Women, adult literacy education and transformative bonds of care

Drawing on a research project: FE in England - Transforming Lives and Communities (sponsored by the University and College Union) to explore the intersection between women, literacy and adult education, this paper argues for the place of research in affirming localised understandings of education that cut across the grain of contemporary educational reform. In the context of the increasing dominance of a ‘skills’ discourse in education in the UK and reductions in funding targeted at adult education, this research project exposed how further education can still challenge and address hurt and often spoiled learning identities and counteract the objectification of the skills discourse through creating catalysing bridging bonds of care. The research data illustrate that further education offers organic transformative tools for consciousness-raising (Freire 1995) and a caring space where hope can act as a change agent that fuels women learners’ lives and teachers’ practice (Duckworth 2013; Duckworth and Smith 2017, 2018b). To support the discussion, our paper draws on a range of learners and teachers’ narratives to expand on the conceptualisation of adult education as a bridging space for a curriculum informed by an ethic of what we term dialogic caring. We also develop a theoretical position that anchors the research in learners and practitioners’ experience as an empirical antidote to the simulations (Baudrillard 1994, Lefebvre 2004) conjured up by the decontextualised knowledge production activities that marketization has imposed on educational institutions. We position education research as having an important role to play in revealing powerful often hidden social practices and lived human experience beneath the neoliberal, globalised ‘grand narratives’ of international competition. To that end, we mobilise the term transformative teaching and learning to signify educational experiences that are not only student-centred, but which defy, counteract and work against the neoliberal educational imaginary. We align our research approach with adult literacy education and critical pedagogy as working towards social justice and against deficit generating educational structures that marginalise women, their families and communities

Extending the mentor role in initial teacher education : embracing social justice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how mentors can act as change agents for social justice. examines mentors’ roles in initial teacher education in the lifelong learning sector (LLS) and how critical spaces can be opened up to promote a flow of mentor, trainee teacher, learner and community empowerment. Design/methodology/approach – Two thematic literature reviews were undertaken: one of UK LLS ITE mentoring and the other an international review of social justice in relation to mentoring in ITE and the first year of teaching. Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field and habitus (Bourdieu, 1986) are used as sensitising tools to explore LLS mentors’ practices and the possibilities for increasing the flow of “pedagogical capital” between mentors, trainee teachers, learners and communities, in such a way that would enable mentors to become agents for social justice. Findings – LLS mentors and trainee teachers are uncertain about their roles. In the UK and several countries, mentoring is dominated by an instrumental assessment-focused approach, whereby social justice is marginalised. In contrast, what we call social justice mentors establish collaborative democratic mentoring relationships, create spaces for critical reflection, support trainees to experience different cultures, develop inclusive critical pedagogies, and generally act as advocates and foster passion for social justice. Research limitations/implications – While the literature reviews provide timely and important insights into UK and international approaches, the existing literature bases are limited in scale and scope. Practical implications – A model for mentoring that promotes social justice and recommendations for mentor training are proposed. Originality/value – The paper addresses the omission in policy, research and practice of the potential for mentors to promote social justice. The proposed model and training approach can be adopted across all education phases.</p

Research, adult literacy and criticality: catalysing hope and dialogic caring

This paper draws on a longitudinal UCU research project: FE in England - Transforming Lives and Communities to explore transformative learning within adult and further education and to argue for the place of research in affirming localised understandings of education that cut across the grain of contemporary educational reform. In the context of the dominance of a ‘skills’ discourse in further education in England and the flux of continual policy interventions, this research project focused on further education as ‘differential space’ (Lefebvre 1991) that is emancipatory for many learners at the local level. The research data illustrate that further education can be disruptive of the rigid linearity of the model of ‘learning progression’ at the heart of neoliberal models of education that assesses and sorts individuals according to a qualification/age matrix. Instead, it can offer organic tools for consciousness-raising (Freire 1995) and transformation (Mezirow 2000, Illeris 2013), acting as a hope catalyst for significant changes in learners’ lives and teachers’ practice (Duckworth 2013; Duckworth and Smith 2017). To support the discussion, our paper draws on a range of learners and teachers’ narratives to expand on the view of further and adult education as spaces for the exploration of a curriculum informed by an ethic of what we term dialogic caring. We also develop a theoretical position that anchors research in learners and practitioners’ experience as an empirical antidote to the simulations (Baudrillard 1994, Lefebvre 2004) conjured up by the decontextualised statistical data (such as PISA) that drive current policy-making. Through the use of the notion of transformative learning, we position critical pedagogy as working towards a model of education with social justice at its heart and against education structures that marginalise women, their families and communities. We also seek to actualise an affirmative research practice that foregrounds and connects with critical pedagogy at the local level as well as providing an understory for neoliberal ‘grand narratives’ of international competition and comparison. The project is being shared as it unfolds through the Transforming Lives website with the aim of providing a positive web-assisted resource that can communicate the experiences and strategies of critical pedagogy beyond local contexts. Education and research are both then enabling tools that can promote a more equitable and socially just society; they can offer resistance against structures that reproduce marginalisation: the research process mirroring the focus on social justice that sits at the heart of critical pedagogy

Digital research as a resource for reimagining Further Education

This paper draws on the project Further Education in England: transforming lives and communities. Data – comprising a series of narratives from learners, teachers, employers and learners’ family members – were video recorded and shared via a project website; an inter-related and multi-faceted digital platform. This catalysed what we describe as virtually enhanced engagement and constituted a ‘thirdspace’ (Soja, 1998) i.e. a space in which further and adult education could be reimagined, through a collective dialogical interaction of practitioners and students as more than the quantitatively–defined abstract space that current policy discourse reifies

Breaking the Triple Lock: Further education and transformative teaching and learning

Purpose This paper explores data from the UCU Further Education in England: Transforming Lives & Communities research project and through this develops a distinctive, theorised conceptualisation of transformative teaching and learning (TTL). Design/methodology/approach The research used an approach grounded in critical pedagogy utilising digital methods, including video’d interviews, to collect narratives from learners, teachers, family members and their communities from colleges across Britain. Findings Within a context in which there are structural pressures militating in favour of instrumentalising students in further education, TTL offers a way of theorising it as a transformative critical space that restores students’ hope and agency. The research provides evidence of how further education offers this “differential space” (Lefebvre 1991) and subverts the prescriptive, linear spaces of compulsory education. While productivist approaches to vocational education and training support ideologies that legitimate prescribed knowledge, reproducing inequality and injustice through the practices employed (Ade-Ojo and Duckworth 2016, Duckworth and Smith 2017b), TTL shifts to a more holistic approach, achieving a different level of engagement with learners. Practical implications The findings suggest that the TTL lens is a way of focusing on the dignity, needs and agency of further education students. The lens allows us also to identify how the existing structures associated with funding and marketisation can undermine the potential of TTL to activate students’ agency through education. Originality/value (mandatory) Extending on existing literature around transformative learning, and drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks, the article formulates a new, contextually specific conceptualisation of transformative teaching and learning

Maintaining the diversity of the professional healthcare workforce through higher education qualification routes

In England many professional healthcare qualifications, including nursing, are only achievable through higher education, for which tuition fees are payable from this year (2017-18) onwards. This paper is concerned about maintaining both the number and diversity of healthcare professionals to meet the needs of a diverse and ageing population. It reviews student views and the available statistical evidence about the impact of the introduction of tuition fees on applicants, and literature and empirical evidence about what higher education institutions are doing to recruit and retain students from different backgrounds to meet the health needs of the population. It concludes that because professions such as nursing have traditionally recruited from a diverse population minimal knowledge or practical expertise has been developed to widen participation in healthcare education in general and nurse education in particular. Moving forward, the healthcare and higher education sectors will need to work in joined up ways to develop strategies to both attract and retain a wide range of diverse students to higher education professional healthcare qualification courses – and maintain the supply of qualified healthcare professionals.http://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/HEAD/HEAD18Thomas, L.; Duckworth, V. (2018). Maintaining the diversity of the professional healthcare workforce through higher education qualification routes. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD18.2018.8198OC

Transformative teaching and learning in further education: summative report

Commissioned by UCU, the Further Education in England: Transforming lives & Communities research project aims to understand and provide robust evidence of how further education is vital in transforming lives and communities in 21st century Britain. It also provides evidence of how and why further education is an important lever for supporting social justice, sustainability and social cohesion; it presents a picture of colleges challenging intergenerational poverty and of offering people from diverse communities hope, agency and a positive orientation towards the future. The first phase of the project (2016-17) led to the generation of a number of outputs which included, the production of an interim report, an interactive digital platform and a National practitioner handbook (Duckworth and Smith 2017A & 2017B). We gathered data from more than 150 participants across more than thirty five institutions: learners, teachers, managers, employers, community members, parents and other family members shared their stories. This enabled us to build up a robust qualitative evidence base to illustrate the nature of transformative teaching and learning, the power of further education to reach into diverse communities and its expanding ‘ripple effect’: the powerful individual, social, economic, and health benefits it produces (e.g. see Duckworth and Smith 2016, 19). The first stage of the research sought to collate qualitative evidence of the distinctness of further education and its impact on individuals, society and the economy. In addition, we gathered evidence related to why teachers enter further education, how teachers conceive of themselves as further education teachers, how they respond to and overcome challenges and difficulties in their teaching career and finally how these factors influence their career progression. We emphasised the role of the teacher in making a difference to quality teaching and learning. The second phase of the study (2017-19) expanded the qualitative data set and added a quantitative dimension. This involved developing, implementing and analysing two key surveys: one for staff and one for students. This enabled us to expand the theoretical underpinnings of the central concept of transformative teaching and learning that sits at the heart of the project. The first stage of the research used a sociological lens to uncover substantive evidence about how further education impacts hugely on research participants’ identities as learners, their lives and the lives of their families and communities. The second phase sought to build on this and to flesh out key aspects of teachers’ and students’ experience in order to strengthen the psychological and quantitative basis for the claims we are making about transformative teaching and learning. Together the data from both phases constitutes a powerful evidence base to support the contention that the ‘transformative’ aspect of the research participants’ educational experiences was an effect of a multitude of variables but that the teachers’ role in this transformative aspect was a crucial facilitating factor

Promoting employability through specific literacies

Editorial, for special issue of the International journal of multidisciplinary comparative studies (IJMCS) is drawn from the papers presented at the week-long Research Workshop, run by Literacy Research and Development Centre (LRDC) at the University of Greenwich