Bill Esmond’s research in technical and vocational education and training has addressed the inequalities opening up in the experiences of both vocational educators https://rdcu.be/b7pxd and their students https://bit.ly/2ZNsq62, A monograph with Liz Atkins theorising these developments, ‘Educating for the Hour-glass Economy: Technical Elites, Reproduction and Social Justice’ will be published by Routledge next year. He is Co-Convenor of the BERA Post-compulsory and lifelong learning SIG

Bill Esmond is associate professor at the University of Derby, where he is cluster lead for research in the field of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), professional and continuing education. Following extensive periods of work in industry and in the further education sector, his research during the last decade has examined the interface of TVET with work and with higher education; the trajectories of marginal educators; and international comparison of TVET systems and their divergence from Europeanisation.

At a time of increasing policy attention on the sector, his work draws attention to questions of society and political economy that underlie contemporary discourses and debates. Recent publications include study of the ‘subaltern educator’ (https://rdcu.be/bZoAs) and ongoing work with Liz Atkins on the formation of ‘technical elites’ and corresponding marginalisation within the sector, shaping and reproducing the labour force of the ‘hourglass economy’. (Full list on google scholar.)

His present role is centred on building research capacity at local, regional and national levels, with the aim of strengthening the research community and enabling it to provide deeper, theorised explanations of our field, informing policy debate and educational practice.