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The project aims to identify effects on equity of broadening participation to undergraduate degrees through the recent expansion of higher education in vocational institutions and understand the effects of these degrees on enabling the higher education system to respond to the global drivers for social and economic restructuring through new forms of distinction. The intended outcome will provide policy relevant knowledge for institutions, States and national government about the effects of this expansion on creating opportunities for more equity groups to obtain degrees and for the higher education system to better drive national innovation and economic restructuring in ways that gives a fairer chance to all equity groups to participate. The research contributes to strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric, examining the expansion of higher education by increasing the choice of degrees offered in vocational institutions and fairer chances for equity groups to access high level employment. The research will impact and inform the activities of vocational institutions offering degrees, and inform Australian government strategies in reforming higher education to meet national innovation needs for economic restructuring. The project research will be based in a number of case study sites and the research design includes: analysis of public statistical data and documents; interviews with staff and sector representatives; focus groups with students and graduates; survey of students; focus groups with employers, career counsellors and migration agents.

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This article explores English policy on widening participation in higher education (HE), drawing on insights from a research study into HE transitions and ‘dual sector’ institutions. Although further education [FE] and HE in England are divided into two sectors, it is possible for one institution to offer both further and higher education. This article examines the nature of transitions in such ‘dual sector’ institutions, and explores the shaping and structuring of HE transitions, as well as students’ experience of such transitions. The article draws on empirical research from a two-year study which investigates the changing shape and experience of HE in England, and students’ experience of moving between different levels of study. The study includes four case-study ‘dual sector’ institutions, and this article considers one of these institutions in more detail. The article discusses a number of different forms of transition which arise out of the analysis of the data - institutions in transition, transitions in institutions, and individual student transitions - and draws on Bourdieu’s theoretical ideas to argue that the work that transition is doing in the case-study institutions might be seen as involving processes of ‘positioning’, whereby institutions and individuals work at defining their place within higher education. Since such positioning both highlights and helps to create a differentiated and stratified system, the article concludes by pointing to the unsettling and complex issues this raises in relation to social justice and equity.

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