An explanation of what the analysis highlights and why it matters will now follow.
Access students come to college to acquire a level three diploma so that they can progress to university because they did not study the required A levels or did not attain the required grades in the required subjects when they stayed on at school if they stayed on at school. Through discourses associated with the widening participation in HE (2.3) Access students are marked as non-standard. Access students need to contend with the dominant discourse that there is a hierarchy of courses with A-Levels perceived as the best (4.14). Already disadvantaged through not having stayed on at school to do the right A-levels Access students are disadvantaged again through the dominating discourse which marks them as non-
standard. So, discourses associated with the widening participation in HE (2.3) reproduce the inequalities which Access courses were established to redress.
The discourses of hard work and competition produce dividing practices which constitutes those who have already developed the required study skills and academic credentials as becoming prospective medicine students and those who do not have the study skills and prior academic experiences as not becoming prospective medicine students. So, the discourses work hard against those Access to medicine students for whom Access courses were
established. So, the discourses of hard work and competition reproduce inequalities amongst Access to medicine students which Access courses were established to redress.
184 Furthermore, the discourses of hard work and competition position students for whom Access courses were established as responsible for failures portrayed as their own because they must either not have worked hard enough or were not able enough. The dominant discourses of hard work and competition ignore that such students are not competing fairly with those who have already attained superior qualifications and have well-established study skills before starting the Access course.
The middle-class mothers of the graduate women Access to medicine students are implicated in persuading their daughters to study medicine through the discourse of ‘parents wanting the best for their children’. A middle-class mother is described as promoting the neoliberal discourse of 'being free to choose what you want to do' while also presenting medicine as an option for a career. Through the dominating discourse of medicine being for the elite, the middle-class mothers of the graduate women Access to medicine students are implicated in promoting the discourses of hard work and competition. These parents are not alone. So dominant is the discourses of hard work and competition that I who challenge them, through this thesis, am also implicated in promoting them. As parents and teachers, there is nothing wrong with encouraging the best for our children or students. However, it is essential to recognise that if we as teachers and parents are implicated in promoting the discourses of hard work and competition, we are implicated in reproducing the inequalities which Access courses were established to redress.
Teachers and course leaders should, therefore, challenge the dominating discourses of hard work and competition that constitute Access students as responsible for their own failures through not having worked hard enough or not being able enough.
While we cannot escape the discourses, we are implicated in promoting unintentionally; we are in a position to reframe these discourses. The dominating discourses of hard work and competition hide that students for whom Access courses were established are not competing fairly with graduate Access to medicine students who have already attained superior
qualifications and have well-established study skills before starting the Access course.
For the sake of promoting equal opportunities, teachers and course leaders should highlight to other teachers and course leaders that students are all different but are not all equal. Through highlighting that disparities in prior academic attainment and socioeconomic status make
185 competition in the further education sector unfair, we can encourage teachers and course leaders to support the more disadvantaged students in society.
As power operates through what the Access to medicine students say about their prior qualifications to normalise the students into an academic hierarchy teachers and course leaders could bring this to the fore at the start of the course. By emphasising, that there is a hierarchy of prior qualifications on the Access to medicine course and emphasising that only GCSEs are prerequisite qualifications for entry onto the course, students for whom Access courses were established may be put more at ease through acknowledging that students with less developed study skills will be supported in developing such skills.
It may be worth highlighting to future Access to medicine students that power operates productively through the shared panoptic student houses to produce an informal private study timetable through which members of the house ensure that everyone is studying what needs to be studied and that they continue studying through the evenings. Through emphasising that such housing arrangements benefit learning beyond just saving study time through eliminating commuting to the college by car other Access to medicine students may be encouraged to take up this opportunity. However, course leaders and teachers should be aware that opting to live in shared student housing is not a free choice open to students who have families and need to work in distant places part-time. Course leaders and teachers should also be cautious not to be seen to be abdicating responsibility for helping those students most in need of their support through encouraging independent and peer studying too much.