A Discipline-Centred Approach to Widening Participation

The University of Sydney has historically been the preserve of a socially and economically elite body of students. This has led to a relatively homogenous student body largely derived from private and selective metropolitan... [ view full abstract ]

The University of Sydney has historically been the preserve of a socially and economically elite body of students. This has led to a relatively homogenous student body largely derived from private and selective metropolitan schools. English—although it is a mandatory subject in the secondary curriculum—has a particularly poor track record in attracting students from more diverse backgrounds. This leads to a self-reinforcing problem, where this discipline (which is core due to its importance in forging citizenship and cultural participation) is characterised by the values of its practitioners, further attracting and rewarding achievement grounded in Anglo middle-class norms. We believed we needed to do better.

In 2012, the Department of English at The University of Sydney established a discipline-driven ‘widening participation’ project that has begun to build collaborative, sustainable partnerships with targeted low-SES schools in the Sydney metropolitan area and across NSW to inspire achievement, foster aspiration and encourage students of diverse backgrounds to participate in higher education.

Through extensive consultation with partner schools, the project has established a program of discipline-centred learning modules to support the teaching of literature and to encourage pathways for students to university. The program includes the delivery of these learning modules in the students’ own classrooms, as well as at annual ‘campus visits’ at which partner school students engage with each other and with Department academics, postgraduates and undergraduates in university-modelled learning. Our paper will showcase one such module, on To Kill a Mockingbird, that was delivered to students in Western Sydney, a key demographic for our project.

While the project is engaged in a long-term strategy to diversify participation, feedback suggests that the program is already working to satisfy its key outcomes and in 2015 the Nelson Meers Foundation entered into a three-year funding partnership to further the program’s development.