2,398 research outputs found
Repositioning the graphic designer as researcher
No full textIn academic terms, the discipline of graphic design is relatively young. Consequently the position of the discipline within academic territory, and the role of the designer, continue to be debated. In part, these debates have been a product of attempts to define and defend the discipline’s borders from within, in order to establish a sense of the role of graphic design and the graphic designer as commensurate with other disciplines both within and beyond art and design. In recent years graphic designers have variously been defined as ‘authors’, ‘producers’ and ‘readers’, yet none of these definitions seem to have provided any kind of productive or lasting impact within the academy. This paper suggests that rather than continue to seek territorial definitions and positions from within, it could be more productive to look beyond the confines of the discipline. Gaining a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on, and understanding of, qualitative research methods from other disciplines may enable the graphic designer to more fully position his or her practice within the wider academy. Such a perspective could help facilitate the repositioning and redefinition of the graphic designer as ‘researcher’ - a move that would be productive in relation to the future development of postgraduate research within the discipline
No Change There Then: Perceptions of vocational education in a coalition era
No full textThis paper explores the findings of a qualitative study carried out in summer 2010 on behalf of City and Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD), which explored young people’s perceptions of vocational education. The participants, drawn from schools and colleges across England, were pursuing a broad range of vocational programmes. Data were gathered using a series of focus groups and individual interviews and analysed using a thematic approach within a Bourdieusian theoretical framework drawing on notions of structure and agency, field and habitus as well as on the extensive body of literature exploring vocational education and school to work transitions for young people.
The field work for the study was conducted at the time of the General Election and this analysis also contextualises the findings in terms of the Coalition response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011)
Social control in practice: the impact of learning employability skills
No full textThis paper explores notions of ‘employability’ in further education, a concept which is at the basis of much government policy associated with marginalised learners. Drawing on earlier empirical work by Atkins (2009) Atkins et al (2010) and Simmons and Thompson (2011) and working within a framework informed by Marxist concepts of Power and control, the paper problematises the term employability, arguing that in policy terms the term is ill-defined yet associated with a positive rhetoric about high pay, skill work which is in tension with the prospects of the marginalised group of students at whom it is directed. Despite the rhetoric, most employability programmes are far removed from the ‘genuine work experience’ advocated by Wolf (2011:130). They offer little in the way of conceptual knowledge or exchange value, but are resonant with earlier concerns about the structure of vocational PCET programmes as producing users who are socialised to work, rather than as citizens (Tarrant, 2001).
The paper argues that employability programmes are little more than an exercise in social control which are productive of false hope that engagement with them will offer a route into high pay, high skill employment with the prospect of financial and career security. The paper concludes that this hope obscures the reality that such programmes at best may lead to low pay, low skill work and, at worst, form another stage in the ‘churn’ of young people who are NEET (not in education, employment or training). The impact of such programmes is unlikely, therefore, to be one of progression to high pay, high skill careers, but rather to be one of class and labour (re) production as students are socialised into particular forms of casual and low pay, low skill employment
From Marginal Learning to Marginal Employment? The Real Impact of 'Learning' Employability Skills
No full textThis article explores notions of ‘employability’ in the context of the experiences of those young people who leave the English education system at 16+ with few or no academic credentials. The article contests the conflation of ‘employability skills’ with ‘inclusion’ in policy discourse, arguing that the real impact of such programmes is to inculcate attitudes and behaviours consistent with low-pay, low-skill work in already marginalised young people. It draws on empirical evidence from two studies which suggest that what young people really want are real, practical skills which are directly transferable to the world of work and which would fulfil the promise of high-pay, high-skill work in a knowledge economy. The article concludes that in a world where many young people are increasingly marginalised in terms of both education and employment, only an education which provides the skills the young people aspire to and which has real exchange value in the labour marketplace can confer any real advantage to them. Current approaches to employability skills education, far from achieving this, are little more than an exercise in social control resulting in new forms of class and labour (re)production, as already marginalised young people are socialised into particular forms of casual and low-pay, low-skill employment
Great Expectations: youth transitions in troubled times
No full textThis paper draws on an empirical study conducted in the UK to explore some of the issues surrounding young people on the lowest level VET programmes and make suggestions about ways in which the learner experience at this level might be enhanced. UK policy perception of young people undertaking low level VET programmes in Further Education (FE) colleges tends to characterise them within a deficit model of social exclusion, disaffection and disengagement(Colley, 2003:169). Many have special educational needs (Atkins, 2013a). They have been the focus of multiple initiatives in both the context of the New Labour 14-19 agenda, and more recently in the Coalition governments response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011). These initiatives have largely consisted of the provision of routes through a range of VET opportunities, allegedly to enable young people to engage with the knowledge society (Bathmaker, 2005). This paper problematises these notions of opportunity, drawing on the little stories of four young people to argue that the rhetoric which permeates Government documents fails to consider the significance of young peoples social and educational positioning. Finally, the paper considers the implications of these issues in terms of future practice, policy and research in the UK context
Learning on the margins: experiencing low level VET programmes in a UK context
No full textPaper presented at AVETRA 2014 : 17th Annual Conference: Informing Changes in VET Policy and Practice: The Central Role of Research, 22-24 April 2014, Surfers Paradise.
This paper draws on an empirical study conducted in the UK to explore some of the issues surrounding young people on the lowest level VET programmes and make suggestions about ways in which the learner experience at this level might be enhanced. UK policy perception of young people undertaking low level VET programmes in Further Education (FE) colleges tends to characterise them within a deficit model of social exclusion, disaffectionand disengagement(Colley, 2003:169). Many have special educational needs (Atkins, 2013a). They have been the focus of multiple initiatives in both the context of the New Labour 14-19 agenda, and more recently in the Coalition governments response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011). These initiatives have largely consisted of the provision of routes through a range of VET opportunities, allegedly to enable young people to engage with the knowledgesociety (Bathmaker, 2005). This paper problematises these notions of opportunity, drawing on the little storiesof four young people to argue that the rhetoric which permeates Government documents fails to consider the significance of young peoples social and educational positioning. Finally, the paper considers the implications of these issues in terms of future practice, policy and research in the UK contex
Social control in practice: the impact of learning employability skills
No full textThis paper explores notions of ‘employability’ in further education, a concept which is at the basis of much government policy associated with marginalised learners. Drawing on earlier empirical work by Atkins (2009) Atkins et al (2010) and Simmons and Thompson (2011) and working within a framework informed by Marxist concepts of Power and control, the paper problematises the term employability, arguing that in policy terms the term is ill-defined yet associated with a positive rhetoric about high pay, skill work which is in tension with the prospects of the marginalised group of students at whom it is directed. Despite the rhetoric, most employability programmes are far removed from the ‘genuine work experience’ advocated by Wolf (2011:130). They offer little in the way of conceptual knowledge or exchange value, but are resonant with earlier concerns about the structure of vocational PCET programmes as producing users who are socialised to work, rather than as citizens (Tarrant, 2001).
The paper argues that employability programmes are little more than an exercise in social control which are productive of false hope that engagement with them will offer a route into high pay, high skill employment with the prospect of financial and career security. The paper concludes that this hope obscures the reality that such programmes at best may lead to low pay, low skill work and, at worst, form another stage in the ‘churn’ of young people who are NEET (not in education, employment or training). The impact of such programmes is unlikely, therefore, to be one of progression to high pay, high skill careers, but rather to be one of class and labour (re) production as students are socialised into particular forms of casual and low pay, low skill employment
Interview with Alison Frank, September 25, 2009
No full textInterview Themes: How Frank chooses research topics (00:50)
Aspects of her training as a historian Frank found useful (07:00)
Books that have inspired and informed Frank's work (11:11)
On the role of area studies for scholarship on East-Central Europe (14:00)
"Internationalizing" the history of East-Central Europe (19:30)
Advice to young historians/scholars working on the region (22:11)Interview with Alison Frank, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on September 25, 2009. Professor Frank is the author of a number of articles and an excellent book on the oil industry in the Habsburg Monarchy entitled Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia. She is now working on a project on the coastline of Austria-Hungary.1_9lz5ekh
Veteran Law Students: Institutional Initiatives To Transform Their Law School Experiences
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