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This qualitative study interrogates the barriers that historically disadvantaged higher education students in South Africa face when it comes to access and success. It specifically explores the challenges black students encounter in gaining epistemic access within the South African higher education system.

This research draws upon empirical data collected from a mixed-methods research project conducted at six higher education institutions. It focuses on issues of epistemic access and success within humanities and sciences faculties. The dataset comprises interview transcripts involving 34 student and ten staff cases. Thematic analysis, aided by MaxQDA software, was meticulously conducted to extract and synthesise meaningful themes, crafting comprehensive narratives.

The study uncovers multifaceted challenges, including difficulties in understanding the admission process, financial barriers and language proficiency issues, faced by disadvantaged students when accessing universities and transitioning from basic to higher education. The research emphasises universities taking proactive measures, such as providing comprehensive early support, identifying at-risk students and collaborating with schools to prepare prospective students better. It advocates for the potential of resilience theory in addressing social justice issues related to access and success for these students. Furthermore, the study recommends developing inclusive curricula and underscores the need for universities to actively support disadvantaged students academically and socially.

This research departs from the conventional focus on physical access to universities, introducing a more comprehensive perspective that emphasises epistemic access as a pivotal aspect of higher education. Drawing on empirical data, it sheds light on the obstacles faced by disadvantaged students during the transition from high school to higher education while also exploring their resilience strategies.

Many nations, including African ones, view PhD graduates as a means to be more internationally competitive, and national policies may encourage outward mobility of potential PhDs, expecting that graduates on return will enhance the country’s capacity. Many studies of such mobility, as with studies of early career researchers generally, focus on their work-related experiences. That is, they do not incorporate the broader life considerations that can intersect with their work-career decisions. So, this study of 36 Africans who completed their PhDs abroad uses a framework that embedded an individual’s work within personal considerations, such as life goals, while not ignoring the structural factors, such as job availability, in play when making work-career decisions.

The paper used a narrative methodology, with two stages of analysis: first of individual cases, then of patterns across individuals.

Multiple personal factors came to bear in negotiating the structural factors related to work and career. Moreover, there were multiple intersections between personal factors, and the influence of a factor ranged from sustaining through disrupting, highlighting the specific context-bounded nature of the thinking at the time of decision-making.

This was a small-scale study with no intention to generalize to the broader population of African PhD holders. Rather but the goal was an in-depth examination of individual’s work within personal considerations to further conceptualize the understanding of career decision-making.

PhD programmes could encourage PhD students to consider the importance of life intentions and hopes in career decision-making and how careers evolve over time in light of structural and life factors.

Overall, participants demonstrated an intricate weighing of personal factors in making decisions as they also sought to negotiate different structural factors to advance their careers. Further, no other studies the authors are aware of report how the same interacting factors can have a sustaining through disrupting influence dependent on specific contexts, thus further revealing how nested contexts and personal factors co-influence the work-career decisions that each individual makes.