Access as regeneration: Discourses of Education in the narratives of Access to HE students

This study draws on the work of Michel Foucault to help frame an understanding of Discourses of Education at a college of Further Education in England. The study has two main elements. Firstly, an examination of the way that discourses have shaped the form and provision of Access to HE courses within the college, Northgreen, which is the largest provider of Further Education (FE) in the area. This involved a genealogical investigation as to the changing nature of Access provision within the College, which impacts upon what is available to potential students. Secondly, the study examines how adult students on an Access to Higher Education (HE) course draw on different discourses to shape, interpret and understand their educational journeys. The research takes the form of a case study of 10 students on an Access to HE course over a period of a year when they were making the transition from Further Education (FE) to Higher Education (HE). The students were interviewed up to three times; firstly towards the end of the Access course, secondly during their first term in higher education and finally towards the end of their first year in HE. Additionally staff members were interviewed and statistical and marketing information was collected from the college. Drawing on a Foucaultian notion of discourse has helped to unpick the way that change has been implemented within the college through a notion of ‘regeneration’. This term has been used to justify ‘change for the better’ but in the process silences resistance. The genealogical approach has helped chart the development of Access provision at Northgreen College by looking at where power was invested and how this has shaped and determined provision. This has implications for the choices available to students when they have returned to study, and opened up or limited their progression routes. Some students struggle to reconcile what they would like to do with what is available to them and have to justify (to themselves as much as anybody else) their actions, often drawing on policy discourses. People also incorporate ‘regimes of truth’ into their sense of who they are and this helps to define what is acceptable (or not) for them. The findings suggest that many students incorporate elements of discourses which are part of policy rhetoric in to their own identity constructions and use these discourses to justify their choices and decisions. These persuasive policy discourses can be described in Foucaultian terms as ‘governmentality’, where people are encouraged to discipline themselves for the ‘good of society’ as a whole, or at least for the good of certain groups. Creating a greater understanding of the way that power shapes knowledge and therefore what we can say to be ‘true’ opens up opportunities for resistance and the possibilities of new or ‘regenerated’ discourses.