Description or Analysis? A Critical Review of Accounts of Further Education in the 1970s

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The paper reviews some of the accounts of FE which appeared in the 1970s. Largely the accounts are criticised for failing to explore the nature and extent of the relation of FE to the wider economy and social structure and for ignoring classroom life in FE. These two major developments in the analysis of schooling in the 1970s have failed to penetrate the accounts of FE. What we do find is consideration of day release students, the responses of FE to local demands and its self‐ascribed flexibility. The theoretical framework of these studies, what they take for granted and some of their empirical findings, are critically reviewed and a number of shortcomings are highlighted. The underlying theme of the paper is that a gap exists between accounts of FE and what needs to be examined; the tone of much of the literature is totally non‐critical; and the framework of the literature is descriptive rather than analytical. A major step in rectifying this would be the use in accounts of FE of developments made in the use of reproduction of the social structure through schooling and a more thorough account of the ethnography of classroom life.

This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit: