Socioeconomic status and class dynamics

Research suggests there are notable differences in approaches to doctoral admissions and the criteria employed to select doctoral candidates. Through interviews with 65 academic staff involved in doctoral admissions at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, this paper examines how these different approaches to admissions play out in different disciplines, driving the disciplinary divergence in conceptualisations of the PhD and, in turn, admissions practices. 

This blog post on affirmative action in US universities and colleges was written as a portion of the Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education (YCEDE), one of the 13 Research England-funded projects focused on racial equity and widening access to postgraduate education.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) remains an important topic for the postgraduate sector. This resource includes key facts and figures on widening access and participation for historically underrepresented communities in postgraduate education as the UKCGE prepares for the 2nd UKCGE Conference on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Postgraduate Research focused on Race and Ethnicity.

Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin (Nottingham Trent University) and Professor Julie Sheldon (Liverpool John Moores University) provide an introduction to the EDEPI Project, which is helping to increase access and participation in doctoral education. There are some useful tools and resources, linked below, which have emerged from the work and which are free to access.

This framework is an output from a Collaborative Enhancement Project supported and funded by the QAA.