Neil Harrison

University of Oxford, Education, Faculty Member

University of the West of England, Education, Visiting Fellow

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I currently work as Deputy Director of the Rees Centre in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford.

Initially trained as a social statistician, I worked for eleven years as a manager in student services before returning to research, where I now employ a multidisciplinary and mixed methods approach to investigate contemporary issues in secondary, higher and lifelong education.

My current research interests include social justice, social mobility, higher education policy, student finance and intercultural relations.
Address: Department of Education
University of Oxford
15 Norham Gardens
Oxford

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Papers by Neil Harrison

Success and Impact in Widening Participation Policy: What Works and How Do We Know?

Efforts to widen the participation in higher education for disadvantaged and under-represented gr... more Efforts to widen the participation in higher education for disadvantaged and under-represented groups are common to many countries. In England, higher education institutions are required by government to invest in ‘outreach’ activities designed to encourage such groups. There is increasing policy and research interest around the effectiveness of these activities and how this might be evaluated. This paper reports the results of a project designed to explore concepts of ‘success’ and ‘impact’ with two generations of practitioner-managers working in this field, including extended telephone interviews with ten active in the mid-2000s, and online questionnaires from 57 engaged in the mid-2010s. The paper concludes that the drive to ‘measure the measurable’ may be undermining successful activities, while unhelpful inter-institution competition has replaced the co-operative ethos and wider social justice aims that dominated ten years ago.

Evaluating outreach activities: overcoming challenges through a realist ‘small steps’ approach

Practitioners are being placed under increasing pressure to evaluate the success of their outreac... more Practitioners are being placed under increasing pressure to evaluate the success of their outreach activities, both by government and by their own universities. Based in a reductionist doctrine of ‘evidence-based practice’, there is a desire to demonstrate the effectiveness and value-for-money across activities that now account for around £175 million per year across England. This article examines some of the difficulties in evaluating the complex social world of outreach and suggests a ‘small steps’ approach to overcome some of these. This uses the idea of a transformative ‘theory of change’ as a framework for understanding the particular contribution made by discrete activities within a wider portfolio, providing a more reliable form of inference than attempts to ‘prove’ impact over longer timeframes.

Individual and social influences on students’ attitudes to debt: a cross-national path analysis Using data from England and New Zealand

This study examines the construction of debt attitudes among 439 first-year undergraduates in Eng... more This study examines the construction of debt attitudes among 439 first-year undergraduates in England and New Zealand. It works from a conceptual model that predicts that attitudes will be partly determined by a range of social factors, mediated through personality and ‘financial literacy’. Path analysis is used to explore this model. The proposed model was found to be basically sound, with some notable negative findings. Socio-economic status was found to have a negligible role in determining debt attitudes, while the role of financial literacy was limited to reducing the likelihood of seeing debt as useful for lifestyle expenditure. Debt anxiety was found to be higher among students with a general predisposition to anxiety and inversely related to viewing student debt as a form of educational investment. It is concluded that student debt attitudes are multidimensional and individualised, challenging simplistic ideas of debt aversion in earlier literature.

Practice, problems and power in ‘internationalisation at home’: critical reflections on recent research evidence

In a period when international flows of higher education students are rapidly increasing and dive... more In a period when international flows of higher education students are rapidly increasing and diversifying, this paper reviews recent research evidence about the experiences of ‘home’ students – those who are not mobile and study in their home nation. This is situated within the concept of ‘internationalisation at home’, which asserts that these students should also receive an international educational experience: through interaction with international students, curriculum development and new pedagogic approaches. However, the evidence to date suggests that this is considerably more problematic than might be imagined. For example, home students across the world are often found to resist intercultural group work and generally to avoid contact with their international peers, leading to concerns about unequal access to transformative experiences and powerful knowledge. The conflict between ‘global worker’ and ‘global citizen’ approaches to internationalisation is discussed, as well as the increasingly hegemonic role of English.

Don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it's gone? Skills-led qualifications, secondary school attainment and policy choices

by Neil Harrison, Kathryn Last, and David James

In the name of curriculum breadth and raising standards, recent government policy in England has ... more In the name of curriculum breadth and raising standards, recent government policy in England has removed a large number of non-academic qualifications from the list of those that secondary schools can count in league tables, discouraging their use. Most of these were vocational qualifications, but they also include skills-led qualifications. This paper reports mixed methods research investigating the relationship between mainstream secondary school qualifications in England and a specific, widely used skills-led qualification: the Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE). Neither academic nor vocational, CoPE requires learners to assemble a portfolio of evidence in response to ‘challenges’ negotiated with the teacher. It is designed to promote a reflective learning orientation and to develop (and assess) skills that underpin learning and future employability. We use a combination of regression analysis, pseudo-experiment and qualitative case study. Our research shows that CoPE is associated with improved outcomes in the ‘mainstream’ academic qualifications often regarded as the benchmark for the quality of schools and much of what goes on in them. Thus, we argue that certain reforms designed to raise standards are likely to depress attainment in the very qualifications deemed as core indicators of educational standards.

Attitudes to debt among indebted undergraduates: A cross-national exploratory factor analysis

by Neil Harrison, Steve Agnew, and Joyce Serido

This paper reports the results of a cross-national study spanning England, New Zealand and the Un... more This paper reports the results of a cross-national study spanning England, New Zealand and the United States. A total of 496 first year undergraduates studying business or social science completed a 20-item questionnaire. This focused on their attitudes to their debt incurred while studying, as measured on a five-point Likert scale. A factor analysis model was developed, from which four consistent factors emerged, explaining 45 percent of the variation and consistent between countries. These factors were named: Anxiety, Utility-For-Lifestyle, Utility-For-Investment and Awareness. The first three factors were found to be uncorrelated with each other, but higher Awareness was associated with lower levels of Anxiety and Utility-For-Lifestyle and higher levels of Utility-For-Investment. The relationship with previous studies and implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Returning from earning: UK graduates returning to postgraduate study, with particular respect to STEM subjects, gender and ethnicity

It has been argued by some (e.g. the Confederation of British Industry [CBI]) that graduates lack... more It has been argued by some (e.g. the Confederation of British Industry [CBI]) that graduates lack the skills that render them employable. In particular, graduates of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects are often portrayed as being unready for the world of work. This study uses three large-scale national data-sets from the UK to explore this assertion, including the results of the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education surveys. It reports analysis of 22,207 individuals who graduated from their first degree in 2007, and works from the hypothesis that those entering the workforce and then returning for taught postgraduate study are primarily doing so due to underemployment in the period following graduation. The study uses binary logistic regression and finds that a range of educational, demographic and employment-based variables have a significant relationship with the propensity to return for taught postgraduate study. Of particular note, those returning tend to be high achievers from elite universities in low-skill work after graduation, as well as women and those from minority ethnic communities; this suggests a mix of individual and structural factors at work. In addition, STEM graduates were significantly less likely to return, apparently challenging the argument advanced by the CBI.

An ecological fallacy in higher education policy: the use, overuse and misuse of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’

One form of ecological fallacy is found in the dictum that ‘you are where you live’ – otherwise e... more One form of ecological fallacy is found in the dictum that ‘you are where you live’ – otherwise expressed in the idea that you can infer significant information about an individual or their family from the prevailing conditions around their home. One expression of this within higher education in the UK has been the use (and, arguably, overuse and misuse) of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’ (LPNs) over the last 15 years. These are areas that have been defined, from historic official data, as having a lower-than-average propensity to send their young people on to university. These LPNs have increasingly become used within the widening participation and social mobility agendas as a proxy for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to benefit from higher education, but who would not attend without encouragement, support and/or incentives. In this article, we explore the various uses to which LPNs have been put by policy makers, universities and practitioners, including the targeting of outreach activities, the allocation of funding and the monitoring of the social mix within higher education. We use a range of official data to demonstrate that LPNs have a questionable diagnostic value, with more disadvantaged families living outside them than within them, while they contain a higher-than-expected proportion of relatively advantaged families. We also use content analysis of university policy documents to demonstrate that universities have adopted some questionable practices with regard to LPNs, although some of these are now being actively discouraged.

Undergraduates’ memories of school-based work experience and the role of social class in placement choices in the UK

Journal of Education and Work

This paper reports findings from a study of 49 young first-year UK undergraduates who had undergo... more This paper reports findings from a study of 49 young first-year UK undergraduates who had undergone one or two weeks of work experience at school between the ages of 14 and 16. Previous studies focusing on the whole school cohort suggested that the nature of work experience placements was strongly predicted by class. In particular, middle class families were seen as being able to secure higher-quality placements than working class families through their higher levels of social capital. This study of young people in the large minority subset subsequently progressing to higher education also found evidence of stereotypical placement choices. However, this was situated in low-quality placements that were irrelevant to the participants’ eventual career path. One notable finding was that a significant proportion of working class students had exercised considerable personal agency to secure high-quality placements. This could challenge structuralist interpretations of young people’s decision-making, although the possibility of a retrospective construction of an explanatory narrative is noted. This paper concludes that more effort is needed to push academically-able working class young people towards placements that will increase motivation and widen horizons and that government needs to be clearer about its policy aims in this area.

Towards a typology of debt attitudes among contemporary young UK undergraduates

Journal of Further and Higher Education

As the UK sits on the verge of a major change in the financing of both universities and students,... more As the UK sits on the verge of a major change in the financing of both universities and students, this study seeks to capture and analyse attitudes to money, borrowing and debt among contemporary young undergraduates. It reports findings from a qualitative study of 62 individuals in the second term of their first year at university, these being representatively sampled from volunteers across gender, social class, ethnicity and subject discipline. The semi-structured interview data was subjected to thematic analysis and this was used to derive a tentative typology of debt attitudes ranging from ‘debt-positive’ to ‘debt-angry’.The findings of this study suggest that student attitudes are more complex than assumed in some previous research and journalistic commentary, especially with respect to social class. Counterintuitively, many students from lower social-class backgrounds show a positivity about debt as a means of enabling them to access higher-level careers; this is consistent with admissions data following the 2006 increase in tuition fees and student indebtedness. More generally, the mainstream of student attitudes appears to fall between the ‘debt-savvy’ and ‘debt-resigned’ types, with students being relatively well-informed about repayment terms and accepting large-scale indebtedness as ‘normal’, with most students being ‘in the same boat’. The implications of these findings, the limitations of the study and future opportunities for research are discussed.

Modelling the demand for higher education by local authority area in England using academic, economic and social data

British Educational Research Journal, 2013

Managing the demand for higher education has been a major concern of successive UK governments ov... more Managing the demand for higher education has been a major concern of successive UK governments over the last 30 years. While initially they sought to increase demand, latterly the emphasis has been on widening participation to include demographic groups among which it has traditionally been low. There had long been an academic and policy interest in the drivers of demand, but an appreciation of the contrasting patterns between different geographical areas was relatively late to emerge. Little research has thus far focused on the extent to which demand within an area is a function of background factors with a spatial dimension. For example, while it is known that demand tends to be lower in deprived areas, it is not well understood what specific features of deprivation cause this. This paper reports the findings of a quantitative study using linear regression modelling to determine which localised factors played a significant role in the demand for higher education between 2004 and 2009 in English local authority areas. It concludes that attainment at 16, the proportion of working-age graduates and the ethnic profile are major explanatory variables, but that the nature of the local employment market also plays a role in explaining changes over time. Coinciding with other significant changes in the education sector, the abolition of the Aimhigher initiative in July 2011 marked the return of demand management back to individual universities, so the importance of spatial patterns in higher education demand are likely to be of renewed importance in coming years.

Expensive and failing? The role of student bursaries in widening participation and fair access in England

Studies in Higher Education, 2012

English universities currently spend £355m each year on bursaries to student groups who are under... more English universities currently spend £355m each year on bursaries to student groups who are under-represented in higher education. However, there is little evidence to suggest that this investment has had any meaningful impact on patterns of student demand. This article examines the policy objectives of the 2004 Higher Education Act in the context of one of the policy tools that the Act implemented: an effectively mandatory bursary system operated locally by individual universities, designed to widen participation in higher education among students from lower socio-economic groups and ensure fair access to the highest status universities. It reviews evidence suggesting that students targeted for bursaries are unresponsive to financial inducements, and place a high priority on provision that is local and socially comfortable. It concludes that this is a fatal flaw in bursaries as a policy tool, contributing to slow progress on the widening participation and fair access agendas.

Investigating the impact of personality and early life experiences on intercultural interaction in internationalised universities

International Journal of Intercultural Education, 2012

Qualitative studies from a range of nations suggest that students studying in their own country e... more Qualitative studies from a range of nations suggest that students studying in their own country exhibit a range of responses towards the international students with whom they share social and academic spaces, although the tendency is towards passive avoidance. Little work has yet been focused on understanding why students in similar situations react differently to the cultural diversity of the contemporary university.

This paper reports the findings of a study of 755 young second year undergraduates from three universities in the UK. The participants completed an online questionnaire containing measures of ethnocentrism and ‘cultural intelligence’, as well as an inventory of personality traits and original questions about their early life cultural experiences.

The study finds that both ethnocentrism and cultural intelligence were predicted by agreeableness and openness, as well as a multicultural upbringing, foreign language ability and an international orientation. Gender was also a predictor for ethnocentrism.

The mismeasure of participation: how choosing the ‘wrong’ statistic helped seal the fate of Aimhigher

Higher Education Review, 2012

Have the changes introduced by the 2004 Higher Education Act made higher education admissions in England wider and fairer?

Journal of Education Policy, 2011

‘Widening participation’ and ‘fair access’ have been contested policy areas in English higher edu... more ‘Widening participation’ and ‘fair access’ have been contested policy areas in English higher education since at least the early 1990s. They were key facets of the 2003 White Paper – The Future of Higher Education – and the subsequent 2004 Higher Education Act, with stated objectives that the reach of higher education should be wider and fairer. In particular, there has been considerable concern about admissions to ‘top universities’, which have remained socially as well as academically exclusive. The principal policy tools used by the Act were the introduction of variable tuition fees, expanded student grants, discretionary bursaries and the new Office for Fair Access (OFFA). This paper draws on publicly available statistics to assess whether the changes implemented by the 2004 Act have indeed made access to English higher education wider and fairer in relation to young people progressing from state schools and colleges and from lower socio‐economic groups. It concludes that, while there is some evidence for modest improvements, these have been concentrated outside the ‘top universities’, which have seen slippage relative to the rest of the sector. The paper concludes with a discussion of the reasons why financial inducements appear to be a flawed and naive approach to influencing student demand.

Overactive, overwrought or overdrawn? The role of personality in undergraduate financial knowledge, decision-making and debt

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2011

The financial situation of undergraduate students remains a high‐profile issue within the UK high... more The financial situation of undergraduate students remains a high‐profile issue within the UK higher education sector, not least due to its perceived relationship with retention, well‐being and success. This article probes this question from a new direction, using concepts and approaches from the field of applied psychology to examine how students use various forms of credit and whether personality impacts on borrowing behaviour.The sample in this study comprised 604 undergraduate students at a large UK university. Data were collected by online questionnaire on demographic background, borrowing history, borrowing intentions, financial literacy, personality type and attitudes to money. Using a series of regression analyses, it was found that a tendency towards extraversion was particularly associated with the use of overdrafts and borrowing from family members and that this led to higher anticipated debts on graduation. Neuroticism was found not to have any significant relationship to borrowing behaviour, but it was a significant predictor for student anxiety about money management.The article also reports related findings concerning students’ learned borrowing behaviour; the acceleration of student use of commercial borrowing during their course of studies; and the construction and implications of financial literacy.

Cultural distance, mindfulness and passive xenophobia: using Integrated Threat Theory to explore home higher education students’ perspectives on ‘internationalisation at home’

British Educational Research Journal, 2010

This paper addresses the question of interaction between home and international students using qu... more This paper addresses the question of interaction between home and international students using qualitative data from 100 home students at two ‘teaching intensive’ universities in the southwest of England. Stephan and Stephan’s Integrated Threat Theory is used to analyse the data, finding evidence for all four types of threat that they predict when outgroups interact. It is found that home students perceive threats to their academic success and group identity from the presence of international students on the campus and in the classroom. These are linked to anxieties around ‘mindful’ forms of interaction and a taboo around the discussion of difference, leading to a ‘passive xenophobia’ for the majority. The paper concludes that Integrated Threat Theory is a useful tool in critiquing the ‘internationalisation at home’ agenda, making suggestions for policies and practices that may alleviate perceived threats, thereby improving the quality and outcomes of intercultural interaction.

Knowing the ‘unknowns’: investigating the students whose social class is not known at entry to higher education

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2010

This paper originates from the National Audit Office's 2008 report into widening participation po... more This paper originates from the National Audit Office's 2008 report into widening participation policy in the United Kingdom. The report found that while there appeared to be modest improvements in the proportion of students coming from lower socio‐economic groups over the last ten years, reliable analysis was hampered by a high proportion of missing data. In the 2007/08 academic year, the proportion of entrants whose socio‐economic status was defined as ‘unknown’ was 26%, up from just 10% a decade earlier. This paper uses a random sample of 1000 such students, aged 18 or 19 on entry, to investigate why they have been designated as ‘unknown’ and what other information can be gleaned from their university application form. It was found that 46% of the sample could in fact be coded to a specific socio‐economic grouping from the parental information provided by the student and it was difficult to see why this had not happened. The social profile of these students was comparable to the national picture. A further 23% provided information which was too vague to be coded. The focus of the paper, however, was the 32% of students who either did not provide parental information or who stated that their parents were not working. These students were strongly and disproportionately drawn from areas of high deprivation and low participation in higher education; the precise target of widening participation initiatives, yet they are effectively not acknowledged. This finding causes difficulties for the reliability of official statistics on social class.

‘Disadvantaged learners’: who are we targeting? Understanding the targeting of widening participation activity using geo-demographic data from Southwest England

Higher Education Quarterly

This paper analyses the definition of the appropriate target group for widening participation act... more This paper analyses the definition of the appropriate target group for widening participation activities advanced by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in their Targeting Disadvantaged Learners advice to Aimhigher and higher education providers. This definition includes components of area deprivation and higher education participation rates, which are apparently intended to act as a proxy to reach learners from lower socio-economic groups. Through statistical analysis of geo-demographical data from the Southwest region of England, this paper questions whether the HEFCE targeting guidance is likely to meet the policy aims that underpin it and reach the ‘disadvantaged learners’ of its title. It is found that the geographical proxy tends to miss learners from lower socio-economic groups in areas of wider affluence and those in rural areas. The paper concludes by questioning whether the areas identified by a rigorous application of the targeting guidance are likely to be the most fruitful locations for outreach activities in the short-term given the ingrained, multi-faceted and multi-generational challenges which they face.

“It’s so much easier to go with what’s easy”: ‘mindfulness’ and the discourse between home and international students in the UK

Journal of Studies in International Education, 2010

Success and Impact in Widening Participation Policy: What Works and How Do We Know?

Evaluating outreach activities: overcoming challenges through a realist ‘small steps’ approach

Individual and social influences on students’ attitudes to debt: a cross-national path analysis Using data from England and New Zealand

Practice, problems and power in ‘internationalisation at home’: critical reflections on recent research evidence

Don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it's gone? Skills-led qualifications, secondary school attainment and policy choices

by Neil Harrison, Kathryn Last, and David James

Attitudes to debt among indebted undergraduates: A cross-national exploratory factor analysis

by Neil Harrison, Steve Agnew, and Joyce Serido

Returning from earning: UK graduates returning to postgraduate study, with particular respect to STEM subjects, gender and ethnicity

An ecological fallacy in higher education policy: the use, overuse and misuse of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’

Undergraduates’ memories of school-based work experience and the role of social class in placement choices in the UK

Journal of Education and Work

Towards a typology of debt attitudes among contemporary young UK undergraduates

Journal of Further and Higher Education

Modelling the demand for higher education by local authority area in England using academic, economic and social data

British Educational Research Journal, 2013

Expensive and failing? The role of student bursaries in widening participation and fair access in England

Studies in Higher Education, 2012

Investigating the impact of personality and early life experiences on intercultural interaction in internationalised universities

International Journal of Intercultural Education, 2012

The mismeasure of participation: how choosing the ‘wrong’ statistic helped seal the fate of Aimhigher

Higher Education Review, 2012

Have the changes introduced by the 2004 Higher Education Act made higher education admissions in England wider and fairer?

Journal of Education Policy, 2011

Overactive, overwrought or overdrawn? The role of personality in undergraduate financial knowledge, decision-making and debt

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2011

Cultural distance, mindfulness and passive xenophobia: using Integrated Threat Theory to explore home higher education students’ perspectives on ‘internationalisation at home’

British Educational Research Journal, 2010

Knowing the ‘unknowns’: investigating the students whose social class is not known at entry to higher education

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2010

‘Disadvantaged learners’: who are we targeting? Understanding the targeting of widening participation activity using geo-demographic data from Southwest England

Higher Education Quarterly

“It’s so much easier to go with what’s easy”: ‘mindfulness’ and the discourse between home and international students in the UK

Journal of Studies in International Education, 2010

Moving On Up: Pathways of care leavers and care-experienced students into and through higher education

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Access to higher education: theoretical perspectives and contemporary challenges

How do we understand and explain who has access to higher education? How do we make sense of pers... more How do we understand and explain who has access to higher education? How do we make sense of persisting and new forms of inequality? How can global, national and institutional policymakers and practitioners make higher education more inclusive? Access to Higher Education: Theoretical perspectives and contemporary challenges seeks to update thinking on these questions, combining new voices and emerging perspectives with established writers in the field.

This pioneering text highlights the contribution of social theory to issues of access to education, with chapters introducing and drawing on the works of key interdisciplinary thinkers including Pierre Bourdieu, Margaret Archer, Amartya Sen and Herbert Simon. It then moves to examines how theoretical perspectives can be applied to the contemporary challenges of forging more equal access, with examples drawn from a wide range of contexts, including the UK, the US, Australia, South Africa and Japan.

Global in scope, this book documents the shared nature of the access challenge in a period when higher education is growing rapidly, but inequalities continue to be stark. It concludes by proposing a new direction for research and a reassertion of the role of the researcher as a social activist for disconnected and disadvantaged groups, equipped with the thinking tools needed to move the agenda forward.

Access to Higher Education is a rigorous text for the global research community, with relevance to policymakers, practitioners and postgraduate students interested in social justice and social policy. It provides those with an academic interest in access and a commitment to enhancing policy with theoretical and practical ideas for moving the access agenda forward in their institutional, regional or national contexts.

Building a culture of participation: interviews with the former directors of the national Aimhigher programme

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The evaluation of widening participation activities in higher education: a survey of institutional leaders in England

by Neil Harrison and Richard Waller

This paper reports the results of an online survey of senior managers with responsibility for wid... more This paper reports the results of an online survey of senior managers with responsibility for widening participation (WP) in English universities. 57 institutions participated, giving a response rate of 38 percent. The questionnaire primarily focused on (a) the targeting of WP activity, (b) concepts of success, (c) perceptions of ‘successful’ WP activities, (d) perceptions of institution WP success, and (e) approaches to evaluation.

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The impact of the pursuit of ASDAN's Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE) on GCSE attainment

Interactions in the international classroom – the UK student perspective

Young participation in higher education: A sociocultural study of educational engagement in Bristol South parliamentary constituency

Care-experienced students in higher education: how they get there and how they get on

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Launch of Moving On Up report

Launch presentation - House of Commons - 29th November 2017

Student choices under uncertainty: applying Simon’s concept of bounded rationality

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What do undergraduate students think about money?

Video of the seminar is available here: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/what-do-undergraduate-students-r... more

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