Readings in Post-compulsory Education

Description

The editors provide an illuminating commentary to eleven key articles covering the main issues affecting the post-compulsory education sector today. Contributions include an analysis of what influences students to drop out from their learning programs, how the participation of hard-to-reach learners can be widened, how adults with basic skills can be encouraged to learn, and how research can help make sense of the 'muddle' of middle management in Further Education colleges.

Anne Thompson is an independent consultant and researcher and former Vice Principal of Waltham Forest College, UK. Yvonne Hillier is Professor of Education at Brighton University, UK.

"This book is, over and above anything else, a personal book -- and although the research ranges from small scale qualitative to large scale quantitative, within each paper we can 'hear' the voices of practitioner-researchers. It is also a political book -- not promoting one concerted message for change in any particular area, but on its desire to push the need to create and use this kind of research to effect change, to influence policy, and to shape the future of the sector... One of the aims of this book is to represent a guide, a first step perhaps, towards the creation of such a research-informed profession. Although such notions may seem a little optimistic or grandiose, the quality of the papers presented in this book, and the realities they explore, do leave you with a sense that with such dedicated practitioner-researchers as these this may not be so farfetched." Reviewed by Rebecca Hodgson in Higher Education Review, Summer 2008 'These varied readings are clearly aimed at two groups. On one hand, there are those who wish to begin researching in the lifelong learning sector, engage with contemporary debates or get a feel for the ways in which research can effectively be part and parcel of professional practice. On the other hand the texts tackle a number of key areas in ways which provide food for thought for more experienced researchers... The quality of the articles and editing is of course high, as one would expect from the authors and publisher' The Teacher Trainer "This interesting collection of papers is the product of a series of important conferences organized by the Learning and Skills Research Network (LSRN) over a seven year period. The conferences were a vital means of highlighting the developing research culture in the Learning and Skills sector. These papers offer a fascinating insight into the way in which practitioners in the sector gradually began to engage in research themselves and to overcome some of the perceived barriers to doing so. At a time when further change is expected, the need to ensure that a strong research dimension is encouraged and supported is critical and these papers demonstrate just how much potential exists in further education for the development of a vibrant action research culture which could provide much needed evidence to support effective structural change. This is a valuable collection of papers." Educational Review, December 2009 "The quality of the articles and editing is of course high, as one would expect from the authors and publisher." Mr Christian Beighton 23 February 2009 * ESCalate *