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This paper details a small-scale research project that explores the student transition into higher education (HE), delivered in a further education college (FE), and considers whether the requirements of transition at this level impacts on emotional wellbeing. As such, it aims to contribute to the growing body of research on HE-in-FE from the perspective of student transition and emotional wellbeing. The data drawn on in this paper were collected by a questionnaire, administered at two points in the first semester, to measure levels of anxiety in students, alongside a further questionnaire designed to evaluate the effectiveness of bespoke academic skills input aimed at supporting the transition into HE. From quantitative and qualitative data, key findings identify factors that influence students' emotional responses to HE, including those that exacerbate an those that mitigate negative emotional responses. Significantly, the research identifies academic factors, rather than personal or social issues, as being critical to students' emotional experiences during the transitionary period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review and synthesis of relevant literature considers the nature of boredom and boredom proneness in general terms before focusing on how the academic boredom experienced by undergraduates at university is sufficiently different from other known types to warrant a unique and important field of study. Derived from within the literature itself, academic boredom is commonly presented as a largely negative and deactivating achievement-related emotion known to impact usually adversely on student engagement and performance. Tracing traditional as well as contemporary views from within psychology, which has tended to dominate the field, findings that remain largely quantitative and highly statistical in nature are exemplified alongside the more exploratory but mixed-methods and educational work recently conducted in the UK. A comparison of the questionnaire-based self-report instruments frequently used in data collection is also included. Rooted largely within Control-Value Theory, the implications associated with academic boredom are far from trivial, particularly with respect to understanding sites and triggers, how students respond and cope and how the overall quality of the student experience might be improved. Limitations in the work undertaken to date draw attention to opportunities for further educational and interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the way in which Emma Donoghue’s novelSlammerkin(2000) reflects long-standing feminist debates surrounding prostitution. We argue that not only does Donoghue’s portrayal of prostitution resist the pro versus anti dichotomy in which feminist perspectives on sex work are so often narrowly situated, butSlammerkinalso foregrounds the complexity with which the politics of choice intersects with women’s decision to sell their bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]