Official accounts of learning in vocational education and training emphasise the acquisition of technical skills and knowledge to foster behavioural competence in the workplace. However, such accounts fail to acknowledge the relationship between learning and identity. Drawing on detailed case studies of three vocational coursesin childcare, healthcare and engineering -in English further education colleges, within the project Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education, we argue that learning is a process of becoming. Learning cultures, and the vocational cultures in which they are steeped, transform those who enter them. We develop the concept of 'vocational habitus' to explain a central aspect of students' experience, as they have to orient to a particular set of dispositions -both idealised and realised. Predispositions related to gender, family background and specific locations within the working class are necessary but not sufficient for effective learning. Vocational habitus reinforces and develops these in line with demands of the workplace, although it may reproduce social inequalities at the same time. Vocational habitus involves developing not only a 'sense' of how to be, but also 'sensibility': requisite feelings and morals, and the capacity for emotional labour. Learning as becoming in vocational education and training: class, gender and the role of vocational habitus IntroductionThree decades ago, direct transition from compulsory schooling to work was the norm for many young people in England. Since the collapse of this youth labour market in the late 1970s, school-to-work transitions have become extended (Rikowski, 2001). Almost three-quarters of 16 year-olds now continue to participate in full-time education, and almost half of these pursue vocational education and training (VET) courses in further education (FE) colleges (DfES, 2001). This paper is focused on that provision (although we note here that the majority of FE students are adults). This expansion of the FE sector has produced a highly diversified market in VET, with courses that range from foundation to advanced level, and from general provision relating to broad occupational areas (such as Business Studies or Health and Social Care) to specialised training for particular jobs. This is in addition to youth training based in the workplace with (usually) one day per week off-the-job provision, some of which is also delivered in FE. Much VET was re-developed around the competence-based approach typified by National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in the early 1990s, and advocates for this model argued that, as a result, lecturers would have to meet the challenge of a new role: '[they] will need to be more than subject specialists and think more about the process of learning' (Jessup, 1991, p.106).The challenge of understanding better the process of learning in FE is at the heart of our work in the national project Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education (TLC), within the Economic and Social Research Council's ...

in Journal of Workplace Learning 15 (7/8) 313-318. THE RESEARCHThis paper summarises the results of research commissioned by the Learning and Skills Development Agency of England, to map the conceptual terrain around non-formal learning. The remit was to investigate relevant literature, and clarify the meanings and uses of terms like informal, non-formal and formal learning. Because of Conference length restrictions, what follows is underreferenced (we consulted in excess of 250 texts, some of which were themselves reviews of further literatures). References, together with the full analysis and the detailed evidence that supports our argument, are in Colley et al (2003).The subject of this research is topical. Current EU policies in lifelong learning are raising the profile of informal and non-formal learning. The recognition and enhancement of such learning is seen as vital in improving social inclusion, and increasing economic productivity. This presents a problem and a paradox. The problem is a complete lack of agreement in the literature about what informal, non-formal and formal learning are, or what the boundaries between them might be. The paradox is that there are strong tendencies to formalise the informal -for example through externally prescribed objectives, curriculum structures, assessments and funding. Yet, at least in the UK, there are parallel pressures to informalise formal learning -through the use of less structured approaches to student support, provided by a rapidly growing army of classroom assistants, learning advisers, learning mentors and the like, who lack full teaching qualifications. These trends seem to represent two arms of a concerted movement to integrate informal and formal learning. MethodologyThree parallel lines of analysis were developed. Firstly, we did a major literature trawl, and then selected from within that trawl literature which we already knew or could easily identify, which set out to classify learning as informal, non-formal or formal. We examined a wide range of different positions, looking for criteria used to identify differences. We moved on from this approach when subsequent attempts seemed to reveal no new criteria -that is, we had achieved conceptual saturation. The second approach was to conduct a detailed investigation of a diverse range of learning situations -in work, in Further Education, in adult and community education and in mentoring. Thirdly, we researched the historical development of ideas through the literature. Our work was also informed by widespread consultation, focused on an interim report (Colley et al., 2002).

There is debate among early years experts about the appropriate degree of emotional engagement between nursery nurses and the children in their care. Through research into the learning cultures of further education (in the Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme), the author considers how prospective nursery nurses first learn to deploy emotion in their work. Few researchers have investigated the learning of feelings for caring occupations, and this article presents a detailed case study, based on both quantitative and qualitative data, of a group of childcare students throughout their two-year course. In analysing its official, unwritten, and hidden curricula, and the social practices of learning it entails, the author draws on feminist readings of Marx and Bourdieu to reveal how gendered and class-fractional positionings combine with vocational education and training to construct imperatives about 'correct' emotions in childcare. The author compares theorisations of emotional capital and emotional labour, and suggests we need social rather than individualised understandings of how feelings are put to work. The author concludes that emotional labour carries costs for the nursery nurse, not because children consume her emotional resources, but because her emotional labour power is controlled and exploited for profit by employers.

Polymersomes have the potential to encapsulate and deliver chemotherapeutic drugs into tumour cells, reducing off-target toxicity that often compromises anti-cancer treatment. Here we assess the ability of the pH-sensitive poly 2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl phosphorylcholine (PMPC)-poly 2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl methacrylate (PDPA) polymersomes to encapsulate chemotherapeutic agents for effective combinational anti-cancer therapy. Polymersome uptake and ability to deliver encapsulated drugs into healthy normal oral cells and oral head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cells was measured in two and three-dimensional culture systems. PMPC-PDPA polymersomes were more rapidly internalised by HNSCC cells compared to normal oral cells. Polymersome cellular up-take was found to be mediated by class B scavenger receptors.We also observed that these receptors are more highly expressed by cancer cells compared to normal oral cells, enabling polymersome-mediated targeting. Doxorubicin and paclitaxel were encapsulated into pH-sensitive PMPC-PDPA polymersomes with high efficiencies either in isolation or as a dual-load for both singular and combinational delivery. In monolayer culture, only a short exposure to drug-loaded polymersomes was required to elicit a strong cytotoxic effect. When delivered to three-dimensional tumour models, PMPC-PDPA polymersomes were able to penetrate deep into the centre of the spheroid resulting in extensive cell damage when loaded with both singular and dual-loaded chemotherapeutics. PMPC-PDPA polymersomes offer a novel system for the effective delivery of chemotherapeutics for the treatment of HNSCC.Moreover, the preferential internalisation of PMPC polymersomes by exploiting elevated scavenger receptor expression on cancer cells opens up the opportunity to target polymersomes to tumours.3

We have developed a method for creating C3A liver spheroids and demonstrated cellular polarisation, zonation as well as increased liver-specific functionality and more predictive toxicological response compared to standard 2D liver models.

Background:Current organotypic models of dysplasia and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) lack the complexity that mimics in vivo tissue. Here we describe a three-dimensional in vitro model of the oral epithelium that replicates tumour progression from dysplasia to an invasive phenotype.Methods:The OSCC cell lines were seeded as a cell suspension (D20, Cal27) or as multicellular tumour spheroids (FaDu) with oral fibroblasts on to a de-epidermised acellular dermis to generate tissue-engineered models and compared with patient biopsies.Results:The D20 and Cal27 cells generated a model of epithelial dysplasia. Overtime Cal27 cells traversed the basement membrane and invaded the connective tissue to reproduce features of early invasive OSCC. When seeded onto a model of the normal oral mucosa, FaDu spheroids produced a histological picture mimicking carcinoma in situ with severe cellular atypia juxtaposed to normal epithelium.Conclusion:It is possible to culture in vitro models with the morphological appearance and histological characteristics of dysplasia and tumour cell invasion seen in vivo using native dermis. Such models could facilitate study of the molecular processes involved in malignant transformation, invasion and tumour growth as well as in vitro testing of new treatments, diagnostic tests and drug delivery systems for OSCC.

Oral lichen planus (OLP) and recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) are chronic inflammatory conditions often characterised by erosive and/or painful oral lesions that have a considerable impact on quality of life. Current treatment often necessitates the use of steroids in the form of mouthwashes, creams or ointments, but these are often ineffective due to inadequate drug contact times with the lesion. Here we evaluate the performance of novel mucoadhesive patches for targeted drug delivery. Electrospun polymeric mucoadhesive patches were produced and characterised for their physical properties and cytotoxicity before evaluation of residence time and acceptability in a human feasibility study. Clobetasol-17-propionate incorporated into the patches was released in a sustained manner in both tissue-engineered oral mucosa and ex vivo porcine mucosa. Clobetasol-17 propionate-loaded patches were further evaluated for residence time and drug release in an in vivo animal model and demonstrated prolonged adhesion and drug release at therapeutic-relevant doses and time points. These data show that electrospun patches are adherent to mucosal tissue without causing tissue damage, and can be successfully loaded with and release clinically active drugs. These patches hold great promise for the treatment of oral conditions such as OLP and RAS, and potentially many other oral lesions.

The Social Exclusion Unit's Report Bridging the Gaphas had a major influence on the British government's policy towards socially excluded young people. This article argues, however, that the Report contains fundamental contradictions in its analysis of non-participation in learning and the solutions proposed. Despite appearing to re-instate a concern for the social, it locates the causes of non-participation primarily within individuals and their personal deficits. Yet it denies individuality and diversity by representing the socially excluded as stereotyped categories. In a flawed move, the Report presents non-participation not just in correlation to a raft of other social problems, but as cause to their effect. Deep-seated structural inequalities are rendered invisible, as social exclusion is addressed through a strongly individualistic strategy based on personal agency. At the same time, measures to enhance individual agency, notably the new ‘ConneXions’ service, are formulated within a prescriptive structural framework. Structure and agency are thus reversed in current English policy approaches. While such approaches will doubtless assist some young people, there is a significant risk that they may make things worse for others.