Widening Participation, Student Identity and Agentic Capital in Coastal, Rural and Isolated Communities in South-West England

This contribution arises from a qualitative case study of mature students on a Foundation degree in Teaching and Learning developed through a partnership between a not-for-profit college and a university. The educational provision was designed to address under-participation in HE in one of the most isolated regions of the country. The focus of this study is firmly upon the lived experience of the students, as revealed in qualitative semi-structured interviews carried out over a fifteen-month period. The data reveal an array of ways in which the students’ experience of HE participation is pivotal in their lives. The paper draws upon Bourdieu’s idea of human capital to help to understand the interaction between the fields of higher education, the home and the workplace in the lives of the students, and the contribution of their agentic capital as revealed in the participants’ own accounts.