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Showing papers in "Journal of Education Policy in 1995"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The impact of the marketization of education on choice and school intakes in Greencity, New Zealand is examined in this paper, drawing on both qualitative analyses of the enrolment patterns of almost 9000 secondary school students as well as interviews with school principals.
Abstract: The impact of the marketization of education on choice and school intakes in ‘Greencity’, New Zealand is examined. We report a study of a ‘lived’ market, drawing on both qualitative analyses of the enrolment patterns of almost 9000 secondary school students as well as interviews with school principals. The removal of zoning in Greencity provided more choice only to a small group of families. By enlarging the already sizeable group of higher socio‐economic students bypassing their local schools, choice intensified socio‐economic segregation between schools. Market reforms were thus found to have a differential impact on schools with some working‐class schools entering a spiral of decline while higher socio‐economic status schools were relatively unaffected. The responses of schools to the market varied considerably in ways that were related to their initial market position, their ability to change the formal rules of the market and the actions of neighbouring schools. The authors suggest that some...

129 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the reasons a sample of Scottish parents gave for rejecting their designated secondary school and choosing a different one and found that the importance of parental socio-economic status (SES) was a consistent theme in the reasons for rejecting the local school and for selecting a different school, and the degree of importance accorded different sources of information.
Abstract: This study examines the reasons a sample of Scottish parents gave for rejecting their designated secondary school and choosing a different one. A consistent theme in the findings is the importance of parental socio‐economic status (SES). It was related to the reasons for rejecting the local school and for selecting a different school, and to the degree of importance accorded different sources of information. Reasons pertaining to social and reputational factors and to disciplinary climate were the dominant themes for both rejection and selection of secondary schools. The academic quality of the school was of lesser importance. The results suggest that an educational marketplace that parallels the free‐market model works only for a limited subgroup of the population that is already advantaged in the present educational system.

73 citations


Journal ArticleDOI

70 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the activities of the Working Group formed in July 1990 by central Government in the UK to "advise" on a National Curriculum Physical Education (NCPE) for state schools in England and Wales.
Abstract: This paper documents the activities of the Working Group formed in July 1990 by central Government in the UK to ‘advise’ on a National Curriculum Physical Education (NCPE) for state schools in England and Wales. The analysis concentrates on the interactions between group members and the Secretary of State for Education and the Minister for Sport, a process in which there was a struggle for control of what Bernstein refers to as the ‘pedagogic device’ (Bernstein 1990) ‐ the rules governing the form and content of the curriculum of PE and concomitantly how the body should be schooled. The data point to a complex dialectic between the discourses of cultural restoration and progressivism, and reveal how the latter was both circumscribed and ‘regulated’ by sometimes subtle, at other times quite brutal discursive strategies. Running through the discussion are issues relating to the nature of power, authority and control in the policy‐making process. 1. This paper draws on data from an Economic and Soci...

66 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that recent changes to vocational education and training policy in England and Wales amount to a new policy paradigm, based on voluntarism, training markets, individual responsibility for learning and payment against measured outcomes.
Abstract: We argue that recent changes to vocational education and training policy in England and Wales amount to a new policy paradigm. Some key components of this paradigm are outlined, within the recent historical context in which they evolved. The central principles are of voluntarism, training markets, individual responsibility for learning and payment against measured outcomes. An early example of this new paradigm in practice is the Training (or Youth) Credits initiative, which is a voucher‐driven programme of work‐based training for school leavers. We report on a research investigation into one of the early Training Credit pilot schemes and analyse the implications of the findings for the new paradigm. We discovered complex and culturally grounded actions and interactions which were very different from the simplistic, technical assumptions underpinning the new policies. We also found that elements of the new paradigm threatened to reduce training quality, despite the rhetorical intention to improve...

32 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the role of teacher restructuring in school reform in England and the USA and suggests that school reform is underpinned by the rise of differentiation and flexibility in teachers' work and contrasts the response of the teacher unions to reform and restructuring.
Abstract: This paper examines the place of teacher restructuring in school reform in England and the USA. It contrasts the language of reform with the shifting conditions of work in teaching and suggests that school reform is underpinned by the rise of differentiation and flexibility in teachers’ work. Lastly, it contrasts the response of the teacher unions to reform and restructuring.

31 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that the De Klerk government's policies around school desegregation exhibit a complex mix of privatization and devolution as part of a strategy to protect vested interests in the historically privileged sector of white education.
Abstract: Political transition in South Africa has proved to be a contradictory, contested and faltering process. One of the sites of greatest social conflict and breakdown since the mid‐1970s has been the apartheid education system. Yet, during the three years following De Klerk's historic moves towards a ‘new South Africa’, there were no fundamental attempts to address the overall education crisis through policy change. A key issue in the educational dispensation is the future of the comparatively small number of well‐resourced, well‐functioning historically white schools. This article analyses the desegregation of these schools to illustrate trends in state policy which are likely to influence the future educational settlement. It argues that the De Klerk government's policies around school desegregation exhibit a complex mix of privatization and devolution as part of a strategy to protect vested interests in the historically privileged sector of white education. The policy shift towards desegregation i...

26 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, contracts, control and evaluation of education contracts are discussed in the context of contract-based and contract-free evaluation of teachers' compensation in the public education system.
Abstract: (1995). Contracts, control and evaluation. Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 271-285.

25 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines how state funding is obtained in the Netherlands and shows that advocates of faith-based grant-maintained schools in Britain have drawn very selectively on the Dutch situation, where groups of parents or others can receive state funding for new private schools on an equal basis to state-provided schools.
Abstract: The 1993 Education Act for England and Wales opened the way for faith‐based grant‐maintained schools. The first applications for the re‐establishment of existing private schools as grant‐maintained schools have already been considered by the Funding Agency for Schools for England and decisions from the Secretary of State for Education are expected soon. The various individuals and pressure groups that supported this change in policy frequently drew on international comparisons in their claims for the right to establish state supported faith‐based schools. In particular, many advocates looked to the situation in the Netherlands where groups of parents or others are able to receive state funding for new private schools on an equal basis to state‐provided schools. This paper examines how state funding is obtained in the Netherlands and shows that advocates of faith‐based grant‐maintained schools in Britain have drawn very selectively on the Dutch situation. There are many elements of the Dutch situa...

24 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper explored the marketization of special educational needs (SEN) within the quasi-market structures established by Conservative government reform of education and other public services, and argued that reform may have limited impact on choice, accountability, quality and schools' capability to provide for SEN.
Abstract: This article explores the marketization of special educational needs (SEN) within the quasi‐market structures established by Conservative government reform of education and other public services. It considers recent legislation on SEN, including the Code of Practice, and identifies the market‐based systems and procedures, and managerialism, now characteristic of SEN policy and provision. It is argued that reform may have limited impact on choice, accountability, quality and schools’ capability to provide for SEN, and may also have various repercussions for longstanding issues in SEN policy such as equity and inclusion.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the social structure of education has been studied in the context of institutional theory and social structures of education, with a focus on the role of the teacher and the student.
Abstract: (1995). 12. Institutional theory and the social structure of education. Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 167-188.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, public sector restructuring is presented as the policy context of the reforms and neo-liberalism as the critique of state reason that has been used to explain the reduction of the state in terms of the numbers of people it employs and the scope of its direct control.
Abstract: It is argued that, as a result of recent restructuring, the state in New Zealand has paradoxically become minimalized as well as more powerful and pervasive. This paper presents public sector restructuring as the policy context of the reforms and neo‐liberalism as the critique of state reason that has been used to explain the reduction of the state in terms of the numbers of people it employs and the scope of its direct control. Reforms to tertiary education are seen to follow the restructuring of the core public sector. Michel Foucault's (1991a) notion of governmentality, it is argued, is a powerful critique of neo‐liberalism through focusing on practices rather than theories of state. One element of the reforms to tertiary education ‐ the practices of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) ‐ is presented as a counter instance of neo‐liberalism. The account of the governmental practices of NZQA illustrate that neo‐liberalism is an inadequate account of state reason because it cannot exp...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the career of a major government initiative, Curriculum Organization and Classroom Practice in Primary Schools: A Discussion Paper, from inception to implementation, using an interpretive approach.
Abstract: Using an interpretive approach, this article examines the career of a major government initiative, Curriculum Organization and Classroom Practice in Primary Schools: A Discussion Paper, from inception to implementation. The document, launched in 1992, aroused spirited and sometimes acrimonious debate in the press, and among politicians, educationists and teachers. The widely differing interpretations of the paper are seen as products partly of differing interests and partly of the different contexts and phases the paper went through. These consisted of contexts of general influence; opportunity and initiation; text production; immediate reception; mediation; and implementation. These contexts fall into two broad stages: the political, when the policies of the ‘New Right’ dictated the course and reception of action; and the educational, when the document was mediated into practice through the LEA (showing ‘strategic leadership') and head teachers (acting as ‘gatekeepers') and appropriated by class...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of the state increasingly becomes that of policy formation for predetermined outcomes coupled with a shift of accountability to the local level in the new "education market" as discussed by the authors, which is a game of truth.
Abstract: Since the mid‐1980s in Australia national economic planning has dictated to public policies concerning post‐compulsory education and training. Education is being conceptualized within an economic framework which owes its existence to problematic disjunctures between policy and practice which are now ‘mirrored’ in the educational sector. Despite progressive elements in the formulation and implementation of policies, the meaning of both participation and outcomes in educational terms is problematic. The relationship between the centralization of the power of the state and its devolution has changed, with the role of the state increasingly that of policy formation for predetermined outcomes coupled with a shift of accountability to the local level in the new ‘education market’. Foucault's imagery of the ‘game of truth’ is useful here. The redefinition of the centralist/devolution dyad and the new managerial control of education performance has changed the rules of the educational game and establishe...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the potential contribution to equal educational opportunities policy of recent insights from feminist theory and research inspired by postmodernism has been considered, by means of a discussion of three twin concepts, which recent debates in feminist theory have centred on: socialization and construction, equality and difference, and diversity and generality.
Abstract: This article considers the potential contribution to equal educational opportunities policy of recent insights from feminist theory and research inspired by postmodernism. First, a general outline of this contribution is presented by means of a discussion of three twin concepts, which recent debates in feminist theory have centred on: socialization and construction, equality and difference, and diversity and generality. Second, three recent targets of Dutch educational policy are discussed from a feminist perspective: encouraging girls to choose mathematics and science, the introduction of the subject ‘care’ and the development of equal opportunities as an element of educational quality. It is argued that recent feminist insights are useful for analysing policy; they are particularly helpful in developing an approach to gender inequality in education which does not blame or stereotype girls.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the educational community through a neo-institutional lens has been discussed, with the theme of "We have the right to be different" (i.e., we can be different).
Abstract: (1995). 4. ‘We have the right to be different’: educational community through a neoinstitutional lens. Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 55-68.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors locates the ethnic minority language issue within the broader context of national language policy within the pluralist nation-state, and draws on ethnographic case-study material obtained in interviews within one school and LEA, and analyses the extent to which education policy concerns nationally have shifted school priorities in terms of educational provision for second language learners.
Abstract: This paper locates the ethnic minority language issue within the broader context of national language policy within the pluralist nation‐state. It is divided into three sections. Section one provides an historical overview of the second language ‘debate’ in England and Wales during the past three decades and discusses it within the absence of a coherent national language policy framework. Section two draws on ethnographic case‐study material obtained in interviews within one school and LEA, and analyses the extent to which, during the last decade, education policy concerns nationally have shifted school priorities in terms of educational provision for second language learners. Section three draws on key issues related to the potential social exclusion of the ethnic minority groups identified in the previous sections. These are discussed within the context of changing migration patterns globally. The dilemmas facing definitions of citizenship within the framework of the projected cultural, economi...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that there are serious conceptual weaknesses in this latest attempt to apply state autonomy theory to educational policy analysis and that the arguments in the case study under consideration are seriously compromised by a basically flawed hypothesis, a misrepresentation of contemporary (neo-) Marxist education policy analysis, and by a fail.
Abstract: In recent times, there have been a number of critiques of Marxist and neo‐Marxist analyses of the state and education policy. These have drawn on postmodernist, ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ and state autonomy perspectives. While the postmodernist and ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ approaches have attracted critical response, to date, the state autonomy perspective has, to our knowledge, gone unchallenged. To address this theoretical lacuna, this paper analyses one writer's attempt, via an historical case study, to uphold state autonomy theory by detailing the ongoing relationship between one quasi‐state agency and the practice of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education. We argue that there are serious conceptual weaknesses in this latest attempt to apply state autonomy theory to educational policy analysis. The arguments in the case study under consideration are seriously compromised by a basically flawed hypothesis, a misrepresentation of contemporary (neo‐) Marxist education policy analysis and by a fail...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider a number of explanations promoted by governments over the last two decades to explain Britain's economic decline and argue that the explanations are only partially based in economic reality and are contrived to legitimise broader agendas for policy initiatives.
Abstract: This paper considers a number of explanations promoted by governments over the last two decades to explain Britain's economic decline. It is argued that the explanations are only partially based in economic realities and are contrived to legitimise broader agendas for policy initiatives. The inadequacy of the education and training system emerges as a recurrent theme and has, as a consequence, been subjected to considerable change. However, other explanations for economic decline have been offered: lack of enterprise, lack of flexibility in the workforce and lack of competitiveness. These explanations are examined for their coherence and continuity and for their implications for education and training.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an analysis of the research findings of a study centred on the daily practices of one woman principal contextualised in the web of documentation in which she operates in this new corporate culture.
Abstract: Devolution is a management technology which is currently ‘transforming’ the State Department of Education in Queensland, Australia. This paper presents an analysis of the research findings of a study centred on the daily practices of one woman principal contextualised in the web of documentation in which she operates in this new corporate culture. A Foucauldian theoretical framework of ‘governmentality’ has been used in order to analyse the competing discourses of devolution as experienced at a particular site. The analysis positions practices of devolution not as a possible liberating technology, nor as a negative control mechanism, but rather as an administrative strategy which aims to ‘know’ schools and their populations in specific and calculated ways as a requirement of modern government. The paper considers the positioning of one particular school as subject and object of the discourse of devolution. It argues that while it is possible for a principal to mediate the discourse, there are par...


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the claim that education is the privileged mechanism for the preservation and affirmation of national identity is questioned in light of the transnationalisation process and some of the specificities of Portugal as a semiperipheral country (in the European context).
Abstract: In the first part of this paper the claim that education is the privileged mechanism for the preservation and affirmation of national identity is questioned in light of the transnationalisation process and some of the specificities of Portugal as a semiperipheral country (in the European context). In the second part, critical inter/multicultural education is considered in an epoch of globalisation as a challenge to the formation through schooling of national and minority identities. ∗ An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 13th World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Bielefeld, July 1994.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The effect on research and teaching of the new method of funding universities introduced in 1986 by the University Grants Committee is examined in this paper, where the results indicate that for all categories of academic staff there has been an increase in teaching activities, and a concurrent reduction in the amount of time spent on research.
Abstract: The effect on research and teaching of the new method of funding universities introduced in 1986 by the University Grants Committee is examined. The results of a questionnaire on these issues, distributed to over 250 academics at two English universities, are presented. The results indicate that for all categories of academic staff there has been an increase in teaching activities, and a concurrent reduction in the amount of time spent on research, suggesting the possibility of a trade‐off between research and teaching. Some change has occurred in the type of research that staff undertake, with a movement to more applied and less basic research. One of the two universities studied is an ex‐College of Advanced Technology, ranked ver low in the research selectivity exercises, and the other is a long‐established multi‐faculty university, ranked very high in the research selectivity exercise, but the pattern of results is nevertheless very similar for both. Funding methods clearly seem to matter and ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the influence of concepts of early childhood and the need for UK policy makers to recognise babies and very young children as people, and to acknowledge their capabilities.
Abstract: This paper raises some of the key issues affecting the educational opportunities of children from birth to seven. These include: services for children under five, four‐year‐olds in primary school classes, equal opportunities, training and status of early years professionals. The paper emphasises the influence of concepts of early childhood and the need for UK policy makers to recognise babies and very young children as people, and to acknowledge their capabilities.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, where are the parents and the public in environmental adaptation and selection: where are parents and public? Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 43-53.
Abstract: (1995). Environmental adaptation and selection: where are the parents and the public? Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 43-53.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the processes by which a small pressure group successfully introduced changes into the 1992 Education (Schools) Act for England and Wales, which had a substantial effect on the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) inspection criteria, and on the information that all schools now publish.
Abstract: This article considers the processes by which a small pressure group successfully introduced changes into the 1992 Education (Schools) Act for England and Wales. These changes had a substantial effect on the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) inspection criteria, and on the information that all schools now publish. It gives a descriptive account of the main elements of the pressure group's campaign and argues that a postmodern approach to theory provides the greatest insights into the activities of this pressure group. In particular, micropolitical and ‘garbage can’ theories of decision‐making are examined and applied.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss post-industrialism and the coming institutional change in education, and present a survey of the state of the art in this area, focusing on the following:
Abstract: (1995). 10. This time it's serious: post‐industrialism and the coming institutional change in education. Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 135-152.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the evolution of competing "codes" for the content of the curriculum, each connected with one of the ethnic groups that make up the team of teachers.
Abstract: The purpose of the school described in this paper was to outline a new national curriculum for a new and free Namibia, and the particular project in question illustrates the question of power over the curriculum, as exercised by representatives of (sometimes) conflicting values, in a lived cultural and curricular setting. An important point in this discussion is the evolution of competing ‘codes’ for the content of the curriculum, each connected with one of the ethnic groups that make up the team of teachers. The suggested codes are the ‘instrumental‐centralist’, the ‘contextual‐centralist’, and the ‘contextual‐populist’ code appearing in the complex micro‐society of the school. The aim of this article is to capture this complexity by describing it as a form of neo‐colonialism in the name of solidarity, taking the shape of a political alliance between SWAPO and external donor agencies. The wider context is to demonstrate how the shaping of the future curriculum of an entire nation is a kind of mi...