Drawing on examples from nine countries across five continents, this book offers anyone interested in the future of higher education the opportunity to understand how communities become marginalised and how this impacts on their access to learning and their ability to thrive as students.

Focusing on groups that suffer directly through discriminatory practices or indirectly through distinct forms of sociocultural disadvantage, this book brings to light communities about which little has been written and where research efforts are in their relative infancy. Each chapter documents the experiences of a group and provides insights that have a wider reach and gives voice to those that are often unheard. The book concludes with a new conceptualisation of the social forces that lead to marginalisation in higher education.

This cutting-edge book is a must read for higher education researchers, policy makers, and students interested in access to education, sociology of education, development studies, and cultural studies.

Neil Harrison is an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford, UK.

Graeme Atherton is Head of AccessHE and Director of the National Education Opportunities Network.