Class, gender and poverty "are still barriers to learning

Citation

(2003), "Class, gender and poverty "are still barriers to learning", Education + Training, Vol. 45 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2003.00445gab.001

Class, gender and poverty "are still barriers to learning"

Class, gender and poverty "are still barriers to learning"

Working-class young people tend to blame themselves for lack of success in degree courses and jobs because of widespread messages about opportunities being open to all. In reality, factors such as social class, gender and poverty are still barriers to learning, despite initiatives to widen participation, warns Professor Karen Evans, of the Institute of Education, University of London.

"It takes considerable self-belief and courage for non-traditional learners to make their way in even the most open of UK higher-education institutions," Professor Evans said in her inaugural professorial lecture, "while for those from managerial and professional families, going to university is just a matter of getting off the escalator."

She argued that a learning revolution has not taken place because "a learning revolution that reinforces inequalities is not a revolution". The lecture suggested that popular beliefs in meritocracy and the openness of opportunities for all could evaporate very quickly as it becomes apparent that the qualification chase eventually becomes a "zero-game for all but the most advantaged". Maintaining that more attention needs to be given to those for whom the expansion of higher education is not a solution, Professor Evans called for education to be linked to real life through "a radical vision of lifelong learning that encompasses learning for a living, but is not driven by it", and through "strengthened channels for voice and participation".

A publication based on the professorial lecture is available from the Institute of Education. It is called Learning for a Living: The Powerful, the Dispossessed and the Learning Revolution, ISBN 0 85473 673 5.