Empowering Researchers in Further Education

Further education is not generally recognized for its research potential and, if researched at all, tends to be "researched on" rather than enabled to carry out research itself. Although the Learning and Skills Council's Further Education and post-16 sector encompasses around six million learners, four thousand providers and over #7 billion worth of provisions, little research in the sector uses the extensive data-rich client base it serves. Few, if any, in-house research findings inform its professional practice. This text constructs a new theoretical framework for specialist further education research culture, recognizing the unique contribution to research of FE practitioner-researchers. It identifies good practice in this field through a series of in-depth case studies linked to appropriate and innovative research methods.