Book•
The education debate
18 Jan 2008-
TL;DR: The UK government's approach to public service reform is described in this article, where the authors present a short history of English education policy and present key issues: forms of policy and forms of equity.
Abstract: Introduction to key concepts: education policy, economic necessity and public service reform Class, comprehensives and continuities: a short history of English education policy Current policy models and The UK government's approach to public service reform Current key issues: forms of policy and forms of equity A sociology of education policy: past, present and future.
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TL;DR: The authors provides a contextualised and critical policy analysis of the Rudd government's national schooling agenda in Australia, focusing on the introduction of national literacy and numeracy testing and the recent creation by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority of the website "My School" which lists the results of these tests for all Australian schools, including school performance against averages and against the performance of 60 other socio-economically "like-schools" across the nation.
Abstract: This paper provides a contextualised and critical policy analysis of the Rudd government's national schooling agenda in Australia. The specific focus is on the introduction of national literacy and numeracy testing and the recent creation by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority of the website ‘My School’, which lists the results of these tests for all Australian schools, including school performance against averages and against the performance of 60 other socio-economically ‘like-schools’ across the nation. It is argued that we are seeing the emergence of a national system of schooling (including national curriculum) as part of the reconstitution of the nation in the face of globalization and related economisation of education policy. This is the case despite Australia's federal political structure with the States holding the ostensible Constitutional responsibility for schooling. The analysis locates these and associated developments (a national schooling policy ensemble) within ...
529 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the extent to which teachers are able to achieve agency varies from context to context based upon certain environmental conditions of possibility and constraint, and that an important factor in this lies in the beliefs, values and attributes that teachers mobilise in relation to particular sit
Abstract: In the wake of new forms of curricular policy in many parts of the world, teachers are increasingly required to act as agents of change And yet, teacher agency is under‐theorised and often misconstrued in the educational change literature, wherein agency and change are seen as synonymous and positive This article addresses the issue of teacher agency in the context of an empirical study of curriculum making in schooling Drawing upon the existing literature, we outline an ecological view of agency These insights frame the analysis of a set of empirical data, derived from a research project about curriculum making in a school and further education college in Scotland Based upon the evidence, we argue that the extent to which teachers are able to achieve agency varies from context to context based upon certain environmental conditions of possibility and constraint, and that an important factor in this lies in the beliefs, values and attributes that teachers mobilise in relation to particular sit
494 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where "enactment" refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and translated by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented.
Abstract: This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where ‘enactment’ refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and ‘translated’ by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an audit of the policies encountered in four case study schools in the south‐east of England. The second part looks at one current English government policy, namely personal learning and thinking skills, and how this is taken up in two of the case study schools. In this way, the paper not just explores why a policy is adopted but also illustrates the capacity for school‐based policy elaboration, where schools produce their own ‘take’ on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as well as on the situated necessities.
389 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the school context and outline a framework which identifies and relates a variety of factors that influence differences in policy enactments between similar schools, including school intake, history, staffing, school ethos and culture, and external environments.
Abstract: This first paper in the series concentrates on school context and outlines a framework which identifies and relates a variety of factors that influence differences in policy enactments between similar schools In taking context seriously in our four case-study schools we argue that policies are intimately shaped and influenced by school-specific factors, even though in much central policy making, these sorts of constraints, pressures and enablers of policy enactments tend to be neglected This paper considers aspects such as school intake, history, staffing, school ethos and culture, ‘material’ elements like buildings, resources and budgets, as well as external environments These factors are conceptualised as situated, material, professional and external dimensions and we aim to present a grounded exploration of the localised nature of policy actions that is more ‘real’ and realistic than that often assumed by policy making
355 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field and found that Shanghai's performance produced a global 'PISA-shock' that has repositioned this system as a significant new reference society.
Abstract: This paper examines the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field. The OECD's PISA is helping to create this field by constituting the globe as a commensurate space of school system performance. The effects of Shanghai's success are considered in three other national contexts: the USA, England and Australia. We combine (a) analysis of data from more than 30 research interviews with senior policy actors at the OECD, the IEA and within Australia and England; and (b) document analysis of policy speeches, commissioned research reports and media coverage from the three national contexts. Shanghai's performance in PISA 2009 produced a global ‘PISA-shock’ that has repositioned this system as a significant new ‘reference society’, shifting the global gaze in education from Finland to the ‘East’ at the beginning of the so-called ‘Asian century’.
280 citations