Strategies of Survival: pre-vocational students in FE

The paper is concerned with student attitudes and views of the certificate of further education and illustrates that the marker against which students assess both the course and college is school. It also explores the nature and forms of student resistance, arguing that for those students who stay the course, the most significant form of resistance is against youthful dependence and the process of infantalisation. In addition it is argued that much of student behaviour that is apparently resistant should be understood as a mode of accomodation, as a strategy of survival. The paper illustrates that many students have an instrumental commitment toward their course and that in some cases the experience of the course enhanced and strengthened this orientation.