"We all know why we’re here”: Learning as a Community of Practice on Access to HE courses
Online Access
https://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.globethics.net/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014319http://hdl.handle.net/2381/31829
Abstract
This article examines the extent to which Access to HE courses can be defined as communities of practice. Other studies have already revealed the importance of mutual engagement and supportive relationships between students, and students and tutors in facilitating learning. While previous studies carried out on Access to HE (AHE) courses in England and Wales have largely focused on single colleges, the study that this article draws on was carried out in three urban Further Education (FE) Colleges using a linked case studies design and a social interactivist lens. It investigated mature students' perspectives of their changing learning identities through their developing relationships with their tutors and with each other during their AHE courses. Qualitative data was collected from five to six self-selecting AHE students in each College using focus group interviews and from their tutors using individual interviews.The findings suggest that the AHE students in this study generally participated and interacted in a supportive and collaborative way, guided by their tutors, and how and why they did this. This mutual engagement around particular core values helped to construct communities of practice although some students remained peripheral participants. Within these communities were considerable inequalities of power, largely sustained by the institutional structures and professional discourses within which the AHE courses were located.Peer-reviewed
Post-print
Date
2015-03-09Type
Journal ArticleIdentifier
oai:lra.le.ac.uk:2381/31829Nalita James, Hugh Busher & Beth Suttill (2015): ‘We all know why we’re here’: Learning as a community of practice on Access to HE courses, Journal of Further and Higher Education
0309-877X
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014319
http://hdl.handle.net/2381/31829
10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014319
1469-9486