The transitions project was initially designed to focus on the changes in people’s lives
occasioned by the entry of their children into the formal school system. However it
soon became apparent from our pilot work that the changes involved and the
pathways into work, education or other activity were too diverse for the notion of a
single ‘transition’ to be sustained. We therefore recast this particular project
somewhat more broadly, in terms of adaptation and change. (This has not deterred us
from seeing it as the basis for future work on more clearly defined transitions -
recognising that it may well be part of a broader overall trend towards greater
ambiguity and blurring in life course transitions.1) The project involved interviews
with parents whose youngest child is between five and eight years old (in some cases
slightly older). The rationale for this sampling is that they were able to talk about the
changes that occurred when they no longer had a child below school age in the
household. The parents were identified through a variety of means, using both formal
educational institutions and informal initiatives.
Our topic guides contained a number of key prompts encouraging respondents to
range widely over their life stories, beginning with their experience of school. The
interviews were recorded, and lasted between 45 minutes and over two hours. We
have analysed each transcript by focusing initially on the primary outcome fields
identified in the triangle set out in Figure 1 (see p. 10); and then on other outcomes
emerging from the account. Transcripts were then read by a second researcher to
confirm, supplement or revise the first interpretation.
1.2 The nature of the evidence
We set out to reveal and explore causal links between learning of different kinds and
its effects. Tracing exact causality is predictably difficult. There are many instances
where a single learning episode is reported by the respondent as having led directly to
a specific outcome, in terms of changed behaviour, values or situation. Even there we
need to distinguish between sole and joint causality. Sole causality refers to instances
where it is education alone that has brought about the outcome, joint causality to
where it is education in interaction with other elements, such as religion or family
upbringing. (Of course, ‘sole’ causality is never pure, since individuals are already the
product of an ongoing mix of upbringing, social context and personal characteristic.)
Indirect effects can also be broken down into different categories. On the one hand
there are effects that are indirect because they occur at one or more remove down the
causal chain. They may or may not derive from another direct benefit. The sequence
is often not a tidy linear one. On the other hand there are effects that are indirect, in
that they impact on broader social relations, for instance in improving general levels
of trust or communication.
1 The latest National Adult Learning Survey (2001) reports very little apparent connection between
specified life events and participation in adult learning but observes that this may be because of the
data collected (La Valle & Blake, 2001).