Towards the family friendly university?
In the UK, widening participation in higher education has been a policy concern for several decades.
1 Social divides persist, with gender, class and race key factors in terms of entry into higher education and in respect of the subject, level of education and type of institution students access.
2 Yet, despite its mitigated effects, the widening participation agenda has been associated with considerable changes in the student population. In particular, many students now have
some parental responsibilities.
3 This socio-demographic shift and the different needs and expectations of student parents compared with those of their ‘childfree’ counterparts give rise to some challenges for university leadership and management teams, in a context where the growing presence of this group in academia has not been matched by an equivalent policy concern.
