The Participants

This chapter will introduce you to the students in this book who were transitioning from FE into HE and allow you to better understand them as people. It aims to provide an insight into their characters, their motivations for pursuing education and the different types of courses and institutions they attended. This is important to know as some universities have different types of institutional habitus that they expect students to understand and comply with, as if by osmosis—what is known as the “hidden curriculum” (Heirdsfield et al., 2008). This is the unwritten, unofficial and often unintended lessons, values and perspectives students encounter in the field of education that can be barriers to learning. It will also explain the context of the A level qualification which changed quite radically under the 2015 reforms. These alterations will next be explained in detail and how these modifications impacted on the students who sat these exams outlined.