Widening access to higher education involves much more than consideration of how to recruit more under-represented constituencies into the student body and work to ensure their success; it involves breaking down all kinds of barriers to equality of opportunity and provision – some of which remain unrecognised. Representing six different national contexts, this seminar highlights three cases that demonstrate the inequitable accessibility of the international academy stemming from barriers created or magnified by culturally- or geographically-influenced disadvantage. 

Negotiating the roadblocks: women academics in Pakistani public universities

Dr Saeeda Shah, reader, University of Leicester

Drawing on research undertaken since 2008, Saeeda Shah will discuss the experiences of women academics in Pakistan. Her research participants include principals in zanana (women-only) colleges, and women VCs in women-only and co-ed universities. She will also discuss the rationale for her current research, Mapping women academics’ careers in Pakistan, which focuses on how organisational structures, societal practices, asymmetrical power relations, and cultural and belief systems impact on women’s career progression. Dr Shah will examine issues surrounding Pakistani women’s access to senior leadership positions and their negotiation of pathways through multiple roadblocks.

Failing promises, failing policy: disability and disadvantage in access to higher education in Nigeria

Felix Olakulehin, lecturer, National Open University of Nigeria & PhD candidate, University of Leeds

Despite increases in overall student enrolment during the last 15 years, distance learning policy has failed to promote access for and the participation of disabled people, who remain severely underrepresented in the Nigerian higher education sector. Drawing upon analytical frameworks based on the social model of disability, and Archer’s morphogenetic interpretation of structure and agency, Felix Olakulehin will present selected findings from his doctoral research into the lived experiences of disabled Nigerians, to examine the processes that they use to negotiate their access to, and participation in, higher education.

Developing international knowledge exchange: obstacles faced by multilingual scholars in non-Anglophone centre contexts
Professor Theresa Lillis, The Open University, UK

This paper will draw on a longitudinal text-oriented ethnographic study in 4 national contexts - Hungary, Slovakia, Spain and Portugal - to discuss the challenges faced by multilingual scholars in writing for academic publication in ‘international’ journals. Focusing on scholars’ accounts and perspectives, and data drawn from 284 text histories, Theresa Lillis will outline what the study shows about the obstacles faced by multilingual scholars working outside the Anglophone centre and discuss the implications of her findings for the development of a more accessible inter-national academy.

Note: Unless otherwise stated SRHE events are free to members, there is a charge of £45 for non-members.