Purpose -The paper explores how mentors can act as change agents for social justice. It examines mentors' roles in initial teacher education in the lifelong learning sector (LLS) and how critical spaces can be opened up to promote a flow of mentor, trainee teacher, learner and community empowerment.Design/methodology/approach -Two thematic literature reviews were undertaken: one of UK LLS ITE mentoring and the other an international review of social justice in relation to mentoring in ITE and the first year of teaching. Bourdieu's concepts of capital, field and habitus (Bourdieu, 1986) are used as sensitising tools to explore LLS mentors' practices and the possibilities for increasing the flow of 'pedagogical capital' between mentors, trainee teachers, learners and communities, in such a way that would enable mentors to become agents for social justice.Findings -LLS mentors and trainee teachers are uncertain about their roles. In the UK and several countries, mentoring is dominated by an instrumental assessment-focused approach, whereby social justice is marginalised. In contrast, what we call social justice mentors establish collaborative democratic mentoring relationships, create spaces for critical reflection, support trainees to experience different cultures, develop inclusive critical pedagogies, and generally act as advocates and foster passion for social justice. 2Research limitations/implications -While the literature reviews provide timely and important insights into UK and international approaches, the existing literature bases are limited in scale and scope.Practical implications -A model for mentoring that promotes social justice and recommendations for mentor training are proposed.Originality/value -The paper addresses the omission in policy, research and practice of the potential for mentors to promote social justice. The proposed model and training approach can be adopted across all education phases.
This paper draws on sociological and critical educational frames, particularly Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, in order to contest the dominant model of literacy education that is driven by the premise of a 'knowledge economy'. Instead it foregrounds the political, social, and economic factors that marginalise learners. Data from two projects: an ethnographic study in a Further Education (FE) College in England and a study of community-based literacy programmes in Scotland, are probed to show how literacy classes can offer spaces to challenge symbolic violence and facilitate learners to reclaim identities of success. These changes are illustrated from the learners' views of the contrasts between their experiences of school education and literacy programmes that use transformative and emancipatory approaches. Our research demonstrates how critical education can open up spaces for a more equitable approach based on the co-production of knowledge. It is argued that making changes to policy and practice could inform and shape the literacy curriculum and its pedagogy if adult literacy can disentangle itself from instrumental approaches driven by neoliberal fusion and instead create critical space for contextualised and emancipatory learning.
PurposeThis paper explores data from the UCU Furt her Educat ion in England: Transforming Lives & Communit ies research project and through this develops a distinctive, theorised conceptualisation of transformative teaching and learning (TTL). Design/methodology/approach The research used an approach grounded in critical pedagogy utilising digital methods, including video'd interviews, to collect narratives from learners, teachers, family members and their communities from colleges across Britain. Findings Within a context in which there are structural pressures militating in favour of instrumentalising students in further education, TTL offers a way of theorising it as a transformative critical space that restores students' hope and agency. The research provides evidence of how further education offers this "differential space" (Lefebvre 1991) and subverts the prescriptive, linear spaces of compulsory education. While productivist approaches to vocational education and training support ideologies that legitimate prescribed knowledge, reproducing inequality and injustice through the practices employed (Ade-Ojo and Duckworth 2016, Duckworth and Smith 2017b), TTL shifts to a more holistic approach, achieving a different level of engagement with learners. Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that the TTL lens is a way of focusing on the dignity, needs and agency of further education students. The lens allows us also to identify how the existing structures associated with funding and marketisation can undermine the potential of TTL to activate students' agency through education. Originality/value (mandatory) Extending on existing literature around transformative learning, and drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks, the article formulates a new, contextually specific conceptualisation of transformative teaching and learning. The context of further education in the UKIn this paper we will present data from the UK Further Education Transforming Lives project (Duckworth and Smith 2018) to provide a sharp focus to theorise what shapes transformative teaching and learning (hereafter TTL) in further education. After providing an overview of the current further education context in the UK, we will explore a range of data from the project and discuss how TTL can be a powerful and meaningful framework for conceptualising teaching and learning that prioritises the agency, needs and the dignity of students.
Whilst widening participation is a key issue for both nurse education and the wider profession there is a lack of conceptualisation and focus regarding mechanisms to both encourage and support a wider diversity of entrant. Whilst there are some studies, these focus on particular individual widening participation groups rather than a wider strategic focus across the student lifecycle.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.