Diversifying the discourse of progression to higher education: Digital storytelling methodology in widening participation practice

Abstract

This paper commences from a critique of the generalised discourse of individualistic capacities in widening participation to higher education. It examines the potential of digital stories to diversify understandings of progression to higher education as a reflexive learning process for participants and institutions alike, by considering one cohort of students participating in a digital storytelling award at a university in the North of England. The concepts of narrative imagination, narrative learning and reflective referentiality are utilised to advance a theoretically informed argument for the potential of this methodology, given the position set out in the paper that the impact of digital stories such as these is unlikely to be transparent or easily measurable in the positivist language of much widening participation practice. The digital storytelling methodology invites a more nuanced consideration of student voice than usually pertains in widening participation, with potential to diversify a reductive discourse of under-represented groups.