Centre for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)

Margaret Peat will present her PhD research on:

Unlocking the Word Hoard: The potential of Literacy Learning in the  reintegration of Ex Offenders, Disabled People and those discharged from  the Armed Forces

The purpose of my research has been  to identify the  particular social  and educational experiences, which  have affected research participants’  access to adult literacy learning and vocational rehabilitation  programmes; the key episodes in which  illiteracy and dissociation occurred and the transition points to literacy learning and vocational rehabilitation.  It has also focussed on the features of effective learning and vocational rehabilitation programmes in preventing the cycle of disadvantage. 

This presentation to SEND will be based on  the issues arising from biographical narrative interpretive interviews with research participants. These have  challenged and broadened my original assumptions about the nature and impact  of exclusion;  the types of transition experiences which can be formative for individuals;  the nature of the learning which can play a part in restoring and  resolving identity;  and the ways in which  reflexivity and instrumentality can be developed in support of individual agency.