A Risky Business? Mature Working-class Women Students and Access to Higher Education Correspondence : Diane Reay,Kings College London,UK. E-mail: Diane.reay@kcl.ac.uk

This article looks at the experiences of a small, qualitative sample of 12 working-class women attending an Access course in a large, inner-city further education college. The risks and costs involved in making the transition to higher education were evident in the women's narratives, and both material and cultural factors inhibiting their access to higher education are examined. The desire to 'give something back' which motivated all these women's attempts to move into higher education is discussed. The women were either juggling extensive labour market commitments or childcare and domestic responsibilities with studying. In such circumstances, when any sort of social life is sacrificed, what becomes visible is time poverty, and, in particular, a lack of time for 'care of the self'. Six of the women were lone mothers and it is further argued that complexities of marital status intersect with, and compound, the consequences of class. Beck's thesis of individualisation is used as a backdrop to the women's stories in order to highlight the costs of individualisation for the working classes, but also to problematise the discrepancies and disjunctures between projects of the self and the women's experiences of returning to education. The article concludes with an exploration of the consequences of a policy of widening access and participation for working-class mature women and suggests that, while currently all the change and transformation are seen to be the responsibility of the individual applicant, universities, especially those in the pre-1992 sector, need to change if they are to provide positive experiences for non-traditional students like the women in this study.     

Neural adaptations with sport-specific resistance training in highly skilled athletes

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of variations in the volume and intensity of resistance training in highly skilled athletes on neural adaptive mechanisms: the maximality and pattern of neural drive. The maximality of muscle activation was measured using a high-resolution sample and hold amplifier to record interpolated twitches. The pattern of neural drive was measured by analysing isometric torque–time curves and electromyographic (EMG) characteristics during the performance of rapid isometric contractions at maximal effort. The volume and intensity of training were varied at 4-weekly intervals to systematically emphasize the development of strength, power and motor performance in 14 highly skilled track and field athletes (e.g. discus, hammer, javelin, shot put and weight). Knee extension strength increased significantly by 15% during steady

maximal isometric contractions and by 24% during rapid isometric contractions at maximal effort after the 16-week training programme (P < 0.05). Increases in EMG amplitude and rate of EMG activation indicated that improvements to the pattern of neural drive occurred with sport-specific resistance training (P < 0.05). The maximality and pattern of neural drive did not change in the control group.     

Choice Within Constraints: Mothers and schooling

ABSTRACT This article explores the discourses of choice in the context of the current, and international, public policy debates about providing freedom of choice for parents as consumers in the education market place. In particular it explores the public and private discourses of choice to illustrate the argument that mothers as parents are not 'free to choose' but act within a range of constraints. We term these both structural and moral constraints and offer evidence about them as experienced by mothers over time in relation to bringing up children, from resources to negotiations about relationships and expectations about both the nature of family life, employment and their children's place within the future. It also offers some evidence from our various research studies of mothers from their perspectives, about the processes of choice, in the context of both structural and moral constraints, including issues about involvement in their children's education and schooling. Consideration is also given to mothers' evaluations of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their possibilities of child rearing and education. The article concludes with the argument that mothers' experiences of the processes of bringing up and educating their children are not at all in harmony with the, albeit contradictory, public policy discourse of their being free to choose. Mothers' various perspectives from their varied vantage points are indeed limited by structural and moral possibilities in a patriarchal and racist society.     

Personal glimpses

The overarching purpose of this treatise was to develop a means by which to describe and evaluate existing perspectives on learning and to guide future explorations in this domain. Specifically, using the metaphor of a river system, we advance a framework into which theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations of learning can be positioned. We began by articulating nine principles of learning shared by diverse theoretical orientations. The primary focus of our analysis was a framework with four dimensions of learning (i.e., the what, where, who, and when) in continual interaction constituting the products and processes of learning. Based on these common principles and the interactive dimensions, we offered a definition of learning. Finally, we used three cases drawn from real-life experiences, and representing different configurations of the what, where, who, and when dimensions, to illuminate the comprehensiveness and utility of the topographical perspective on learning forwarded.