The Importance of Social Support Structures for Retention and Success

Abstract

As a policy goal, widening participation (WP) is increasingly associated with retention and completion. For those who are concerned with equity or social mobility, it makes little sense to recruit new types of students if they do not then qualify for a graduate profession. In its strategic plan, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) states that one of its main strategic aims is to promote ‘the opportunity of successful participation in HE to everyone who can benefit from it’ (HEFCE, 2009: 18). There has also been growing interest in retention among researchers, much of which has centred on the extent to which new students can be helped to integrate into the institution. In the United Kingdom, this focus has been increased through a major programme of research and development on retention, jointly funded by HEFCE and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, much of which has been concerned with ‘promoting academic and social integration into the institution to promote a sense of belonging’ (Action on Access, 2009). We are particularly interested here in the ways in which students feel themselves to be legitimate members of the ‘imagined community’ of higher education (HE), a concept that we have adapted from Anderson’s treatment of nationalisms (Anderson, 1991; see also Quinn, 2010).