Intervention Strategies Espoused by Universities to Narrow Achievement Gap of Students with Different Cultural Capitals

Abstract

The concept of cultural capital has received widespread attention all around the world. One of the main strengths of the theory of cu ltural capita l is that it does to some extent focus on how structu res and institutions play a part in producing inequality. The reproduction of these inequalities is argued by Bourdieu to be facilitated in schools. This article reports on how the two universities under study have formulated migrating interventions aimed at narrowing achievement gap of students with different cultural capitals. Using a desktop and content analysis approaches, the article reports on intervention strategies such as Foundation progr ammes, Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), Academic literacy programmes among others and show how they have been implemented in the participating institutions. The article concludes that retention of students from diverse backgrounds is assisted by innovative curricula and support services which reflect the needs and interests of those students.