Power and Resistance in Further Education: The discursive work of negotiating identities

Roger Harrison and his colleagues argue that the discursive construction of flexibility, as a feature of further education, has produced a range of responses from academic staff Rather than learning to understand themselves as eagerly responsive to the changing demands of the flexible organisation, academics position themselves strategically, in the interests of survival, but also with the best interests of students stubbornly in mind. This chapter brings the practitioner to the centre of the debate about power and resistance: we see what lecturers and teachers actually do in response to discursive pressure, preparing us for the further interrogation of practice in Quinn's and Colley's chapters.