The super-disadvantaged in higher education: barriers to access for refugee background students in England
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The super-disadvantaged in higher education: barriers to access for refugee background students in England Agata A. Lambrechts 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
In view of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ which began in late 2014, there is a growing potential demand for higher education opportunities amongst refugee communities in England and more widely in Europe. Whilst exact numbers are not certain, it is necessary to establish whether such demands can be met at all. Based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with nineteen refugees and asylum seekers residing in England, this study explores refugee background students’ perceptions of the barriers to higher education and builds on previous research by including participants of varied ages, locations and study statuses — namely, aspiring to enrol, or currently enrolled in universities. While existing previous research provided extensive accounts of barriers to access, these were presented as separate issues, where in reality, these factors rarely occur in isolation. Thus, the analytical focus in this paper concerns how these different barriers to access not only accumulate, but also inter-relate and exacerbate each other, leading to what can be described as a super-disadvantage. This new term is proposed here as indicating the extreme degree of denial of equal access to educational opportunities experienced by those with refugee background, resulting from the added, independent effect of their migration experiences, status, and the socio-economic realities of living as a refugee. It is argued that this ‘super-disadvantage’ cannot be overcome without deliberate changes to outreach and support delivered by universities. These must be developed in partnerships with third sector experts and the refugee background students themselves. Keywords Refugee background students . Refugees and asylum seekers . Barriers . Access to higher education . Widening participation
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-02000515-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Agata A. Lambrechts [email protected]
1
Department of Education, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
Higher Education
Introduction As in other advanced economies, the higher education (HE) sector in England has experienced a rapid expansion of participation in the last century and a half (Meyer and Schofer 2005). Each expansion has been accompanied by calls to increase widening participation for disadvantaged groups, and today the English HE system is at least formally an open one. ‘Universal’ participation levels of over 50% have been reached (Universities UK 2017), and there were some remarkable achievements in widening participation, in particular, during the last few decades, including, for example, an increase in women’s participation overall. Despite this, many groups continue to be under-represented. Over the years, to guide policy and practice, an extensive body of literature has been developed,
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