What do we mean by ‘epistemic access’? How important is access to ‘powerful knowledge’ in the context of policies to widen participation, enhance graduate employment and increase social mobility?

This seminar will explore these issues.
Professor Sue Clegg, Leeds Metropolitan University: ‘Employability, social mobility, and epistemic access’

In a context in which the linkage between graduate employment and social mobility has been challenged and employability curricula are deemed necessary to enhance students’ skills,  Prof. Clegg will explore the relationship between national and institutional policies, curriculum, and powerful knowledge in considering the implications for social and epistemic access.

Professor Michael Young, Institute of Education:  'From access to epistemic access and why it matters'

Noting the pressures in South Africa to ‘open access’ to the historically excluded majority, Prof. Young considers what might be meant by access, and considers ‘access to what?’. He argues for the need to extend the distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘epistemic’ access to also include ‘epistemological’ access to reflect on wider debates about knowledge and the curriculum.

Tea and coffee will be available at 4pm and the event will start at 4.15. After each paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity to discuss issues raised in both papers over a glass of wine or juice.

For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact the network convenor, Prof. Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University.