The rural gaze: Access, participation, and success in higher education

The institutional misrecognition of South African university students from rural areas is at the heart of this chapter. It sets out to develop a conceptual account of understanding what rurality means and its implication in higher education, especially in South Africa where disparities have to do with apartheid and continuing economic and social inequalities. Drawing on and adapting elements of the Soja's (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Real-and-Imagined places</Emphasis>. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) trialectical account and concepts of social justice (Fraser, <Emphasis Type="Italic">New Left Review, 36</Emphasis>(99), 69-88, 2005), the chapter provides an analytical framework for understanding how education works (or does not) to promote transformative solutions in higher education context. The chapter presupposes that access and success at university for students from rural background is influenced by a complex range of interrelated factors, including, geography, socioeconomic, and cultural background, institutional preparedness and support among others. In this chapter, I argue that backgrounds plays a vital role in influencing student success, and universities need to strengthen their policies and practices and major reconfiguration of the higher education institutional landscape is in order to increase access and success of rural students.