Quality and Equality in Higher Education Professor Louise Morley School of Education, University of Sussex, UK

Policy Activity Quality Assurance Widening Participation Is there a lack of intertextuality between the 2 policy areas? Are there conceptual and operational tensions?

Quality and Equality Does quality incorporate an understanding of equality? Does equality incorporate an understanding of power and privilege, as well as socio-economic disadvantage? What signs of quality are being valued and performed? Is democracy/ empowerment being turned into consumption practices?

Equity and Excellence Opening the doors to all and sundry is one way of growing a higher education sector. It is however, not a good one if universities are to remain the pinnacles of excellence … The day we sacrifice these essential principles on the ever-growing altar of political correctness will mark the beginning of the self-destruction of one of the nation ’ s greatest assets (Pattern, Secretary of State for Education, 1993).

Standards and Social Inclusion I ’ m interested in how many potentially excellent students are denied opportunities for non-academic, non-intellectual reasons because they were brought up in a socially deprived area. We do not want to compromise on quality, but we do want to take top – quality students irrespective of social background (Professor Alan Gilbert, the vice-chancellor of Manchester ’ s new ‘ super ’ university in The Guardian, 2004: 3).

Implications Pattern Expansion represented as chaos and potential contamination of a sacred space (Douglas, 1966). Some identities are presented as irreconcilable with academic achievement. The university is at risk. Excluded groups perceived in terms of cultural disadvantage.

Implications Gilbert Liberal humanistic discourse Social inclusion = providing greater educational opportunities to under-represented groups (Skelton, 2002). The barrier is raised, but the power relations that construct and maintain the barrier remain untheorised (Bernstein, 1996; Levitas, 1999). Certainty about what constitutes quality. Quality is neutral Social background is a type of ‘ noise ’ rather than a constituent of educational ability.

Invoking Quality Quality is frequently invoked when equality issues are raised. Is equality invoked in quality discourses?

Equality Silences Excellence is represented as value free. The culture of contractualism and service level agreements socially decontextualise higher education. Consumer culture overlooks the power inequalities of consumers.

Sources of Data Quality and Power in Higher Education (Morley, 2003); Gender Equity in Commonwealth Higher Education (Morley 2004, 2005, 2006); Negotiating Equity in Higher Education (Deem, Morley, and Tlili, 2005); Establishing the Needs of Employers for Information on Quality and Standards (Morley et al., 2006).

Why Quality Assurance in Higher Education? Policy Drivers Political concerns with the exchange and use value of higher education The need for some certainty and exactitude in expanding, global systems Consumer empowerment/choice/entitlements Marketisation Massification Enhancing productivity Maintaining and enhancing standards New academic managerialism (Morley, 2003)

Equality Potential of Quality Assurance  Transparency makes discriminatory/ exclusionary practices more visible.  Challenges to the positional power of academics.  Encoding of student entitlements and introduction of consumer rights.  Accountability (Morley, 2003)

Quality as Modernisation For some, quality has transformative potential is perceived as part of the democratising process facilitates organisational development/ maintenance of professional standards has provided new paradigms for thinking about academic work and new career opportunities teaching is no longer perceived as a gift, but as a right. (Morley, 2003).

Power Quality Assurance: is an installation of power has monolithic notions of what constitutes quality is essentially a relationship of power between observers and observed/ one-way gaze is part of the Evaluative State and Audit Culture is domination, regulation and surveillance (Morley, 2003).

Affirmative Action Affirmative action discursively positioned in opposition to quality. Stigmatisation (Fraser, 1997) Reverse discrimination (Jordaan, 1995) Special needs that privilege a few (Naidoo, 1998) Hierarchies of oppression Quantitative not qualitative change (Morley, 2006)

Stigmatisation An academic in Tanzania reports name-calling of women students who enter via affirmative action programmes: First is the social challenge. This is because the females entering through these programmes are dubbed names like “Viwango Duni -VD*” which may tend to make them feel inferior to other students and also discourage others to join the programmes. This means something below standard, of poor quality. (Morley, 2006)

Merit Belief that entry and achievement are based on merit. Belief that, as liberal institutions, universities are intrinsically concerned with justice and fairness (Modood and Acland, 1998). Meritocracy seen as integrative and equalising. Merit and affirmative action oppositionally located. (Deem, Morley, and Tlili, 2005)

New Managerialist Noise Informants in Deem, Morley and Tlili (2005) reported how equality policies and practices were becoming: depoliticised/ neutralised; enforced by people with no value commitment or activist experience; associated not with radical social movements, but with neo-liberal modes of control and governance; subsumed into managerialist cultures like quality assurance.

Elitist Employment Practices 80% of employers cited the importance of the reputation of the university in their decision-making about marketing and individual recruitment of graduates. Reputation was associated with positions in league tables (Top 20 lists). The universities with highest ratios of non-traditional students are not included in the Top 20 list. (Morley et al. 2006)

Does the Quality Movement Challenge or Reinforce Inequalities? As quality and equality are both discourses, they are polysemic and multidimensional. The multi accentuality of the sign creates articulations of ambivalence. Government intervention is perceived as: democratisation and modernisation a form of symbolic violence

Summary Policy force field in higher education both to widen participation and to assure quality and standards. Challenges to white, middle-class capture of higher education invoke quality concerns. Quality is still frequently associated with elitism and exclusionary practices. We need more understanding of the myriad processes that interrupt the democratic and inclusive possibilities of higher education