How religion or belief frame participation and access in UK higher education

The relation between religion or belief and higher education (HE) remains a complex and varied one. Within the HE system of the United Kingdom, there is a wide variety of different kinds of institution. These range from the ancient, collegiate universities (such as Oxford, Cambridge and Durham); through civic universities of late nineteenth and early twentieth century foundation (such as the universities of London and Manchester); universities created in the 1960s (such as Kent and Lancaster); former polytechnics that became universities in the early 1990s (such as Nottingham Trent and Sheffield Hallam); former Church of England Colleges of Higher Education, many of which are now universities (such as the Universities of Winchester, Chester and York St. John); continuing colleges that deliver HE; the private University of Buckingham; to, more recently, a new generation of corporate providers of specific fields of HE such as the University/College of Law and BPP International, which is focused on business and the professions. There is also substantial contemporary diversity in terms of what is variously identified as ‘religion’, ‘faith’, ‘spirituality’, ‘belief’, ‘secularity’ and ‘secularism’. Each of these terminologies has specific emphases in relation to the phenomena that they seek to describe. Some also have areas of overlap with others. But all are contested. In this chapter, we use the terminology of ‘religion or belief’ on the basis that it is this terminology (within which ‘belief’ denotes ‘non-religious’ life orientations of sufficient cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance to function in ways similar to religion) that shapes currently applicable human rights and equality law in the United Kingdom, as well as much social policy and practice that is framed by, and flows from, such law. Bearing in mind both the diversity of the HE context and the range of phenomena associated with religion or belief, there is, therefore, a range of ways in which the relationship between them can be explored. However, in this chapter, we focus on the practical questions, to be informed by specific project research findings and other, wider discussion, of how religion or belief impacts on the ways in which students and staff gain access to HE and how their religion or belief frames their participation.