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This thesis explores student becoming and related perceptions of difference within technical and vocational education and training (TVET) policy discourses. It is a case study approach underpinned by the principles of appreciative inquiry (AI). The context is a community college in the Caribbean with a strong focus on higher education (HE) as well as further education (FE). The case study is a specially designed TVET program for further education students. The purpose of this study was to determine the contributing factors that shape the policy environment for these students as well as their resultant life experiences as understood by the students themselves, tutors, policy designers and program administrators.

Gilles Deleuze's becoming ontology provides the main theoretical premise for exploring concepts of difference in internally in human being and to rationalise the totality of the student experience. Amartya Sen's capability theory is presented alongside Deleuze to further help to inform external policy processes and futuristic thinking about TVET and the higher education and further education environment. A major finding in the results was a natural coupling that seems to exist between becoming and capability. While this study's aim was to present a view of the TVET policy environment with specific reference to factors that could help or hinder student becoming, the results also revealed that there are other areas that could benefit from further research such as the voices that should inhabit the TVET policy process and the importance of teacher education training within TVET skills courses.

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