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041 _afre
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aAllouch, Annabelle
_eauthor
700 1 0 _a Garnier, Lucy
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aOxford University, Widening Participation, and the Education Market
260 _c2017.
500 _a18
520 _aInitiated in the early 2000s, widening participation schemes at Oxford University aim to encourage more applications from pupils from less advantaged social backgrounds. Using an approach inspired by the sociology of markets, this article illustrates the ways in which these schemes try to coordinate an elitist educational “supply” with the educational “demand” of working-class populations. The process is based on three steps: segmenting populations by offering short-term training sessions calibrated for pupils with specific social and academic dispositions; adapting the presentation of Oxford’s educational offerings to the candidates’ expected social dispositions through the social neutralization of the university environment and by using a personal and playful tone in explaining the educational offerings and their specificities; and attempting to reduce the role played by school teachers in constructing pupils’ aspirations either by restricting their role to material supervision or by ensuring their loyalty. These schemes are less about converting students to particular social codes than of playing on their current dispositions to ensure their “commitment” as customers. While approaches focusing on socialization are generally used to understand the social effects that these schemes have on pupils’ dispositions and aspirations, an approach looking at “channeling” sheds light on a process of interaction between an individual and an institution that is precisely not a matter of socialization.
690 _ademocratization
690 _aeducational market
690 _awidening participation
690 _aaccess
690 _aelites
786 0 _nRevue française de sociologie | 58 | 2 | 2017-06-22 | p. 233-265 | 0035-2969
856 4 1 _uhttps://shs.cairn.info/journal-revue-francaise-de-sociologie-2017-2-page-233?lang=en&redirect-ssocas=7080
999 _c556651
_d556651