ABSTRACT
Managing educational transitions effectively has become a focus for policy, practice and research in the UK, leading to growing numbers of interventions throughout the education system. These tend to be rooted in assumptions that transitions are problematic for certain groups and individuals and therefore need to be managed more effectively. In order to evaluate the implications of different meanings and assumptions about transitions for educational goals and practices, this chapter draws on a seminar series ‘Transitions through the life-course’ in the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). It explores how concepts of identity, agency and structure appear in political, academic and practical concerns about transitions. It asks whether current emphasis on identity and agency over structure leads to practices that present transitions as inherently difficult and threatening, remove risk and challenge, formalise support and create the ‘self ’ as a new subject with a curriculum, pedagogy and forms of assessment.
