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Education continues to be presented as a political priority for human development in countries worldwide. The agendas for education are promoted through a variety of means and become formalised through the presentation of policy. There is a current global trend to expand participation in education by people from diverse backgrounds. This expansion has involved increasing provision of primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as attempting to widen access to address longstanding inequalities relating to gender, class and ethnicity. Whilst progress has been made there is still a long way to go and now there is a growing need to consider matters beyond provision and access to education. In particular, the nature of young people’s participation in formal education settings must come under scrutiny in order to gain a better understanding of whether success has been achieved in terms of an agenda for social justice. Quantitative measures of participation in terms of, say, aspiration, application and admission to higher education institutions (HEI’s) are limited in what they can say about the nature of participation by individuals. This paper aims to expand the concept of participation, using the example of higher education in the UK, to help further understanding of how education policies and practices can be more inclusive and socially just. Although the case in point is UK oriented there are international parallels to be drawn in relation to the theory underpinning dominant education policy, the nature of young people’s participation and the alternative perspectives that the Capability Approach can offer.