Welcome to higher education? New and potential students in England and France

The conference will explore the notion of “welcome” at university in its broader sense, including practical and pedagogical support offered to first-year students and students on international mobility programmes. It will reflect on the role of higher education institutions and transnational organisations in defining and attending to the needs of students in France and the UK. A key question for the conference relates to the discursive process of inclusion/exclusion of students and would-be students, in the context of increasing internationalisation of education and growing managerialism and marketisation of universities – the current legislative draft of the French national research programme (Loi de programmation pluriannuelle de la recherche) seems to be an example of these processes.