Search

Concerns about racism and race equality have been widely reported in the first decades of the 21st century, following the Black Lives Matter protests and campaigns such as 'Rhodes Must Fall'. Yet 'race' remains largely absent from policy debate and research concerning further education colleges in the four countries of the UK, particularly in relationship to leadership and governance. The focus of this paper is on who governs and why it matters. Governors and trustees play an increasingly visible and significant role in public, private and charity sector organisations, but diversity on governing bodies of further education across the UK remains patchy and is seen as a major challenge. The paper reports on what is known about the composition of governing bodies and what this tells us about the involvement of governors from black and minority ethnic backgrounds at the present time, drawing on a three-year project which examined the processes and practices of governing in the four countries of the UK. The findings highlight the continuing absence of governors from black and minority ethnic backgrounds on college governing boards and suggest that normative, invisible assumptions of how governing gets done persist, with black and minority ethnic governors often little more than a token gesture of adding diversity to the faces on the board.

The appointment of student governors to the governing board is mandatory in further education (FE) colleges across the UK. There is, however, confusion and lack of clarity over the role of the student governor, and little empirical research, especially involving direct observation, has been undertaken which sheds light on this. This paper examines how the role of the student governor is understood by governing boards and how it is enacted in practice. Over one calendar year, we observed and video/audio-recorded governing board meetings in eight FE colleges across the UK, two in each UK country (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales). In addition, we interviewed key actors and spoke to student governors. Our findings reveal a lack of understanding about the role of the student governor which creates a tension between student governors acting in an advisory capacity as part of the governing body, and student governors representing learner voice. We conclude with recommendations for boards aimed at facilitating meaningful engagement of the student governor in governing processes.

The English further education (FE) sector caters for young learners who are regularly defined as at risk due to a range of economic and social challenges, as transitions from youth to adulthood become more protracted, and inequalities amongst young people and between generations persist and deepen. At a time when policy places increasing responsibilities on governors and leaders to balance college performance and cost-effectiveness against FE's long-standing social justice mission, this article analyses how this tension plays out through the discursive construction of young learners by two English college governing boards. We use a critical discourse analysis approach to connect how young learners are 'talked into being' through the micro-level processes of governing within the wider context in which college governing operates. We argue that, despite a wider drive for governors to interact with learners, their understanding of learners is dominated by data, through which young learners in particular are constituted as "a" risk rather than "at" risk. We explore the discursive constructions of young learners that ensue in this data-dominated context, and the social practices governing boards use to manage the risks posed by young learners. We highlight the different positionings of governors and college senior managers within these constitutive practices, arguing that the ways young learners are discursively constructed is revealing of a central tension in college governing practices--that between the high-performing and the socially just college.

In high participation systems of higher education, the link between undergraduate study and progression to graduate employment is increasingly tenuous. One response is a growing emphasis on the development of employability skills and preparing students to take advantage of future opportunities as part of university study. This paper uses a Bourdieusian-based conceptualisation of graduate capitals, combined with a concern for the psycho-social dimensions of classed experience, to consider transitions through university and into employment for students from working-class backgrounds in England, drawing on data from a study of students who attended the two universities in Bristol UK. It is argued that the assemblage of capitals that make up graduate capital could be seen as constituting a form of symbolic capital with magical powers, that hides the power relations involved in successful progression to graduate futures. While the move from university into work is more prolonged and precarious for students from all backgrounds, access to the resources that enable the development and mobilisation of graduate capitals, along with psycho-social dimensions of class, create additional challenges for the development of viable graduate career identities for working-class students such as those discussed in this paper. The paper concludes by noting implications for policy and practice.

This paper explores ways in which university students articulate understandings of their class positions and perceptions of opportunities for social mobility. The promise that participation in higher education (HE) would lead to social mobility for all has been central to the project of widening participation. However, in the twenty-first century, graduate employment opportunities have not kept up with high rates of HE participation, and class divisions have become more visible rather than being reduced. Based on a longitudinal study of undergraduates attending two universities in the city of Bristol, UK at the beginning of the 2010s, this paper uses Anthias' notion of narratives of location to focus on students' awareness of social class and their experience of the dynamics of social difference in HE. The narratives demonstrate ways in which taken-for-granted privileged middle-class entitlement is performed and seen to dominate the social space of the university, from which working-class and other fractions of the middle-classes distance themselves. [Anthias, F. (2004) Social stratification and social inequality: Models of intersectionality and identity. In F. Devine, M. Savage, J. Scott, & R. Crompton (Eds.), Rethinking class. Culture, identities and lifestyles (pp. 24-45). London: Palgrave Macmillan].