Transforming Learning through Capacity-Building: Maximising Life and Learning Support to Mobilise Diversities in an Australian Pre-Undergraduate Preparatory Program

Abstract

One key manifestation of educational diversity is low socioeconomic status students and those who are otherwise marginalised from accessing higher education. This exploratory case study outlines and evaluates a long-running Australian pre-undergraduate preparatory program directed at providing maximum life and learning support to students by means that engage with and build on their diversities. Data are drawn from semi-structured focus groups with successive cohorts of students and theoretically-informed reflections by program staff members. The analysis of these data is framed by the conceptual blending of current theorising about transformative learning and capacity-building, which in combination constitute a powerful lens for illuminating student diversity in higher education. Based on that analysis, despite some inevitable limitations, the program is largely successful in its strategies to maximise life and learning support in order to mobilise the students’ diversities in ways that enhance their current and prospective learning outcomes.