What is it like to teach and study in further education? With further education expanding rapidly, the authors of this text believe it is essential that teachers, academics and politicians grasp the nature of the experience. Alongside the detailed interview research, the book also examines the wider social and cultural context in which further education exists. It asks the question, is further education's function merely to enable a greater number of students to go on to higher education, or is it to extend generalized knowledge to wider sections of the population than ever before?