vicky Duckworth
Vicky is a Professor in Education. She has developed considerable expertise in Adult Literacy and Education and is deeply committed to challenging inequality through critical and emancipatory approaches to education, widening participation, inclusion, community action and engaging in research with a strong social justice agenda. She has drew on a critical perspective, applying Bourdieu's work as the theoretical framework, as well as using a range of feminist, sociology of education, literature on the ethics of care and critical literacy pedagogy, including the New Literacy Studies to explore and add to the debate on the impact of violence and trauma on learning, possibilities, resistance and transformation and its link to class, gender, ethnicity and literacy (Duckworth 2013, 14, 15).
Most recently she co-explored the gradual evolution of Adult Literacy policy in the UK from the 70s to the current decade; drawing on philosophical, sociological and economic frames of reference from local, national and International perspectives, and the application of empirical data the research argues that the value positions of instrumentalism, driven by the now dominant human capital philosophy has gradually taken control of adult literacy policy and its attendant practice. An alternative curriculum is offered; a transformative model that presents a more socially just different value position (Ade-Ojo and Duckworth 2015). She has advised on policy and is a member of a number of National and International networks, which includes her role as trustee of the Helena Kennedy Foundation (http://www.hkf.org.uk/) (http://www.unaglobal.org/) and membership of the board for the Association for Research in Post-Compulsory Education (http://arpce.org.uk/about/)
Throughout her career Vicky has published widely which consists of authoring and editing books, most recently this includes: Learning Trajectories, Violence and Empowerment amongst Adult Basic Skills Learners (Routledge, 2013); Landscapes of Specific Literacies in Contemporary Society: Exploring a social model of literacy (Routledge 2014); Adult Literacy Policy and Practice: From Intrinsic Values to Instrumentalism (Palgrave 2015).
Most recently she co-explored the gradual evolution of Adult Literacy policy in the UK from the 70s to the current decade; drawing on philosophical, sociological and economic frames of reference from local, national and International perspectives, and the application of empirical data the research argues that the value positions of instrumentalism, driven by the now dominant human capital philosophy has gradually taken control of adult literacy policy and its attendant practice. An alternative curriculum is offered; a transformative model that presents a more socially just different value position (Ade-Ojo and Duckworth 2015). She has advised on policy and is a member of a number of National and International networks, which includes her role as trustee of the Helena Kennedy Foundation (http://www.hkf.org.uk/) (http://www.unaglobal.org/) and membership of the board for the Association for Research in Post-Compulsory Education (http://arpce.org.uk/about/)
Throughout her career Vicky has published widely which consists of authoring and editing books, most recently this includes: Learning Trajectories, Violence and Empowerment amongst Adult Basic Skills Learners (Routledge, 2013); Landscapes of Specific Literacies in Contemporary Society: Exploring a social model of literacy (Routledge 2014); Adult Literacy Policy and Practice: From Intrinsic Values to Instrumentalism (Palgrave 2015).
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Books by vicky Duckworth
Using Machiavelli’s celebrated and contested treatise 'The Prince' as a metaphorical guide, the contributors each take a different perspective to interrogate leadership, agency and professionalism in FE. The scope of The Principal is as wide as the sector, with chapters on adult education and the FE systems throughout the UK and in Ireland and Australia. The writers share a fierce commitment to FE and this book is a must-read for anyone who cares about how and where the FE sector is being led.
L earning Trajectories, Violence and Empowerment amongst Adult Basic Skills Learners offers deep insights into the lives of marginalised communities and the link between learning, literacy and violence, not previously carried out in-depth in a small scale study. It breaks the negative stereo-types of adults who struggle to read and write, who are often labelled and stigmatised by dominant discourses, and in doing so exposes why and how Basic Skills Learners often find themselves in marginal positions. The structural inequalities many face from childhood to adulthood across the private and public domains of their lives are revealed and probed, thus challenging neo-liberalism claims of an apparently egalitarian social field. The learners’ narratives expose the contradiction, complexities and ambivalences they experience in their daily lives, and how they try to make sense of them from their structural positioning as basic skills learners in a society based on inequality of opportunity and choice.
Underpinned by a theoretical and critical discussion, the book presents a rationale for the use of technology in today's 21st century classrooms as teaching practitioners prepare themselves for the arrival of technologically mature and digitally literate 21st century learners with high expectations of their learning journey."
Underpinned by a theoretical and critical discussion, the book presents a rationale for the use of technology in today's 21st century classrooms as teaching practitioners prepare themselves for the arrival of technologically mature and digitally literate 21st century learners with high expectations of their learning journey.
"
This book will equip the practitioner with the skills required to implement change within problematic relationships and environments, and to explore a range of possible reasons as to `why students behave in the way they do'.
Understanding Behaviour 14+ challenges existing paradigms in order to break down barriers; substituting and encouraging professional responsibility for promoting positive relationships rather than the passive acceptance of unwanted behaviors, or a reliance on a culture of `blame'.
Key features of the book include:
A brief and effective solution-focused approach
Challenging existing paradigms
Consideration of the process of reflection and evaluation
Effective approaches to providing an inclusive classroom
This essentially moves away from thinking about difficult or `bad' students and towards thinking about difficult relationships or environments. This process of change allows the practitioner to reflect in a far more constructive and objective manner, also allowing the practitioner to acknowledge their own feelings in this process.
"
Using a step-by-step approach the book tackles common thorny issues such as:
Understanding the different genres of research
Discussion of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research
The importance of forming research questions and of locating them within current research literature
How to do a literature review
Dealing with permissions, access and ethics
The nuts and bolts of research methods
Interpreting data and writing up research findings
Together with case studies and examples of real-life research projects that have been completed by the authors' own students, this book tackles research in a student-friendly and accessible style, carefully unpacking and defining the different terms, concepts and theories that students need to know when beginning research for the first time.
This book is essential reading for students who are training to work in the lifelong learning sector or practitioners who are undertaking CPD to maintain their license to practice.
About the authors
Jonathan Tummons is Senior Lecturer in Education and co-convener of the Education and Work-Based Learning Research Group at Teesside University, UK.
Vicky Duckworth is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for the full-time PCET course and Schools Projects Lead at Edge Hill University, UK.
Table of contents
What is educational research?
Types of practitioner research
Models of research
Asking Questions
Research ethics
Gathering Data
Making Sense of Your Data
Evaluating your research
Writing up and disseminating research
"
The themes are presented in an accessible format, and are underpinned by recent research as well as policy analysis. The authors examine significant issues in the LLS today including inclusive practice, the employability agenda, the curriculum in the LLS and research-led teaching.
There are practical strategies and reflective tasks that encourage readers to become critical, questioning practitioners. Other helpful features include:
Learning outcomes at the beginning of each chapter
Links to QTLS standards
Case studies
End of chapter summaries
Further reading and useful websites
It is essential reading for trainees on QTLS programmes and is also important reading for education students and qualified staff undertaking CPD.
About the authors
Dr Vicky Duckworth (Edge Hil University)
Dr Jonathan Tummons (Teeside University)
Table of contents
Introduction
The changing face of the lifelong learning sector
Widening participation and inclusive practice
Policy and practice in the lifelong learning sector
Embedding literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology
The employability agenda
Exploring the curriculum in the lifelong learning sector
Research-led teaching in the lifelong learning sector
Working in the lifelong learning sector
Further reading
"
Book chapters by vicky Duckworth
can be resisted. By exploring rupture/reproduction, I build on the concept of literacies to provide a way in which the enactment of creative literacies can rupture and reproduction can be grasped and new forms of curriculum made
visible. The narratives of three generations of females in a family are illustrated, to provide a description of their engagement, directly or indirectly, with a transformative
curriculum both to empower themselves and the local and wider community.
The study draws from an overarching qualitative framework (Creswell, 2013; Duckworth, 2013, 2014; Harding, 1987; Stanley & Wise, 1990), whilst the research approach is based on a range of strategies which include participatory action research (PAR) and a range of theoretical positions such as feminist standpoint theory. It also embraces life history, literacy studies and ethnographic approaches to exploring
social practices. This is a reflection of one of the underpinning values held by the author which recognises the multiplicity of literacy event sites and the social dimension of literacy practices
in Adult Literacy group in the UK (RaPAL) plays in facilitating the promotion of research and practice in adult literacy. While faced with the challenges that many volunteer organisations of its kind face in sustaining itself and maintaining an independent voice, the history of RaPAL illustrates that practitioners can continue to find sustenance and strength to maintain their professional agency and voice through their research and advocacy work in partnership with their learners.
Transformative literacy, empirical research, sociology of education, literacy practice, emancipatory learning
Adult Literacy, policy, empirical data, instrumental and human capital, value positions
Adult Literacy, policy, philosophy, marketization, sociology of education
Using Machiavelli’s celebrated and contested treatise 'The Prince' as a metaphorical guide, the contributors each take a different perspective to interrogate leadership, agency and professionalism in FE. The scope of The Principal is as wide as the sector, with chapters on adult education and the FE systems throughout the UK and in Ireland and Australia. The writers share a fierce commitment to FE and this book is a must-read for anyone who cares about how and where the FE sector is being led.
L earning Trajectories, Violence and Empowerment amongst Adult Basic Skills Learners offers deep insights into the lives of marginalised communities and the link between learning, literacy and violence, not previously carried out in-depth in a small scale study. It breaks the negative stereo-types of adults who struggle to read and write, who are often labelled and stigmatised by dominant discourses, and in doing so exposes why and how Basic Skills Learners often find themselves in marginal positions. The structural inequalities many face from childhood to adulthood across the private and public domains of their lives are revealed and probed, thus challenging neo-liberalism claims of an apparently egalitarian social field. The learners’ narratives expose the contradiction, complexities and ambivalences they experience in their daily lives, and how they try to make sense of them from their structural positioning as basic skills learners in a society based on inequality of opportunity and choice.
Underpinned by a theoretical and critical discussion, the book presents a rationale for the use of technology in today's 21st century classrooms as teaching practitioners prepare themselves for the arrival of technologically mature and digitally literate 21st century learners with high expectations of their learning journey."
Underpinned by a theoretical and critical discussion, the book presents a rationale for the use of technology in today's 21st century classrooms as teaching practitioners prepare themselves for the arrival of technologically mature and digitally literate 21st century learners with high expectations of their learning journey.
"
This book will equip the practitioner with the skills required to implement change within problematic relationships and environments, and to explore a range of possible reasons as to `why students behave in the way they do'.
Understanding Behaviour 14+ challenges existing paradigms in order to break down barriers; substituting and encouraging professional responsibility for promoting positive relationships rather than the passive acceptance of unwanted behaviors, or a reliance on a culture of `blame'.
Key features of the book include:
A brief and effective solution-focused approach
Challenging existing paradigms
Consideration of the process of reflection and evaluation
Effective approaches to providing an inclusive classroom
This essentially moves away from thinking about difficult or `bad' students and towards thinking about difficult relationships or environments. This process of change allows the practitioner to reflect in a far more constructive and objective manner, also allowing the practitioner to acknowledge their own feelings in this process.
"
Using a step-by-step approach the book tackles common thorny issues such as:
Understanding the different genres of research
Discussion of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research
The importance of forming research questions and of locating them within current research literature
How to do a literature review
Dealing with permissions, access and ethics
The nuts and bolts of research methods
Interpreting data and writing up research findings
Together with case studies and examples of real-life research projects that have been completed by the authors' own students, this book tackles research in a student-friendly and accessible style, carefully unpacking and defining the different terms, concepts and theories that students need to know when beginning research for the first time.
This book is essential reading for students who are training to work in the lifelong learning sector or practitioners who are undertaking CPD to maintain their license to practice.
About the authors
Jonathan Tummons is Senior Lecturer in Education and co-convener of the Education and Work-Based Learning Research Group at Teesside University, UK.
Vicky Duckworth is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for the full-time PCET course and Schools Projects Lead at Edge Hill University, UK.
Table of contents
What is educational research?
Types of practitioner research
Models of research
Asking Questions
Research ethics
Gathering Data
Making Sense of Your Data
Evaluating your research
Writing up and disseminating research
"
The themes are presented in an accessible format, and are underpinned by recent research as well as policy analysis. The authors examine significant issues in the LLS today including inclusive practice, the employability agenda, the curriculum in the LLS and research-led teaching.
There are practical strategies and reflective tasks that encourage readers to become critical, questioning practitioners. Other helpful features include:
Learning outcomes at the beginning of each chapter
Links to QTLS standards
Case studies
End of chapter summaries
Further reading and useful websites
It is essential reading for trainees on QTLS programmes and is also important reading for education students and qualified staff undertaking CPD.
About the authors
Dr Vicky Duckworth (Edge Hil University)
Dr Jonathan Tummons (Teeside University)
Table of contents
Introduction
The changing face of the lifelong learning sector
Widening participation and inclusive practice
Policy and practice in the lifelong learning sector
Embedding literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology
The employability agenda
Exploring the curriculum in the lifelong learning sector
Research-led teaching in the lifelong learning sector
Working in the lifelong learning sector
Further reading
"
can be resisted. By exploring rupture/reproduction, I build on the concept of literacies to provide a way in which the enactment of creative literacies can rupture and reproduction can be grasped and new forms of curriculum made
visible. The narratives of three generations of females in a family are illustrated, to provide a description of their engagement, directly or indirectly, with a transformative
curriculum both to empower themselves and the local and wider community.
The study draws from an overarching qualitative framework (Creswell, 2013; Duckworth, 2013, 2014; Harding, 1987; Stanley & Wise, 1990), whilst the research approach is based on a range of strategies which include participatory action research (PAR) and a range of theoretical positions such as feminist standpoint theory. It also embraces life history, literacy studies and ethnographic approaches to exploring
social practices. This is a reflection of one of the underpinning values held by the author which recognises the multiplicity of literacy event sites and the social dimension of literacy practices
in Adult Literacy group in the UK (RaPAL) plays in facilitating the promotion of research and practice in adult literacy. While faced with the challenges that many volunteer organisations of its kind face in sustaining itself and maintaining an independent voice, the history of RaPAL illustrates that practitioners can continue to find sustenance and strength to maintain their professional agency and voice through their research and advocacy work in partnership with their learners.
Transformative literacy, empirical research, sociology of education, literacy practice, emancipatory learning
Adult Literacy, policy, empirical data, instrumental and human capital, value positions
Adult Literacy, policy, philosophy, marketization, sociology of education
This chapter critically engages with philosophical drivers of education and considers how they inform and shape educational polices and specifically adult literacy. Value positions are exposed through the prism of two broad educational philosophical constructs of instrumentalism and libertarianism. In this context, specific attention is paid to differing conceptions of ethics, and the divergent ideas of human being that these generate. We relate this to ideas and debates within these areas for current issues in educational policy and practice. In specific terms, such libertarian values as intuitionism are held at counterpoint to the various strands of rationalist value in education. Emerging from this, policy manifestations such as progressive and child-centred education, liberalism, radical and libertarian educational traditions; equality are juxtaposed with instrumentalist values such as hedonism, solutionism and survivalism, which are usually manifested in privatization and marketization- centred policies. Following the exposition of these value positions, we explore the potential relationship between these positions and literacy policy and practice.
Philosophy, ideology, adult literacy, instrumentalism, libertarianism, policy
This chapter will draw conclusions on the ways in which we must respond to the demands of the twenty-first century, how we must position literacy through specific curricula in order to make it acceptable to funders and to enable it to meet the impending and emergent challenges. Drawing on the previous chapters the key theme will be ‘what’s next?’.
The word ‘literacy’ can have many meanings and what is meant by the term is influenced by the words around it. Within this book we can see many meanings as ‘literacy’ is juxtaposed with several other terms. The book starts out from a basic question which has been at the heart of Literacy Studies for more than 20 years: What is literacy? The question can be constantly re-asked in the chapters of the book. At the same time the chapters go forwards by locating discussions around literacy in contemporary issues and by linking in with other areas.
(that is, attendance) and instead they fell into the habit of ‘wagging school’ to escape being pathologised. I will explore how schooling can act as a constraint that prevents learners from achieving their potential because they do not have those capitals that are deemed legitimate or valuable by those – that is, teachers and peers – with symbolic power (for example, see Figures 3.1b and 5.1). I will
explore how schooling is a site for symbolic, embodied and physical violence and how the learners struggle against this by resisting or on forming. The learners’ stories demonstrate the impact of the unequal distribution of cultural, economic and linguistic capital and the impact of this on their schooling and subsequent trajectories. This chapter answers the research questions of how the learners are positioned in the field of education. When the respondents were asked about their experience of school, a recurrent theme and struggle for them was fighting against feelings of worthlessness and a lack of respectability (Skeggs 1997) due to being labelled (see Goffman 1970) and bullied by teachers and peers for being poor (for example see Figures 3.1, 3.3), having undiagnosed dyslexia and struggling at school with school work. I will show the symbolic and physical violence carried out by teachers and peers. Examples of this are the link between symbolic violence and the symbolic capital of clothing; symbolic violence enacted by teachers ignoring the respondents; physical violence and dyslexia; and school and identities. Further to this, I will explore how the respondents resisted and conformed to symbolic violence.
This chapter draws on the findings of my recent ethnographic study which explored how sixteen learners have been shaped, their whole being influenced by and responding to, the public domain of schooling, college and work and the private domain of family, friends and home. The aim was to explore the learners’ perceptions of their reality in these domains whilst seeking to address in what ways their past, present and future have been influenced by class and gender and how this has impacted on their pathways and subsequent trajectories (Duckworth 2013). The learners were all enrolled on either a part-time or full-time Adult Basic Skills course at a Further Education College based in the North of England. I was their literacy teacher and the drive to partake in the study came from my experience of living and working with learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. I felt that the notion of neo-liberalism and its implication that an individual is free to determine their own pathway, is limited by the impact of structural and historical inequalities: gender, race and class and other markers of identity that shape the learners’ educational journeys (Leathwood 2006). One way in which this happens is that learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are not considered to have the right attributes to progress (Archer et al. 2003; Burke 2006; Duckworth and Cochrane 2012). As a critical educator/researcher, my aim was to challenge a hegemonic1 curriculum and instead open a meaningful ‘space’ to reflect a critical pedagogy, providing a curriculum which is culturally relevant, learner driven and socially empowering (Barton et al. 2007; Duckworth 2010, 2013; Duckworth and Taylor 2008; Duckworth and Tummons; Freire 1996; Hamilton 2012).
The past decade has witnessed rapid policy change and reformulation which has impacted upon learners’ and workers’ choice/s or lack of choice/s in the public and private domains of
their lives which includes practices and trajectories within education, training and employment. As a truth regime these practices have the capacity to constitute and position,
learners, educators, employees as the subjects of policy within this logic of competition. For some critical commentators 'values' have been replaced by an emphasis on productivity and 'value' in the economic sense. These changes have produced new scholarship and theory which this ‘special edition’ aims to provide a lens to probe and expose. In doing so it makes a timely contribution to the relationship between gendered identities, learner trajectory and new policy discourse both within the UK and more widely.
More importantly, however, Literacy education has been shown to enhance confidence, contribute to personal development, promote health, social and political participation and lead to benefits in the public and private domains of learners’ lives (Duckworth 2013, 14). In the context of the trinity at paly in the field of literacy, we would suggest that the dominant component of the trinity at this stage has remained ideologically-driven policy. Practice has continued to be controlled by policy which is perhaps even more entrenched because of the funding associated to it and perhaps because of the different perceptions of literacy held by policy makers. Globally we are now faced with radical challenges with fundamental changes to society and economies particularly with the rise of the knowledge economy, which is attendant to development and globalization. Indeed, in an age of globalisation and neoliberalism, theliteracy curriculum may be viewed as a product of market driven changes. Illustrating this alliance to market driven initiative, the hitherto dominant Skills for Life agenda in the UK has now evolved into a functional Literacy approach, which reflects the roles that have now been ascribed to literacy, and a changing perception of literacy as the cause rather than the symptom of a range of social malaises (Ade-Ojo, 2011). Consequently, the Functional Skills agenda is defined by its social purposes, in which there is an alignment between individual skills, the performance and needs of society, the global economy and economic productivity. There is no doubt that a varied range of responses and strategies will continue to emerge in response to these compelling social settings. Perhaps as a part of one such response, this special issue asks what ways the curriculum can be developed and implemented to promote Employability through Specific Literacies. This is crucial in the current post-depression era and the drive towards using employment to drive the desired economic recovery. The goal, therefore, is to explore the concept of specific literacy in the context of developing employability skills. In essence, each paper develops the specific literacy they are associated with (academic, information, assessment of prior learning etc) and discusses how these literacies might help to promote employability skills. As an overarching position, we would argue that literacies matter, and helping individuals increase their literacy is important for improving their choices both in the private and public domains of people’s lives, which includes opening labour market opportunities and more importantly, providing choices in terms of what is available and desired by learners. The six different papers that are collected in this issue all draw on and respond to different elements of what can be seen as a broad debate around Employability through Specific Literacies and draw on a range of contexts from the public sector, local and wider workforce, further and higher education, and from different national contexts.
The idea is to move away from thinking about difficult or bad students towards thinking about difficult relationships or environments. This process of change already allows the practitioner to reflect in a far more constructive and objective manner. This process of reflection and evaluation also allows the practitioner to acknowledge their own feelings in this process. Whilst there are strategies that can help in a reactive sense to situations and behaviours as they occurs such as body language and proxemics there are no quick fixes to deal with what are extremely complicated and complex relationships and situations.
This is where a solution-focused approach can be helpful as it is brief and effective. It can be brief because it is future-focused and because it works with the strengths of those who come by making the best use of their resources, and it can bring about lasting change because it aims to build solutions rather than solve problems i.e. identifying small baby steps towards a bigger end goal. Thus this approach, whilst initially daunting, allows the practitioner to be freed of the shackles of labels that are neither helpful nor constructive and instead becomes a powerful tool for transforming negative learning environments.
Excluding funding for apprenticeships, the budget for 2015/16 will be cut by 24 per cent. That’s 24 per cent of the funding for adults who want to gain a better education later in life. Further education was deeply scarred as it was, with a third of its budget already severed since the 2010 election.
The teaching of basic skills such as numeracy and literacy is a key aspect of further adult education, and it’s not as if the UK ranks highly on this front and we don’t need to worry. According to the OECD, it’s quite the opposite and the government is fully aware of the problem.
continue to be fully funded for
all adults, with a new emphasis
on supporting those with skills at
lower levels to engage in informal
learning
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415828727/
This seminar draws on my recent longitudinal, ethnographic study 'Learning Trajectories, Violence and Empowerment amongst Adult Basic Skills Learners' to explore how learners were pathologised across the field of motherhood, by those in a position of power for not having what are considered legitimate capitals or enough of them. For example, lone parents were considered as not having parenting practices and ways of being which adhered to what was considered the dominant taste in the mediation between the agents of the state (social workers) and the parents. I will argue that the social and cultural practices in the field regulated and shaped hierarchies of social order; the cultural capitals, when viewed through the dominant lens privileging the middle-classes. However, and importantly, the familiarity by which the learners were pathologised did not become naturalised to them and they were not passive. Although they struggled with low self-esteem and anxiety they took agency and offered resistance against the labels, a counter culture that allowed them symbolic capital in the context of their own communities.
Duckworth, V. (2013) Learning Trajectories, Violence and Empowerment amongst Adult Basic Skills Learners London: Routledge
This keynote explores potential alternatives to the dominant philosophy, policy and practice. Informed by sociological and critical educational frames that recognise the political, social, and economic factors that conspire to marginalise learners, it offers a transformative approach to adult literacy whilst also locating the model in an underpinning philosophy (Duckworth & Ade-Ojo, 2014). Rich empirical data from practice is probed to offer a justification to the recognition accorded the model. For example, the misrecognition of certain held dispositions that 'legitimatize' classed and gendered inequalities is exposed and redressed arguing that we need to look at issues of violence and trauma, such as the ones exposed in the narratives of the learners in my recent study, not as isolated accounts, but relate them to the structural inequalities in people's lives. It offers an indicator of the relationship of the learners to the state and the social values which uphold this (Duckworth, 2013). The analysis argues that a different value position to the dominant curriculum, could yield a different approach to practice. This is illustrated with transformative and emancipatory literacy, which derives its values from a libertarian, equality and justice base (as against an instrumentalist base). Exposed are how changes to policy and practice could inform and shape the literacy curriculum and indeed pedagogy; a central driver suggested being adult education/literacy dis-entangling itself from neoliberal fusion and creating critical space for contextualised and emancipatory learning.
key issues, we make key recommendations for some meaningful policies for transition that would fully acknowledge and support the broader important contributions colleges make to social equality and justice within the communities they serve.
Further education is an overarching term that describes teaching and learning taking place mainly outside of school environments involving school leavers (although there is some 14-16 provision) and adults. Further education is largely shaped by historical, industrial and social factors closely related to local socio-economic circumstances in different towns and cities across the UK. While government skills policy over recent decades has become increasingly centralised, locally colleges continue to see their purpose and function in broader terms.