Description
Panel: Social mobility and equitable access to international educationConvenor and Chair: Dr Que Anh Dang.
Higher education, particularly international higher education, has long been regarded as a key pathway to social mobility, yet the relationship between educational access and genuine equity remains deeply contested.
Previous research shows that there can be a trade-off in education policy. Systems that aim to give everyone a fair chance - such as those providing equal funding to all universities and strong support for disadvantaged students -tend to enable more people to move up in society. By contrast, systems that concentrate resources on top-performing students or heavily fund selective universities may raise performance, but often benefit a smaller, already advantaged group (Cremer, De Donder & Pestieau, 2010).
These tensions are further complicated in the context of international education, where access is shaped by intersecting structural factors, such as national policies, funding mechanisms, geopolitical dynamics, institutional partnerships, admission criteria, and the increasing marketisation of higher education.
At the same time, different actors – including governments, universities, intermediaries, and students themselves - exercise varying degrees of agency in navigating and reshaping these structures.
Our panel explores these dynamics through four papers:
1) Between World-Class Aspirations and Equitable Access: The Dilemma of Vietnam's Bi-National Universities. Dr Que Anh Dang (CU) and Quang Chau (VNU)
2) Who gets to go global? Are dual-award degree programmes expanding opportunity? Sarah Patrick and Mark Andrew Elepano (Coventry)
3) Bridging Divides or Widening Gaps? The Influences of Vietnamese Educational Agents on Access And Inequality in International Education. Trang Nguyen (Liverpool)
4) Agency in Motion: How International Higher Education Shapes Agency for Social Change. Dr Zhe Wang (Oxford).
| Period | 23 Apr 2026 → 24 Apr 2026 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 11 |
| Location | Oxford, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |