Editorial introductrion from the CSE special issue 'New capacities for student equity and widening participation in higher education'

Abstract
The Australian Government has recently signalled its intention to fund programs that assist in 'raising' the aspirations of low socio-economic status (SES) students. However, this objective can imply that low-SES students lack adequate aspirations for their future. This implication supports deficit views of low-SES students and elides the aspirations that families and communities do hold for their futures.

Abstract
There is a changed 'structure of feeling' emerging in higher education systems, particularly in OECD nations, in response to changed social, cultural and economic arrangements. Taking a student equity perspective, the paper names this change in terms of 'mobility', 'aspiration' and 'voice'.

Special issue of Critical Studies in Education, 'New Capacities for Student Equity and Widening Participation in Higher Education', edited by Trevor Gale. Features papers by Sam Sellar & Trevor Gale, Gareth Parry, Jane Kenway & Anna Hickey-Moody, Lisa Smith, Julie McLeod, Christine Hockings, and a conversation with guest speakers at the 2010 Student Equity in Higher Education National Conference.

Special issue of Cambridge Journal of Education, 'Globalisation and Student Equity in Higher Education', edited by Sellar and Gale, featuring articles by Fazal Rizvi &Bob Lingard, Simon Marginson, Sam Sellar, Trevor Gale & Stephen Parker, John Pardy & Terri Seddon, Adam Shoemaker, Gilbert Caluya, Elspeth Probyn & Shvetal Vyas, and Louise Morley.

Special Issue of AER, 'Confronting Perceptions of Student Equity in Higher Education', edited by Gale & Sellar, featuring articles by Trevor Gale, Miriam David, Tim N. Sealey, Joan Abbott-Chapman, Janette Ryan, Merrilyn Goos, Deanne Gannaway & Clair Hughes, Lori Beckett, and a book review by Soenke Biermann.

The field of Australian higher education has changed, is changing and is about to change, repositioned in relation to other “fields of power”. It is a sector now well defined by its institutional groupings and by their relative claims to selectivity and exclusivity, with every suggestion of their differentiation growing.

Aspiration for higher education (HE) is no longer a matter solely for students and their families. With OECD nations seeking to position themselves more competitively in the global knowledge economy, the need for more knowledge workers has led to plans to expand their HE systems to near universal levels. In Australia, this has required the government and institutions to enlist students who traditionally have not seen university as contributing to their imagined and desired futures.

One popular view of student achievement is that the quality of teaching students receive plays an important part in whether or not they do well at school. In this article we draw attention to 'context' as a complementary explanation, particularly regarding achievement differences between students from different socio-economic backgrounds. In making these observations, we utilise data from one Australian secondary school located in an economically depressed rural community.