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A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Education in Educational Inquiry. ; This thesis centres on a research study into the lived experiences of beginning teachers in Further Education (FE) in England. The study is contextualised by initial teacher education (ITE) in FE. The theoretical concepts underpinning the study derive from Hannah Arendt's (1958) theory of action. Arendt's (1958) 'The Human Condition' is employed as a basis for discussion and exploration alongside Biesta's (2013) work on the three domains for the purpose of education. It is widely researched that politically discursive practices and market principles undermine educational values and relationships (Ball 2003, 2016, Coffield 2017, Daley et al 2018). Initially it seems that policy based on marketisation, management and performativity leave no space for an autonomous self (Ball 2003, Daley et al 2018). By using Arendtian theory, this perspective will be explored. A narrative case study derived from a patchwork text approach (PWT) was employed to explore six full time, pre-service PGCE student teachers' storied experiences of becoming a teacher in FE. The findings from the study illustrate that the participants' stories identify rifts in the ability to negotiate their subjectification and their emergent pedagogical praxis. A variety of strategies are employed to mediate their worldly views and teaching practices whilst undertaking a PGCE course and during their first year in employment in FE. The study suggests that the beginning teachers value the PGCE classroom experience as a safe space for collaboration and exploration in making sense of the politically discursive nature of FE and their own emerging pedagogical praxis. The beginning teachers' experience also shows how socialisation into FE, away from the condition of natality (the opportunity to begin a new through initiative), demands a greater expectation to perform according to policy based initiatives albeit through complex human interactions and relational contexts. This dynamic relationship impedes opportunities to negotiate and mediate own judgments informing and initiating subjective actions. Interestingly, the beginning teachers in this study also showed how they provide the condition of natality in their classrooms. It seems that these spaces, within the closed doors of the classroom, offer the opportunities for beginning teachers to appear as subjects of action in 'word and deed' (Arendt 1958). ; University of Wolverhapmton

The relevance of entrepreneurship is underscored in the public policy domain where a wide range of government policies support the development of entrepreneurship, with Further Education and Training (FET) colleges seen as critical role-players. Research shows that entrepreneurship education increases a students self-confidence and overall attitudes, which in turn increases their perceptions of feasibility and desirability of pursuing entrepreneurship as a career. Recognising the challenge for FETs is to ensure that graduates are also equipped for self-employment, this study investigates entrepreneurial intentions of final year FET college students in four provinces. Statistical analysis reveals high levels of intentions amongst differing groups irrespective of personal (gender) or contextual attributes (in rural, vs. metro-township, vs. urban FET colleges). Implications can be advanced to the policy domain where it needs to be stressed that government initiatives will affect entrepreneurship development only if these policies are perceived in a way that influences intentions, in particular an individuals conviction, as characterised by general attitudes towards entrepreneurship.

Considerable attention is now paid to the education of looked after children in the UK, but the criteria used to judge success tend to focus on GCSE passes and university entry. The further education (FE) sector has been largely overlooked in these discussions even though it provides a wide range of non-school based courses for large numbers of disadvantaged 16–19-year-olds. Evidence from a typical college in England with 6200 students shows that a third of all older adolescents living in the area, most of them with modest academic achievements, have some connection with the college, and that around 700 of them require special mentoring. In addition, over 50 students, 70% of them female, are looked after – the same number of older teenagers as would be in the care of a medium-sized local authority. The article seeks to alert practitioners and carers to the contribution that FE can make to the welfare of older looked after children as participation in college life and the specialist help received can help mitigate some of the widely reported problems facing care leavers.

This book offers a rich account of how quality improvement agendas, informed by neoliberalism, create contradictory and complex contexts in which teachers produce different types of practices for specific purposes. Drawing on Michel Foucaults analytical tools, archaeology and genealogy, this book weaves together findings from classroom observations, field notes and interviews to explore the dichotomies between practices focussing on day-to-day pedagogies and practices concerned with performance management and accountability initiatives. By attending to a Foucauldian conception of power and counter conduct, it explores new means of defining quality in teaching spaces. After considering existing quality assurance judgements, the book illuminates the significance of moving slightly away from an institutionalised enterprise culture and loosing relations with reductionist approaches as a starting point. While doing so, it reworks the idea of quality by presenting other ways of looking at the complex character of pedagogical real(s) with new insights into an emergentist and process-oriented conception of teaching practices. The book argues that we need to unlearn our existing knowledge of quality that overlooks contextual constraints and opportunities enmeshed in teaching practices. It questions the assumptions that the existing methods of observation are capable of quantifying the quality of education in a classroom or in a college in toto. By introducing the idea of documentisation, the book breaks new theoretical ground to show that this so-called system of robust accountabilities is not as self-evident as we believe and why we must rethink quality by unthinking our current common sense. Written for researchers in educational studies, practising teachers and policy makers, this book combines profound insights from theory and contemporary teaching practices with clear guidelines as to how educational policy making should be approached.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine changes in the management of further education (FE) colleges in England following the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) and the removal of colleges from Local Education Authority control. These changes are mapped against developments in the management of public service organisations, more generally, labelled new public management (NPM), and the adoption of "business‐like" tools to support management responses to a new environment for colleges.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws upon a national survey of general FE colleges and four case studies, researched in depth through semi‐structured interviews and analysis of relevant documents. The research was carried out between 1997 and 2000. The case studies were revisited through recent Inspection reports.FindingsThe paper finds that colleges reacted differently to the imperatives of change and that the extent to which the prescriptions of NPM were acted out depended upon a range of factors that were not included in many configurations of NPM.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was carried out in the 1990s and the original cases were revisited through Inspection reports post 2002. The inspectors had a different agenda than the original researchers and care needs to be taken in utilising the Inspectors' reports.Practical implicationsThe implementation of a uniform public policy across a diverse and complex sector is not guaranteed to succeed. Policy‐makers need to be aware of the "one‐size‐fits‐all" tendency of public policy making.Originality/valueThe management of the FE sector is under researched. This paper researches key issues for practitioners following on from education reform and provides empirical evidence for academics of the extent to which NPM reforms take hold on the ground.

Following a surge in civil unrest, the need and ambitions to migrate have increased among young Cameroonians. This article explores how Cameroonian youth and graduates use education as a gateway for migration, selecting new routes and destinations to maximise their chances of migration. Drawing on in-depth interviews with aspiring migrants, I show that long-standing aspirations to migrate have led to a symbiotic relationship between aspiring migrants and migration agents who facilitate and determine the route and destination for the entire process. This relationship reflects aspiring migrants who desire to migrate at all cost rather than planning carefully, often with little information guiding in the process. I argue that migration responds to cultural and political influences as much as ontological (in)security that cannot be defined solely in economic terms. The meaning of 'successful' migration is produced and reified through the overt display and interpretations of migration.

Since the days of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, the argument has flourished relative to the value of vocational education for Black youth. This study, using data from the "High School and Beyond 1980 Sophomore Cohort Third Follow-Up (1986)" survey, investigated three basic areas, namely: (a) the demographic, personological, and educational profile of Black youth enrolled in vocational education, and the manner in which this profile varied in relation to their vocational concentration patterns, (b) the profile of these youth in terms of their employment outcomes, educational expectations, and civic and political participation > practices after completion of their secondary schooling, according to their concentration patterns, and (c) the changes over time among these youth within their vocational concentration patterns, with regard to aptitude, educational and vocational expectations, and employment status. Major findings of this study have been presented for the students by concentration patterns. Some of the major overall findings were: Students with greater concentration in vocational education course work tended to come from urban areas, the southern region of the United States, and the lowest socioeconomic status quartile. Both educational and occupational expectations were unrealistic in terms of Standardized test performance and grades. A large percentage waS not in the labor force and a very small percentage was participating in civic or political activities. Findings for outcome and change over time variables were presented for the three vocational participation patterns, Concentrators, Limited Concentrators, and Samplers. ; Ed. D.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse gender representation in leadership and management in further and higher education organisations. It does this, through the lens of two perspectives on bureaucratic representation, a "liberal democratic" perspective and an alternative view which states that bureaucracies are not necessarily gender blind or women friendly. The paper reviews the reform and managerial environments, vertical and horizontal gender patterns in the sectors; undertakes empirical research which surveys staff in six case study institutions seeking responses on job roles and activities, career motivators and inhibitors, supportiveness of line managers, perceptions of organisational leadership and culture with regard to gender equality and career advance.Design/methodology/approachSecondary data were used from a variety of sources. Primary data were based on all staff surveys using online software symbolic network analysis program in case study institutions withn=4,522, representing one quarter of the population.FindingsNon‐executive levels of management in both sectors were highly gendered and unrepresentative of the population. Vertical segregation was found at executive level too, though less in colleges than universities. In higher education, horizontal gendering – in subject areas – and the emphasis on subject knowledge and background with the connected gender segregation of research activity, played a crucial role in unequal gender representation patterns. In colleges, while there was horizontal subject‐based segregation, the lesser importance of research/subject background in the career dynamic has created opportunities to de‐couple subject background and career opportunity. Part‐time working, especially in colleges, had mixed effects in gender career terms. The research showed that in universities women spent greater proportions of time in teaching and administrationvis‐a‐visresearch compared to men. Work life balance was not a career inhibitor for women in higher education but was for women in colleges. Some other key similarities and differences in perceptions between men and women in both sectors are outlined, perhaps the most striking of which was that women in both sectors, while agreeing that opportunities policies are equal and fair, felt that institutional leadership could do more to advance the careers of women; men did not.Originality/valueThis is the first study of its kind to compare and contrast college and university sectors, and makes a significant contribution to understanding of gender representation in organisations. While, there are similarities between the sectors, this research has highlighted major differences which have importance for research, policy and managerial practice. The paper, in its conclusion, aims to stimulate action by suggesting some practical initiatives, based on the research.