Winking at Facebook: capturing digitally-mediated classroom learning

In this article I present an innovative combination of methods, used in a study of the use of Facebook as an educational resource by five dyslexic students at a Sixth Form College in north-west England. Through a project in which teacher-researcher and student-participants co-constructed a Facebook group page about the students’ scaffolded research into dyslexia, the study examined the educational affordances of a digitally-mediated social network. Combining multiple data-collection methods including participant-observation, semi-structured interviews, video recordings, dynamic screen capture (Cox, 2007), protocol analysis (Ericsson & Simon, 1993) helped to capture in detail multiple perspectives on the learning that happened in the classroom over the five weeks of the research project's lifetime. Aggregating the resulting data in turn enabled meticulous, comprehensive analysis and rigorous theorising. The article presents and analyses excerpts from the data which help to illustrate the insights gained into one participant's learning trajectory. I argue that the combination of methods employed could be used with any range of research participants in other studies exploring learning through Facebook and other Web 2.0 spaces. The article concludes by suggesting further refinements to the methods used

“Further education, future prosperity? The Implications of Marketisation on Further Education Working Practices”

© 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 interviews were conducted with a number of lecturing staff and managers within two vocational areas at an English FE college to examine the implications of working under the current funding regime. The conclusions drawn reflect the complexity of working within FE showing how lecturers are frequently placed in a professional dilemma between securing future funding (by ensuring high levels of retention and achievement) and compromising their professional integrity and working practices in order to do so. A key finding here was the inherent tension between professional integrity and funding requirements apparently directly opposing ‘good’ practice. This means FE professionals experience what Whitehead called ‘a living contradiction’ in their working lives, increasing stress levels and diminishing their sense of professionalism

Gender, foundation degrees and the knowledge economy

This article questions the concept of ‘education for employment’, which constructs a discourse of individual and societal benefit in a knowledge‐driven economy. Recent policy emphasis in the European Union promotes the expansion of higher education and short‐cycle vocational awards such as the intermediate two‐year Foundation Degree recently introduced into England and Wales. Studies of vocational education and training (VET) and the knowledge economy have focused largely on the governance of education and on the development and drift of policy. Many VET programmes have also been considered for their classed, raced and gendered take‐up and subsequent effect on employment. This article builds on both fields of study to engage with the finer cross‐analyses of gender, social class, poverty, race and citizenship. In its analysis of policy texts the article argues that in spite of a discourse of inclusivity, an expanded higher education system has generated new inequalities, deepening social stratification. Drawing on early analyses of national quantitative data sets, it identifies emerging gendered, classed and raced patterns and considers these in relation to occupationally and hierarchically stratified labour markets, both within and without the knowledge economy

Learning through social spaces: migrant women and lifelong learning in post-colonial London

This article shows how migrant women engage in learning through social spaces. It argues that such spaces are little recognised, and that there are multiple ways in which migrant women construct and negotiate their informal learning through socialising with other women in different informal modes. Additionally, the article shows how learning is shaped by the socio-political, geographical and multicultural context of living in London, outlining ways in which gendered and racialised identities shape, construct and constrain participation in lifelong learning. The article shows that one way in which migrant women resist (post)colonial constructions of difference is by engaging in informal and non-formal lifelong learning, arguing that the benefits are (at least) two-fold. The women develop skills (including language skills) but also use their informal learning to develop what is referred to in this article as 'relational capital'. The article concludes that informal lifelong learning developed through social spaces can enhance a sense of belonging for migrant women

Learning is Like a Lava Lamp: The Student Journey to Critical Thinking

This paper explores the ways in which a university Foundation Degree programme supports undergraduate early years students to develop critical thinking, mindfulness and self-actualisation through their lived personal and professional experiences. It considers the impact of this on graduates employed within the Early Years sector. Findings inform future design of a University Foundation Degree programme situated within Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). As undergraduates, students engage in higher-level learning aligned to their practice within the workplace. An interpretive Participatory Qualitative Research methodology is used to gather the views of 6 alumni who completed their studies in 2014. They participated in the research freely within ethical parameters approved by a university ethics committee. Findings revealed that the development of critical thinking is empowered by having a personal or professional impetus, which in the case of Early Years is the child as being at the heart of values based practice. This, with the inclusion of mindfulness, drives students to a sustainable deeper layer of thinking to achieve self-actualisation. Through the acquisition of critical thinking students have been subsequently able to take up positions of authority within the early years workforce