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This paper argues that a shift in discourse about the nature and purpose of Further Education is under way in England. A recent White Paper, 'Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth', issued by the UK government, is couched in terms which suggest that a prior reliance on the ideology of neoliberalism is now moving towards the objectives and instruments of what Michel Foucault termed biopolitics or the exploitation of life itself. I analyse the White Paper and related recent texts to show how a form of vitalist discourse accompanies attempts to accelerate potentially problematic processes of value-extraction. While these developments respond partly to the societal changes resulting from the threats to life of the Coronavirus pandemic and other existential crises, their likely impact suggests a shift in the discourses of lifelong learning: an existing apparatus of normalisation and control is now turning to biopolitical exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines Equality and Human Rights Commission's (EHRC) 2019 report into racism in United Kingdom Higher Education. After outlining the context of the report, the paper is situated within discourses of internationalization in higher education (HE)and those of investment, excellence and social mobility. Using transversality, an analytical tool developed by Gilles Deleuze, as a means of critiquing these connections, two groups of findings are presented. First, the report misrepresents the role of racism in HE as an isolated phenomenon rather than as an integral part of the discourse, logic and practices of internationalized HE. Specifically, it masks the discourses of investment, mobility and excellence that underpin it. Second, the report evidences, but fails to identify, the negative consequences of internationalization in higher education discourse. Specifically, discourses of investment, excellence and mobility are linked to the threat of decomplexification, securitization and, ultimately, ethical vacuity in HE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implementation of the Prevent Duty to actively promote fundamental British values in English Further Education (FE). After critically reviewing the history of Prevent and the 2015 Duty to identify evidence of radicalisation in FE, data from interviews of strategic decision-makers in two distinct cases is analysed. The identification, interpretation and recirculation of verbal, graphic and behavioural signs of radicalisation is highlighted. Pinpointing a 'semiotisation' of the Prevent agenda, practical and conceptual implications are discussed. First, we identify a practical preoccupation with signs, specific beliefs about how they work, and how decision-makers deal with them. Second, we divide these beliefs conceptually into univocal and polyvocal semiotisation, referring to the degree to which signs are understood as unequivocal indicators of meaning. We underline significant variations in practice in this context and implications which, we argue, link practice and research to inform the fields of (edu)semiotics and policy enactment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]