While access to higher education has increased for Indigenous Australians, participation and completion rates remain lower than those of nonIndigenous Australians. A sound evidence base is needed to ground equity initiatives if they are to address the specific needs of Indigenous students. This paper presents the results of a scoping review of empirical research focusing on the participation of Indigenous students in higher education. The purpose of the scoping review was to synthesise empirical research on aspirations for, and barriers and enablers to, higher education that were published between 2000 and 2016 (n = 57), and identify areas where further research is needed. Despite a recent increase in research on this topic, relatively little attention has been paid to Indigenous students' aspirations while they are at school. We argue that future research should take account of school students' aspirations for higher education, including primary school students; the similitude of barriers and enablers across the student life cycle; differences within Indigenous community and among Indigenous students; and, the insights emerging from Indigenous methodologies and scholarship.

For medical schools seeking to widen participation, this study underscores the importance of recognising the intersection of other factors with socio-economic status and how they contribute to students' aspirational biographies. If medical schools are to select from a more diverse range of applicants, recruitment strategies must take into account the discursive positioning of the discipline. Sustained outreach into primary and secondary schools may be critical to interrupting the current social reproduction of medical schooling.

Indigenous students remain vastly under-represented within higher education in Australia. While aspirations have been a key focus of the widening participation agenda, the aspirations of Indigenous students have largely been overlooked. Drawing on survey data collected as part of a mixed methods longitudinal study conducted with students in Years 3 to 12 (n ¼ 6492) from New South Wales government schools, this study investigated the occupational and educational aspirations of 432 Indigenous school students. While we found that Indigenous and non-Indigenous students held similar occupational aspirations, Indigenous students were much less likely to aspire to attend university. Most starkly, high-achieving Indigenous students were significantly less likely to aspire to university than their high-achieving non-Indigenous peers. Given this evidence, we argue that both the possibility and desirability of higher education must be addressed if the widening participation agenda is to meet equity targets for Indigenous students.

For more than three decades, Australian higher education policy has been guided by a national equity framework focussed on six underrepresented target groups: Indigenous Australians, people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, people from regional and remote areas, people with disabilities, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and women in non-traditional areas of study. Despite bringing equitable access to the forefront of university agendas, this policy framework has fostered a somewhat narrow conceptualisation of how educational disadvantage should be addressed. Responding to calls for reform, this paper draws on survey data from 6492 students in NSW government schools to examine the extent to which a new category warrants inclusion in the national framework: first-generation status. We illustrate how being the first in a family to attend university brings distinct equity status and argue for a revision of the national equity framework to recognise and support students who are ‘first’.

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