Changing boundaries between categories of knowledge, together with changing relations with propositional and experiential knowledge, demand reconsideration of what counts as learning. Such re-contextualisation processes can be approached from three standpoints: deconstruction-decoding (learning as a differentiated set of related practices),…

The aim of this paper is to provide a brief critical analysis of the adult literacy curriculum as one element of the Skills for Life Strategy and to consider how it has been used to legitimise a dominant adult literacy policy based on economic and political rationales. The term critical has many meanings. Here it is used to explore how the adult…

As with other sectors of education, further education seems to be locked in endless change with policy unable to resolve what have become to be regarded as intractable problems. In turn, much is expected of teachers who are left to resolve the competing pressures they are placed under. Evidence suggests that they expend much emotional labour and…

The purpose of this paper is to consider the specific role of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) in creative media production courses. We present a review of the pedagogical approaches that inform our "generic" understanding of PAL. We then consider both quantitative and qualitative data from students, leaders and tutors to gain insights into…

In New Zealand the polytechnic sector embraces a range of post-compulsory education fields. Fields as diverse as nursing, business, social work and English as a Second Language (ESL) may co-exist on polytechnic campuses and are subject to similar curriculum documentation processes. The common competency-based framework and discourse of such…

Young people who are in "jobs without training" (JWT) are commonly seen as "dead end kids in dead end jobs". They have been identified as a problem group who need to be encouraged back into formal education and training. Following the Leitch report and the new policy goal to involve all young people in education and training up…

Research and development on formative assessment has paid little attention to part-time adult basic education in informal community-based settings. A three-year project funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the National Research Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy, and the Quality Improvement Agency addresses that gap in vocational and…

This study examines the different types, and effectiveness, of collaboration used by providers to widen participation in further education and training in England between 2001 and 2003. The first section, an introduction, sets a scene for the study and definitions are offered for the main terminology--collaboration and widening participation. The…

The discussion of students' initial encounters in this paper is based upon data from a research project funded by the ESRC as part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) extension to Wales programme. The research investigated the experiences of "Learning and Working in Further Education Colleges in Wales" and followed the…

This paper describes the process of designing and administering a sufficiently valid and reliable assessment instrument to measure the progress in attainment of adult learners studying numeracy, and discusses some of the inherent difficulties that were involved. The fieldwork took place during 2003-2005 and involved a sample of 34 teachers and 412…

Approximately 85,000 part-time teaching staff working in further education (FE) and adult and community learning (ACL) are often seen as "a problem". The intrinsic "part-timeness" of these staff tends to marginalise them: they remain under-recognised and largely unsupported. Yet this picture is over-simplified. This article…

The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was designed to encourage more young people from lower-income households to participate in post-compulsory education. This has been extended to other groups of young people, most notably those who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) or in jobs without training (JWT). This paper presents…

In this study, the transformation of a Kenyan public university through marketisation and privatisation was investigated qualitatively. By focusing on senior university administrators, deans, department heads, union leaders, student leaders and senior scholars at Kenyatta University the study identified the reasons for, and strategies used to…

China's adult institutions of higher education have launched comprehensive reforms in order to meet the increasing demands for professional training. As in many other countries, reforms in the educational system in China have been driven by economic and political changes, and these changes have been determined largely by the needs of the market.…

This study aims to explore empirically how far the roles adopted by the mentors of early childhood education students teaching in Jordan coincide with a model of roles suggested in the literature of teacher training. This study is an attempt to draw from the literature as many views about the role of the mentor as possible and then to attempt to…