This book argues that the current renegotiation of the postwar social contract concerning the welfare state in Europe is being accompanied by the renegotiation of a smaller-scale modern social pact between the university and the nation-state. Current transformations to the state under the pressures of globalization will not leave the university unaffected, and consequently it is useful to discuss the university and its future in the context of the state. In the new global order, against the odds, universities are striving to maintain their pivotal role in society. Their role as engines of economic growth and contributors to economic competitiveness between increasingly knowledge-driven economies is being widely acknowledged. But it is a radical reformulation of their traditional social roles. The main reasons for current transformations of the university include globalization pressures on nation-states and their public services, the end of the « Golden age of the Keynesian welfare state, and the emergence of knowledge-based societies and knowledge-driven economies. Therefore the university can no longer be discussed solely in traditional, relatively self-contained disciplinary contexts. Here the university is seen from a variety of perspectives and through the lens of a wide range of disciplines (mainly educational sciences, political economy, sociology, political sciences, and philosophy).

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The University and the State: A Study into Global Transformations

Since the mid-1970s, successive federal and state governments have redefined the
governance structure of Australian schooling in accordance with the principles of
the market and its corollary new managerialism (Hartley 1997; Marginson 1997;
Robertson 2000; Yeatman 1990). Morley and Rassool (1999, p 61) argue that â€˜the
introduction of markets and managers has been a generic transformational device
designed to restructure and reorient public service provisionâ€™. According to Yeatman
(1990, p 14), this structural and ideological shift has resulted in a corporate-style
bureaucracy whereby public sector activity is â€˜reduced to the effective, efficient and
economic management of human and capital resourcesâ€™. As the dominant style of
public administration and public service, it seeks to make government efficient by
doing more with less, focusing on outcomes and results and managing change better.
The common elements have involved site-based management, the language of
improvement and budgetary devolution (Morley & Rassool 1999).
 Commenting on the British experience, Hoggett (1996, p 12) argues that
three fundamental but interrelated strategies of control have been implemented over
the last decade to drive these reforms. First, competition has been introduced as a
means of coordinating the activities of decentralised units. Second, there has been an
attempt to decentralise operations whilst centralising strategic command. Third,
there has been the extended development of performance management techniques. Against this backdrop, we set out in this article to examine how six senior
teachers in one secondary school in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia
have experienced and responded to these generic managerial reforms. In doing so,
we are keen to re-insert â€˜the missing voices of teachersâ€™ (Smyth 2001, p 149) back
into the reform debate that raged in Western Australian schools in the late 1980s and
simmered throughout the 1990s following the introduction of the mandated Better
schools in Western Australia: a programme for improvement (Ministry of
Education, Western Australia 1987).

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What are teachers saying about new managerialism

During the year 2007 when this thesis was completed the European Union could look back at fifty years of collaboration, which began with the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and which has deve ...

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Learning To Be(come) A Good European : A Critical Analysis of the Official European Union Discourse on European Identity and Higher Education

Increasing emphasis has been placed on leadership within educational theory, policy and practice. Drawing on a wide range of academic literature and policy documents, this paper explores how the discourse of leadership has shifted and for what purposes. The authors are critical of the lack of conceptual underpinning for that discourse, evident both nationally and internationally, and they identify key issues that the teaching profession has been left to try to understand and make sense of. They caution that, despite attempts to align contemporary policy developments to position leadership as inherent in the role of every teacher, flaws in the conceptualisation of leadership, and particularly in favoured forms such as ‘distributed leadership’ and ‘teacher leadership’, pose significant challenges to a serious attempt to ‘reprofessionalise’ teachers. Contemporary developments in Scottish education are referred to, exemplifying key tensions inherent in translating international trends into practice.

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The shifting discourses of educational leadership: International trends and Scotland's response

This article is concerned first with identifying teacher characteristics connected with excellence. It then analyses the results of a survey conducted among primary school teachers in one local authority area in Scotland. Teachers responded to a questionnaire which asked them to rate in importance 44 characteristics of excellence. The findings suggest that teachers have a clear view of excellence. They consistently described excellence in terms of personal qualities and interpersonal skills. Teachers gave high ratings to qualities which demonstrated their expectations of positive classroom ethos and positive relationships with students. Practitioners consistently rated characteristics related to classroom ‘relationships in action’ as essential characteristics for excellent teachers. These findings suggest a new emphasis on interpersonal skills in continuing professional development for teachers who are increasingly expected to develop students’ dispositions relating to openness to new thinking; self‐respe...

Exploring the characteristics of ‘teachers for excellence’: teachers’ own perceptions

This paper attempts to apply the techniques of discourse analysis to some of
the key concepts in educational management. It employs a conceptual
framework which is informed by management theory and policy studies as
well as by the literature on discourse. The central part of the paper considers
examples of discursive forms which serve to disguise or conceal the power
dimension in educational institutions: these include appeals to â€˜learning
communitiesâ€™, â€˜transformational leadershipâ€™ and â€˜participationâ€™. It also
examines the significance of discursive shifts from â€˜rationalâ€™ to â€˜emotionalâ€™
language in education, drawing on the work of James (2000) and Hartley
(1999). The dominant vocabulary of educational management is then related
to wider issues of political power. Finally, the paper summarises the value of
discourse analysis at three levels of critical interpretation - text, voice and
narrative - and suggests that, despite the pervasiveness of managerial
discourse, there remains scope for interrogation and challenge.

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The Discourses of Educational Management

This article argues that a proper understanding of the role of institutions involved in teacher education requires a fuller examination of the political context in which they operate than is attempted in the three preceding papers. It is suggested that teacher educators are often politically naive about the way they are controlled by government agencies. A detailed analysis of the General Teaching Council for Scotland is offered to support the view that educational ‘policy communities’ are established and manipulated as a way of managing consent. The establishment of so‐called ‘independent’ professional bodies is seen as an exercise in political control, bureaucratic expansionism and professional protectionism.

Teacher Education in Canada and Scotland: a response

The standard histories of educational ideas have very little to say about Darwin.1 Where he does receive a mention, it is almost invariably in the context of general observations about the conflict between science and religion in the mid-nineteenth century2 or about the impact of scientific thinking on wider social fields, including education.3 At a slightly more practical level, a few commentators refer to Darwin in relation to arguments for the inclusion of science in the school curriculum and a corresponding diminution in the importance of classics.4 All this, however, is highly predictable. What is required is a sustained and systematic attempt to trace the influence of evolutionary thinking on the various fields which contributed to the shaping of educational theory and practice in the second half of the nineteenth century. This paper represents a first, tentative effort to map the territory. It will, inevitably, be a rough, working sketch rather than a finely-drawn piece of cartography, but it is hoped that others will be stimulated to refine and improve it.

Walter Humes

Papers

The Discourses of Educational Management

Teacher Education in Canada and Scotland: a response

Evolution and Educational Theory in the Nineteenth Century