Lesley Doyle

Bridging the gap A Case Study of Curriculum Continuity at Key Stage 2/Key Stage 3 Transfer

The issue of learning loss and lack of continuity, especially as pupils transfer from primary to secondary school, is a source of major concern.

Universities and Community-Based Research in Developing Countries: Community Voice and Educational Provision in Rural Tanzania:

The main focus of recent research on the community engagement role of universities has been in developed countries, generally in towns and cities and usually conducted from the perspective of universities rather than the communities with which they engage. The purpose of this article is to investigate the community engagement role of universities in the rural areas of developing countries, and its potential for strengthening the voice of rural communities. The particular focus is on the provision of primary and secondary education. The article is based on the assumption that in order for community members to have both the capacity and the confidence to engage in political discourse for improving educational capacity and quality, they need the opportunity to become involved and well versed in the options available, beyond their own experience. Particular attention is given in the article to community-based research (CBR). CBR is explored from the perspectives of community members and local leaders in the government-community partnerships which have responsibility for the provision of primary and secondary education in rural Tanzania. The historical and policy background of the partnerships, together with findings from two case studies, provide the context for the article.

Researching Transitions in Learning and Education: international perspectives on complex challenges and imaginative solutions

The purpose of this special issue is to stimulate a new conversation using radical international perspectives on transitions in learning – formal and informal – experienced by young people, and reported in this eclectic collection of articles. One of the key challenges is to understand how we might re-theorise transition using these international perspectives as critical tools. In the UK, it has been argued, the traditional structures of transition have become obscured within a ‘marketised education’ offering the ‘illusion’ of individual choice. For example, Biesta (2006) wrote that a ‘predicament’ could arise from the concept of lifelong learning where participants can feel a lack of empowerment to create their own learning ‘agenda’ amid conflicting life and social demands. These factors can result in a paradoxical process: the increasing of ‘individualisation’ in the public sphere, and simultaneously increased reliance upon family resources in the private sphere. In a parallel vein, Cote and Levine (2002, cited in Schwartz et al, 2005) observe:

Conceptualising a Transition: The Case of Vocational and Academic Learning in England, Scotland and the USA

The contention of this article is that the potentially productive developmental learning experience of the transition which young people in secondary school make between concurrent vocational and academic courses is largely unrecognised and thus unexploited. To support this contention, and to suggest a more productive way forward, understandings of, and attitudes towards, vocational learning and the rationales behind them are analysed. Following on from this, findings are presented from three related empirical studies on the experiences of young people, and their teachers, as they transition between vocational and academic courses. The findings are then conceptualised through the lens of theoretical approaches which privilege and highlight the importance of supported developmental learning, as distinct from the current focus on societal and policy rationales. Particular attention is paid to Beachs notion of ‘consequential transitions’. The article concludes with an outline of the opportunities that an approach based on symbiosis between vocational and academic learning can offer for the improved acquisition of skills, knowledge and understanding by young people.