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Experienced researchers on new journeys - Dr Tammy Mudd

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Experienced researchers on new journeys - Dr Tammy Mudd

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Distinguished researchers - Dr James Avis

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Distinguished researchers - Dr James Avis

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Happy to join the SIG

Joe Mcloughlin

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Please comment here if you are interesting in getting involved with our SIG!

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Please comment here if you are interesting in getting involved with our SIG!

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I'd love to be involved! How do I sign up?

Laura Kayes :)

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SIG Forum Meeting – Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning

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Autumn Term - 7th November, online. Book here. 👆

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SIG Forum Meeting – Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning

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Join the Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning SIG for an opportunity to share a window into your research and to open the door to potential collaborations for future…

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FE Early Career Rearchers - Dr Balwant Kaur

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FE Early Career Rearchers - Dr Balwant Kaur

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Bill Esmond, Dr

Associate Professor at University of Derby

Bill Esmond is associate professor at the University of Derby, where he is cluster lead for research in the field of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), professional and continuing education. Following extensive periods of...

Chris Midgley, Mr

Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University

I wear three 'educational' hats that give me a unique perspective of PCET education: First, I am a Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, working on apprenticeships and MBA programmes - as well as...

Kayte Haselgrove, Mrs

Assistant Programme Lead for Post 14 PGCE at University of Derby

Kayte Haselgrove has been teaching in Further Education since 2010. Since then she has worked as a teacher, course leader, Advanced Practitioner and Head of Department for English and Maths and then CPD, Learning and Teacher Training in Further...

Welcome to the BERA Annual Conference 2023 Early bird deadline and all presenting authors to have registered by the 1st May 2023

Join the Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning SIG for an provide an opportunity to share a window into your research and to open the door to potential collaborations for future work. We will...

Widening participation in higher education (HE) among underrepresented social groups has been a focus of successive UK governments since the 1960s. But is this actually being achieved? Delivering...

Continue reading blog post

Would you be willing to act as a reviewer for abstracts submitted to the BERA Annual Conference 2023? To be involved, you will need to: be a BERA Member be available to referee abstracts...

An example of students' negativity to mathematics, according to Swan (2004, p. 2), was a question asked of four students aged nine and their teacher, 'if Mathematics were a food, what would it...

Continue reading blog post

Join the Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning SIG annual meeting to network with colleagues, learn about the activities of the SIG over the last year and plans for 2023 This meeting will be...

BERA is funding six new small grants in 2022/23 under the title "Learning for all". These grants support projects which examine educational provision in its widest sense that seeks to provide...

Individual papers presented under the theme Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning Chair: Bill Esmond IN THIS SESSION Enriching the curriculum Prof Liz Atkins, Associate Professor Bill...

SIG Forum Meeting - Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning SIG

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Bill Esmond, Dr Associate Professor at University of Derby Bill Esmond is associate professor at the University of Derby, where he is cluster lead for research in the field of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), professional and continuing education. Following extensive periods of...

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Tweets by BeraPostcomp

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SIG Newsletter, including a 25 Year Celebration!

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SIG Newsletter, including a 25 Year Celebration!

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25 Years of the Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning SIG

Bill Esmond

2022 marked a new departure for our Special Interest Group, with the election of new convenors Kayte and Chris, and the chance to meet members face-to-face at BERA Conference. In some cases this was the first time we had met people face-to-face after years of Zoom and Teams meetings. We followed it up with a national members meeting to talk about the way forward.

2022 also marked 25 years since the foundation of our SIG, at BERA Conference 1997. So, in this bulletin we look back at where our SIG has come from as well as looking forward to what we plan to do next.

The SIG began with a discussion at BERA Conference on how to revitalise and promote the research agenda for what was then described as ‘post-compulsory’  education (before the participation age was raised to 18) and training (PCET). The speakers, Phil Hodkinson, Inge Bates, Lorna Unwin and Michael Young have each been hugely influential in shaping this research field. At the founding meeting Hodkinson argued for new ways to think of PCET beyond markets, efficiency and technical approaches to teaching and learning; Bates for a focus on the lives and learning of young people rather than narrower forms of policy analysis; Unwin for enriched approaches to learning at work; and Young for a multidisciplinary approach linked to international research agendas.

In the intervening 25 years, these approaches have not become less important: pressures to narrow the content of educational practice in further education and related spheres, reducing these to the acquisition of occupational competence, have strengthened rather than weakened. By contrast, as the SIG founders noted soon after its foundation, Vocational Education and Training (VET) research remained ‘adrift’ of general educational research, not least because of its ‘outsider status’:

… with respect to mainstream traditions in educational research [which] stem ... from the historically-based equation of education with schooling, and the associated teacher training function of university education department (Bates et al. 1999, 419).

The field of ‘PCET and lifelong learning’, the SIG founders noted, constituted less of a coherent field than an ‘archipelago’ of research islands, with individuals in different university departments, including those beyond education, pursuing their interests independently of any shared agenda. The research currents and methodologies seeking to deepen and enhance curricula and pedagogies in these fields have since been augmented by a multiplicity of postmodernist and poststructuralist approaches, without necessarily gaining strength. Additional challenges in the field include the inequalities of race and ethnicity that are becoming more salient within further education (Avis et al. 2017) and the widening tension between demands for progression into some form of higher education and the continued preparation of many, especially female and working-class FE students for routinised and poorly-rewarded occupations (Esmond and Atkins 2022).

How then can the BERA SIG build a research agenda capable of addressing contemporary and continuing challenges in our field? How can we build and bring together research capacity across institutions? These are important tasks facing us as our SIG moves into its second quarter-century.

Avis, James, Kevin Orr, & Paul Warmington. (2017). Race and Vocational Education and Training in England. Journal of Vocational Education & Training 69:3, 292–449. doi:10.1080/13636820.2017.1289551

Bates, Inge, Phil Hodkinson, Lorna Unwin & Michael Young (1997). Towards a new research agenda for post-compulsory education and training, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 2:3, 313-317, DOI: 10.1080/13596749700200017

Bates, Inge, Phil Hodkinson & Lorna Unwin (1999). Editorial, British Educational Research Journal, 25: 4, 419-425.

Esmond, B., and L. Atkins. 2022. Education, Skills and Social Justice in a Polarising World. London: Routledge.

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As a BERA member you will receive access to the BERA Journals and the latest digital issue of Research Intelligence, be able to join communities and receive member discounts when booking events.

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This blog was established in 2015 to provide research informed content on key educational issues in an accessible manner. The aim is to produce and promote articles that attract policymakers,...

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FE Practitioners/PhD students - Jo Fletcher-Saxon 

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FE Practitioners/PhD students - Jo Fletcher-Saxon 

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BERA Conference in September - Abstracts Submission

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BERA Conference in September - Abstracts Submission

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The World Education Research Association (WERA) is an association of national, regional, and international specialty research associations aimed at advancing education research as a scientific and scholarly field. Established on April 18, 2009 in San Diego, California. WERA aims to undertake initiatives that are global in nature and thus transcend what any one association can accomplish in its own country, region, or area of specialization. Member associations are resolved to work together to address such issues as building capacity and interest in education research, advancing education research policies and practices, and promoting the use and application of education research around the world.

Each year, WERA holds a Focal Meeting in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of a WERA member association. Focal Meetings consist of a strand of paper and symposia sessions, lectures, and other substantive activities focusing on issues of significance to education research through a world-wide perspective. Research that is comparative, cross-cultural, international, or transnational in conceptualization, scope, or design is emphasized.

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BERA Conference 2024 and WERA Focal Meeting

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BERA Conference 2024 and WERA Focal Meeting Abstract submission is now open here.