ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of the research procedures adopted in a recent case study of a local Further Education College. 1 In so doing it considers both the methodological procedures adopted and the assumptions which guided the researchers in the field. The study represented an attempt to understand what it was like for craft students and their teachers to learn and teach within the FE sector. It furthermore sought to examine the relationship between the college, its local industrial environment and the broader social and economic issues affecting FE. Thus, although the study looked primarily at the day-to-day workings of one particular institution, Western College, the major objective was to reach a wider understanding of those issues which comprise the complex relationship between FE and the world of work.
