Framing student equity in higher education: national and global policy contexts of A Fair Chance for All

Sellar, S. and Gale, T. (2016) Framing student equity in higher education: national and global policy contexts of A Fair Chance for All. In: Harvey, A., Burheim, C. and Brett, M. (eds.) Student Equity in Australian Higher Education: Twenty-Five Years of A Fair Chance for All. Springer: Singapore, pp. 39-52. ISBN 9789811003134 (doi: 10.1007/978-981-10-0315-8_3)

Abstract

This chapter provides a survey of changing national and global higher education policy contexts over the past three decades, specifically from the perspective of the publication of the A Fair Chance for All discussion paper in 1990. We show how A Fair Chance for All emerged from a specifically Australian conjunction of social justice commitments to ‘a fair go’ and the emergence of neo-liberalism. In this respect, A Fair Chance for All constitutes an early Australian exemplar of neo-social governance, and its emphasis on the introduction of targets and performance measures foreshadowed the rise of policy as numbers in education. A Fair Chance for All also prefigured a shift in student equity policy in higher education to focus on aspirations, which sought to activate people in relation to their educational potential, and it enshrined a conception of equity as fairness that would come to shape education policies globally in the decades that followed its publication.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Gale, Professor Trevor
• Authors: Sellar, S., and Gale, T.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General); H Social Sciences > HM Sociology; L Education > LA History of education; L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Publisher: Springer
• ISBN: 9789811003134
• Published Online: 29 March 2016