This article reports the views of managers and tutors on the role of policy 'levers' on teaching, learning, and inclusion in colleges of Further Education (FE) and, now, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). Furthermore, the size and diversity of these institutions also present analytical challenges and opportunities. We are able to observe how the eight learning sites within four colleges, have responded to the demands of the external environment (e.g. national policy, the regulatory regimes of the LSC and local contexts) and how, as large institutions, they 'translate' these external demands into institutional plans. We can also see how within the institution, policy levers interact with a range of other factors -national, local and institutionaland go through a complex 'mediation' process to produce cultures, systems and practices that affect learning and inclusion. The managers were mainly from college departments or sections, responsible for the eight Level 1 and 2 courses that constituted these learning sites. However, we were able to interview principals or vice principals from each of the colleges who provided insights as to how large institutions position themselves in relation to the contexts of national pressures and local environments. For a fuller account of the research approach and the context of the sector, see the introductory paper in this collection . While we have focused on a very small sample of the total number of FE colleges in England, we felt it necessary to tease out the intricate ways in which colleges both 'mediate' and 'translate' national policy. process by which a range of actors interact with policy. In this paper we focus, in particular, on actors at the level of the FE college. From a system and policy-making perspective, we also use the term 'policy mediation' to look at what happens to policy as it travels through the different levels of the LSS and through different stages of the policy process. Translation is used to refer to specific interpretative acts by either professionals or policy-makers within the general process of mediation. These terms are elaborated further in Section 4.
CHALLENGES FROM NATIONAL POLICY AND LOCAL ECOLOGIESAn analysis of events in the 13 years since the Incorporation of FE colleges reveals both continuity and change and the continuities are as significant as the changes. What has changed since 2001 is that FE colleges in England have moved from being exclusive members of a discrete national college sector to becoming part of an expanded LSS. Whilst they, like other major players, broadly accepted the idea of a unified LSS , some senior managers in our study complained that, unlike the FEFC, the LSC did not really understand colleges or how they 3 operated. They also felt that LSC policy was highly directive yet, at the same time, unstable. Colleges reported that they had to cope with instabilities resulting from changes in national priorities, targets and funding, while at the same time, responding to a repertoire of other policy lever...