Outputs (58)

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.

Lifelong education research over 40 years: Insights from the International journal of lifelong education (2022)
Journal Article

With this special issue of the International Journal of Lifelong Education, we complete a two-year celebration and critical examination of the field of adult lifelong education, prompted by the journal’s fortieth anniversary. In this editorial we pro... Read More about Lifelong education research over 40 years: Insights from 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.

Selling our Youth: Graduate Stories of Class, Gender and Work in Challenging Times (2022)
Book

Selling Our Youth explores how the class origins of recent graduates continue to shape their labour market careers and thus reproduce class privilege and class disadvantage. It shows how class and gender combine to influence these young adults’ oppor... Read More about Selling our Youth: Graduate Stories of Class, Gender and Work in Challenging Times.

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.

Reassessing the social benefits of lifelong learning in light of the COVID pandemic (2021)
Journal Article

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.

Adult education, mental health and mental wellbeing (2018)
Journal Article

Journal editorial

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.

The Learning Adult: Building and Reflecting on the Work of Peter Jarvis (2018)
Book

Peter Jarvis is a towering figure in adult and lifelong education and a leading and original theorist of learning. This book explores the breadth and significance of his work. Sixteen chapters by leading international scholars explain and engage crit... Read More about The Learning Adult: Building and Reflecting on the Work of Peter Jarvis.

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.

Gendered and classed graduate transitions to work: How the unequal playing field is constructed, maintained and experienced (2018)
Book Chapter

A recent Institute of Fiscal Studies report (Crawford and Vignoles, 2014) of 200,000 graduates showed those who had attended independent schools on average earned 18% more than peers from state schools 3.5 years after university. Even for graduates f... Read More about Gendered and classed graduate transitions to work: How the unequal playing field is constructed, maintained and experienced.

Part III – Contexts, people and practices (2018)
Book Chapter

An overview of the third section of the edited handbook

Degrees of injustice: Social class inequalities in University admissions, experiences and outcomes (2018)
Book Chapter

An overview of the edited collection

Higher education and social inequalities: University admissions, experiences and outcomes (2018)
Book

An edited collection of twelve original chapters of contemporary research into higher education and social inequality. The book is divided into three distinct sections exploring how social inequality manifests itself in three stages of the student li... Read More about Higher education and social inequalities: University admissions, experiences and outcomes.

The Palgrave international handbook of adult and lifelong education and learning (2018)
Book

This Handbook provides a wide-ranging frame of reference for researching adult and lifelong education and learning. With contributions from scores of established and newer scholars from six continents, the volume covers a diverse range of geopolitica... Read More about The Palgrave international handbook of adult and lifelong education and learning.

“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.

Political populism and adult education (2017)
Journal Article

A journal editorial on the link between adult education and populism

Paired peers: Moving on up? Project Report (2017)
Report

Paired Peers Phase 2 (August 2014 - July 2017)followed up Paired Peers: Class and the Student Experience, also funded by Leverhulme Trust, which ran from September 2010 to August 2013. This project followed a cohort of students from Bristol’s two uni... Read More about Paired peers: Moving on up? Project Report.

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, social class and social mobility: The degree generation (2016)
Book

This book explores higher education, social class and social mobility from the point of view of those most intimately involved: the undergraduate students. It is based on a project which followed a cohort of young undergraduate students at Bristol’s... Read More about Higher education, social class and social mobility: The degree generation.

Neo-liberalism and the shifting discourse of ‘educational fairness’ (2015)
Journal Article

Journal editorial

Building a culture of participation: Interviews with the former directors of the national Aimhigher programme (2015)
Report

The evaluation of widening participation activities in higher education: A survey of institutional leaders in England (2015)
Report

This paper reports the results of an online survey of senior managers with responsibility for widening participation (WP) in English universities. 57 institutions participated, giving a response rate of 38 percent. The questionnaire primarily focused... Read More about The evaluation of widening participation activities in higher education: A survey of institutional leaders in England.

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.

Degrees of masculinity: Working and middle-class undergraduate students’ constructions of masculine identities (2014)
Book Chapter

Exploring the current perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’ and what might be seen as its opposing stance, that society now facilitates more inclusive forms of masculinity, this chapter considers research with young undergraduate men from working-class a... Read More about Degrees of masculinity: Working and middle-class undergraduate students’ constructions of masculine identities.

Widening participation, social mobility and the role of universities in a globalized world (2014)
Journal Article

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 (2013)
Book Chapter

The Paired Peers project report (2013)
Report

Paired Peers is three-year qualitative longitudinal project following a cohort of students drawn from two universities in the same English city, the University of Bristol (UoB) and the University of the West of England (UWE), through three years of t... Read More about The Paired Peers project report.

The sociology of education (2011)
Book Chapter

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.

Widening participation Bristol-fashion: Embedding policy and practice at the Universities of Bristol and the West of England (2011)
Book Chapter

Structured Abstract Purpose: The paper reviews, compares and contrasts the experiences of two neighbouring universities, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England, in the introduction, pursuit and institutional embedding... Read More about Widening participation Bristol-fashion: Embedding policy and practice at the Universities of Bristol and the West of England.

Diversifying the South West Further Education and Training workforce: Survey conducted on behalf of the SWitch Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training by the School of Education, University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) in collaboration with Western Training Provider Network (WTPN) (2010)
Report

Models of good practice in recruitment, initial assessment, induction and ongoing support for Learning & Skills Sector ITE trainees: Survey conducted on behalf of the SWitch Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training by the School of Education, University of the West of England, Bristol in collaboration with City of Bristol College (2010)
Report

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).

Parents, partners and peers: Bearing the hidden costs of lifelong learning (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Parents, partners and peers: The hidden costs of lifelong learning (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Changing identities through re-engagement with education narrative accounts from two women learners (2010)
Book Chapter

Changing identities through re-engagement with education: Two narrative accounts (2010)
Book Chapter

Evaluation of the Learning and Skills Council (West of England) work-related learning project (2010)
Report

This is the final report of the evaluation of the Work Related Learning Project. The project was funded by the Learning and Skills Council (West of England) and sought to contribute to raising the levels of 14-16 year olds’ participation, achievemen... Read More about Evaluation of the Learning and Skills Council (West of England) work-related learning project.

Changing class and gendered identities through re-engaging with education: Tensions revealed in narrative accounts from two studies of adult returners (2009)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Vidas a través de la lente de un ojo de buitre: Interpretando cuentos de aprendices (Lives through the lens of a vulture’s eye: interpreting learners’ tales) (2009)
Book Chapter

Community engagement and specialist schools and academies: The implications of the Leitch Review of Skills. Final report on research conducted for the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (2008)
Report

Evaluation report of the European Dictionary of Skills and Competencies (DISCO) Project (2008)
Report

Community engagement and specialist schools and academies: The implications of the Leitch Review of Skills Trust (2008)
Report

‘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.

‘I really hated school, and couldn’t wait to get out!’: Reflections on ‘a wasted opportunity’ amongst access to HE students. (2004)
Journal Article

In constructing a narrative account of our lives, we may recall experiences of schooling with a mixture of resentment and regret, and perhaps a sense of ‘wasted opportunities’. This is particularly true if school has left us with a fragile academic s... Read More about ‘I really hated school, and couldn’t wait to get out!’: Reflections on ‘a wasted opportunity’ amongst access to HE students..

'I want to prove to myself that I can do this!': Risk and uncertainty in the construction of personal biographies for access students (2002)
Journal Article

This paper is a preliminary discussion of research findings from a PhD study that began within UWE’s Education Faculty in September 2001. It will seek to outline provisional thoughts as to how notions of risk and uncertainty are employed in the const... Read More about 'I want to prove to myself that I can do this!': Risk and uncertainty in the construction of personal biographies for access students.

“Everybody gets one or two chances in life, this is my second!”: Risk and the construction of (mature) students’ biographies (2002)
Journal Article

This article presents preliminary findings from a PhD study that began in September 2001. It seeks to outline provisional thoughts as to how the notion of risk influences the construction of biographies for mature students on an Access course at a Fu... Read More about “Everybody gets one or two chances in life, this is my second!”: Risk and the construction of (mature) students’ biographies.

Men Behaving Badly or Attempting to Fit In? Laddism and its Impact on Learning and Teaching in HE
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Anti-social, anti-intellectual 'laddish' behaviour and its impact on students and the teaching and learning environment has long been a topic of study in school settings (e.g. Connolly, 1997; Delamont, 2000; Francis, 1999), but until relatively rec... Read More about Men Behaving Badly or Attempting to Fit In? Laddism and its Impact on Learning and Teaching in HE.

Undergraduates’ memories of school-based work experience and the role of class and gender in placement choices
Journal Article