Enclaves, empowerment and education

This paper firstly considers the processes whereby adult education lecturers can create environments (or enclaves) that encourage student transformation whatever the current educational regime. However, in offering evidence from a study of childcare students it favours the term empowerment over transformation for there is evidence that for some students the goal is stasis rather than major change. Secondly it considers and contextualises the findings from an empirical case study that resulted in the creation of a theoretical framework for ‘integrated lives’ and, holistically derived, occupational and attitudinal typologies. These are linked to existing theory, Amartya Sen’s ‘capability approach’, demonstrating how the association enabled further theorisation about change across the life-course and a means of co-considering detailed biographical accounts.