The rise of agentic inclusion in the UK universities: maintaining reputation through (formal) diversification

Abstract

The pursuit of inclusion in elite universities has been widely explored from a structural lens concerned with issues of access faced by traditionally underrepresented students and staff. Building from a sociological institutionalist approach, this paper proposes the concept of ‘agentic inclusion’ to capture the growing valorisation of universities’ agency in the pursuit of inclusion, and the underlying shift from inclusion as ‘structural pursuit’ to inclusion as ‘organisational commitment’. Drawing on primary data mapping the presence of inclusion offices, units and teams across 124 UK universities as of 2018, and secondary data such as student and staff inclusion statistics, I show that elite universities are leading in the organisational display of inclusion, irrespective of the actual levels of inclusion across traditionally underrepresented students and staff. The findings call for further research into the gap between universities’ organisational commitments to inclusion and inclusion at the structural level and inform several policy recommendations.