All Outputs (24)

Voices from the deck: Lecturers’ and middle managers’ perceptions of effective FE sector professional development (2023)
Journal Article

This article discusses the findings of research into further education (FE) lecturers' and middle managers’ perceptions of what constitutes effective professional development. This focus addresses an area of paucity in the literature that requires at... Read More about Voices from the deck: Lecturers’ and middle managers’ perceptions of effective FE sector professional development.

Shaping the field of lifelong education through three critical debates in the International Journal of Lifelong Education (2023)
Journal Article

The editors approached the 40th anniversary of the International Journal of Lifelong Education as an opportunity to consider the field by exploring how a corpus of 1462 articles (the first 40 volumes of the journal) questioned and shaped the field. A... Read More about Shaping the field of lifelong education through three critical debates in the International Journal of Lifelong Education.

Theorising adults, theorising learning (2022)
Journal Article

The irony of all theorising is its propensity to generate, not an understanding, but a not-yet-understood. (Oakshot, in Muller, 2015, p. 1) Adult learning theory is one of the central domains of lifelong education research. Anyone coming to the st... Read More about Theorising adults, theorising learning.

Female undergraduates playing it 'safe' to stay 'safe': Further understanding sexual violence against women (2022)
Journal Article

Women’s safety from sexual violence whilst at university is a global issue and the UK is no exception. Whilst the authors of this paper acknowledge that sexual violence can occur across the gender spectrum, most sexual violence ‘victims’ are women an... Read More about Female undergraduates playing it 'safe' to stay 'safe': Further understanding sexual violence against women.

Lifelong education, social inequality and the COVID-19 health pandemic (2020)
Journal Article

Discussing atypical sexual harassment as a controversial issue in bystander programmes: One UK campus study (2019)
Journal Article

This research emanates from an anti-sexual violence bystander programme delivered at an English university. Fifteen students were identified through purposive and convenience sampling to take part in focus groups. Discussions emerged regarding atypic... Read More about Discussing atypical sexual harassment as a controversial issue in bystander programmes: One UK campus study.

Challenging discourses of aspiration: The role of expectations and attainment in access to higher education (2018)
Journal Article

© 2018 British Educational Research Association Raising the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds progressing to higher education has been a key policy objective for successive governments in the UK since the late 1990s. Often thi... Read More about Challenging discourses of aspiration: The role of expectations and attainment in access to higher education.

Access, participation and capabilities: Theorising the contribution of university bursaries to students’ well-being, flourishing and success (2018)
Journal Article

For the last 10 years, universities in England have been expected to offer financial support to low-income students alongside that provided by government. These bursaries were initially conceived in terms of improving access for under-represented gro... Read More about Access, participation and capabilities: Theorising the contribution of university bursaries to students’ well-being, flourishing and success.

“Further education, future prosperity? The Implications of Marketisation on Further Education Working Practices” (2017)
Journal Article

© 2017 Association for Research in Post-Compulsory Education (ARPCE). This paper examines how the marketised funding system of vocational further education is affecting lecturers’ working practices and professional integrity. Semi-structured intervie... Read More about “Further education, future prosperity? The Implications of Marketisation on Further Education Working Practices”.

Success and impact in widening participation policy: What works and how do we know? (2017)
Journal Article

© 2016 International Association of Universities. Efforts to widen the participation in higher education for disadvantaged and under-represented groups are common to many countries. In England, higher education institutions are required by government... Read More about Success and impact in widening participation policy: What works and how do we know?.

Engaging sociologists: An A-Level tutoring and mentoring outreach project with 2nd year undergraduate students (2017)
Journal Article

This article is a collaborative piece of work co-written by two university academic staff (AM and RW), an FE college lecturer (PS), and two undergraduate students (GF and DH) who recently participated in the tutor/mentor scheme. The university academ... Read More about Engaging sociologists: An A-Level tutoring and mentoring outreach project with 2nd year undergraduate students.

Evaluating outreach activities: overcoming challenges through a realist ‘small steps’ approach (2016)
Journal Article

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Practitioners are being placed under increasing pressure to evaluate the success of their outreach activities, both by government and by their own universities. Based in a reductionist d... Read More about Evaluating outreach activities: overcoming challenges through a realist ‘small steps’ approach.

Higher education and the reproduction of social elites: The neo-liberal undergraduate subject and Faustian pacts for city careers (2015)
Journal Article

Towards a typology of debt attitudes among contemporary young UK undergraduates (2015)
Journal Article

© 2013, © 2013 UCU. The findings of this study suggest that student attitudes are more complex than assumed in some previous research and journalistic commentary, especially with respect to social class. Counterintuitively, many students from lower s... Read More about Towards a typology of debt attitudes among contemporary young UK undergraduates.

Higher education, social class and the mobilisation of capitals: recognising and playing the game (2013)
Journal Article

Strategies employed by middle-class families to ensure successful educational outcomes for their children have long been the focus of theoretical and empirical analysis in the United Kingdom and beyond. In austerity England, the issue of middle-class... Read More about Higher education, social class and the mobilisation of capitals: recognising and playing the game.

Parents, partners and peers: Bearing the hidden costs of lifelong learning (2011)
Journal Article

This paper examines data from three projects to explore the 'hidden costs' of participating in lifelong learning. Whilst other potential risks (financial for instance) are anticipated, those around family and friendship ties are usually not. Adult re... Read More about Parents, partners and peers: Bearing the hidden costs of lifelong learning.

We blame the parents! A response to 'cultural capital as an explanation of variation in participation in higher education' by John Noble and Peter Davies (British Journal of Sociology of Education 30, no. 5) (2010)
Journal Article

This paper offers a response to a recent article where the authors argue cultural capital is the only determinant of the propensity of young people to seek to enter higher education, dismissing other indicators such as social class. This response que... Read More about We blame the parents! A response to 'cultural capital as an explanation of variation in participation in higher education' by John Noble and Peter Davies (British Journal of Sociology of Education 30, no. 5).

‘i don’t feel like ‘a student’, i feel like ‘me’!’: The over‐simplification of mature learners’ experience(s) (2006)
Journal Article

Many studies of mature students within further and higher education portray them as a distinct social category with particular shared characteristics. Such representations are sometimes sub‐divided further along lines of social division. For instance... Read More about ‘i don’t feel like ‘a student’, i feel like ‘me’!’: The over‐simplification of mature learners’ experience(s).

I call myself a mature student. That one word makes all the difference. Reflections on adult learners' experiences (2005)
Journal Article

Working-class women on an Access course: Risk, opportunity and (re)constructing identities (2004)
Journal Article

Framed by discourses of lifelong learning and widening participation, further education Access to University courses attract mature students from a range of social backgrounds. This paper focuses on eight women students who, to varying degrees, share... Read More about Working-class women on an Access course: Risk, opportunity and (re)constructing identities.