Repositioning the subject discipline for an ‘academic-enhancement’ model of widening participation: a philosophical sketch created by Mark O’Brien

This article addresses a question for those seeking to deepen engagement with nontraditional students for strategies of widening participation in the higher education setting. The question is as follows: how can the academic subject be made more open to what the student (and therefore also the nontraditional student) can bring to it? ‘Openness’ is intended in two senses here that each generates its own corollary questions. First, there is the question of how the academic subject as a discipline can be seen as open to society and culture: and to the ‘world’ of the student. Second, how can the teaching of the academic subject be opened up to what the student has to offer: what forms of pedagogy do we need? Reflecting philosophically, the article outlines responses to each of these questions. Responding to the first question, with particular focus on Western science tradition, concepts from debates with the philosophy of science are employed to highlight the interactions between society and the academic discipline in its real historical development. In response to the second question, the tradition of Critical Pedagogy is foregrounded as offering the types of openness to student involvement in and contribution to the academic discipline. Such approaches, it is suggested, can create spaces in which nontraditional students, by virtue of their social experiences, cultural identities and personal characteristics, can become more deeply engaged in the academic and intellectual life of their chosen academic subject. The article then combines a number of theoretical perspectives to suggest that the social and cultural mix within the student body is something that warrants renewed attention for academic life and work.