Institutional Responses to Social Inclusion in Australian Higher Education: Responsible Citizenship or Political Pragmatism?

Participation in higher education has widened in recent years, to includegroups who are at risk of social exclusion. Public policy in many countries haspromoted increased enrolments for non-traditional student groups. Social inclusionpolicy and practice is underpinned by differing ideological frameworks relating tothe degree of social inclusion. This paper analyses Australian universities highlevel, publicly available strategic planning documents for evidence of theirstrategies to implement the Australian Governments social inclusion agenda, andtheir position on a social inclusion continuum extending from neoliberal access tosocial justice participation to human potential empowerment. Longer-established,research-intensive universities strategies are clustered at the neoliberal access endof the continuum, while universities articulating strategies at the human potentialempowerment end of the continuum tended to be more recently establishedinstitutions, often located in rural regions. The findings suggest strongly thatsocially inclusive universities articulate a comprehensive and integrated suite ofstrategies spanning the access, participation and empowerment domains.Universities aspiring to be socially inclusive beyond any short-term governmentpolicy imperative require a high level plan or framework that articulates goals,agreed strategies for building and sustaining a socially inclusive organisation, andindicators of success.