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This paper looks at the experiences of school history education and explores the impact this education has had on the development of young adults and their sense of identity in England. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study used semi-structured interviews with twenty young adults, aged 18–22, some from white backgrounds, but most from minoritized ethnic backgrounds.1 Four broad categories were identified in the data, namely 'values and value', 'identity development', 'curriculum connections' and 'narrative templates'. In the majority of cases, these young adults felt that history was important and had a role to play in addressing societal issues such as racism. However, the curriculum largely ignored the histories of minoritized ethnic groups, as the dominant narrative template favoured a white, Anglo-centric view of the world, and so served to fuel a sense of disconnection to the curriculum and to the state more generally. This paper suggests there is a need to pay closer attention to the place of history education in shaping a sense of belonging and personal identity, through a multiperspectivity approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper reviews changing government policy on adult education in England over the past 20 years and the funding regimes affecting adult and community learning and union-led learning, which play a major role in learning opportunities for socially excluded adults. Design/methodology/approach: A review and analysis of extant literature, informed by previous involvement in the sector and ongoing collaborations. Findings: Two decades ago, adult education in England provided a variety of learning opportunities for people who either had limited qualifications or who needed to reskill for whatever reason. Access to those opportunities has been reduced just when it is most needed. Research limitations/implications: This is a review and viewpoint paper based on experience in England, the limitations of which are discussed in the concluding section. Notwithstanding the institutional specificities of adult education in England, many of the implications are generic and have wider relevance beyond this country context. Practical implications: Economic recovery post-coronavirus (COVID) and Brexit will require more access to adult education so people can prepare for labour market re-integration. The practical implication of extending provision in adult education to support labour market integration of vulnerable workers is relevant to most countries. Originality/value: This paper takes a holistic view of adult education, with particular attention to adult and community learning and union-led learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the 1908 Oxford Report, a founding document for the Workers' Educational Association, as a window onto the internal contradictions of the university adult education movement, an issue that has been neglected by historians of education. Examining the early history of the WEA shows that while the movement was inspired by Oxford Idealism and set itself the aim of democratising higher education, it also drew support from people who intended to professionalise the university by introducing the principles of trained expertise and selection by merit. The confluence of Idealism and professionalism resulted in a ground-breaking but inconsistent educational programme outlined in the Oxford Report. This paper suggests that the attempt to simultaneously democratise and professionalise higher education was untenable and foreshadowed later tensions within the WEA movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including widening participation (WP) access initiatives and student support in England; recognition for research personnel in Australia, and introduction to international writing programme to support WP.

This paper presents the findings of a rapid review of evidence on what works in blended learning in adult education which was undertaken to support the evidence informed introduction of blended learning in police education nationally across all police forces in England and Wales. Following a systematic search, screening, and quality assessment process, 42 studies, including 10 systematic reviews, were included in the final synthesis. Findings suggest that blended learning is at least as good as, if not more effective than, only face-to-face, or only online learning methods. The research evidence highlights the importance of bespoke design to suit learner needs and the type of content to be delivered, as well as the importance of providing appropriate support to both instructors and learners to engage with blended methods. Based on the findings, a toolkit is provided to guide police educators in designing and delivering curricula using blended methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which examination standards are conceptualised and operationalised differently across nations has not been given sufficient attention. The international literature on standard-setting has been dominated by the psychometrics tradition. Broader conceptualisations of examination standards have been discussed in the literature in England, which has curriculum-related examinations at the end of schooling. There has, however, been little analysis of conceptualisations of examination standards in Scotland. Different education systems and examinations operate in Scotland and England, and the stated value positions and processes relating to examination standards differ markedly. This paper critically examines policy positions on assessment standards in Scotland and England through the lens of recent theories of standard-setting. By analysing public statements on standards, the paper illuminates similarities and differences in conceptual bases and operational approaches, and examines the effects of these on outcomes for candidates. We conclude that both systems are operationalising attainment-referencing, but with different processes in Scotland and England and these practices do not fit within previous examination standards classifications. As such, the paper moves examination standards theory forward by concluding that there is at least one superordinate definitional category that draws upon more than one definitional stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which credentials from a range of education providers are used to (re)produce transnational financial elites in London's international financial district. Extant research has examined the long-standing relationship between educational background and entry into these financial labour markets. Far less attention has been paid to how the relationship between education and financial elites has changed more recently as financial labour markets have become increasingly transnational in nature and education and learning increasingly extend beyond higher education into the workplace. In response, this paper combines work on transnational elite labour markets with work from the sociology of education on the intersection between work and workplace education in order to understand the different strategies used by individuals (from both the UK and overseas) to acquire a range of credentials following their first degree in an effort to advance their careers within contemporary financial services labour markets. We argue that this research reveals the comparatively neglected trans-local qualities of workplace learning and education as individuals acquire both international and local academic credentials in what are often assumed to be global elite labour markets. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this research for work on the role of education in the (re)production of transnational elites more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the 'geography/ies of education' has emerged as a more coherent and defined area of research. Education in this context has been primarily interpreted as either compulsory or higher education and figured around the geographies of school and university. Other education sectors and spaces - both formal and informal - have been less visible. This paper gives a geographical reading of an area of further education that has been hitherto overlooked by geographers by focusing on mothers' participation in family learning. Drawing on the notion of belonging, and mothers' aspirations to belong, it explores how the immediate site of family learning is tied to multiple and concurrent geographies that work through a range of spaces, scales and subjectivities. Focusing on these aspirations, this paper argues that thinking through the 'geographies of learning' recognises the multiple spaces and scales through which education is conceived and translated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of changing higher education policies and funding on university adult and continuing education in England and Aotearoa New Zealand. It discusses some of the contextual factors contributing to sustaining continuing education in New Zealand, against the tide of developments elsewhere, and in spite of its subjection to the influence of neoliberal policies since the 1980s: an ethos of public knowledge dissemination, acknowledgement of the universities' role as 'critic and conscience' of society, a broad commitment to educational equality and a strategic as well as pragmatic approach. The paper describes developments in one New Zealand continuing education department as it experiences institutional and political change. The author concludes that, in spite of demonstrating considerable resilience, the structures and activities of continuing education departments in New Zealand are as fragile as they have been in England. 'Radical hope' is advocated as the university-based adult educator's response in difficult times. It involves challenging the assumptions of neoliberalism, and reaffirming the political nature of adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in Further Education colleges in England read and write in many different kinds of ways in different areas of their everyday lives. As part of their participation in Further Education, these students face a multitude of literacy demands: through the bureaucracies of the college, the pedagogic content of their courses, the textual nature of assessment, and the development of new practices of reading and writing relating to their intended workplaces. Drawing upon evidence from research with students and staff at four FE colleges in England and Scotland, this paper presents the argument that students actively participate within this textual world. They elect to engage with some texts and to ignore others, depending upon the value they judge the text to have, the relevance they think it holds to their lives or courses, and the extent to which they are able to access the text and its meanings. This challenges a popular deficit discourse which assumes FE students' lack of literacy: rather than seeing the student as the 'problem' behind the lack of engagement with some texts, the text can be seen as the 'problem' if it has failed to engage the student. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the varied use of information technologies (ITs) such as the computer and Internet for self-education, highlighting how these technologies can facilitate and suppress such learning opportunities throughout the adult population. Based on data drawn from a large-scale study of adults in the West of England and South Wales, the paper addresses three areas of inquiry: (i) how computers and the Internet are used in adults' engagement with self-education; (ii) why adults engage (or do not engage) in IT-based self-education; and (iii) the social stratification of adults' engagement in IT-based self-education. The paper concludes that although computers and the Internet are, indeed, being used by some adults for self-education (often in extensive and elaborate ways), they appear to be reinforcing rather than activating processes of self-education, allowing people to continue with pre-existing and pre-set patterns of informal learning which generally replicate and reinforce patterns of 'offline' self-education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between global, regional and local influences on adult literacy policy and practice in the UK through a discourse analysis of policy-related texts. The analysis is framed by theoretical perspectives from literacy studies and socio-material theory. The paper identifies a number of specific features in the UK literacy policy environment that have mediated the influence of transnational agencies such as UNESCO, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union. It argues for the importance of understanding adult literacy policy as part of a wider constellation of discourses and governance practices and shows how textual representations of literacy and literacy learners are powerful constituents of the policy field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focusing on the Working Men’s College (WMC), this study charts the chequered fortunes of a Victorian project: providing workers with a ‘liberal education’. The paper analyses the project’s aim (making ‘better citizens’), its disciplinary content (the humanities and/or the sciences) and its challenges (the increasing prestige of vocational studies). It argues that, in an increasingly professionalised society, a ‘liberal education’ for workers became contentious ground. As the role of the sciences within a ‘liberal education’ diminished, and the provision of practical skills took precedence in the local-authority-funded courses, Victorian workers’ opportunities for education became polarised between ‘useful’ sciences and ‘profitless’ humanities. With natural scientists losing the intellectual independence of their discipline to technicians, the WMC Edwardian educators chose to side unequivocally with the humanities. The paper contends that it was in the Edwardian context of the adult education movement that the ‘two cultures’ debate first emerged in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on a study of a community-based adult education initiative, Cumbria Credits, which took place during the period of serious economic decline which hit sections of the farming and the wider community in Cumbria during 2001. It draws on the principles underpinning Edward Soja's notion of ‘spatial justice’ to explore transformations which took place in terms of human activities and relationships which emerged in response to challenging conditions. Human agency created opportunities to envisage new ‘ways of being’ in the community and to pursue new values and aspirations through education and collaboration. In the three examples of practice presented here, the work undertaken was concerned, in different ways, with the ‘fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and the opportunities to use them’ (Soja, 2008). In all the three contexts, forms of adult education emerged, which were responsive to the particular issues relating to ‘social justice’ and ‘locational discrimination’ experienced by their local communities. Spatial justice is a powerful concept which can serve to illuminate struggles for human rights in different settings and to highlight some of the many unexplored dimensions which must be taken into account in debates around inclusion and exclusion in education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The feminisation of migration is absent in policy and programmatic discourses on adult education in the USA and England. This paper uses an intersectional framework and feminist transnational methodology to probe this concept and its implications for women migrants and their education and advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in the management of further education (FE) colleges in England following the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) and the removal of colleges from Local Education Authority control. These changes are mapped against developments in the management of public service organisations, more generally, labelled new public management (NPM), and the adoption of "business-like" tools to support management responses to a new environment for colleges. Design/methodology/approach — The paper draws upon a national survey of general FE colleges and four case studies, researched in depth through semi-structured interviews and analysis of relevant documents. The research was carried out between 1997 and 2000. The case studies were revisited through recent Inspection reports. Findings — The paper finds that colleges reacted differently to the imperatives of change and that the extent to which the prescriptions of NPM were acted out depended upon a range of factors that were not included in many configurations of NPM. Research limitations/implications — The research was carried out in the 1990s and the original cases were revisited through Inspection reports post 2002. The inspectors had a different agenda than the original researchers and care needs to be taken in utilising the Inspectors' reports. Practical implications -The implementation of a uniform public policy across a diverse and complex sector is not guaranteed to succeed. Policy-makers need to be aware of the "one-size-fits-all" tendency of public policy making. Originality/value — The management of the FE sector is under researched. This paper researches key issues for practitioners following on from education reform and provides empirical evidence for academics of the extent to which NPM reforms take hold on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The curtain has come down on the first year of the new social work degree in England. This paper presents the findings of a survey of social work educators in academic and practice settings to find out how practice learning in this year has been experienced and the shape of plans for the rest of the new degree. The paper reflects on the enormous diversity of arrangements for practice learning, in terms of patterns of delivery, assessment, funding, and service user and carer involvement. One pattern that is emerging strongly is a more experimental flavour to this first year, with new practice learning sites being developed, and the use of group arrangements to supervise and support students. However, there is also the potential for inconsistency in standards, especially in the ways that students are judged as 'fit for practice learning'. There are concerns that the new partnerships are increasingly driven by universities and colleges, with some agency partners unclear about what is happening and why. There are also indications that the postgraduate programmes will have less room for experimentation than the three-year undergraduate courses and this may become a source of divergence between the two routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been estimated that as many as one in five adults in England have difficulties with literacy or numeracy skills. Raising the standards of language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills amongst all adults of working age in England has become one of the government’s highest priorities. Following the launch of the Skills for Life strategy in England, adults with poor LLN skills were targeted to attend training provision to upgrade their skills. As a result of the strategy, some identified target groups, i.e. the unemployed and benefit claimants, have found that receipt of benefits has had ‘conditionality’ attached to it; that is, they are required to undertake activities, including training, in order to maintain welfare benefits. Whilst resistance is often associated with motivation, this paper argues that making attendance at training provision a ‘conditionality’ of receipt of welfare benefits is unlikely to result in an increase in an adult’s LLN skills. We argue that whilst attendance at training provision can be increased through the use of such sanctioning interventions, this negative intervention does not result in a learner engaging in the training activities. There is a distinct difference between attending training programmes and engaging with training provision. Using the conceptual framework provided by Pierre Bourdieu’s discussion of reproduction in culture, society and education, we argue that the Skills for Life strategy is being used as an apparatus of symbolic violence; being legitimised through misrecognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-six per cent of 18–19-year-old sixth-form and further education college leavers in the UK currently go on to university. A majority of the remaining 64% apparently go into work or work-related training. Yet, for this latter group, as with the former, 16–19 education was supposed by the Department for Education and Employment to equip them with the skills applicable in the workplace, where a student’s ability to apply skills and knowledge in a variety of contexts—i.e. creativity—is as important as having a qualification. Creative skills, according to the Construction Industry Training Board, are key requisite skills in the workplace and also key to job and business success. This paper examines the extent to which assessment objectives in the 16–19 education curriculum in England require students to demonstrate creative skills in their work, be it class assessment or external examinations. It finds that all but two subject specifications and syllabuses (in one discipline) explicitly state creativity as an assessment objective, although a few other subject specifications (in other disciplines) required candidates to demonstrate some creative skills in their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of information and communications technology (ICT) in widening participation in lifelong learning, and thereby establishing the UK as a bona fide 'learning society', is now enshrined in a series of multi-million pound government initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect and UK Online. Although politicians and educationalists have been quick to herald such initiatives as revolutionizing post-compulsory education and extending learning opportunities to 'anyone' on an 'anytime, anywhere' basis, there has been little empirical analysis of how ICT is actually impacting on patterns of lifelong learning in the UK. With this in mind, the present paper presents an analysis of data from the 2002 National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) survey of 5885 households, focusing on learners' access to technology and the role that technology is playing in facilitating learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In little over a decade, the observation of teaching and learning (OTL) has become the cornerstone of Further Education (FE) colleges’ quality systems for assuring and improving the professional skills and knowledge base of tutors. Yet OTL remains an under-researched area of inquiry with little known about the impact of its use on the professional identity, learning and development of FE tutors. This paper examines the specific practice of graded OTL and in so doing discusses findings from a mixed-methods study conducted in 10 colleges situated across the West Midlands region of England. Data from a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were analysed within a theoretical framework that drew largely on aspects of Foucauldian theory as well as the twin phenomena of new managerialism and performativity. This analysis revealed how OTL has become normalised as a performative tool of managerialist systems designed to assure and improve standards, performance and accountability in teaching and learning. It is argued that FE has now outgrown graded OTL and it is time for a moratorium on its use. Colleges and tutors need to be given greater professional autonomy with regard to OTL and be allowed to develop their own systems that place professional learning and development at the forefront, rather than the requirements of performance management systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of benefits of education from a life course perspective. Using data from a study of 1600 students (response rate 48%) on an open access program at a London University college, it explores educational activity within the framework of a transitions model. In addition to the quantitative evidence, the article uses material from interviews to illustrate how different aspects of educational activity help individuals cope with transitions. This approach, while clearly not covering all possible education contexts, offers a way of adding to our understanding of the benefits of study in mid- and later-life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Dearing Report advocated that the traditionally separate post-compulsory education sectors of English higher education (HE) and further education (FE) should bring together the academic and vocational in a working partnership. This has led to significant changes in the working practices of colleges, lecturers and support staff. Drawing on the experiences of a sample of HE lecturers in colleges in south west England and a synthesis of relevant literature, this paper begins to examine the practice styles of HE lecturers working in FE institutions and the opportunities they are presented to engage with scholarship. The research acknowledges the issues involved in positioning HE in FE by considering the traditional roles of FE and HE lecturers, the competing demands of HE and FE and the necessary re-conceptualisation of the HE in FE lecturer as a teacher, a researcher and a scholar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Anglican clergymen in England contributed significantly to the development of archaeology and local history as, first, subjects for polite study, but secondly as academic disciplines at the heart of the university extension and extra-mural movements. Initially working as lone antiquarian scholars, clergymen formed networks amongst themselves and the gentry, dominated the emerging national and county societies, and moved into university work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the establishment of formal courses for adults. With their broad Oxbridge education and ready-made audiences, clergymen disseminated 'safe' secular knowledge via the tutorial class. But this contribution had diminished by the mid-twentieth century, by which time the education of the clergy had become more narrowly focused upon vocation, and as new academic posts facilitated the establishment of mainstream university Departments of Archaeology and Local History. This paper explores the contribution of the Anglican clergy to the education of adults in the period c.1750-1960 and suggests reasons for its initial strength and eventual decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of assessment practices on one university-led teacher-training course in England, delivered across a network of further education colleges. After establishing that assessment practices are bound up in texts of different kinds, this article draws on two theoretical frameworks - institutional ethnography and actor-network theory - in order to explore how the work done by tutors and students on the course is mediated by texts. Through analysing the ways in which texts are used and the ways in which students and tutors respond to them, the paper suggests that assessment practices are in fact characterised by complexity and contingency which are masked by the dominant discourses of quality assurance and managerialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how changing higher education policies and perspectives are impacting on university continuing education in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly in the light of its decline in England. It describes the context of university continuing education in New Zealand and the strategic and pragmatic ways in which continuing education departments have responded to the challenges of recent years. With the continued encroachment of commodification and credentialism in education, and with the recent election of a rightward leaning government, the paper assesses the prospects for New Zealand's university continuing education departments in neoliberal times. It concludes that university continuing education is as vulnerable as the wider adult and community education sector to the neoliberal shift and argues for the need for adult educators and academics to unite in the struggle for the principles of radical adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses learner progression within further education (FE) colleges in England and the role that both internal college practices and wider system factors play in the transition of 16-19 year olds from school to further study and the workplace. Focusing on a sample of 118 learners from 19 lower level courses in a large general FE college and using a series of interviews with learners and 23 of their tutors, this paper raises issues about how far current policy levers promote the concept of progression and how inclusive practices are in FE colleges. The article concludes by suggesting that changes need to be made at both institutional and national policy levels in order to ensure effective learner progression from school, through further education to employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a profile of the history, development, and importance of continuing higher education - adult education - in the USA. It investigates its roots in the industrialization of England; the American Chautauqua movement; and, finally, the establishment of the service ethic as a consequence of the creation of land grant universities. The paper details the present-day characteristics and the landscape of public and private institutions in terms of resources; student demographics; the motivations and programme choices of adult learners; and the economics of continuing higher education, among other characteristics. The paper concludes with a section on institutional roles and missions in terms of providing access, training for mid-career and ageing workers, and the institutions' roles in civic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws from the Literacies for Learning in Further Education research project, funded through the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. Drawing on the empirical study of literacy practices in eight childcare courses in Scotland and England, we seek to demonstrate that, integral to the learning careers of students are literacy careers through which their learning is mediated. In the process, by drawing upon the lens of literacy, we also challenge some of the common-sense understandings of learning in childcare. In particular, we suggest that the literacy practices of lower level courses can be more diverse than those of higher level courses, producing potentially confusing literacy careers for the students involved. We also highlight the complexity of the range of literacy practices in childcare, which can go unrecognised as requiring explicit tuition, and unacknowledged even when students use them appropriately. Courses in childcare are textually mediated in many different ways, which vary depending on the level of study. A greater acknowledgement of this multiplicity and diversity could lead to more appropriate forms of assessment, and more relevant ways of interpreting the curriculum. We argue that students on vocational courses have more complex literacy careers than is often assumed and that a literacies approach to learning helps to reveal this complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys three strands of development in the further education of young people in England since the Second World War: its institutional evolution, some aspects of the experience of its students and staff, and the political and economic imperatives that have given it shape and direction. The account draws upon a wide range of primary secondary sources, from the literatures of professional and social research, economics, political science and political history. Toward the end of the paper, a broader comparative perspective is adopted in order to pin down the distinctiveness of the English experience, before overall conclusions are drawn. These discuss the extent to which further education in England remains a local enterprise and the areas of continuity that, as whole, account both for its identity and its place in English culture and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on data from secondary sources and in-depth interviews to explore the question: What is the impact of policy on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion in Adult and Community Learning (ACL) Skills for Life (SfL) provision? In particular, it focuses on the government's use of five policy-steering mechanisms - funding, inspection, planning, targets and policy initiatives (in this case SfL). The design of the study allows us to use evidence from four sets of interviews with teachers, learners and managers of ACL in eight sites of learning (four in London and four in the North East) over a period of 26 months of considerable policy turbulence. We argue, first, that there is a symbiotic relationship between ACL and SfL provision; and second, that while the combined effects of targets and funding have the most powerful effects on tutor and manager actions, inspection, planning and tutors' and managers' own professional values also have an important role in shaping the teaching of literacy and numeracy in ACL sites. We conclude by suggesting that professionals at the local level should be allowed to play a greater role in SfL policy-making to ensure effective policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the relationship between sound broadcasting and adult education, looking at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) during the period of post-war reconstruction and austerity of the 1950s. It considers in particular one of the Corporation's most innovative educative programmes of the period, The Fifty-One Society'. This was produced in Manchester by the Talks Department of the BBC North Region and first broadcast on 1 November 1951. The format was a discussion, along the lines of the old literary and debating societies, and featured a small group of northern academics drawn from the Universities of Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool, many of whom had personal experience as adult education tutors. Each week a topic was introduced by a guest speaker and then discussed by the 'resident experts' in the studio. The discussion was then edited and broadcast. The Fifty-One Society aimed to bring to listening audiences ideas, informed views and argument on a wide range of topics relating to science, the arts, industry, education, literature, government, politics, religion, war and peace. The paper examines the programme's underlying philosophy: 'the belief of the liberal imagination' and attempts to evaluate its success and its educative impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with subject identity and assessment in the case of contemporary English (UK) Media Studies. It explores the relationship between the ‘spirit’ of Media Studies, notions of its relative value and its institutionalised version, ‘Subject Media’ (its authority, as administered by examiners). The case study given attention is the first examination of a new specification for AS (Advanced Subsidiary) Media Studies, held by the English awarding body, OCR, in 2000. The AS level is taken after GCSE and before the full A Level (A2), usually by students aged 16–17 in school sixth form or further education colleges. The paper suggests, through analysis of examiner discourse, that the assessment of media learning is not yet organised into a ‘vertical discourse’ (Bernstein, 1996), although examiners will it to be so. These findings set up the possibility that the distinguishing features of Media Studies in England might be over-stated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on research of initial teacher education (ITE) of adult literacy and numeracy teachers in England, although the wider issues are not unique to one country. The discussion concerns a new challenge to the old problem in teacher education of meeting individual trainee need; giving trainees a supported, varied and wide experience, and finding the balance between theory and practice. It also shows that ‘making sense’ or the ‘transformation’ of subject knowledge to subject pedagogic knowledge is a complex issue that is not enhanced when standards and specifications are applied in a prescriptive way. The paper argues that the key learning zone for a trainee for transforming or re-contextualising knowledge is the learning environment itself. In many respects, the lack of mentor and subject mentor support in colleges is a systemic weakness in all adult ITE programs. This requires a rethink to put structured opportunities for trainees to learn in the workplace with trained mentors at the core of ITE and continuing professional development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the views and perceptions of lecturers delivering Higher Education Business Programmes (HEBPs) in Further Education Colleges (FECs) about whether they desire to undertake research, thus enabling them to both become and be viewed as specialists in their subjects. The methodology employed took an interpretivist perspective, seeking to understand how lecturers interpret research and whether they see it as part of their role. A total of 26 in-depth interviews were conducted throughout the Yorkshire and Humber region in the United Kingdom (UK). A key finding was that although some lecturers would like to undertake research in order to specialise further in their subject area, they felt that they had neither the time nor the support of their individual institution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses a study on the role managers and leaders at senior and middle levels in further education (FE) colleges they think they can play in embedding a commitment to effective inclusion in the classroom, team and institutional level. This role is referred as that of telling a compelling story. Fifteen FE managers in colleges across England were invited to tell stories about themselves. It suggests that the ability of managers and leaders to build a compelling story can help in furthering the values espoused by their colleges.

After years of neglect, the New Labour government has identified the further education (FE) sector in England as being the crucial means to achieve two policies at the centre of their project: social justice through widening participation in education and enhancing the skills of the nation's workforce to compete in a globalised economy. This has led to FE and the staff who work there being more and more closely scrutinised and directed by the government, and from September 2007 teachers in FE colleges in England are required to participate annually in at least 30 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) in order to maintain their qualified status. This and many of the other government initiatives are associated with restrictive and impoverished notions of professionalism, but the sanctioning of CPD chosen and recorded by the staff themselves, rather than their employers, may allow room for a more meaningful and autonomous professionalism to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the link between education and cultural studies. Interdisciplinary at Birmingham University, England; Elements at work in the field of adult education which were to coalesce into what has become identified as cultural studies; Literacy and critical literacy.

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This article reports on a piece of survey research completed by 809 police officers of a Federated Rank in England and Wales. The survey examined the attitudes of the officers with regards to the provision of ongoing training within the police service and their motivation to undertake it, with a particular emphasis on training delivered by e-learning on the National Centre for Applied Learning Technologies platform. The results are discussed through the theoretical framework of andragogy (adult education theory) and self-determination theory with recommendations for improvement made based on these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]