Brenda Margaret Little

The Open University · Faculty of Arts

Bernstein’s concept of classification and framing links notions of knowledge, democracy and social justice, providing a perspective from which to address critical questions of what knowledge is produced, who has access to it, and how knowledge is distributed. Bernstein’s conceptual framework is used to inform an analysis of national policies steeri...

The higher education system in the United Kingdom has traditionally consisted of a two-cycle structure for taught programmes, leading to two main qualifications: the Bachelor’s degree at undergraduate level, which is normally awarded “with honours” and is often termed the first degree; and the Master’s degree at postgraduate level. These are equiva...

Purpose UK government strategies for higher education (HE) continue to emphasise the promotion and enhancement of students' employability skills and subsequent graduate opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to explore what this means for those HE learners already in work. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents the findings of a natio...

Within a diverse and expanding system of higher education (HE), such as in the UK, discourse on teaching and student learning highlights tensions between different notions of excellence. For example, excellence as a positional good for students, an aspirational target for continuous quality enhancement, a form of reputational advantage for HE insti...

This article is about student engagement and in particular the engagement of students in internal institutional quality assurance processes in the UK. It discusses the extent to which the introduction of more explicit internal and external quality assurance processes militate against the notion of the student as a part of a ‘cohesive learning commu...

This paper explores graduates’ views on the relationship between higher education and employment. It draws on a major European study involving graduates five years after graduation and highlights similarities and differences between UK graduates’ experiences and their European counterparts. Specifically we address questions raised in the study abou...

This report draws on a substantial body of research undertaken by the Open University’s Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) on the changing relationships between higher education and society. Higher education currently faces many changes, some externally driven by government policies and changing patterns of social and econ...

The paper compares the early employment experiences of graduates from the shorter UK bachelors degree with those from the somewhat longer masters programmes to be found in continental Europe. The UK graduates appear to be less prepared for entry to employment and to find their degrees to be less appropriate to that employment. However, many of the...

This study, commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), explored the extent and nature of student engagement in the higher education sector in England. The study was concerned with institutional and student union processes and practices – such as those relating to student representation and student feedback – which see...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore to what extent there are variations in the development of graduates once in employment; to what extent these variations can be explained by differences in the higher education systems; and what the current moves towards greater harmonisation between these systems might mean for graduates' continui...

The report is based on the results of a major international study of graduate employment some five years after graduation. The report examines differences between European and UK graduates' patterns of employment and characteristics of their current work when age differences are taken into account. Overall UK graduates were both younger and older a...

Increasing expectations are being placed on higher education institutions to ensure the economic relevance of research and knowledge creation as well as developing the skill needs of workers in modern knowledge-based societies. In the UK, workplace learning has long been a feature of higher education in certain subject areas, and in the later 1990s...

Government calls for an expanded and more diverse higher education system can be traced back over a quarter of a century at least. Access to the system was also to be more diverse. In this article we consider the case of young people's access to higher education through different pathways. We draw on the findings of recent empirical studies which f...

The chapter brings together a number of strands of the author's empirical work (on students' term-time working, and on students' broader higher education experiences), locates them within wider considerations of students' engagement with social networks, and the development of social capital, and poses questions about the diversity of students' exp...

The study, undertaken between March and November 2005 aimed to inform HEFCE thinking on developing a strategy for workplace learning by: exploring the nature, purposes and outcomes of workplace learning; considering workplace learning within the broader relationships between the worlds of work and learning; exploring emerging changes in higher educ...

Incl. bibl., abstract. Since the mid-1980s, the UK government polices for higher education have reflected a belief in the contribution of higher education to economic prosperity and have generally encouraged the development of work-related curricula in higher education. In 2000, the government supported the introduction of a new kind of higher educ...

In the UK, there is currently considerableinterest in the nature and extent of full-timeundergraduates' term-time working. Thisinterest stems from at least two perspectives.First that as the system of student financingin the UK has changed, so has the extent towhich students need to boost their incomethrough employment. The second perspective istha...

This report examines the links between work experience during higher education and experiences within the labour market in the UK, post-graduation. It has been based on data on UK graduates, with a sample drawn from the 1994/5 cohort of students graduating in 'first degree' or equivalent programmes. The research conducted (which was part of a large...

This paper comments on the findings from a European survey of graduate employment and shows the difficulty of trying to make international comparisons of higher education's contribution to graduate employability. In the process it is suggested that comparison within the United Kingdom is also problematic and evidence is provided of the impact on em...

This report has been prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England using data collected as part of a study commissioned by the European Commission through its Targeted Socio-Economic Research Programme. The study was completed in November 2000 and the international project report has been submitted to the Commission. Other reports a...

Research findings on graduate employment in the UK continue to highlight the importance that employers attach to the general knowledge, attitudes and social skills that graduates possess in addition to specific disciplinary knowledge and expertise. Additionally, work based learning is increasingly being viewed as an important vehicle by which under...

Incl. bibliographical references, index, biographical notes of the contributors

This article examines the changing relationship between higher education and the state in the United Kingdom during a period of rapid higher education expansion and diversification. The roles, respectively, of the academic community, the labour market, and government in the steering of this relationship are considered. The paper concludes that, alt...

The idea of work based learning in higher education might sound like a contradiction in terms. Work based learning is surely in the the workplace. The senses in which it might also, under certain conditions, be in higher education are explored in this review. There are increasing arrangements whereby people can obtain academic recognition for learn...

The Higher Education Academy commissioned a review of the literature on excellence in learning and teaching in higher education to enhance the higher education sector’s understanding of the varied conceptualisations and usages of the term ‘excellence’ and consider the implications for future policy and practice in relation to promoting and developi...

The report is based on the results of a major international study of graduate employment some five years after graduation. It presents an analysis of graduates' perceptions of what competences they need to do their current jobs and whether they possess these competences.

The report is part of a suite of research projects on apprenticeships under the overall theme of 'making work-based learning work'. The aim of this particular study was to explore the role of level 3 vocational qualifications and work-based learning, including Modern Apprenticeships, as progression routes to higher education and to higher-level kno...

The Open University's Centre for Higher Education Research and Information was commissioned in June 2007 to undertake a formative evaluation of Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs). Research to inform the interim evaluation has been two-fold: desk research of LLN documentation and visits to and interviews with personnel involved in eight LLNs. The rep...

This article is about Lifelong Learning Networks in England that are groups of higher education institutions and further education colleges covering a city, area or region. These networks have been established through funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and their policy objective is to improve the coherence, clarity and ce...

The symposium paper addresses the conference theme of the relationship between policy, practice and research by critically examining policy discourse in lifelong learning and the role of research in understanding policy effects. Empirical and theoretical research on the rationale and practice of examples of short cycle HE including sub-bachelors de...

Some of the main findings from a survey of nationally representative samples of graduates 5 years after graduation, in 13 European countries, are presented. Differences between UK and other European graduates' views on the relationship between higher education and employment are presented and reasons underlying such differences are explored.

In a climate of financial constraint there is increasing pressure on HE to justify its draw on the public purse. Viewing HE as investment in raising the skill level of the workforce raises the question of the effectiveness of that investment and understanding effective skill utilisation is therefore critical. In this paper, the authors argue that t...

The review provides a commentary and identifies gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the pedagogical issues relating to work-based learning. For the purposes of the review, the term work-based learning is used as a form of 'employee learning' that can be blended with other approaches to learning and is intended to mean the learning process by...