Adult participation in higher education and the ‘knowledge economy’: a cross-national analysis of patterns of delayed participation in HE across 15 European countries

Souto-Otero, Manuel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8768-514X and Whitworth, Adam 2016. Adult participation in higher education and the ‘knowledge economy’: a cross-national analysis of patterns of delayed participation in HE across 15 European countries. British Journal of Sociology of Education 38 (6) , pp. 763-781. 10.1080/01425692.2016.1158639

Preview

PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Download (394kB) | Preview

Abstract

‘Delayed participation’ in HE is an increasingly important feature of modern HE systems in many countries. Despite this, surprisingly little empirical research has been undertaken seeking to better understand levels of delayed adult participation in HE across Europe. The present paper responds to this gap by analysing country level data on delayed adult participation in HE across 15 European countries and by modelling associations between participation levels and a range of theoretically derived economic, social, demographic and systemic factors. The findings suggest that there is considerably more cross-national variation in levels of adult delayed participation and that prevalent typologies of HE, such as Trow’s, fail to give recognition to the importance of delayed participation. The modelling work finds that social and demographic factors exhibit relatively strong associations with delayed participation in HE. This questions the pre-eminence of economic factors within much of the academic literature, policy discourse and policy activity

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Widening participation in higher education, adult students, mature students, lifelong learning, mass higher education, educational decision-making
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	0142-5692
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	2 February 2016
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2023 01:27
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/86229

Citation Data

Cited 14 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item