Critical pedagogy in the UK has traditionally been practised in the Lifelong Learning sector. However, the sector has become constrained by funding cuts, instrumental curricula and accountability measures, and teachers can feel that they have little room for professional autonomy and therefore the practice of critical pedagogy. Yet some do…

The paper captures the professionalisation of teachers in the further education sector by shining a light on their everyday struggle to uphold their ethical goals in support of their students in a climate of performative and regulatory expectations. It reports on a small-scale qualitative study in which the six participants were either on the…

Research publication has increasingly turned into academics' top priority around the world. Since researchers' professional survival/growth in the current competitive academic atmosphere hinges upon their research profile, there is a need for investigating how researchers' possible selves may guide their research productivity. Therefore, in this…

This paper studies the motivations of 130 women who returned to education after the genocide against Tutsi. After 1994, Rwandan mature women embraced university education in greater numbers due to marginalisation at work, inhabiting a subaltern position as a consequence of their gender and secondary level of education. One way of overcoming work…

Potentially all university graduates, regardless of the discipline they have studied, are expected to have obtained generic learning outcomes, which we refer to as "graduateness." This study investigates the extent to which learning programmes' emphasis on graduateness affects students' perceived abilities in the domains of graduateness.…

This article explores aspects of the relationship between professional standards for teachers and the curriculum for teacher education in the lifelong learning sector in the United Kingdom. Drawing on an analysis of different editions of three core textbooks for teacher education in the lifelong learning sector, which are positioned as acting as…

The problematisation of the professional standards for teachers in the UK lifelong learning sector tends to focus on the discourses that the standards embody: discourses that are posited as being based on a restricted or technicist model of professionalism, that fail sufficiently to recognise the lived experiences of teachers within the sector…

This paper examines the key role that graded lesson observations have within the measurement of quality in the post-compulsory education sector. Using semi-structured interviews, it looks at their impact on participants and also their execution in light of their stated purpose to "improve teaching and learning". The sample selected…

The term "Special Needs" is one which is poorly defined in general and particularly nuanced in the Lifelong Learning Sector, where its meaning has been extended to incorporate economic and social needs in addition to the more "traditional" interpretation of the term. Although the sector apparently operates inclusively,…

This article profiles a Web-based tool developed with the support of two lifelong learning networks (LLNs) to address issues around higher education progression amongst under-represented groups across the East Midlands, including vocational learners and adults returning to education. Having introduced the site and explored its development, the…

This paper represents a contribution to the Skills Commission's call in 2009 for more research into the attitudes of apprentices towards advanced further education and higher education. Understanding of the perspective of apprentices has been argued to be important to informing any policy change aimed at increasing the low progression rate of…

This article examines the choice making behaviour, in relation to progression into and through higher education, of a small group of foundation degree students at a further education college in England. This study was conducted within the wider context of an evaluation of the impact of progression agreements within a Lifelong Learning Network and…

This article draws upon research undertaken with 28 teacher education mentors, managers and trainee teachers within the SW Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (CETT) in 2008, following the introduction of the new revised Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) standards. The first part of the article locates and contextualises the policy context in…

In Scotland, both the present Scottish Government and previous Scottish Executive have put a great deal of emphasis on the continuing professional development (CPD) of educators. The further education (FE) sector has not been exempt, notably with the introduction of the "Teaching qualification (Further Education)" (TQFE) followed by…

This paper investigates the experiences of a group of mature students as they move from a Foundation degree in Teaching and Learning Support to a progression route, the BA (Honours) in Teaching Learning and Mentoring. This piece of action research employs student narratives as a means of gaining some understanding of individual and specific…