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Conceptualising transitions from vocational to higher education: bringing together Bourdieu and Bernstein

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Hayward, G 

Abstract

In this paper we provide a framework for conceptualising transitions from Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes to Higher Education (HE), by bringing together Bourdieu’s and Bernstein’s theoretical approaches with the view to attend to the often side-lined epistemic and pedagogical parameters. We utilise the Bourdieusian tools of field, habitus and capital to capture the relational, material and cultural aspects of HE transitions. In using a Bernsteinian lens we shed further light into how social agents acquire differentially structured and valorised knowledges and develop a sense of themselves as hierarchically positioned knowers. The metaphor of transitional frictions is utilised to capture the ongoing struggles that students with a VET background experience as they make the transition to HE. We argue for the need of widening epistemic access and putting in place enabling pedagogies that can ease these transitional frictions, thereby potentially increasing the chances of successful HE participation and completion.

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Keywords

Transitions, Higher Education, Vocational Education and Training (VET), capitals, knowledge, pedagogy

Journal Title

British Journal of Sociology of Education

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0142-5692
1465-3346

Volume Title

41

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Rights

All rights reserved