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This chapter is part of a book that aims to provide an accessible, practical and scholarly source of information about the international concern for the philosophy, theory, categories, and concepts of lifelong learning. In this chapter, the author aims to contribute to theoretical frameworks and understandings of good practice for a social justice approach to lifelong learning. The 'capability' approach is used to examine widening participation in higher education for and by working-class students. This approach focuses on people's own reflective, informed choice of ways of living that they see as important and valuable, and their self-determination of ends and values in life. The chapter explores this in relation to formal and informal learning, curriculum and pedagogy, and the identity effects for working class students' learning in higher education. The argument is that the capability approach as a philosophical and practical framework promotes better and fairer outcomes, judged by social justice criteria, while also providing a critique of current higher education and social structures of inequality.