Access and Equity: Futures of an Educational Ideal

This paper offers an analysis of the concepts access and equity using CLA to highlight the complexity of the discourse and the nature of the contested conceptual space. An historical context is used to situate the discourse and place the tension between open ended and closed interpretations of these terms in their historicalcultural context. The social imaginary is applied to the field of social ordering in order to recognise the power of myth and metaphor in determining social context. The paper concludes with an exploration of alternative definitions of access and equity and the roles of fear and hope in defining the possible.