This paper discusses the emergence of aspiration as a keyword linked to higher education equity policy in England and Australia since 1997. Aspiration serves multiple purposes when constructed as a problematic site in which policy must intervene. For example, it can be understood as a vector for new technologies of governance that operate through…

This paper argues that working-class widening participation in education is not necessarily new. While it can be argued that it was established in the late twentieth century as a concept and government strategy, aspects of its origins can be traced back to movements such as the mechanics' institute movement, first established by the 1850s.…

The main focus of recent research on the community engagement role of universities has been in developed countries, generally in towns and cities and usually conducted from the perspective of universities rather than the communities with which they engage. The purpose of this article is to investigate the community engagement role of universities…

This case study outlines the emergence of a large higher education partnership in a sub-region of Wales which has for many years been associated with a low skills stereotype involving unemployment, poverty and deprivation. It contextualises the difficulties and challenges of 2008--the time when the Universities Heads of the Valleys Institute…

There have been many theoretical and empirical analyses of lifelong learning policies and how to implement, develop, measure and facilitate lifelong learning and lifelong learning policy in order to cater for the needs and requirements of individuals as well as society in general. The particular slant on lifelong learning in different countries…

Further education colleges in England and Wales have offered government-recognised courses and qualifications which receive public funding and have included technical and vocational courses since their foundation in the early twentieth century. Yet developments in such curricula and qualifications are not new and they can be traced back to the…

This article explores the role of adult and continuing education practitioners in Hong Kong as a function of contexts and conceptions of practice. A historical evolutionary approach is used to analyze how roles of practitioners differ in three periods--adult education, continuing education, and lifelong learning. It is revealed that practitioners…

Amidst calls for libraries to regain their socially progressive roots and connections to community, this study analyzes two interwoven cases of nonformal, community education in northeastern Nova Scotia, initiated by libraries that aimed to revive those links. Through a reading circle and a people's school, librarians used historical materials on…