Book Chapters by Rob Smith
Doing Critical and Creative Research in Adult Education. London, 2018
Further Education (FE) is an umbrella term that describes learning taking place mainly outside of... more Further Education (FE) is an umbrella term that describes learning taking place mainly outside of school environments and largely shaped by historical, industrial and social factors closely related to the local socioeconomic circumstances in different towns and cities across the UK. This chapter presents findings from a collaborative research project into how, against a challenging landscape constrained by the pressures of marketisation and funding, further education continues to offer a 'differential space' (Lefebvre 1991) in which learners, supported by critical pedagogy, are able to experience education as transformative The churn post compulsory educational policy over the last quarter century provides a vital frame for any discussion about knowledge production practices in this field. As a point of departure, the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) removed colleges from local authority control and introduced marketisation to this heterogeneous and locally defined education provision. At the heart of this episode of marketisation was an approach to funding that, in effect, centralised the curriculum control and allowed for ongoing annual policy and curriculum intervention by successive government departments (Hammond 2003, Keep 2006, Crowley and Lucas 2016). This market-orientated structure allowed for an intensification of an instrumentalist view of FE-closely linked to the emergence of neoliberal policy with its emphasis on 'skills' rather than broader conceptualisations of education (Duckworth and Smith 2019). The ideological effect of the Further and Higher Education Act was to conjure into being and consolidate what has become known as 'the Further Education Sector'-a generalised and 'abstract' space (Lefebvre 1991) that has
Resisting the neo-liberal discourse in Education: local, national and transnational perspectives. , 2019
This paper draws on a longitudinal UCU research project: FE in England - Transforming Lives and C... more This paper draws on a longitudinal UCU research project: FE in England - Transforming Lives and Communities to explore transformative teaching and learning in adult literacy 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, this research project focused on literacy education as a creating a discourse community offering ‘differential space’ (Lefebvre 1991) that is emancipatory for many learners at the local level of family and community. The research data illustrate that adult literacy education can be disruptive of the rigid linearity of a model of ‘learning progression’ that sorts individuals according to a qualification/age matrix. Instead, it can offer organic tools for resistance – through consciousness-raising and transformation by acting as a hope catalyst for changes in learners’ lives and teachers’ practice.
Identity and resistance in further education. , 2018
After framing the issues with an overview of comparative international models of accountability i... more After framing the issues with an overview of comparative international models of accountability in teacher education (in the US and Australia (e.g. Cochran-Smith et al 2016, Darling-Hammond and Hyler 2013 and Marshall et al 2012), this chapter assesses Ofsted in its role as a regulator of quality in educational standards. The absence of an overall national regulator in other countries has a consequence of instituting 'fear' as a technology of compliance in the English context. The chapter focuses specifically on one particular inspection of initial teacher education (ITE) courses run by a HE/FE partnership in the West Midlands of England but the conclusions it draws are applicable more widely to the role of Ofsted as a market regulator as it currently operates in the HE and FE sectors (and the education sector as a whole) in England. The inspection took place in March 2013 and this chapter draws on the experiences of HE and FE teacher educators from the partnership to provide a basis for discussion. It will illustrate how the English model of accountability has moved way beyond both US and Australian models. Drawing on the work of Paul Virilio and Francesc Torralba the chapter explores the role fear plays in inspection, positioning it as a key ingredient in the institutional habitus that is introduced and affirmed by Ofsted. 2
International Handbook on Vocational Education and Training for the Changing World of Work. , 2018
This chapter draws on the Further Education in England: Transforming Lives & Communities project,... more This chapter draws on the Further Education in England: Transforming Lives & Communities project, commissioned by UCU. This research project aims to understand and provide evidence of how the further education (FE) sector is vital in transforming lives and communities in 21st century Britain. The research provides learners, teachers, family members and their communities with the opportunity to tell their stories, linking the distinctness of FE to the impact it has on individuals, society and the economy. The research provides evidence of how further education offers a "differential space" (Lefebvre 1991) that can subvert the prescriptive, linear spaces of compulsory education and lead to critical spaces for transformative learning. The study proceeds from an understanding that educational practices are positioned as ideologically imbued, driven and shaped by policy. Indeed, the model of curriculum can determine whether education is an emancipatory or oppressive process. While productivist approaches to vocational education and training support and perpetuate ideologies that legitimate and authenticate prescribed knowledge, reproducing inequality and injustice through the practices employed (Beck, 2005; Ade-Ojo and Duckworth 2016, Duckworth and Smith 2017b), transformative learning shifts to a more holistic and dynamic approach. It seeks engagement with learners through a purposeful acknowledgement of learners' cultural background and biography and nurtures critical insight into education as a socially-situated process. Transformative learning is orientated to affirming agency and as such, has a ripple effect that impacts on learners' families and their communities. This chapter draws on a range of theoretical perspectives to provide an appropriate and illuminating framework to explore the themes around transformative learning that have emerged from the evidence. Amongst these, hope, space, egalitarianism and symbolic violence feature strongly. Learners' experience of symbolic violence (Bourdieu and Passeron 1991, Duckworth, 2013) was a key focus of our analysis. This symbolic violence consists of labelling individuals, reifying social division and the current (dis)order, and stymying creativity through the erasure of critical insights. It seeks to locate 'failure' within the individual as a determining and essentialist aspect of their identity thereby thwarting the development of empowering learner agency. Transformative learning spaces move beyond the symbolic and institutional violence that often shapes learners' understandings of themselves within the educational context and into a transformative critical space, restoring participants' hope and enabling them to transcend the internal and external influences and violence that have shaped their learning journey to date. We suggest that in challenging inequalities in learners' lives and communities, adult education and vocational education and training should reflect a transformative pedagogy, providing a curriculum that is culturally relevant, learner-driven and socially empowering
This chapter begins by comparing current models and structures of vocational education in the US ... more This chapter begins by comparing current models and structures of vocational education in the US with the vocational offer in colleges in England. While policy in the US has traditionally shied away from vocational 'tracking' because of the perception that this entrenches social division, increasingly, community colleges and other 'technical' educational institutions are seen as a way of marrying academic and industry-related education. Drawing on a research project involving teachers of vocational subjects from a number of different colleges in the West Midlands region of England, this chapter explores the reality as experienced by practitioners behind the recent policy anxiety about vocational pedagogy. It reveals how despite political rhetoric, policy initiatives to raise standards in vocational teaching and learning may not be yielding the results intended. It presents FE as a troubled landscape in which interventions under the Coalition government (2010-2015) targeting an improvement in vocational education appear to have diluted practitioners' ability to deliver a rise in the quality of provision. The failure of these policy intervention is indicative of the disconnect between policy makers and practitioners which appears to be a key characteristic of the relationship between government and
Being an adult learner in austere times., 2018
In this chapter, a decade on from the financial crisis that heralded the introduction of austerit... more In this chapter, a decade on from the financial crisis that heralded the introduction of austerity measures in the UK, we will outline our perspective on the impact of cuts on adult participation in further education. Then, through reference to the FE in England: Transforming Lives and Communities research project-a study that set out to identify and celebrate examples of transformative teaching and learning in further education-we will illustrate how further education still transcends its reductive and instrumentalist neoliberal purposing by providing a counter-hegemonic and 'differential' space for adult learners. Evidence from the project shows how despite straitened finances and the constraints of a constantly-changing annual funding methodology that incentivises college self-interest and gaming, further education providers continue to empower people and their communities. In doing so, they challenge intergenerational inequality and enhance agency and hope.
Identity and resistance in further education. , 2018
This chapter adopts an auto-ethnographic approach, focusing on teacher educators' practice on in-... more This chapter adopts an auto-ethnographic approach, focusing on teacher educators' practice on in-service Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses across a Partnership based in the West Midlands of England. It explores some of the issues faced by these HE in FE teacher educators through the lens of 'vocation'. After an initial section to contextualise ITE for college teachers, the chapter will contrast the current model with teacher preparation in the Community College, Technical Career sector and at senior high school level in the US. While there are some similarities in terms of the policy discourse (in both countries highly critical of teacher 'quality'), there are major differences particularly in certification for teaching students aged 16+. The terrain of teacher education in England-strewn with the remnants of multiple 'legacy' qualifications is discussed, as are the implications of the Lingfield Review for the professional identities of teachers in further education. The chapter will draw on literature about the impact of market regulators in education in then focuses on a range of issues that are impacting on the work of FE teacher educators, not least the tensions
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Book Chapters by Rob Smith