Inclusive Further Education in a Market Economy

This research evaluates the process of providing an inclusive education in a
market culture. It investigates the experiences of eight young people with
learning difficulties and disabilities who are students in a further education
college. As it applies a focus to one specific case study example, in order to
generalise from the literature and two other sample colleges, it represents
ethnographic methodology. This is appropriate for the purposes of the study,
which are to explore the implications of such processes, within an institutional and
organisational structure which is subject to significant changes and restraints.
The period under examination is one in which provision for this group of learners
is influenced by a multiplicity of factors, not always evident on surface
examination. Consequently, a focused ethnographic case study allows for a level
of detailed analysis which can illuminate the effects of organisational changes
upon individual development.
The context in which the case study is set includes the plethora of Further
Education Funding Council documentation during the 1990s, the critiques offered
by academics of a narrowly competence-based and outcomes-related system,
and the implications for students with special educational needs in further
education colleges of the recent Dearing Report (1996) and soon to be published
Tomlinson Report (1996). The case study provides an illustration of issues raised
in recent literature and is set within the broader framework of recent initiatives.
Through the use of detailed evaluation of a sample of students progressing
through the assessment process in one college, recommendations and reflections
contribute original evidence of the influence of legislation on current practice.
Using the model of further education, tensions between an inclusive ideology and
the demands of a market economy are evaluated and the case-study evidence
has application beyond this sector to other areas of educational developments.

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