*5.3. A Capability Approach to Exploring Change*

Using the capability approach to explore outcomes on these two programs enables us to visualise the impact widening participation interventions might have if they were designed to widen the capability of low-SES students towards valued beings and doings rather than a principal focus on ensuring more students' complete schooling with the attainment required to progress to higher education. Its conceptual contribution is therefore to combine the capability approach with theories of social and cultural reproduction, social justice and critical pedagogy to develop a pragmatic list to best prepare low-SES students to aspire towards higher education. It enables us to build a picture over time of what student capabilities are emerging and how these may be either strengthened or diminished by social, personal or environmental conversion factors.

The "capability approach" framing contends that if educational interventions had as their starting point the objective of empowering students to develop to their full potential, through a focus on the capabilities they need to continue to aspire, then students would be more likely to develop educational resilience and navigational capital to persist and to focus on their longer-term goals, even in the context of environmental adversity. It also proposes that students who have the knowledge they need to make informed choices, particularly at an earlier stage in their second level education, are less likely to be inhibited in their decision making by adapted preferences and, whether they choose to progress to higher education, are at least making their choices in the context of a more complete information base and relatable, college-going networks.

In both programs, this individualised approach to exploring student capability development, and to socio-economic assessment, factors in that each individual is unique within the blunt scope of policy formation and that programs and evaluations can be designed to take into account this potential and the possibilities of change through collaboration.

This article began by providing the context for widening participation in Ireland and the UK. It proceeded with an explanation of two programs and the admissions changes that took place as a result of collaboration and shared learning. It provided an overview of qualitative research that informed this comparative case study and applied a "capability lens" to exploring the data.

Drawing on a community-based programme in Ireland, the article explained the impact of a whole-school partnership approach to low=SES student capability development and contrasted this with a university-focused academic programme, aiming to diversify student intake in Oxford University. The Trinity strategy had moved beyond a consideration of its own student profile to the potential impact the university could have within communities. The Oxford strategy resembled the Trinity strategy in the early 2000s in that its focus is on individual student recruitment from low-SES backgrounds and efforts to reform the institutional admissions system. Both programs are examples of the power of learning across geographical contexts and collaborative action. The two programs share a focus on building human capability as a way of improving the realisation of opportunities for the many capable, committed and challenged low-SES young people, who are often overlooked and underestimated by the mainstream-schooling and higher-education selection systems.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Ethical approval for this study was gained from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science Ethics Committee in Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin on 20th March 2015.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data is unavailable due to ethical considerations, as the research involved children.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
