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False Uniqueness: the Self‐Perception of New Entrants to Higher Education in the UK and Its Implications for Access – a Pilot Study 1
Author(s) -
Thorpe Andy,
Snell Martin,
Hoskins Sherria,
Bryant Janet
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
higher education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.976
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1468-2273
pISSN - 0951-5224
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2273.2006.00335.x
Subject(s) - disadvantaged , uniqueness , perception , cohort , sample (material) , higher education , obstacle , psychology , test (biology) , social psychology , social class , demographic economics , class (philosophy) , sociology , political science , economics , economic growth , mathematics , epistemology , law , statistics , paleontology , chemistry , chromatography , neuroscience , biology , philosophy
A central tenet of contemporary education policy relates to the desire to extend higher education (HE) provision to less advantaged groups (‘widening participation’). Our paper contends that a key behavioural obstacle to widening participation lies in the erroneous belief that persists among potential entrants from disadvantaged backgrounds as to their capabilities of succeeding within the HE environment – a perception that serves to deflate application/recruitment rates from such groupings. We test this ‘false uniqueness’ thesis using a sample of 127 new UK undergraduates, finding that students drawn from lower social class backgrounds consistently underestimated their abilities vis‐à‐vis the overall cohort.