Higher education is increasingly positioned as a private good for prospective students in England, through which they can hope to gain an economic return on their 'investment'. This paper offers new ways of thinking about the purpose of university study and the benchmarks of graduate success. Using Margaret Archer's understanding of the concept of…

This paper uses the work of Pierre Bourdieu to understand the lives of a set of young White working-class men living in a deprived urban locale in the north of England. All participants were classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) throughout the research and had spent lengthy periods of time outside education and work before…

This paper discusses a piece of qualitative research that explored the narratives of a group of mature women when they discussed influences on their post-16 educational decisions. This encompasses their initial vocational education and training (VET) and their choice to study higher education (HE) programmes in England. The research draws on Nancy…

The paper places youth transitions and vocational education and training (VET) within the global policy context in which economic competiveness is hegemonic. It compares research from the 1970s/80s, which explored young peoples' lived experiences of VET and youth training schemes with contemporary work on similar themes. It argues that there are…

When mechanics' and similar institutions became established for adults by the middle of the nineteenth century, there was goodwill amongst committee members and volunteers to teach the classes. The institutes were not government-funded and relied on patronage and membership fees to fund them. There was a shortage of teachers for the classes as…

This paper draws on research into the experiences of young people classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) on an employability programme in the north of England, and uses Basil Bernstein's work on pedagogic discourses to explore how the creative arts can be used to re-engage them in work-related learning. Whilst creating…

This study explored the perspectives of medical students from first-in-family (FiF) university backgrounds. Semi-structured interviews focused on steps into, and experiences of medical education, and effects of student identity on social networks. Twenty FiF medical students from one English medical school took part in qualitative interviews. Data…