By 2015, all young people must participate in some form of education and training until they are aged 18. This review discusses the challenges and opportunities involved if vocational education and training is to contribute to this raising of the participation age. We argue that as well as ensuring that young people who have made a full-time…

This article draws on reflections offered by 80 post-compulsory education and training initial teacher training (PCET ITT) mentors on a mentor-training programme that has been designed by a UK higher education institution and delivered to its four partner colleges since October 2009. The findings are based on questionnaire data that has been…

The problematisation of the professional standards for teachers in the UK lifelong learning sector tends to focus on the discourses that the standards embody: discourses that are posited as being based on a restricted or technicist model of professionalism, that fail sufficiently to recognise the lived experiences of teachers within the sector…

The paper addresses workplace learning; vocational pedagogy, education and knowledge; and the transformation of practice. It draws upon discussions of vocationalism, vocational pedagogies as well as the constitution of vocational knowledge(s), debates which are set within particular historical and socioeconomic as well as national contexts. It…

Research on reading in the lifelong-learning sector has tended to focus on the attitudes, habits and practices of the recipients of further education (FE), or the practices of literacy within the cultural and contextual environments of the subjects and spaces of further education. Although teachers' conceptualisations of literacy are often…

This study investigates academic staff and student attitudes to style and etiquette of emails. Data were collected through two online staff and student surveys. Reported use and acceptability of particular features of email style were assessed. Open-ended responses yielded four themes: the balance between formality and informality, relationships,…

Widening participation within higher education and increasing social mobility have been high on the agendas of former and current governments. This paper examines the admissions procedure of a Foundation degree in Early Years programme using Bourdieu's concept of capital as a vehicle for analysis. During the process of an admissions…

This paper considers the concept of professionalism via perceptions (real or imagined) of lecturers delivering higher education business programmes (HEBPs) in further education colleges in England. The study comprised 26 in-depth interviews conducted in the Yorkshire and Humber region in the UK. The study builds on Perkin's views of a…

The value of learning from work-based experience has been advocated by a number of commentators, including management writers as well as those addressing aspects of organisation and leadership in the higher education (HE) sector. Yet, in the field of HE administration, as is the case more generally, evidence suggests the limited application of…

In this paper we discuss perceptions of the benefits of learner-generated podcasts for supporting postgraduate engineering students in a mathematics-intensive course. The course under study had previously been highlighted as one in which students had struggled to attain knowledge that formed an essential underpinning to their degree programme.…

This article assesses the role that middle managers play in creating and sustaining entrepreneurial institutions. To date little is known about this role, with attention favouring a more macro-level, top-down focus on institutional leaders, and/or a micro-level, bottom-up focus on individual enterprise champions. This focus on unidirectional…

This paper looks at works of various authors on the supervision of doctoral students and their expectations. We aim through reading, experience and reflection to offer a logical framework that will aid in the better understanding of the process for those new to supervision. The two authors draw upon experience as new supervisors via the use of…

This paper is based on in-depth interviews carried out with students in their first and final years of undergraduate study. The paper examines how students approached career decision-making and the rationale underpinning the approach they adopted. The research found that students were not utilising the type of rational approaches to career…

This paper presents a summary of preliminary findings regarding the perceptions of the legitimacy and quality of the higher education (HE) student experience through the lens of those studying animal/equine studies foundation degrees and BSc degrees within a small, ostensibly further education (FE) land-based college setting. As part of a PhD…

This study explores relationships between experiences in initial education, subsequent life experiences/opportunities and the decision to return to education later in life. Semi-structured interviews with seven female returners to education, focused initially upon the women's perceptions of their aspirations and motivations at various ages,…