This paper argues that the evolution of further education colleges in England is marked by both continuities and change, and provides evidence to show that they retain many of the characteristics and the underlying rationale present at the turn of the twentieth century. A defining characteristic remains the colleges' need to respond to student…

Is there an optimum age to be an apprentice? For most people, their image of an apprentice would be a teenage school leaver. Yet, in England, the majority of apprentices are over the age of 19 when they start their apprenticeship, and 40 per cent are 25 or over. This would be very unusual in other European countries. In this article, the authors…

Apprenticeship has always played both a social and economic role. Today, it forms part of the regeneration strategies of cities in the United Kingdom. This involves the creation and management of complex institutional relationships across the public and private domains of the civic landscape. This paper argues that it is through closely observed…

This paper examines the Coalition Government's plans for vocational education and training for 14- to 19-year-olds in England. It argues that new types of educational institutions will enable the emergence of new forms of segmentation in which the vocational track is likely to become split into 'technical education' and lower level 'practical…

This paper presents findings from a study of the experiences of in-service trainee teachers in colleges of further education in England on programmes run under the auspices of and through franchise arrangements with universities. It argues that there is a significant gap between the rhetoric of gaining teaching qualifications through a work-based…

All workplaces are sites in which people learn. To state such a fact still seems fairly revolutionary given that many employers and policymakers tend to restrict the meaning of job-related learning to formal episodes of "training" that can be counted and costed. This view is rooted in a wider perception prevalent in society in general…

This paper explores three different ways in which workers experience and react to managerial attempts to mould and shape their identities. It provides illustrations of three theoretically-derived identity modalities: "dramaturgical selves"; "conformist selves"; and "resistant selves". The paper shows how the relationship between personal and…

There is much to welcome in Doug Richard's independent report on the future of apprenticeships. The Richard review offers proposals for redefining and improving the quality of apprenticeships, and for focusing them more on the needs of employers. But will the proposals work, if adopted, and what will be the impact on adults? For this article, the…

This paper argues for a broader-based approach to vocational education (VET) and the concept of skill, one that is capable of extending responsibility for improvement to society as a whole, rather than expecting change to come from a single constituency, that of employers. By reclaiming the important roles which vocational education and practical…

The use of participant observation is relatively rare in qualitative studies of vocational education and training. However, such an approach provides a detailed picture of training content and how what is taught contributes to or impedes learning. Based on participant observation, this paper examines the training of sales advisors in a large chain…

This article examines the impact of gender and "race" on young people's perceptions of the educational and labour market opportunities available to them after they complete their compulsory schooling in England. Its findings are based on a study of the views of girls and boys about the government-supported "Apprenticeships"…

Conventionally, apprenticeship is understood as a linear journey from novice to expert in which "old-timers" mould their successors. This paper challenges the assumptions that expertise is equated solely with status and experience in the workplace, and that all novices and experts, regardless of context, are seen as the same.

Situated learning theory provides a rich conceptual framework for analysing the processes by which apprentices become (full) participants in a community of practice. This article uses case study evidence from the UK's Modern Apprenticeship programme to show how this framework can be developed by identifying features of expansive and restrictive…

In this paper we address a perceived gap in the workplace learning literature, for there is very little writing which successfully integrates the issues of individual learners into predominantly social theories of learning. The paper draws upon data from four linked research projects to address this problem. Following an analysis of the…