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Disasters can result in poor psychosocial outcomes for adolescents. One pathway to mitigate these risks and foster resilience is via schools, where teachers can offer students support. However, existing research lacks consideration of the role schools and teachers play from the perspective of students, particularly those from marginalized populations. Therefore, this study examines adolescents' representations of the role of schools and teachers after a major disaster in Indonesia using a free association interview technique. Thematic analysis of adolescents' interviews (N = 46) yielded two salient themes: 'the school as a place of recovery' and 'the school as a place of risk'. While the school and teachers were conceptualized positively in that they promoted students' recovery, students also identified aspects of the post-disaster school environment that produced uncertainty, loss and discomfort thereby heightening their sense of risk. The paper concludes with recommendations for resilience-building, such as ensuring teachers receive relevant training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite increased focus on parenting support internationally, there is a lack of agreement in what constitutes parenting support. This paper explores the experiences of parenting support activities from the perspective of stakeholders in Norwegian basic schools. Methods: Five focus group interviews were conducted with representatives from the schools' parent work committee, class teachers, health nurses, and social workers from nine schools. The data were interpreted using an inductive thematic analysis. Results: Three main themes emerged from the data: (1) A community for the best of the child, (2) uniting through relations, and (3) sharing knowledge and language. Parenting support was experienced as universal, relational, and multidimensional. It was related to everyday life interactions between the home, school, and the parenting community with the best interest of the child as a goal. Conclusion: To avoid reducing parents to passive recipients of expert advice, parenting support activities should be an integral part of everyday school-home-parenting community collaborations. Abbreviation: EU-The European Union; UN-The Unition Nations; CoE-The Council of Europe; NSD-The Norwegian Centre for Research Data; CTP-Class teachers in primary school; CTJS-Class teachers in junior secondary school; P-Parents; H-Health nurses; SW-Social workers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with the burden largely borne by people living in low- and middle-income countries. Adolescents are central to NCD control through the potential to modify risks and alter the trajectory of these diseases across the life-course. However, an absence of epidemiological data has contributed to the relative exclusion of adolescents from policies and responses. This paper documents the design of a study to measure the burden of metabolic syndrome (a key risk for NCDs) and poor mental health (a key outcome) amongst Indonesian adolescents. Using a mixed-method design, we sampled 16–18-year-old adolescents from schools and community-based settings across Jakarta and South Sulawesi. Initial formative qualitative enquiry used focus group discussions to understand how young people conceptualise mental health and body weight (separately); what they perceive as determinants of these NCDs; and what responses to these NCDs should involve. These findings informed the design of a quantitative survey that adolescents self-completed electronically. Mental health was measured using the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CESD-R) and Kessler-10 (both validated against formal psychiatric interview in a subsample), with the metabolic syndrome measured using biomarkers and anthropometry. The survey also included scales relating to victimisation, connectedness, self-efficacy, body image and quality of life. Adolescents were sampled from schools using a multistage cluster design, and from the community using respondent-driven sampling (RDS). This study will substantially advance the field of NCD measurement amongst adolescents, especially in settings like Indonesia. It demonstrates that high quality, objective measurement is acceptable and feasible, including the collection of biomarkers in a school-based setting. It demonstrates how comparable data can be collected across both in-school and out of school adolescents, allowing a more comprehensive measure of NCD burden, risk and correlates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from a meta-analysis suggested that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth experience elevated levels of victimization in schools as compared to their heterosexual peers, and that victimization was shown to be persistent and lasting, indicating that school environments are hostile. These findings point to the need to better understand youths' own efforts in becoming more aware and engaged in impacting systemic inequities. Photovoice and mobile interviewing, two relatively novel qualitative methodologies in the field of LGBTQ research, are methodologies that involve the participants by 1) taking photos of interest as a means of critical discussion, and 2) moving alongside the researcher in a participant-chosen area and have critical discussions highlighted by the visual cues. The goal of this paper is to highlight ways of listening to opinions of LGBTQ youth that are contextualized in the environments in which they are victimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Teacher knowledge continues to be a topic of debate in Australasia and in other parts of the world. There have been many attempts by mathematics educators and researchers to define the knowledge needed by teachers to teach mathematics effectively. A plethora of terms, such as mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, horizon content knowledge and specialised content knowledge, have been used to describe aspects of such knowledge. Purpose:This paper proposes a model for teacher knowledge in mathematics that embraces and develops aspects of earlier models. It focuses on the notions of contingent knowledge and the connectedness of ‘big ideas’ of mathematics to enact what is described as ‘powerful teaching’. It involves the teacher’s ability to set up and provoke contingent moments to extend children’s mathematical horizons. The model proposed here considers the various cognitive and affective components and domains that teachers may require to enact ‘powerful teaching’. The intention is to validate the proposed model empirically during a future stage of research. Sources of evidence:Contingency is described in Rowland’s Knowledge Quartet as the ability to respond to children’s questions, misconceptions and actions and to be able to deviate from a teaching plan as needed. The notion of ‘horizon content knowledge’ (Ball et al.) is a key aspect of the proposed model and has provoked a discussion in this article about students’ mathematical horizons and what these might comprise. Together with a deep mathematical content knowledge and a sensibility for students and their mathematical horizons, these ideas form the foundations of the proposed model. Main argument:It follows that a deeper level of knowledge might enable a teacher to respond better and to plan and anticipate contingent moments. By taking this further and considering teacher knowledge as ‘dynamic’, this paper suggests that instead of responding to contingent events, ‘powerful teaching’ is about provoking contingent events. This necessarily requires a broad, connected content knowledge based on ‘big mathematical ideas’, a sound knowledge of pedagogies and an understanding of common misconceptions in order to be able to engineer contingent moments. Conclusions:In order to place genuine problem-solving at the heart of learning, this paper argues for the idea of planning for contingent events, provoking them and ‘setting them up’. The proposed model attempts to represent that process. It is anticipated that the new model will become the framework for an empirical research project, as it undergoes a validation process involving a sample of primary teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dramatic arts utilise emotion, introspection, artistry and interpretation from multiple perspectives to promote dialogue and reflection. Drama research can access these kinds of engagements by using artistic mediums to present phenomena, experiences and findings. This paper resulted from a research project investigating drama performance assessment in Australian schools. Data was collected in Year 11 and 12 Drama classes at six school sites, using ethnographical observation of performances, narrative and semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. Findings of the research indicate that there are several influences on students’ performative responses for assessment, including the local curriculum and assessment practices, school and class cultures and the approach of the teacher. These influences are illustrated using mediums that complement the field of drama, specifically scripts and stories. This paper presents three of these artefacts; one collection of storied descriptions and two scripts, discussing the methodology used to create them and exploring future directions for the presentation of findings, using other mediums that complement the field of drama. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article aims to make a methodological contribution to the education segregation literature, providing a critique of previous measures of segregation used in the literature, as well as suggesting an alternative approach to measuring segregation. Specifically, the paper examines Gorard, Fitz and Taylor's finding that social segregation between schools, as measured by free school meals (FSM) entitlement, fell significantly in the years following the 1988 Education Reform Act. Using Annual Schools Census data from 1989 to 2004, the paper challenges the magnitude of their findings, suggesting that the method used by Gorard et al. seriously overstates the size of the fall in segregation. We make the case for a segregation curve approach to measuring segregation, where comparisons of the level of segregation are possible regardless of the percentage FSM eligibility. Using this approach, we develop a new method for describing both the level and the location of school segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed development of extended schools in England is part of an international movement towards community-oriented schooling, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Although on the face of it this movement seems like a common-sense approach to self-evident needs, the evaluation evidence on such schools is inconclusive. In order to assess the likelihood that community-oriented schooling will have a significant impact on disadvantage, therefore, this paper analyses the rationale on which this approach to schooling appears to be based. It argues that community-oriented schools as currently conceptualised have a focus on 'proximal' rather than 'distal' factors in disadvantage, underpinned by a model of social in/exclusion which draws attention away from underlying causes. They are, therefore, likely to have only small-scale, local impacts. The paper suggests that a more wide-ranging strategy is needed in which educational reform is linked to other forms of social and economic reform and considers the conditions which would be necessary for the emergence of such a strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has indicated significant variation between schools in the proportion of their students who go on to higher education. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the specific school characteristics influencing application and entry to tertiary education. This paper sets out to analyse the individual and school factors which influence the transition to higher education in the Irish context. The paper draws on a large-scale study of 4,400 students within 108 secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland. Almost three-quarters of the students in the sample applied for a higher education course. However, schools varied in the application rates of their students. These differences are found to be related to the background characteristics of students (in terms of gender, social class and prior ability) along with the institutional habitus of the school. It is found that school factors associated with increased college application rates do not necessarily appear to yield higher rates of college entry but rather that successful entry to tertiary education is related to general academic effectiveness in the school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provisions of the Higher Education Act (2004) have renewed interest in widening participation research. Therefore, this paper explores the development of this scholarly field, primarily in the United Kingdom, by examining major trends in the study of higher education. Political debates related to higher education, the prevailing structure of the sector and predominant sociological perspectives have largely shaped the empirical and theoretical concerns of widening participation research. These delimiting factors have resulted in incomplete accounts of the barriers to higher education, which do not fully explore the relationship between students' social characteristics, learning experiences and university careers. Furthermore, contemporary research runs the risk of reinventing the wheel and replicating the mistakes of the past, since there has been a collective act of forgetfulness with respect to earlier contributions. In contrast, this paper provides guidelines to facilitate a holistic agenda for future widening participation research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines claims that recent reforms to UK education have led to significant organisational changes in primary school and higher education. It also examines two main theoretical explanations for these, namely post-Fordism and New Managerialism. Examples of changes in both schools and universities, including flexibility and teamwork, are explored. Up to the mid-1980s, publicly funded educational organisations did display bureaucratic features, including rules, staff hierarchies and complex procedures. However, professionals employed in these organisations retained discretion and autonomy in their work. Since then, the introduction of an audit culture and a greater emphasis on management and regulation of the work of teachers and academics has decreased discretion and autonomy. This paper suggests that theories of New Managerialism offer a more satisfactory explanation of the changes explored than post-Fordism, which has more often been used as a normative model of what contemporary organisations should look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on research in three English Midlands local education authorities to analyse the changing role of the teacher trade union representative in schools. It focuses on representatives of the largest teachers' union in England and Wales--the National Union of Teachers. The paper draws on mainstream industrial relations literature, and more recent research into school sector industrial relations, to assess how the role of the union representative is changing in an era of autonomous schools. The research indicates that new issues are emerging in schools, and these have the potential to transform the role of the representative. Where representatives can respond to the emergence of these new issues there is the prospect of a new, more participative trade union culture developing in schools. However, it is far from certain that school union representatives will want to assume these increased responsibilities, and this poses a major challenge for the development of teacher trade unionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on bullying at school proliferate, but the discourse is seriously lacking in sociological perspective. The explanation as to why some students bully others has been sought primarily within the personal attributes of the bully and the victim. Despite the fact that the school is the place where most bullying occurs, school factors that are correlated with the prevalence of bullying have been under-investigated. In Japan, however, schools have been subject to great scrutiny. By reviewing the Japanese literature on bullying (ijime), this paper discusses factors that appear to contribute to the school climate in which bullying among students becomes commonplace. These include authoritarian, hierarchical, and power-dominant human relationships, alienating modes of learning, high levels of regimentation, dehumanising methods of discipline, and highly interventionist human relationships in an excessively group-oriented social environment. The paper suggests the paradigm of student bullying needs to be re-thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the political and public debate about faith-based schooling is conducted at the level of generalised assertion and counter-assertion, with little reference to educational scholarship or research. There is a tendency in these debates to draw upon historical images of faith schooling (idealised and critical); to use ideological advocacy (both for and against) and to deploy strong claims about the effects of faith-based schooling upon personal and intellectual autonomy and the wider consequences of such schooling for social harmony, race relations and the common good of society. This paper will attempt to review some of these controversies in the light of recent educational and research studies. Particular attention will be given to research investigations of Catholic schooling systems in various cultural and political contexts, studies which are largely unknown outside the Catholic community. In addition to reviewing educational studies of faith-based schooling, the paper will offer critical appraisal of the main arguments in the debate and it will also outline a possible research agenda for future inquiry in this sector of educational studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile technologies such as palmtop computers and mobile telephones represent a new breed of technological innovation -- offering easier and quicker access to information and communication on an 'anytime, anywhere' basis. These networks are seen to lead to temporal and spatial re-definitions of young people's lives, with notions of time and space centred around the individual rather than shared societal norms or expectations. Such changes are now prompting some educationalists to predict that mobile technologies will radically change students, and therefore the nature of schools and schooling. Set against a lack of considered academic debate, the present paper offers a detailed consideration of the theoretical and practical implications of mobile technologies such as phones and handheld computers on schools and schooling by contrasting the 'fixed' nature of schools against 'mobile' technologies' freeing up of the key symbolic forms of power of information and communication. After considering the strengths and limitations of both these viewpoints, this paper then outlines a framework for future research and discussion in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the view that academic professionalism resides in the professional 'autonomy' of the academic, the 'self-regulation' of academics as an occupational group, and the differential 'status' of academic workers. This still influential (though residual) notion of academic professionalism, it is argued, leads to institutional stasis. What is required is greater reflexivity by academics in respect of their underlying professional values. In particular the piece challenges the academic community (of which the author is a member) to re-think academic freedom - the bedrock of professional identity within that community - in terms of increased inclusivity: 'freedom for all' rather than 'freedom for academics' The paper touches on issues relating to practice and organisational structure, but focuses primarily on the need for academics to shift the moral bases of their claim to professionalism. In so doing, it also challenges the post-Dearing consensus that the debate on academic professionalism can be adequately conducted in terms of 'standards' and 'outcomes'. A prime purpose of the paper is to promote debate and discussion by setting a different kind of agenda (a moral agenda) and by couching that agenda within a different kind of discourse (one that invites and admits moral speculation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses producer agency in the structural setting of the schools public-market. The initial focus for this analysis was the nature of competition, but, it is argued, the character of engagement with the public-market is better represented by inter-connecting and mutually influential modes of engagement (competitive, professional, bureaucratic, cultural) elaborated in the paper. These have been developed through analyses of headteachers’ accounts (one of the data sets in a study of the impact of competition on secondary schools), in a process of ‘dialogue’ with relevant literature, and build upon prior work by the author. The elaboration of the modes is set within the theoretical frame of analytical dualism. Conclusions highlight, inter alia, the tendency for competitive engagement to be present in a subordinated, although nevertheless significant, form, and the continual inter-weaving of different foms of engagement, at the core of which is an increasingly permeable public professional model . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:This article critically discusses the key tensions and challenges arising from the educational policy borrowing in China, through its current education reform. Focussing on the new curriculum reform (NCR), the paper highlights the interactions and conflicts between foreign and local ideologies and practices. Sources of evidence:The main sources of evidence that form the basis of the analysis for this article were research data from an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews conducted with 166 school principals, vice-principals and teachers from China between 2013 and 2015. Main argument:It is argued that the NCR has borrowed selective ideas and practices from elsewhere, such as a school-based curriculum, student-centred pedagogy and formative assessment. It is further suggested that the borrowed policies are mediated and moderated by the ideological attitude of the Chinese educational stakeholders, stemming from the notion of ‘theory-ladenness’ within an exam-oriented paradigm. Conclusions:The example of China illustrates the effects of an ideological attitude on educational policy borrowing that challenges the notion of universally appropriate ways of teaching, learning and reforming an educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background:Despite decades of research, bullying in all its forms is still a significant problem within schools in Australia, as it is internationally. Anti-bullying policies and guidelines are thought to be one strategy as part of a whole school approach to reduce bullying. However, although Australian schools are required to have these policies, their effectiveness is not clear. As policies and guidelines about bullying and cyberbullying are developed within education departments, this paper explores the perspectives of those who are involved in their construction.Purpose:This study examined the perspectives of professionals involved in policy construction, across three different Australian states. The aim was to determine how their relative jurisdictions define bullying and cyberbullying, the processes for developing policy, the bullying prevention and intervention recommendations given to schools and the content considered essential in current policies.Sample:Eleven key stakeholders from three Australian states with similar education systems were invited to participate. The sample selection criteria included professionals with experience and training in education, cyber-safety and the responsibility to contribute to or make decisions which inform policy in this area for schools in their state.Design and methods:Participants were interviewed about the definitions of bullying they used in their state policy frameworks; the extent to which cyberbullying was included; and the content they considered essential for schools to include in anti-bullying policies. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and analysed thematically.Findings:Seven themes were identified in the data: (1) Definition of bullying and cyberbullying; (2) Existence of a policy template; (3) Policy location; (4) Adding cyberbullying; (5) Distinguishing between bullying and cyberbullying; (6) Effective policy; and (7) Policy as a prevention or intervention tool. The results were similar both across state boundaries and also across different disciplines.Conclusion:Analysis of the data suggested that, across the themes, there was some lack of information about bullying and cyberbullying. This limitation could affect the subsequent development, dissemination and sustainability of school anti-bullying policies, which have implications for the translation of research to inform better student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Educational use of the Internet forms one of the cornerstones of Labour government policy, primarily via the construction of the 'National Grid for Learning' which aims to connect every school in the UK to the Internet by 2002. In this paper we report on the extent to which schools are already buying into information and communications technology (ICT) and in particular the Internet, effectively examining the foundations upon which the Learning Grid is being constructed. Via an empirical study of 150 current school websites we will argue that schools adopt a variety of approaches to the Internet and Worldwide Web depending upon the technological and institutional capital of the school, and that far from being utilised solely for educational purposes, the Internet provides an additional tool through which schools seek to reaffirm or reconstruct their existing institutional identities with varying levels of success. The paper concludes by adopting a semiotic framework for analysing the differential use of the Internet by educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is one of a number of related pieces which address the issue of parental choice through a careful Straussian analysis of interview data. The focus here is upon the structures and processes underlying the use of grapevine' knowledge, which parents elicit and disseminate in choosing a school. It is argued that this immediate or `hot' knowledge is of particular importance to many parents and is set over and against the `cold' formal knowledge produced by schools themselves or published as examination results or league tables. Grapevine knowledge is socially embedded in networks and localities and is distributed unevenly across and used differently by different social-class groups. The Paper concludes by suggesting that the stress and anxiety involved in choice for man)' parents is a product of unstable cultural values, and the slippery signs systems now surrounding `school' at a time of increased economic uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses events at Kingsmead School, Hocknwy, in the aftermath of head teacher, Jane Brown's refusal to take children to a ballet of Romeo and Juliet. The paper explores the ensuing struggle over space, governance and gender within the centext of LEA power after LMS. It analyses different levels of governance direct, midway and at a distance, and explores the relationship between these levels and developed legal powers. The paper links Hackney's techniques of governing, and school supporters' acts of resistance, to their competing spatial representations of Kingsmead Highlighted are discourses of ridicule, excessive sexuality, kingship, community and parents rights, as well as techniques of discipline, law, and fortification. Finally, the paper explores the conflict in terms of the production of lesbian feminist space, and considers the centrality of gender to the events that occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationships between primary-aged boys, hegemonic masculinities and sexualised/violent behaviours in the sc/tool setting The data fir this paper arise out of a year-long ethinographic study of two primary schools in the North-East of England. The aims are twofold, to explore the way in which heterosexual harassment features in the particular hegemonic masculinity of each school, and secondly, to consider the extent to which primary school boys of different ages and social class backgrounds draw upon sexually harassing/violent attitudes and behaviours as one of the key processes in defining their male identities within their peer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, drawn from an ESRC-funded research project, deploys data from one secondary school to raise some general times about the development of disciplinary technologies of surveillance and uses of performance in education. It is argued that the use of Total Quality Management, school Development Planning and ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education) Inspections, individually and collectively produce an intensification of teachers' work, submit teachers more directly to the 'gaze' of policy, and encourage schools and teachers to 'fabricate' themselves for the purposes of evaluation and comparison The paper is premised on the argument that schools cannot be represented adequately within research (or evaluation) by simple stones or single essentialising tags, `good/bad', `successful/failing'-they are inherently paradoxical institutions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on patents' involvement with their child's schooling and the possible influences upon this. At a time when parental involvement is regarded as being highly important to a child's school achievement and given the Government's promotion of the role of parents in education, the conditions should be particularly conducive to involving all parents in this significant role. It will be argued, however, that in spite of increased statutory rights and a changing attitude towards parents by teachers and schools, parents' social class location continues to have a direct impact upon their ability to intervene in their child's schooling. The paper concludes that increased parental involvement is probably desirable but the nature of this and its operationalisation needs to be carefully thought out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has witnessed the publication of a growing number of important ethnographic studies investigating the schooling experiences of Black students. Their focus has largely been upon student--teacher relations during the students' last few years of compulsory education. What they have highlighted is the complexity of racism and the varied nature of Black students' experiences of schooling. By drawing upon data from a year-long ethnographic study of an inner-city, multi-ethnic primary school, this paper aims to compliment these studies in two ways. Firstly the paper will broaden the focus to examine how student peer-group relations play an integral role, within the context of student--teacher relations, in shaping many Black students' schooling experiences. By focussing on African / Caribbean infant boys, it will be shown how student--teacher relations on the one hand, and peer-group relations on the other, form a continuous feed-back loop; the products of each tending to exacerbate and inflate the other. Secondly, by concentrating on infant children, the paper will assess the extent to which these resultant social processes and practices are also evident for Black pupils at the beginning of their school careers--at the ages of five and six. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is centrally concerned with criticism of inter-racial contact as a means of improving race relations. It aims, amongst other things, to highlight the damaging implications of the criticism on practices hitherto thought useful in combating racial prejudice. The main focus of the paper is the charge that a reduction in prejudice towards individual members of the group does not transfer to the group as a whole. it is argued that whilst there is much evidence to support this charge, the acquisition of positive attitudes towards an entire racial or ethnic group is not an aim that educationalists should seek to realise. In the light of this objection, an alternative view of the purpose of inter-racial contact is proposed such that the value of contact be judged in terms of whether it helps diminish the tendency to indulge in unsupported generalisations. To promote this goal it is urged that wherever practicable, inter-racial contact, under specified conditions, should form part of a programme that emphasises that nature, and particularly the dangers, of generalisation. It is acknowledged, however, that there are some children and some forms of prejudice that will remain impervious to the potential benefits of any form of contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports evidence from an ethnographic study of two primary schools in a large town in Northern France. The schools are located markedly different socio-economic settings. One is in an affluent area near the centre while the other is situated on a run down municipal housing estate on the outskirts in an officially designated educational priority zone. Despite their widely divergent social situations the two schools are strikingly similar and can be seen to be providing homogeneous educational experience for two socially heterogeneous populations. In the second half of the paper the notion of `national context' is explored and its usefulness as an explanatory theoretical concept for analysing this educational homogeneity is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years something of a moral panic has been created by the popular press and other powerful voices, around and about the teaching of Physical Education in schools. Teachers have been variously blamed for undermining the country's economic welfare and/or its capacities to achieve success in sport in international arenas. This paper examines the origins of this debate and tries to locate it within broader critiques of educational practice which have featured in educational and political discourses in Britain in recent years. It also claims that individualism is alive arid well in the New PE and that initiatives (such as Health Related Fitness and new forms of Games teaching) do little to challenge conventional social, categories and status hierarchies (relating to race, class, ability and sex) which prevail both inside the classroom and outside school. At its heart the paper points to the processes by which particular sorts of knowledge are legitimated and defined as worthwhile, in this case for the Physical Education Curriculum in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational selection has been a central issue for Structural Functionalist, Marxist and Interpretative sociologists of education While knowledge about selection processes within schools has increased over the past two decades, as a result of ethnographic studies of schooling, the social process of collective teacher decision making, when teachers are engaged in institutional channelling, has been largely neglected This paper explores collective teacher decision making at a point of allocation through the medium of a case study of setting in one 9-13 years middle school The paper argues that the discussion concerning the recent initiatives of educational selection embodied in modularisation, pupil assessment, common examinations and national testing should be informed by research of teacher interaction at points of allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the complexity of West Indian pupils' adaptations to school Their situation is such that ability, hard work and a commitment to academic achievement may not be sufficient in the struggle for academic success West Indian pupils face the additional barrier of staff ethnocentrism, which must be handled without reinforcing the widespread belief that they represent a challenge to teachers' authority The size of this task is examined through the use of detailed case studies of pupils drawn from ethnographic research in a single multi-ethnic inner-city Comprehensive The paper describes the strategies which allowed one West Indian pupil to succeed academically, whilst a group of his peers experienced increasingly conflictual teacher-pupil relations which culminated in academic failure and, in one case, expulsion from the school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt is made in this paper to arrive at a typology of teachers within the specific context of two forms of discourse, ideological and educational, which constitute a particular school in India it is suggested that the mode of recruitment, the teachers' perspectives on and adaptations to the particular ideology and the role, and their commitment to the same are significant factors contributing to the shaping of a teacher typology In this particular context, the teacher is thus both defined by and perpetuates the two forms of discourse in the school The data on which this paper is based was collected in 1981 through the use of questionnaires, interviews (both structured and unstructured) and observation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from the Scottish School Leavers Surveys to investigate trends in the transition from school at a time of deepening recession. The main change observed is the collapse of employment between 1979 and 1983. The paper also describes trends in the distribution of school-leaver employment, in its industrial and occupational composition, in patters of movement in the youth labour market and in the role of special programmes. Some of its general conclusions challenge ideas current among some British sociologists. First, youth unemployment (at least among recent school leavers) is no longer significantly connected with patterns of subemployment or frequent job-changing. Secondly, unemployment has not fundamentally changed the 'selective function' of education; credentials have retained their labour-market value in relative if not in absolute terms. Thirdly, the recent rise in school-leaver unemployment is very largely a result of the recession-the decline in the aggregate demand for labour-rather than of underlying structural changes that disadvantage young people; most recent changes in the transition from school to work are in principle reversible if the recession ends. The paper assesses the implications of these findings for the sociology of education, and concludes with a discussion of the possible impact of the Youth Training Scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex education has been included in the National Curriculum of the Brazilian Ministry of Education since 1996 as a cross-cutting theme that should be linked to the contents of each school subject in primary and high schools. This paper presents a study of the implementation of this policy in the primary schools of Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, based on interviews between January 2011 and April 2012 with 82 teachers working in those schools. We found that sex education was not being taught as a cross-cutting theme in any of the schools, and that any lessons were mostly dominated by a biomedical discourse focusing primarily on the reproductive organs, fertility, pregnancy, and contraception. Sexual health and relationships and non-heterosexual sex and relationships were being neglected. Sex education was also considered a possible means of correcting or controlling sexual identities and behaviours deemed abnormal or immoral. We recommend far more discussion of how to implement the National Curriculum recommendations. We call for education courses to provide theoretical and methodological training on sex education for teachers, and recommend that the boards of educational institutions take up sex education as a priority subject. Lastly, we suggest that each school studies local sexuality-related problems and based on the findings, each teacher presents a pedagogical proposal of how to integrate sex education into the subjects they teach. L'éducation sexuelle est au programme d'études national du Ministère brésilien de l'éducation depuis 1996 comme discipline transversale devant être liée aux contenus de chaque matière scolaire dans l'enseignement primaire et secondaire. L'article présente une étude sur la mise en łuvre de cette politique dans les écoles primaires de Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brésil, sur la base d'entretiens menés entre janvier 2011 et avril 2012 avec 82 enseignants de ces écoles. Nous avons constaté qu'aucune des écoles n'enseignait l'éducation sexuelle comme discipline transversale et que les cours étaient le plus souvent dominés par un discours biomédical se centrant principalement sur les organes reproducteurs, la fécondité, la grossesse et la contraception. Ils négligeaient la santé et les relations sexuelles, de même que les rapports non hétérosexuels. L'éducation sexuelle était aussi considérée comme un moyen possible de corriger ou de contrôler les identités et les comportements sexuels jugés anormaux ou immoraux. Nous recommandons d'intensifier les discussions sur la manière d'appliquer les recommandations relatives au curriculum national. Nous demandons que les cours dispensent aux enseignants une formation théorique et méthodologique sur l'éducation sexuelle et préconisons que les conseils d'administration des institutions éducatives considèrent l'éducation sexuelle comme une discipline prioritaire. Enfin, nous suggérons que chaque école étudie les problèmes locaux relatifs à la sexualité et, sur la base des conclusions, que chaque enseignant présente un projet pédagogique sur la manière d'intégrer l'éducation sexuelle dans la matière qu'il enseigne. En 1996, la educación sexual fue incluida en el Currículo Nacional del Ministerio de Educación de Brasil como un tema transversal que debería vincularse con el contenido de cada materia de enseñanza primaria y secundaria. En este artículo se presenta un estudio de la aplicación de esta política en las escuelas primarias de Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, en Brasil, basado en entrevistas realizadas entre enero de 2011 y abril de 2012 con 82 maestros que trabajaban en esas escuelas. Encontramos que en ninguna de las escuelas se estaba enseñando la educación sexual como un tema transversal y que, si había lecciones, éstas eran dominadas en su mayoría por un discurso biomédico centrado principalmente en los órganos reproductivos, fertilidad, embarazo y anticoncepción. Se hizo caso omiso de la salud y relaciones sexuales y del sexo y las relaciones no heterosexuales. Además, la educación sexual era considerada como un posible medio de corregir o controlar identidades sexuales y comportamientos considerados anormales o inmorales. Recomendamos discutir más a fondo cómo poner en práctica las recomendaciones del Currículo Nacional. Hacemos un llamado a que en los cursos educativos se ofrezca a los profesores formación teórica y metodológica sobre la educación sexual y recomendamos que los consejos de las instituciones educativas den prioridad a la educación sexual. Por último, sugerimos que cada escuela estudie los problemas locales relacionados con la sexualidad y, según los hallazgos, que cada maestro presente una propuesta pedagógica sobre cómo integrar la educación sexual en las materias enseñadas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the four authors explore the experience of school bullying, drawing on stories of bullying generated in a collective biography workshop and on fictional accounts of bullying. They counter the current trend of reading bullying as individual or family pathology with a post-structuralist analysis of subjectification and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the operation of heteronormativity in online and face-to-face dialogues about sexualities and schooling, and seeks to tease out the means through which this operation is enacted. The data arise from two linked research projects focusing on participants' perceptions and concerns about addressing issues related to sexual orientation in school contexts. Analysis of data from both sources showed that participants' narratives were embedded (often without the participants' recognition) in the heteronormative, through the inscription and reinscription of specific identity categories that fixed heterosexuality as the normative centre. Revisiting these data as a whole, we draw upon Youdell's notion of 'wounds and reinscrptions' and Bakhtin's notion of carnivalistic inversion to explore the virtual impossibility of imagining the homonormative. From this exercise we derive important lessons for ourselves as educators and researchers about how offering new imaginaries might enhance the possibilities for social justice and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief response paper seeks to clarify and expand the work of Allen and Vignoles presented in this issue. What Allen and Vignoles have done is useful because it directly replicates my earlier analyses of trends in social segregation between schools since 1989. These findings have had considerable international impact. So, to have them independently confirmed is therefore also important. The same substantive trends appear whatever sensible index of segregation is used - the clustering of pupils living in poverty in the same schools declined in the early 1990s, stabilised in the mid-1990s, and has been increasing since then. However, Allen and Vignoles appear to ignore some of the earlier findings of mine that they have replicated, and make some intriguing errors when discussing how to measure segregation, especially in relation to the properties of the Gorard segregation index (GS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite policy provision enabling sexuality education to address more than disease and pregnancy prevention, this focus continues to permeate many school programmes. This paper problematises the danger prevention emphasis in sexuality education, examines school's investment in it and asks how useful it is. The ways this kind of sexuality education may inhibit the reduction of 'negative' sexual outcomes and fail to support young people's sexual well-being is explored. Suggesting sexuality education might be conceptualisxed without this danger prevention emphasis necessitates an exploration of what might replace it. Foucault's work around an ethics of pleasure is drawn on as one example of how the objectives of sexuality education might be re-envisaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at underlying patterns of school effectiveness through analysing a GCSE examination data-set over a period of ten cohorts (1993-2002) in one very large English school district. Both value added and raw score approaches were explored by employing different statistical multilevel models to examine time trends of school and pupil performance from two perspectives: consistent (linear) and inconsistent (non-linear) school improvement. Overall, levels of measured attainment for the vast majority of the schools increased over the decade and the results indicate that one in four schools had significantly higher value added improvement trajectories (linear) than would be expected over the decade - in comparison to the average school. Those schools with a lower value added starting point in 1993 were more likely to make significant improvement. However, underlying these linear improvement trajectories it appears that only one in 16 schools managed to improve continuously for more than four years at some point over the decade in terms of value added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of studies into effects and side effects of control mechanisms in education. We focus on effects and side effects of inspection visits and public performance indicators. A first conclusion is that the studies do not provide us with a clear answer to the question of whether inspections have positive causal effects on the quality of schools. Results of studies of publications on public performance indicators are more unambiguous. They lead us to the conclusion that although principals and teachers believe performance indicators are important, parents and pupils take very little notice of these indicators when choosing schools. A third conclusion concerns the occurrence of side effects of school inspections and other control mechanisms in education. Several of the studies discussed clearly refer to the existence of these side effects, such as 'window dressing' and other types of 'gaming'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine state and indigenous education in Bolivia. Focusing on debates about the hidden curriculum, we conceptualize the school as a political space where tensions between the overlapping jurisdictional powers of the hispanicizing state and indigenous authorities are played out. Our analysis of these tensions highlights the contested way in which indigenous educational policy is negotiated in Bolivia and points to the importance of the deep structures of the hidden curriculum in constructing the school as a territorial authority and a site of struggle in indigenous communities. Using the communities of Raqaypampa, Cochabamba as a case study, we show how local struggles over indigenous education in the 1980s and 1990s became scaled up to influence national educational policy and donor intervention strategies in Bolivia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines issues of selection, merging an analysis of policy with data from a qualitative case study. It focuses on the 'modernisation of the comprehensive principle' proposed by New Labour, in which selection within schools (through setting 'by ability') is increasingly encouraged. Data collected at an inner-city, multi-ethnic comprehensive school are used to illustrate how discourses on selection are being reworked locally. The school was largely supportive of setting, despite some teachers acknowledging that the practice prioritised high-achieving pupils with perceived 'good attitudes'. In the form under study, setting involved disadvantaged pupils from ethnic-minority backgrounds, particularly those who received support in English as an Additional Language. It is concluded that setting did not contribute to an inclusive agenda for education, in spite of government claims of increased 'standards for all'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a literature review conducted in the UK for the Design Council and CfBT (Higgins et al., 2005) which looked at the evidence of the impact of environments on learning in schools. We have reviewed the available evidence regarding different facets of the physical environment and provided an analysis based on different areas of effect, including the extent to which different facets interact (positively and negatively) with one another. Our conclusions suggest that, although the research often indicates the parameters of an effective environment, there is an overall lack of empirical evidence about the impact of individual elements of the physical environment which might inform school design at a practical level to support student achievement. However, at a secondary level of analysis, there are indications that environmental change can be part of a catalytic process of school development and improvement. The implications of these findings for Building Schools for the Future will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Numeracy Strategy was introduced in England in 1998 to reform mathematics teaching in all primary schools. The strategy has been widely implemented and this paper investigates some of the changes that are evident after the first five years. Reporting a comparison between studies in 1998 and 2003 of pupils’ calculating strategies for division, this study shows a small improvement overall but lack of the uniformity that may be expected from a national Strategy. Structured written recording, progressively developed from more intuitive understanding, was not evident in much of the pupils’ work. In some schools there was success with the new ‘chunking’ written method, identified in the Framework as ‘informal’, while in less successful schools, pupils continued to use various informal and inefficient strategies. While in 1998 success of boys and girls was not significantly different, in 2003 the boys were more successful. The boys made more use of informal working and mental strategies, while the girls relied on more structured written methods and in the schools where girls did better they used mostly the chunking algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1993 the UK Economic and Social Research Council funded the Parental and School Choice Interaction (PACSI) Study into the marketisation of education, conducted by the author along with Philip Woods and Ron Glatter of the Open University. The findings from the PACSI study highlighted the localised and complex nature of markets in education and reported the ways in which senior school managers adopted a variety of strategies to respond to the local competitive arena in which they found themselves. In more than ten years since this study the UK Government has changed from Conservative to Labour and policy discourses on choice and competition have been situated alongside those of collaboration and partnership. In this shifting policy landscape the paper utilises analytical tools and findings from the original study to revisit one of the case study areas and examines the market environment in which senior school managers find themselves today. The findings reveal a stronger ‘parent as consumer’ marketing orientation and responsiveness on behalf of schools and an environment in which competition and rivalry has intensified and continues to discursively predominate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the issue of culturally responsive music curriculum content in the context of a music course that I taught on three occasions for Nunavut Arctic College's Teacher Education Program (NTEP). The 19 Inuit students who attended the course were working toward achieving certification for teaching in Nunavut schools. One of the assignments asked the student teachers to invent and peer teach a musical activity that adapted some of the concepts, materials, and skills I brought to the course to something traditional to Inuit culture. Three questions emerged from this assignment: What themes would their musical activities address? What values and traditions would be embedded in these themes? How would these themes relate to the themes expressed in the wider culture—in Inuit-produced carvings, printmaking, weaving, legends, and poetry? A thematic analysis of the student-designed activities revealed a connection to the “land” in ways that we do not see in Eurocentric music curricula, and the chosen themes were consistent with those that are present in other Inuit cultural products. One student's assignment is presented as an example of a musical activity that positions the Inuit relationship with the land at the core of the activity, while drawing on ideas from both Inuit and qallunaat (non-Inuit) traditions. I conclude that Inuit-created musical activities that are derived from Inuit experience have a role to play in decolonizing the curriculum for Inuit students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many contemporary sociologists suggest that a feature of modern life is that the practices and identities associated with ‘place’ are eroded. The local no longer matters in everyday life as it once did. Some national governments are persuaded of the possibility of an urban dystopia of Orwellian dimensions, and have found a response in theories and rhetorics of social capital, citizenship and communitarianism. They have instituted strategies to address an imaginary of harmonious local communities. In this paper I examine one such government intervention and show how four schools in Tasmania, Australia, took up the invitation to strengthen ties with their local communities. The projects reveal that the local still exists and matters, but they also hint at other possibilities. I argue that by working with a ‘place‐based’ curriculum to assist young people in building local networks and engaging productively with their local neighbourhoods, schools might provide important resources for identity‐building and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encouraging pupils to develop a sense of European identity is one of the implicit aims of the ‘European Schools’. This paper reports on a small case study that was carried out in 2004 that investigated how the European School at Culham attempts to develop in its pupils a sense of European identity. In particular, the study looked at the secondary school’s organizational features, its curriculum, extra-curricular activities and teachers’ conceptions of European identity. The research findings reveal that above all else, pupils’ sense of European identity is encouraged indirectly through the many opportunities the school provides for these children from diverse European backgrounds to integrate and interact with one another. Teachers at the school believe that it is through such interactions, which take place both in the classroom and through extra-curricular activities, that pupils learn about each others’ cultures and languages and develop a feeling of being European. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the possible nature and membership of learning communities in schools and what evidence there may be of middle leaders trying to develop and sustain learning communities with their colleagues, even though these communities encompass asymmetrical power relationships between members. Although it is argued that students and support staff are part of these learning communities, not apart from them, the limited evidence from this study does not support this. How power is used and distributed to construct collaborative cultures, and the part played by middle leaders, is central to the development of a learning community. The promotion of dialogue and consultation amongst members helps them to generate a sense of community which, in turn, enables them to tackle effectively the tasks and dilemmas facing them. Empirical evidence from a small scale study in England indicates the ways in which some middle leaders have tried to build learning communities, and their colleagues’ views on their efforts, while negotiating the value‐laden tensions and dilemmas inherent in all middle management posts in educational organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Character education is a specific approach to morals or values education, which is consistently linked with citizenship education. But how is it possible for a heterogeneous society that disagrees about basic values to reach a consensus on what constitutes character education? This article explores how character education has returned to the agenda of British education policy, having been largely neglected since the 1960s in response to unsatisfactory attempts at character education going back to the nineteenth century. Between 1979 and 1997 Conservative governments attempted to reverse a perceived decline in moral standards, established State control of the schools curriculum, imposed on State schools the duty to provide for moral and other development, and established a National Forum which attempted to articulate a set of consensus values in education. Labour has extended these developments in the curriculum, introduced compulsory citizenship education, and its White Paper of September 2001 speaks of ‘education with character’. The character and virtues Labour seeks to promote through schools are pragmatic and instrumental in intention, linked to raising pupil school performance, meeting the needs of the new economy, and promoting democratic participation. Otherwise the vision is pluralistic and evades explicit directives, and there is no explanation or analysis of its theoretical basis. The question of how agreement can be reached on what counts as character education may benefit from Sunstein's analysis of how law is possible in a heterogeneous society –‘incompletely theorized agreements on particular cases’ allow for common laws without agreement on fundamental principles. Many schools in fact operate in this way, but such a consensus is not entirely stable and runs the danger of teaching character education as a series of behaviour outcomes taught in a behaviourist fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]