Reflections on widening participation policy: macro influences and micro implications.

The central contention of the article is that access to higher education (HE) may be increasingly becoming a positional good premised on individualism and economic and cultural capitalism rather than a democratic good predicated on a political commitment to equality and social justice. The article explores the macro influences on widening participation policy and further considers the contexts, implications and outcomes of widening participation policy at meso and micro levels both generally and in the professional context of the author's work as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at an outer London post-1992 university