This paper discusses the experiences of three stakeholders involved in live projects (live projects are part of an industry and education partnership to provide level 2 students with an opportunity to work with “real life” business problem situations). In particular the paper examines the expectations and perceptions of industry partners, tutors and students involved in a live project experience at Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies (BCFTCS). From a comparison of these stakeholder perspectives it can be suggested that although a more self‐managed approach to student learning is desirable, it is not always achievable with large student groups and time‐constrained activities. Despite this, the students appeared to have further developed the desired skills of communication, teamwork, problem solving and research, as well as the personal attributes of greater self‐confidence and leadership.

This article reports on a pilot graduate apprenticeship in hospitality management, currently delivered at Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies (BCFTCS). The graduate apprenticeship at BCFTCS involves the integration of key skills and level four NVQ units into the established hospitality business management undergraduate degree programme. Key outcomes to emerge from the design, implementation and first year delivery of the graduate apprenticeship are discussed to assess if the integration of key skills and NVQs into an existing programme of study provides added value to the student learning experience. The major benefits and challenges which a programme involving a coalescence of key skills, HE award and NVQs offers HE institutions and employers are discussed.

This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars’ reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political ‘actors’, just like their human counterparts, having ‘agency’ – which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) ‘battlefields’ wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi: 10.1177/0266666915622044.

The purpose of this research was to examine the disconnect between urban school expectations and actual lived realities of marginalized students. Taking into consideration the conversation surrounding the definitions of urban education, and the importance of school connectedness with youth, we chose to focus on the lives of five former high students navigating their education. Our qualitative study found that the students’ lives presented challenges to linear pathways to school success. Drawing from the student’s stories, recommendations are proposed to disrupt the deficit definition of urban education and educational leaders initiate critical school connections to students lived realities.

We introduce a new approach to measuring the match between education and occupation by using the number of college courses related to one's occupation. Previous studies have only considered the match between college "major" and occupation. This approach ignores the content of education and the courses taken in college. We find that taking courses in college that are relevant to one's occupation is significantly associated with higher wages, which can be taken as evidence against the notion that returns to college are principally a matter of signaling. We further find that performing well in these courses is associated with an even higher wage premium. A student's wage increases, on average, by 1.6-2.9 percent for each matched course. This effect increases to 2.3-3.8 percent when we use a grade weighted measure of match.JEL Codes-J24, I26, J62