Abstract
Practitioners who teach into university/tertiary preparation programs play an important role in widening and maintaining participation by delivering foundation programs for dealing with educational inequalities. Yet, there is limited research on how these practitioners conceptualise and frame their multiple roles, values and identities. Therefore, this study explored what it means to be a contemporary tertiary preparation practitioner at an Australian university. Ten academics who teach into university preparation programs co-constructed concept maps representing perceptions about their roles. These maps were then analysed using thematic analysis to identify patterns in perceptions. The findings highlighted that although practitioners were motivated by a desire to improve social mobility, this conflicts with the neoliberal demands of education as a commodity. There was also the perception that the tertiary preparation area sits at the periphery of higher education, which contributes to its perceived lack of prestige as an academic discipline.