrow's first survey, published in 1999, warned that the university 
sector was becoming increasingly ghettoised, with poor and ethnic minority 
students enrolled almost exclusively at former polytechnics, while old 
academic institutions such as Oxbridge remain the bastion of the middle and 
upper classes. The follow-up study aims to identify the schemes that are 
proving successful in attracting poor students into the "harder to access" 
institutions and subject areas.
Four-fifths of students in these institutions and subjects come from the 
middle and upper social classes. Yet Woodrow has identified far fewer 
access projects in the 19 elite Russell group institutions than elsewhere 
in the academic sector. And in many cases the barriers to access appear to 
be due to the narrow views of academics.
Elitist academic attitudes are typified in law schools. In one example 
cited by Woodrow, a dean of law studies conceded that there was a problem 
of access, with over 90% of students drawn from only 5% of the population. 
But the sub-dean of the school argued that "educational institutions should 
not try to solve society's problems".
"This is a barrier we have got to get over - institutions are exacerbating 
the problem," said Woodrow.
To make matters worse, law firms tend to award bursaries to the most 
privileged students, the very students who don't need financial support.
A common feature observed in posh subjects is what Woodrow terms "cultural 
reproduction" - academics tend to identify with and select students from 
similar middle-class backgrounds. Attempts to broaden admissions criteria 
in medicine have only confirmed the stereotypes which make it so difficult 
for students from poor backgrounds to gain entry.
One medical school listed several attributes that it sees as ensuring that 
successful applicants are "excellent in every respect": students have a 
minimum of 27 A-level points, have been a school prefect or head of school, 
played at least two musical instruments, are fluent in at least two 
languages, played for their country or county, and held a number of Duke of 
Edinburgh awards.
Woodrow says that in the creative arts the subject itself presents a 
cultural barrier. "For music in higher education, the conservatoire remains 
the pinnacle, but the very name has a preservative aspect and associated 
with it are all kinds of cultural and institutionalised ideas that 
constitute a barrier to widening participation."
Some elite universities adopt the "altruistic approach" to widening 
participation. "Encouraging these young people to enter higher education 
will be our contribution, rather than getting them to come knocking on our 
door," said one pro-vice-chancellor. The study, due to be published in No 
vember, has also revealed extensive links between independent schools and 
elite academic institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge.
While welcoming the government's progressive aspirations to widen access, 
Woodrow argued that its funding policies are regressive. She said 
talent-spotting schemes and summer schools funded for elite institutions 
only seek to rescue the talented and gifted few without changing the system 
as a whole, when what is required is an overhaul of the whole university 
sector to make it more inclusive.
Meanwhile, student support policies "penalise and pauperise" low-income 
groups, according to Woodrow. There was something "Orwellian" about the 
government's announcements portraying its bursaries for students as 
progressive when they were a sixth of the value of the maintenance grants 
it scrapped three years ago.



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