Education - Research

This first volume explores the ways lifelong learning can contribute to the development of knowledge and skills for employment, and other areas of adult life. It addresses the challenges for researchers to study issues that are central and directly relevant to the political and policy debate, and to take into account the reality of people's lives.

This second volume discusses both the meaning of the Learning Society for adults with learning difficulties, and use of social capital to explain patterns of lifelong learning. It presents five different 'trajectories' of lifelong learning, explores determinants of participation and non-participation in learning, and innovation in Higher Education.

Lifelong learning is a key government strategy - both in the UK and internationally - to promote economic growth and combat social exclusion. This book presents a highly innovative study of participation in lifelong learning and the problems which need to be overcome if lifelong learning policies are to be successful.

This is the first book to draw together the evidence on the 'case' for skills and to examine the policies appropriate to achieving 'skills for all'.

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes.

Recent urban disturbances, concerns about the fate of asylum seekers and renewed debates about the nature of ethnic identity and citizenship have all combined to give ethnic differences a high public and policy profile. This book explores the diverse experiences of ethnic disadvantage and challenges common assumptions.

The widespread popularity of evaluation is based on the need to provide evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programmes. This book sees evaluation as an inherently political activity, and using a wide range of examples it relates practical issues in evaluation design to their political contexts.

The British government and powerful international agencies present investment in social capital as a way of promoting neighbourhood renewal, community health and educational achievement. This book confirms the significance of social capital as an analytical tool, while challenging the basis on which current policy is being developed.

This topical book argues that a new paradigm is emerging in education, in relation to the economic crisis. It is part of a more general trend to organisational democracy and the onus for change rests with teachers, heads, parents, community members, educational sponsors and partners.

This timely book analyses the relationship between the state, public policy and the types of knowledge that New Labour used to make policy and break professional cultures.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about the experiences of students in institutions of higher education from 'non-traditional' backgrounds with contributions from the UK, the USA and Australia which reveal that the issues surrounding the inclusion of 'non-traditional' students are broadly similar in different countries.

Social capital, children and young people is about the relationships and networks - social capital - that children and young people have in and out of school.