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Why do vocational FE students choose to go to HE?

by Neil Raven

Introduction

In a previous blog, I explored the reasons why some students on level 3 (advanced) professional and applied courses decide against higher education. Those whose views were sought came from a further education college (FEC) located in the East Midlands. FECs are significant providers of such (vocational) courses in England (Archer, 2023, UCAS, 2023). Yet, their HE progression rates are typically lower than those reported by schools and sixth form colleges (GOV.UK, 2023). Indeed, the desire to address this differential has been highlighted by the Office for Students (OfS, 2022), including through the work of the Uni Connect programme (Raven, 2023). It also chimes with the government’s levelling up scheme, and the view that FECs are key players in addressing inequalities in regional skills levels (OfS, 2022). However, acknowledging the rationale amongst FE college students for rejecting HE provides only half the picture. Any initiative that seek to widening higher education (HE) participation should also take account of the drivers for progression amongst the same groups of learners, since a good number of FE college students doing vocational programmes go on to some form of higher-level study, although many more have the potential to do so. This was one of the key areas explored in a recent research project and discussed in a book chapter from which the findings in this blog are taken (Raven, 2023).

Method and approach

This research gathered the views of students in the second (and final) year of their level 3 professional and applied courses. The sample comprised 110 students from two FE colleges: one in the Midlands (60 participants), the other in Eastern England (50 participants). In addition to gaining insights into their motivations for pursuing higher-level study, the research looked at the support these students had received. A questionnaire was used for this purpose, with answers captured in a one-to-one meeting between my fellow researcher and each participant. Whilst these meetings required time to organise, this approach to the administration of the questionnaire ensured that all the questions would be understood and considered by those who volunteered to take part in the study (Raven, 2023: p59). To facilitate comparison – and draw out common themes – we chose participants who were pursuing the same three subject areas at each college. These comprised sport, animal management and child care, which were amongst the most popular options offered and where the ambition at both institutions was for more students to take the HE route.

Findings

Three broad sets of motivations for progressing onto higher-level study were voiced by participants across both colleges and amongst the three subject areas. The first set concerned the learning opportunities HE presented. These included gaining more skills, ‘furthering and improving one’s knowledge,’ and acquiring a higher-level qualification (Raven, 2023: p64). The second set of drivers related to ‘the experience’ a university education would offer. Here, participants talked about the social aspects of HE life, including the chance to make friends, gain greater independence, and acquire ‘new life skills.’ The third group of responses focused on the improved ‘employment prospects’ arising from going to university (Raven, 2023: p64). A higher education, it was argued, would open up ‘better job opportunities’, and enhance one’s chances of securing a well-paid job. In addition, it would enable the pursuit of a chosen career and help secure access to sought after professions (Raven, 2023: pp64-65).

Participants also provided insights into the ‘sources of next-step guidance’ that had proved valuable in their decision to pursue a higher education (Raven, 2023: p70). Five sources were discussed, although not every participant alluded to all of these. They comprised the support provided by family members, including ‘parents, sisters and brothers, [along with] extended family members and relatives’, as well as ‘friends.’ (Raven, 2023: p70). Online sources of information were also discussed, including the UCAS website. In addition, a number of participants talked about ‘the insights gained from the work experience’ component of their courses. The guidance and encouragement provided by college staff was also highlighted, in particular that offered by tutors and careers teachers (Raven, 2023: p70). However, surprisingly few made reference to outreach activities, including campus visits and university open days.

Implications

Whilst these findings are from a small study, the consistency in responses amongst participants who came from three different subject areas and were studying at two separate colleges suggests that they are of significance. Moreover, the motivations identified are consistent with those that have been discussed in other studies (Wiseman et al, 2017). The Uni Connect programme is seeking to raise progression rates from FE colleges (OfS, 2022). These findings suggest the value of ensuring any support offered considers and engages with the drivers likely to facilitate participation. They also draw attention to a gap that could be filled through the provision of outreach interventions (Raven, 2023).

That said, more research is needed. The questionnaire used in this study proved an efficient way of gathering the views of the majority of students on the designated courses. However, the deployment of focus groups, or semi-structured interviews, with a sample of the same students would enable a more detailed exploration of HE drivers, and a closer consideration of the nature and effectiveness of the support they received, and the types of outreach that would be of greatest benefit to them and their peers.

Neil Raven is an educational consultant and researcher in widening access. Contact him at neil.d.raven@gmail.com.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the students at both colleges who participated in this study. Thank you also to Dr John Baldwin for overseeing the questionnaire survey.


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Pedagogic rights and higher expertise in the post-truth society

by Jim Hordern

This post is part of a series tied to a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education that will be published in March 2019. The founding idea behind this special issue was to spark a re-evaluation of what higher education needs to do to respond to the post-truth world, especially from the perspective of individual educators. The twelve papers, nine of which will be accompanied by posts here on the SRHE blog, take different perspectives to explore the ways in which higher education is being challenged and the responses that it might make in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and professional practice.

Bernstein’s three pedagogic rights (enhancement, participation, inclusion) set out the ‘conditions for effective democracy’ (in discourse and practice) at the ‘individual’, ‘social’ and ‘political’ level (Bernstein, 2000: xxi). Developed as a reflection on political transition in Chile in the 1980s and remaining to an extent ‘enigmatic’ (Frandji and Vitale, 2016), the rights have recently been employed to discuss the South African higher education context (Luckett and Naicker, 2016) and the role of universities in human development and capability expansion (McClean et al, 2013). Consideration of the relationship between the three pedagogic rights aids reflection on the role of higher expertise in contemporary societies facing ‘post-truth’ challenges. If fully exercised the pedagogic rights could mitigate against the destructive potential of ‘alternative facts’ – but does the current context of higher education allow the rights to be exercised?

The right to ‘individual enhancement’ is described as a ‘a condition for experiencing boundaries’ and ‘tension points condensing the past and opening up possible futures’ (Bernstein, 2000: xx). This is the process whereby individuals acquire expertise through engagement in higher education, and become equipped for future thought and action. The right to enhancement assumes the existence of expert communities that can judge when boundaries and tensions have been experienced and enhancement has taken place, as part of a trajectory towards greater expertise and understanding (Winch, 2010). However, the process by which enhancement occurs is not static but rests on the potential for imagining ‘new possibilities’ (Bernstein, 2000: xx). As Luckett and Naicker point out, this is the right ‘that realises both the private and public goods of HE’ (2016: 12). However, it is heavily compromised without the other two rights (participation and inclusion). If higher education is only concerned with individual enhancement rather than ensuring all have the right to participate and to be included, then there is a risk not only that the most powerful individuals will dominate access to expertise, but also that expertise itself becomes increasingly moribund and irrelevant to contemporary society.

The right to participate means participation in the ‘procedures whereby order is constructed, maintained and changed’ (Bernstein, 2000: xxi). This extends to participation in the re-shaping of expertise to meet new requirements as societies change, while not losing the condensed lessons of the past. Participation is the condition for ‘civic practice’ (ibid: xxi), and affects the extent to which an expert body of knowledge maintains or loses relevance to contemporary concerns. A fully democratic society is founded on a right not only to access expertise but also to become an expert oneself. When participation becomes problematic democracy starts to break down, leading to increasing alienation from expertise and the potential for mistrust of the ‘experts’ themselves.

Lastly, the right to inclusion suggests ‘the right to be included, socially, intellectually, culturally and personally’, but also ‘a right to be separate, to be autonomous’ (Bernstein, 2000: xx), and therefore to have one’s individuality and minority view respected while nevertheless remaining ‘included’ in a community. Inclusion must occur, importantly, ‘without absorption’ (Frandji and Vitale, 2016: 16), allowing new perspectives to thrive and challenge existing expertise. Without this subtle conception of inclusion, higher expertise risks retreating to a notion of ‘received truth’ which all must accept with deference. Expertise may be transformed if new and convincing claims come to light that authentically improve understanding, but this can only be achieved through a mode of inclusion that respects difference and independence.

But are these pedagogic rights practised together in contemporary higher education? Some higher education institutions risk becoming increasingly distant from the communities in which they are located, answering instead to the demands of league tables and notions of the ‘global research university’ (Marginson, 2006). Furthermore, academic work is often defined in terms of narrow output measures, irrespective of concerns for participation and inclusion. Market and bureaucratic logics actively undermine the potential for expert communities to operate, and dismiss the criteria of excellence upon which notions of higher expertise are based, replacing them with a belief in the ‘inevitable obsolescence of accumulated knowledge’ (Beck and Young, 2005: 191). Are these promising conditions for the upholding of an open and iterative model of higher expertise which can effectively challenge ‘post-truths’, while valuing the full participation and inclusion of all citizens?

One thesis might be that the post truth context is a consequence of a collapse of deference for ‘authority’, both in institutional and epistemic terms. An alternative argument would assert that ongoing assaults on deference are necessary to expose dominance and bias, and that a ‘post-truth’ or ‘post-enlightenment’ context allows multiple voices to be heard and undue influence to be exposed. Arguably these views foreground either enhancement or participation at the expense of the other pedagogic rights. A further view might suggest that the post-truth context illustrates how expertise is increasingly ‘divorced from persons, their commitments, their personal dedications’ (Bernstein, 2000, 86), partly as a consequence of the extension of market logics into higher education (and the professions). Truth has become commodified so that knowledge can ‘flow like money to wherever it can create advantage and profit’ (ibid), allowing opportunists to exploit increasing levels of public and private disorientation. Enhancement, participation and inclusion are all threatened – and all must be re-thought for the future vitality and relevance of higher education, and for societal ownership of expertise.

Higher education institutions and professional communities responsible for higher expertise have thus far insufficiently recognised the implications of a non-deferential society in which all assertions are challenged, and need to work harder at ensuring inclusion and participation to make enhancement a possibility for all. Making pedagogic rights central to a refreshed notion of higher expertise thus requires a commitment to all three rights: enhancement, inclusion and participation. Commitment to one or two without the other is almost as detrimental to the future of higher education as commitment to none.

References

Beck, J and Young, M (2005) ‘The assault on the professions and the restructuring of academic and professional identities: a Bernsteinian analysis.’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 26 (2): 183-197

Bernstein, B (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity 2nd edn New York: Rowman and Littlefield

Frandji, D and Vitale, P (2016) ‘The enigma of Bernstein’s ‘pedagogic rights’.’ In Vitale, P and Exley, B (eds) (2016) Pedagogic rights and democratic education: Bernsteinian explorations of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, pp13–32 London: Routledge

Luckett, K and Naicker, V (2016) ‘Responding to misrecognition from a (post)/colonial university.’ Critical Studies in Education, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2016.1234495

Marginson, S (2006) ‘Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education.’ Higher Education 52(1): 1–39

McClean, M, Abbas, A and P Ashwin (2013) ‘University knowledge, human development and pedagogic rights’ in Boni, A and Walker, M (eds) (2013) Human development and capabilities: Re-imagining the university of the twenty-first century, pp30–43 London: Routledge

Winch, C (2010) Dimensions of expertise: A conceptual exploration of vocational knowledge London: Continuum.

Jim Hordern is Reader in Educational Studies at Bath Spa University, U.K. His research interests are in educational knowledge and practice, particularly in higher, professional and vocational education. He is Book Reviews Editor of the Journal of Vocational Education and Training and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Internationale Berufsbildungsforschung Springer book series.

You can find Jim’s full article, ‘Higher expertise, pedagogic rights and the post-truth society’ in Teaching in Higher Education 24(3): 288-301 athttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562517.2018.1532957