Showing papers in "Journal of Education Policy in 2007"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that system-wide excellence in student learning is attainable at reasonable cost, using education policies differing from conventional market-oriented reform strategies prevalent in many other countries.
Abstract: This article argues that system‐wide excellence in student learning is attainable at reasonable cost, using education policies differing from conventional market‐oriented reform strategies prevalent in many other countries. In this respect, Finland is an example of a nation that has developed from a remote agrarian/industrial state in the 1950s to a model knowledge economy, using education as the key to economic and social development. Relying on data from international student assessments and earlier policy analysis, this article describes how steady improvement in student learning has been attained through Finnish education policies based on equity, flexibility, creativity, teacher professionalism and trust. Unlike many other education systems, consequential accountability accompanied by high‐stakes testing and externally determined learning standards has not been part of Finnish education policies. The insight is that Finnish education policies intended to raise student achievement have been built upon...
548 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed a specific kind of choice, choice of the local school, by a specific middle class group, characterized by its high cultural capital, its "caring" perspective and liberal political orientation, in two cosmopolitan, "mixed" settings, London and Paris, with a focus on values and how ethical dilemmas raised by confrontation with the social and ethnic mix in schools are solved.
Abstract: This paper analyses a specific kind of choice, choice of the local school, by a specific middle class group, characterized by its high cultural capital, its ‘caring’ perspective and liberal political orientation, in two cosmopolitan, ‘mixed’ settings, London and Paris, with a focus on values and how ethical dilemmas raised by confrontation with the social and ethnic mix in schools are solved. It draws upon a small‐scale comparative study of urban middle class parents conducted in 2004–2005 at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris in collaboration with the London Institute of Education. Using the same open‐ended schedule, 28 interviews were carried out in one London locality and 38 in a similar locality in the Parisian periphery (plus 12 others in a nearby private school). Its main purpose was to use a cross‐Channel comparison to test and enrich a comprehensive model of school choice that tries to take into account the complex interaction between policies, strategies, contexts, resources and values.
162 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a Bourdieusian analysis of the dynamics of professional participation implicit within competing academic and policy constructs of professionalism, including the currently iconic concept of "communities of practice", is presented.
Abstract: This article considers teacher professionalism from a neglected perspective. It analyses assumptions about the dynamics of professional participation implicit within competing academic and policy constructs of professionalism, including the currently iconic concept of ‘communities of practice’. All entail notions of becoming and being a professional. However, data from the project ‘Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education’ (TLC) reveal significant instances of ‘unbecoming’: a majority of the tutors participating in the project were heading out of further education (FE) teaching. This illuminates a broader problem of exodus from the sector, in a political context which privileges economic goals and targets at every level, and in which the current climate of performativity increasingly impacts upon pedagogical relationships—contextual conditions which are also highly relevant to schooling and higher education. Drawing on exemplar case studies of two tutors, and on the theorization of learning cultures emerging from the TLC project, a Bourdieusian analysis of these dynamics is developed in terms of the interaction of habitus and fields, and ‘communities of practice’ critiqued. Paying particular attention to policy‐driven changes in and to the field of FE, and to the cross‐field effects in FE of policies in other sectors of education and beyond, the article argues for a more dynamic notion of professional participation. This might underpin ‘principles of procedure’ for improving teaching and learning, and policies to support diverse forms of teacher professionalism throughout the education system.
131 citations
TL;DR: The culture of performativity in English primary schools refers to systems and relationships of: target-setting; Ofsted inspections; school league tables constructed from pupil test scores; performance management; performance related pay; threshold assessment; and advanced skills teachers.
Abstract: Cultures of performativity in English primary schools refer to systems and relationships of: target‐setting; Ofsted inspections; school league tables constructed from pupil test scores; performance management; performance related pay; threshold assessment; and advanced skills teachers. Systems which demand that teachers ‘perform’ and in which individuals are made accountable. These policy measures, introduced to improve levels of achievement and increased international economic competitiveness, have, potentially, profound implications for the meaning and experience of primary teachers’ work; their identities; their commitment to teaching; and how they view their careers. At the same time as policies of performativity are being implemented there is now increasing advocacy for the adoption and advancement of ‘creativity’ policies within primary education. These major developments are being introduced in the context of a wide range of social/educational policies also aimed at the introduction of creativity i...
120 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue for the need to situate our work within an historical context that requires judgement about matters of significance and purpose, not mere efficiency and effectiveness, and provide a convincing account of the relational nature of the self that will, in turn, provide the basis of a framework for organisational and communal analysis.
Abstract: In order to address some of the key underlying issues currently distorting dominant approaches to schooling it is necessary to acknowledge and engage with our broad intellectual and cultural responsibilities currently shunned by contemporary policy. Philosophy has a key role to play here, in terms of both deconstruction and recommendation. Drawing on the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray, this article argues for the need to situate our work within an historical context that requires judgement about matters of significance and purpose, not mere efficiency and effectiveness. It further argues for the provision of a convincing account of the relational nature of the self that will, in turn, provide the basis of a framework for organisational and communal analysis. The particular framework offered names the dangers of a new totalitarianism exemplified by high performance models of schooling currently preoccupying contemporary practice, advocacy and aspiration. In seeking to reclaim the centrality of human b...
102 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the ways in which school segregation plays out in a pure catchment area system and to what extent residential composition is directly mirrored in schools and found that there is a high correlation between the movement of German children between catchment areas and the percentage of children who do not speak German in the home attending these schools.
Abstract: This paper seeks to examine the ways in which school segregation plays out in a pure catchment area system and to what extent residential composition is directly mirrored in schools. The research examines the data for the districts in Berlin and, more specifically at the school level, for the district of Tempelhof‐Schoneberg. The research is based mainly on secondary data collected from official statistical sources and is supported with data from parental questionnaires and semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with parents, headteachers and key actors. The research shows that school composition is not purely the result of residential patterns but that there is limited room for ‘choice’. The most significant result is that there is a high correlation between the movement of German children between catchment areas and the percentage of children who do not speak German in the home attending these schools. The results show the importance of the size of catchment areas and its implications on choice, as well as...
93 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the entrepreneurial features of academy schools through a study of the sponsors and the ethos, values and specialisms of academies, and found that business entrepreneurialism strongly features as a normalising presence, with forms of cultural and social entrepreneurialism also apparent.
Abstract: The academy schools programme in England is presented by Government as the means by which increased diversity and private participation in the provision of public education can be used to solve educational and wider social problems. The entrepreneurial features of academy schools are examined, through a study of the sponsors and the ethos, values and specialisms of academies. Data on 58 academies (open or in development), gathered from secondary sources, are analysed. Four types of entrepreneurialism are used to review the findings and it is found that business entrepreneurialism strongly features as a normalising presence, with forms of cultural and social entrepreneurialism also apparent. Public entrepreneurialism is represented but is less evident than the other forms. The emerging pattern of participation in the academies programme suggests that existing structural advantages in the fields of business and the church are being replicated and strengthened, and so academies are predominantly being constr...
92 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the impact of central policy measures on educational practices in schools is never simply straightforward and that policy measures are always interpreted by and translated to the particular context of a school.
Abstract: Using the case of the Flemish policy on educational quality and based on a series of case studies, the author argues that the impact of central policy measures on educational practices in schools is never simply straightforward. Policy measures are always interpreted by and translated to the particular context of a school. In these processes of interpretation the teachers’ and principal’s agenda of professional interests plays a crucial role. Taking up the micropolitical perspective on schools as a descriptive and analytical theoretical lens, the author argues that these interests reflect different types of working conditions that are considered valuable or necessary by the teachers and principal to do a good job. If these conditions are absent, threatened or lost, people will engage in micropolitical actions in order to establish, safeguard or restore the desirable working conditions. Five different categories of professional interests were identified in the analysis of the case study data. Describing th...
92 citations
TL;DR: This paper evaluated the subtle ways in which policy initiatives to develop emotional well-being and encourage emotional engagement with public services resonate with images of the diminished self emerging in broader cultural discourses.
Abstract: Developing people’s emotional well‐being and emotional engagement are official aims in social policy. A growing number of initiatives respond to diverse, often contradictory public, political and professional concerns about individuals’ emotional needs. These concerns are a powerful discourse in ‘personalised learning’. The article contributes to debates in critical policy research. It evaluates the subtle ways in which policy initiatives to develop emotional well‐being and encourage emotional engagement with public services resonate with images of the ‘diminished self’ emerging in broader cultural discourses. Critical evaluation is necessary in order for researchers and educators committed to social justice to challenge the influential idea that emotional well‐being should be a prominent educational goal and to resist the diminished images of human potential that underlie it.
92 citations
TL;DR: This article used the concept of emotional labour to understand some of the changes that are ongoing in the teaching profession, using interviews with teachers who have had their capability questioned, in the majority of cases through the threat or implementation of capability procedures.
Abstract: This article uses the concept of emotional labour to understand some of the changes that are ongoing in the teaching profession. While research has explored the impact of the new performance culture upon teachers’ work and identified a marginalisation of the caring and emotional aspects of teaching, the concept of emotional labour allows us to extend this argument. Using interviews with teachers who have had their capability questioned, in the majority of cases through the threat or implementation of capability procedures, this article draws upon newer conceptualisations of emotional labour to analyse some of the changes teachers are experiencing with the introduction of new accountability and performance systems. Utilising Bolton’s typology of different forms of emotion management in the workplace, we argue it is possible to recognise the distinctiveness of the emotion work carried out by teachers and identify why teachers’ emotion work is particularly vulnerable to the educational reforms associated wit...
86 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the findings of an investigation of how social partnerships can best be formed, developed and sustained over time, and the principles and practices that are proposed as most likely to assist the effective formation, development and transformation of social partnerships over time.
Abstract: Despite a lack of applied research, social partnerships are increasingly being adopted by both government and non‐government agencies to meet localised needs in education and other fields. This article discusses the findings of an investigation of how social partnerships can best be formed, developed and sustained over time. Earlier work identified partnerships arising from community concerns, governmental enactment and negotiation between community and government agencies. However, across these distinct kinds of social partnerships, the partnership work that was central to their operation was particularly relevant. In the study reported here, researchers engaged with ten longstanding social partnerships to elicit, synthesise and verify the principles and practices underpinning their work. The principles and practices that are proposed as most likely to assist the effective formation, development and transformation of social partnerships over time comprise building and maintaining: (i) shared goals; (ii) ...
TL;DR: This paper explored a framework for an ethics of choice in urban education and explored the educational ambitions and ambivalences of a group of middle class families in one locality in London, using interviews with 28 middle class parents in the London Borough of Hackney.
Abstract: This article explores a framework for an ethics of choice in urban education. It outlines the educational ambitions and ambivalences of a group of middle class families in one locality. The research on which we draw involved interviews with 28 middle class parents in the London Borough of Hackney and is part of a comparative study of urban middle class parents conducted in collaboration with the Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politique, Paris. Our analysis of the tensions and dilemmas faced by this group of parents deploys an approach derived from the work of American philosopher Thomas Nagel. What we see playing across and through these interviews are the interests and abstractions of a particular fraction of metropolitan middle class families. That is, a reflexive engagement with the social in terms of responsibility to the public good and the needs of ‘others’ who matter as much as they do (the impersonal standpoint) is interwoven with the needs of specific children and the family in relation to ima...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate whether the distance between school and the pupil's home is related to social background in a six borough area of East London and investigate the extent to which schools in the area perform in line with expectations on the basis of the social composition of their intake.
Abstract: In this paper we investigate whether the distance between school and the pupil’s home is related to social background in a six borough area of East London. Also investigated is the extent to which schools in the area perform in line with expectations on the basis of the social composition of their intake. The research involves analysis of the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) to which geodemographic codes supplied by Experian have been attached. We demonstrate that the six schools in the area which achieved the highest average points score at GCSE recruit pupils widely from within the area (and to a lesser extent outside), whilst the lowest performing six schools recruit from much more narrowly defined catchment areas. In terms of school performance, we show that whilst we might expect schools to perform better as they become more distant from inner East London and nearer to the M25, this is not necessarily the case. In our conclusions we argue that these data support the claims made on the basis o...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors illuminate how public narratives about teachers within the Norwegian national curriculum documents regulating teacher education (1999 and 2003) and elementary school (1997) construct teacher identities, and argue that such narratives give the educational policy documents a rather strong governing function.
Abstract: This article will illuminate how public narratives about teachers within the Norwegian national curriculum documents regulating teacher education (1999 and 2003) and elementary school (1997) construct teacher identities. The aim is not to define what identity Norwegian teachers as a group or individuals possess, but to describe how teacher identity is narratively constructed in some selected public policy texts. The policy documents are analysed within a theoretical framework based on poststructuralist and discourse theory combined with theories of narrative identity. The article describes how a narrative plot in the documents constructs and/or presupposes a certain construction of teacher identity. The understanding of learning as an immanent force in children is a point of departure for this narrative plot. The article argues that public narratives about teachers inscribed in the documents give the educational policy documents a rather strong governing function. This governing function is called narrati...
TL;DR: This article used census data to investigate educational inequality in different types of residential areas in Athens, focusing on dropout rates from secondary education, access to higher education and to particular degrees within it.
Abstract: This paper uses census data to investigate educational inequality in different types of residential areas in Athens, focusing on drop‐out rates from secondary education, access to higher education and to particular degrees within it. The unequal socio‐spatial distribution of educational attainment is linked to antagonistic middle class education strategies centred on school choice. Different forms of such strategies are identified broadly corresponding to different groups within the middle class hierarchy. Each form of school choice strategy has a particular relation to residential segregation. The latter is growing as a result, but under various forms and spatial scales that sometimes challenge the usual assumptions for the evaluation of neighbourhood effects.
TL;DR: It has long been the case for the North American middle classes that where you live is largely determined by whether or not you can afford to choose where to school your children as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: It has long been the case for the North American middle classes that where you live is largely determined by whether you can afford to choose where to school your children. Only the most affluent w...
TL;DR: This paper explored how class, gender and ethnicity shape discourses of success and how they are implicated in their distribution, and suggested that understanding this is vital in the pursuit of social justice.
Abstract: This article draws on data collected during a pilot study conducted in two west London schools exploring young people’s understandings of success. It considers ways in which ‘discourses of success’, as part of New Labour’s project of re‐inventing schooling, may shape young people’s subjectivity. The article examines articulations between New Labour policy and aspects of social difference and how these structure new identifications with success. In particular, the article explores how class, gender and ethnicity shape discourses of success and how they are implicated in their distribution. In conclusion, the article indicates how current education policy (particularly in relation to educational success) articulates the ‘public’ domain with dimensions of the ‘private’ self and suggests that understanding this is vital in the pursuit of social justice.
TL;DR: The authors consider the recent introduction of Citizenship Education in England from a governmental perspective, drawing on the later work of Foucault to offer a detailed account of the political rationalities, technologies and subjectivities implicated in contemporary education policy in the formation and governance of citizen-subjects.
Abstract: This paper considers the recent introduction of Citizenship Education in England from a governmental perspective, drawing on the later work of Foucault to offer a detailed account of the political rationalities, technologies and subjectivities implicated in contemporary education policy in the formation and governance of citizen‐subjects. This is understood in terms of making citizens ‘governable’, but importantly not unproblematically ‘governed’. I illustrate my account with interviews with members of the Crick Advisory Group and an analysis of the Crick Report, in order to explore the discourses and practices of educational policy‐making. Trends are identified in education policy research which serve to de‐politicise the policy realm and narrow the scope of ethical and political consideration. I therefore make use of Derrida’s poststructuralism to argue for an expanded conceptualisation of education and politics, and for further interrogation of the purpose, scope and temporal imperatives of education, ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider at what stage(s) in the policymaking process pressures created from neighboring states are brought to bear and find that the experiences of neighbours are most pronounced during the agenda-setting and proposal formulation stages and least during adoption.
Abstract: We now have ample evidence that public policies diffuse across the American states; that is, policy adoption is due at least in part to the emulation of policies enacted in nearby states. But, policy adoption is the result of a complex process, a process that often takes years and sometimes decades to complete. According to the ‘stage’ or ‘step’ approach, the lawmaking process begins with the identification of a public problem for which redress by governments is sought and ends when programmes are implemented and effects are evaluated. Using the tertiary education system in the USA as a case, this study considers at what stage(s) in the policymaking process pressures created from neighbouring states are brought to bear. Analysis of data from state policymakers reveals that the experiences of neighbours are most pronounced during the agenda‐setting and proposal formulation stages and least during adoption.
TL;DR: This paper examined the extent to which the UK government's full service extended schools (FSES) program has the capacity to ameliorate educational inequality in urban contexts and argued for the need to re-couple educational process with the dynamics of urban context and suggested that the most recent educational policy development of FSES may present distinctive opportunities to complete such a synthesis.
Abstract: This paper examines the extent to which the UK government's full service extended schools programme has the capacity to ameliorate educational inequality in urban contexts. It starts by examining a variety of explanatory narratives for educational inequality in urban contexts in the UK and suggests that the dynamics of social exclusion created by urban decline has generated particular types of polarised urban communities whose analysis has often been decoupled from research on educational reform programmes in urban schools. The paper argues for the need to re‐couple educational process with the dynamics of urban context and suggests that the most recent educational policy development of full service extended schools (FSES) may present distinctive opportunities to complete such a synthesis. The paper then locates FSES within a broader set of government approaches that attempt to deal with social exclusion and educational disadvantage. It then draws on research conducted by the authors and others that has e...
TL;DR: In the UK, the vocabulary of public services is becoming infused with the prefixes ‘inter’, ‘multi-multi-and co-ordinated’.
Abstract: In the UK, the vocabulary of public services is becoming infused with the prefixes ‘inter’‐, ‘multi‐’ and ‘co‐’. Public‐sector agencies are being encouraged to adopt ‘multi’‐ or ‘inter‐agency’ configurations; ‘workforce reform’ seeks to dissolve once‐impermeable professional boundaries; leadership is to be ‘distributed’. This tendency is referred to as the ‘inter’‐regnum in education policy. (This does not mean that we are dealing with an ‘interregnum’ in the sense that we are somehow between modes of governance.) The term ‘regnum’ is used to emphasise that this propensity for the ‘inter’ is asserting itself as a new ‘reigning philosophy’. Examples of the ‘inter’‐regnum are presented from the UK (mainly England), and these are located conceptually within an analysis of hierarchies, markets and networks. Thereafter the cultural, intellectual and economic contexts which allow for the ‘inter’‐regnum to emerge as policy are explored. The ‘inter’‐regnum draws its legitimacy from a number of sources. First, it ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the evident exchange of information on performance (and its supply, demand and use) should be regarded as a symptom of a new governmental regime that installs less evident power relations.
Abstract: The aim of this article is to argue that the evident exchange of information on performance (and its supply, demand and use) should be regarded as a symptom of a new governmental regime that installs less evident power relations. Educational policy in Flanders (Belgium), and in particular the need for feedback information from the Flemish government, will be used as a case to describe this regime. Based upon the analytical framework of ‘governmentality’ (Foucault), the article focuses on the ‘governmentalization’ of Europe and Flanders that accompanies the need for feedback information. The main result of the analysis of European and Flemish policy documents can be summarized as follows: government or the ‘conduct of conduct’ currently takes the form of ‘feedback on performance’. This means that the strategy of the governmental regime is to secure an optimal performance for each and all (member states, schools), and acts upon the ‘need for feedback’ and ‘will to learn’ of the actors involved. On the basis...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated aspects of policy implementation that relate to the UK government's Excellence in Cities (Excellence in Cities) initiative, and interviewed local education authority personnel and school teachers, responsible for implementing the Gifted and Talented strand of that initiative.
Abstract: This paper investigates aspects of policy implementation that relate to ‘Excellence in Cities’, a UK government initiative. Local Education Authority (LEA) personnel and school teachers, responsible for implementing the Gifted and Talented (G&T) strand of that initiative, were interviewed. These co‐ordinators were involved in the selection of school students to participate in an interventionist programme, the Urban Scholars programme at Brunel University. The Urban Scholars programme has nine participating LEAs in the London region. The LEA co‐ordinator and one school co‐ordinator from each authority were interviewed through a semi‐structured interview schedule. They were asked the question: ‘What influenced your choice of school student for the Urban Scholars programme?’ This generated data on their definitions of gifted and talented and the way the register of pupils, selected as gifted and talented, was socially constructed. The analysis of the responses to this question suggests that the social constr...
TL;DR: In this article, a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) tracked the development of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL from the 1970s to 2000 using life history interviews and documentary policy analysis to compare policy, practitioner and learner perspectives.
Abstract: The field of adult literacy in England has a long history, but has particularly developed during the last three decades. Along with the rest of post‐school education and training, it has been substantially reshaped by national policy initiatives since the 1970s. During this period it has struggled to assert itself as a legitimate area of policy and practice through changing political, economic and cultural times. This article draws upon a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) that tracked the development of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL from the 1970s to 2000 using life history interviews and documentary policy analysis to compare policy, practitioner and learner perspectives. The article discusses the key influences that have shaped this new field. It describes the deliberative policy analysis framework used to analyse the data and to identify tensions and gaps that have existed between practice, policy and research. It illustrates the analysis by applying it to o...
TL;DR: This paper examined the specific effects that the spatial aspect (location) of the education offer has on differentiating education practices within the same social category, and how social practices are adapted to different contexts.
Abstract: Since the late 1980s, much research has been devoted to the strategies that families use in France to avoid sending their children to the public schools assigned to them by the carte scolaire, which defines school districts. But while there is substantial sociological literature on the different criteria of family choices, relatively little has been said so far about how the geographic location of the school and its implantation in a given space influence these choices. In order to examine the specific effects that the spatial aspect (location) of the education offer has on differentiating education practices within the same social category, it seems necessary to understand first of all how social practices are adapted to different contexts. Too often sociologists tend to consider the factor of social origin alone, or focus on a simple correlation of variables, such as the educational level or income level of parents. However, as Pierre Bourdieu has shown, it is above all a comprehension of the distributi...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the views of staff employed in UK higher education institutions about how those institutions are dealing with the impact of recent UK equality legislation and related European employment directives.
Abstract: This article examines the views of staff employed in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) about how those institutions are dealing with the impact of recent UK equality legislation and related European employment directives. Assumptions underlying current approaches to equality in UK HEIs are examined, particularly the notion of meritocracy, which advocates job selection and promotion based on normatively and culturally neutral measures of merit. The article is based on a project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, using qualitative case studies of six English, Welsh and Scottish HEIs. The project data suggest that equality policies for staff and students are in tension with each other, that staff policies may clash with other institutional policies, for example on research excellence or enhancing the student experience, and that the rhetoric of equality policies is not always matched by the day‐to‐day experience of staff. The article suggests that the case study UK HEIs, with t...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue the importance of examining instructional leadership in the context of broader political and cultural debates about government and about how society should be organized, and identify two distinct models of instructional leadership emerging as part of these dynamics: the market model and the polis model.
Abstract: While there has been considerable scholarship on the role of school and district leadership within instructional change, there has been little analysis of the values and orientations that undergird current policy debates about instructional leadership. In this chapter, the author argues the importance of examining instructional leadership in the context of broader political and cultural debates about government and about how society should be organized. She identifies two distinct models of instructional leadership emerging as part of these dynamics: the market model and the polis model.
TL;DR: This paper argued that the failure to reform academic qualifications alongside their vocational equivalents is likely to result in academic drift, lack of status and a relatively low level of uptake for these new awards, a process compounded by low employer recognition of broad vocational qualifications.
Abstract: Reforming vocational education in the English education and training system has occupied governments for at least the last three decades, the latest development being the introduction of 14 linesi of Specialised Diplomas. Using an historical analysis of qualifications reform, we suggest they are unlikely to transform 14-19 education and training. The failure to reform academic qualifications alongside their vocational equivalents is likely to result in ‘academic drift’, lack of status and a relatively low level of uptake for these new awards, a process compounded by low employer recognition of broad vocational qualifications. In rejecting the Tomlinson Report’s central proposal for a unified diploma system covering all 14-19 education and training, we argue that the Government may have condemned the Specialised Diplomas to become a middle-track qualification for a minority of 14-19 years olds, situated between the majority academic pathway and the sparsely populated apprenticeship route.
TL;DR: In this article, the importance of effective secondary education for all children as Australian society embraces globalization is examined, and opportunities for democratic pedagogy, curriculum and education policy to respond to risk are outlined and critiqued in relation to ongoing need for justice in education systems.
Abstract: The article examines the importance of effective secondary education for all children as Australian society embraces globalization. In a global era, where societal development will rely on the knowledge and skills of the workforce, an effective education will become even more important for socio‐economic engagement and equality. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are the most vulnerable to globalization as they are less likely to achieve academically or go on to benefit from the restructured neo‐liberal economy. Education policy will need to continue to support the right of each individual to be prepared for life in general, and employment in particular. Opportunities for democratic pedagogy, curriculum and education policy to respond to risk are outlined and critiqued in relation to the ongoing need for justice in education systems. If adequate funding is not provided for secondary education and directed to ensure an effective education is available for all students, obtaining a quality education wi...
TL;DR: The authors traces the reformist discourse structuration, the process of institutionalization of different social science discourses in state institutions, such as universities and national institutes, in order to disclose the social sciences/politics linkage in Israel.
Abstract: The 1968 structural reform of the education system in Israel was part both of a global process of democratization of education launched after the Second World War and of a larger modernization project in which the social sciences played a crucial role. This dynamic was an expression of a conjunction of interests, in which political forces used research on educational matters in order to advance their socio‐political agendas, while researchers used the state's interest in their work and in the ‘social problems’ they elaborated in order to receive public funding and to obtain state recognition of their scientific contribution. This article traces the reformist discourse structuration—the process of institutionalization of the different social science discourses in state institutions, such as universities and national institutes—in order to disclose the social sciences/politics linkage in Israel. It also puts forward the argument that in order to understand discourse structuration at a national level, it is ...