The impact of marketisation on the professional lives and identities of Black practitioners in UK further education.

The extent to which marketisation has impacted on the professional lives and
career development of black practitioners within UK further education has been
largely overlooked. Most studies have assumed a homogeneity of experience
of the managerialism which resulted from the enactment of the Further and
Higher Education Act 1992. Using a phenomenological approach, this study
explores the experiences of ten black educators within further education,
interpreted from their narrated professional life stories. The respondents
revealed the clash between race and markets and the impact which this had
both on their own careers, and on the opportunities offered to black students
within further education. The research reveals the professional identities taken
up by the ten respondents in response to marketisation, and develops a new
typology of black professional identity which demonstrates the plurality of
responses amongst black educators, and the consequences of taking up
particular identities on career development. This study also reveals that,
despite national initiatives which claim to be designed to increase the diversity
of the further education workforce, most respondents were either leaving, or
were seeking to leave, the further education sector. This study gives voice to
the changes to policy and practice which respondents considered essential if
race equality is to be delivered within further education, and seeks to render
visible the experiences and concerns of a largely overlooked cohort within the
further education workforce.