ABSTRACT
This chapter is different from those preceding it, in that it sets out to explain how the learning and skills sector works in practice. In forming and refining our explanation, we have developed a number of concepts, or theoretical building-blocks, which hold together large amounts of our data and which, we think, can make a complex story more manageable and understandable. The story of the sector in action is set in the wider political context of New Labour’s strategy of ‘modernisation’. Within this we explore the government’s use of policy drivers, narratives and levers and how these are mediated and translated at different levels of the LSS. The chapter concludes by exploring the potential of an ‘ecological perspective’ for understanding complex systems and encouraging collaborative relations between those seeking to build a more effective, equitable and inclusive learning system.
