ABSTRACT
A college’s community is not confined to outside its walls in the geographical area surrounding the college. Holistically the college itself forms a community of people internally differentiated into staff and students. Like all social institutions, FE colleges have a social system that operates at the meso and micro levels. These broad internal communities can be broken down again into smaller groups of staff distinguished by hierarchy, status and pay (management, lecturers, technicians, support and guidance, cleaners, etc.), while students are differentiated by age and mode of study. Each individual and level within the hierarchy has clearly defined roles with social behaviour and interaction governed by rules, regulations and policies. All institutions work towards the integration and cohesion of their members through either democratic or authoritarian means. Experiences of staff (and students) will, therefore, vary according to the culture and context of a particular institution. In using the concept of culture, Clarke et al. provide a useful working definition in their idea that:
We understand the word ‘culture’ to refer to that level at which social groups develop distinct patterns of life, and give expressive forms to their social and material life-experience. Culture is the way, the forms, in which groups ‘handle’ the raw material of their social and material existence . . . A culture includes the ‘maps of meaning’ which make things intelligible to its members.
