This paper argues that widening participation, which is now part of the agenda of higher education, has been insufficiently acknowledged by the media and cultural studies community, particularly in regard to pedagogic practices. The author examines the teaching of Legally Blonde, a film about an unconventional entrant to Harvard University, to first-year students on a Media Arts course, nearly all of whom came from non-traditional backgrounds. Interviews with a small cohort of students reveal that some experienced a degree of alienation at university. The students were asked to write essays on Legally Blonde that drew on theoretical understandings of widening participation, class, gender and race. The students' readings of the film are examined to highlight issues of identity and belonging in the academy, and to demonstrate the students' own understandings of structural inequalities.
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