Transition and Transformation: The experiences of two young people

In this article I describe and elucidate the experiences of two young people as they pass into and through further education during what is often a formative period in their personal and intellectual development. Utilising data from semi-structured interviews conducted over a two year period, I adopt a case-study approach in which I focus on the young people's stories and passages into their post-16 careers. Through the stories I reveal how learning, as a socially organised process, was neither confined to particular place or location nor fixed within a specific timetable. Moreover, I show how their learning transcended the ordinary relationships of people in formal learning institutions and chronically infiltrated all the various dimensions of their young lives. Finally, I look outward from the research and indicate some of the ways in which work in this interpretative paradigm might provide a pointer to the future development of both theory and practice.