ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 discusses how Access to HE students reconstruct their learner identities as they come to understand themselves as learners and engage in formal learning. It begins by considering how to makes sense of Access to HE students’ constructions of identity. Participating in Access to HE courses helped the students to alter their learner identities and develop their sense of agency as they progressed through the course. These were complex processes that involved the interplay between individual agency and identity, institutional structures, pedagogical practices and social relationships between tutors and the students. The chapter also examines how the students dealt with fragile identities emerging from the conflicts of family and work, and the gendered nature of being an Access to HE student. It also considers Access to HE students’ perceptions of their learner identities at the end of their studies. The chapter highlights how returning to education involved a process of (re)construction and on-going development that (re)shaped the Access to HE students’ learner identities and influenced their orientations towards future participation in it.
