Part 1 Closed doors -- chapter 1 The landscape of the Access to Higher Education Diploma / Nalita James -- chapter 2 Researching the Access to HE Diploma / Nalita James -- part 2 Stepping through the door -- chapter 3 The impact of social and economic contexts on accessing HE / Nalita James -- chapter 4 Struggling to return to formal learning -- Becoming an Access to HE student / Nalita James -- chapter 5 Practices of transition -- Being an Access to HE student / Nalita James -- chapter 6 The Access to HE Diploma as a community of practice / Nalita James -- part 3 Opening doors -- chapter 7 Access to HE tutors' stories / Nalita James -- chapter 8 Using inclusive teaching and learning strategies on the Access to HE Diploma / Nalita James -- chapter 9 The significance and importance of the Access to HE Diploma for students returning to education / Nalita James
Summary
Improving Opportunities to Engage in Learning investigates the experiences of mature adult learners returning to formal education. The book challenges the policy discourses in which Access to Higher Education survives by suggesting that continuing education is more about determination by students to alter their identities and career opportunities than meeting narrow performative criteria of financial targets. Chapters explore students' struggles with institutional and social structures in the current political and socio-economic climate, before identifying how the transformation of their learner identities is facilitated in the courses by collaborative cultures and supportive tutors
