Working with Personal Tutor Critical Consciousness to Explore Critical Pedagogical Practice in Further Education Tutorials in England.

In 2011, whilst working in a general further education college in England (GFETE), the decision was taken to remove all group tutorials to focus on 1:1 performance management, resulting in the elimination of socio-political engagement with students. This felt particularly divisive and oppressive at a time when students' lives were being significantly impacted by the new coalition government (FE News, 2011; Mourant, 2011; Taylor, 2011).
I discovered that personal tutors were finding ways to resist the college decision and engage in critical pedagogy, reaffirming its place in the college. By using Burawoy’s Extended Case Method as a methodological framework, personal tutors across several colleges in England shared their experiences and understanding of critical pedagogical practice within tutorial spaces. Gramsci’s “hegemony”, Freire’s “critical consciousness”, and Foucault’s “heterotopia” provided the theoretical links to explore these contexts and link the micro-processes of personal tutors to macro-forces of institution, government, and society.
The research unmasks a critical consciousness amongst personal tutors that discusses the hegemonic agendas which shape and impact further education tutorials and how the institution impacts on developing critical pedagogy and the overarching role of the personal tutor. It raises awareness of the challenges that personal tutors are facing in their classrooms in relation to prejudice and discrimination, and the missing links in political knowledge that could provide the key to challenging hegemony. It uncovers collective themes experienced by personal tutors in several colleges to galvanise a new voice in GFETE, and further posits the future of tutorials as heterotopic space (Blair, 2009) to continue the challenge of hegemonic ideals.

Blair, E. (2009) ‘A further education college as a heterotopia’, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 14(1), pp. 93–101.

DfE (2011) Plans to end the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) programme, GOV.UK. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plans-to-end-the-education-maintenance-allowance-ema-programme (Accessed: 31 August 2018).

FE News (2011) ‘Colleges fear impact of spending cuts’, FE News, 26 April. Available at: https://www.fenews.co.uk/fe-news/9463-colleges-fear-impact-of-spending-cuts (Accessed: 7 September 2018).

Mourant, A. (2011) ‘FE colleges hit by more cuts’, The Guardian, 28 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/feb/28/funding-cuts-affect-colleges-extracurricular (Accessed: 7 September 2018).

Taylor, J. (2011) What impact has scrapping EMA had?, BBC Newsbeat. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/15272526/what-impact-has-scrapping-ema-had (Accessed: 31 August 2018).