This paper is a contribution to understanding the relationship between agency and learn ing in the lifecourse. The contribution is mainly of a theoretical and a conceptual nature in that a particular notion of agency is used that enables agency to be conceived as something that is achieved, rather than possessed, through the active engagement of individuals with aspects of their contexts-for-action. We refer to this as an ecological understanding of agency. On the part of the actor, such engagements are characterised by particular configurations of routine, purpose and judgement. The argument is made that learning about the particular composition of one's agentic orientations and how they play out in one's life can play an important role in the achievement of agency, and that life-narratives, stories about one's life, can be an important vehicle for such learning. We ex plore the potential of this approach through a discussion of aspects of the learning (auto-)biographies of two participants in the Learning Lives project, a threeyear longi tud inal study of learning in the lifecourse. The paper concludes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and an indication of questions for further research.

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 ...

No abstract

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 ...

No abstract