Marketing participation: Student ambassadors’ contribution to widening participation in engineering and medicine at two contrasting universities

Abstract

Under New Labour administrations, employing student ambassadors for widening participation (WP) outreach work became popular with higher education institutions (HEIs). Ambassadors were held to be effective in aspiration- and attainment-raising work and cited as role models for diverse groups of pupils by policy-makers and practitioners. The focus of this paper is student ambassadors’ WP work at two universities, one old and one new, and their WP outreach work in medicine and engineering. It draws from a larger study deploying in-depth ethnography and drawing on approaches from across the social sciences to trace the discourses surrounding these student ambassadors. Findings reveal student ambassadors’ primary contribution is not to widen participation but to promote and market their own institutions and courses. However, through marketing particular courses, ambassadors can contribute to disrupting and challenging pupils’ gendered, raced and classed trajectories within science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subject areas.