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This paper considers the subjectivation of students in light of the increasing amounts of digital data that are now being produced within schools. Taking a lead from critical data studies and the sociology of numbers, the paper draws on staff interviews in three Australian secondary schools to explore the various types of student data being generated, and the forms of student subjectivities that result. In particular, the paper contrasts the 'holistic' possibilities that some school leaders and administrators ascribe to data in terms of expanding the capacity to 'know' students, against the limited ways that data is actually being used within the schools. Most notably, the paper details how digital data appears to be configured within schools' official data procedures and practices to build student subjectivities and position students in narrow terms of performance and attendance. The paper also highlights how teachers make practical use of these limited data 'profiles' in a relational manner – as a way of stimulating dialogue with students to know them better, rather than a source of precise calculation. In this sense, the paper considers how 'data' might be reframed in educational discourse as a practical starting-point for teacher inquiry and professional judgment rather than an imagined source of all-encompassing knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and evaluates some aspects of the legacy of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council and its long serving Chief Education Officer, Sir Alec Clegg, who held the post between 1945 and 1974. Against a subsequent political discourse of markets, choice and autonomy which portrays local authorities as the cause of poor educational outcomes and school failure, political developments have led to a diminution of the role of local authorities, destruction of local democratic accountability and greater centralisation of power and control of education. Drawing on interviews and email correspondence with former pupils, teachers, officers and others of the West Riding, its successor authorities and beyond, we explore the context, tensions, successes and lasting impact of Clegg's ideas and practice, particularly in relation to support for community development and the arts and creativity. The paper also looks at Clegg's influence and legacy with regard to selection for secondary education and the role of middle schools, the development of primary education and the impact on successor authorities to the West Riding and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks the question: to what extent do inspection regimes, particularly the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), influence the work of a school, and how might that influence be conceptualised? It draws on an ESRC-funded study of ‘policy enactments in secondary schools’, which was based on case-study work in four ‘ordinary’ schools. Here the data set is re-examined to understand the extent to which Ofsted had an ongoing influence on the work of the leadership, management and teachers in these schools. We undertook a process of secondary analysis of the data from the project and found that the influence of the inspection agenda was strong in the schools, policy decisions were often being made to conform to Ofsted’s expectations and the influence on leadership and management was clearly apparent. In resisting this agenda we also found that schools to some extent performed ‘the good school’ for inspections. Finally, we relate this empirical evidence to conceptions of governmentality and post-panopticism to shed new light on their theoretical relevance to contemporary inspection regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary meritocratic education discourse in England positions schools as 'engines of social mobility', responsible for enabling students' educational 'success' regardless of their circumstances. Building on critiques that characterise meritocracy as a neoliberal cultural motif that legitimates inequalities, and the capabilities approach, this paper investigates the challenges of navigating meritocratic expectations in practice by drawing on qualitative and photovoice interviews conducted with teachers and students at a highly rated London school serving a disadvantaged community. While many participants endorsed meritocratic narratives, all expressed doubts that the school could 'make up for' the significant structural disadvantages faced by many students. This led our participants to describe challenges associated with meritocratic discourse, including: the stresses of meeting these expectations; uncertainty about attributing responsibility for 'failure'; and questions about what could and should be done in practice to enable disadvantaged students to 'succeed'. We argue that meritocratic rhetoric imposes significant burdens on students, teachers and schools by holding them responsible while obscuring the role that social inequalities play in shaping students' educational opportunities. Greater critical discussion in schools could help students and staff to challenge meritocratic education discourse and to negotiate its expectations. [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]

The article focuses on the two annual conferences related to education. The annual conference for 1978 was held in King's College, London, England, on 15 December 1978. Registrations for the Conference had numbered 84 and among those attending the larger sub-groups were from Universities and Colleges of Education or Colleges and Institutes of Higher Education . Discussion group activity continued after lunch but participants met again for a plenary session in the latter part of the afternoon, not to receive conventional reports of discussions but to develop the points of special interest which had been raised and to exchange views more widely. The Standing Conference on Studies in Education will hold its annual conference on 14 December 1979 at King's College, London, England. The theme will be Individuality in Education. Circulars concerning participation in the conference will be sent to members of the Standing Conference on Studies in Education in the autumn but non-members who would like to take part in the conference should get in touch with James Scotland, Secretary, Aberdeen College of Education, Hilton Place, Aberdeen, Scotland.

The UK Government's PREVENT strategy to counter radicalisation and extremism has been the subject of criticism. Concerns arise over clarity of purpose, clarity of terminology used and potential human rights impacts. Where the policy engages with schools, one human right potentially engaged is the right of parents to transfer their religious beliefs to their children. This paper looks at how PREVENT risks negatively impacting on this right. It proposes a way that this risk can be reduced by adopting a proactive approach to the Government's security concerns which is centred on human rights education. [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]

This paper focuses on the reforms made to the quasi-market in school-based education in England that occurred between May 1997 and May 2001. It discusses the changes that have taken place in relation to parental choice, admissions to schools, school diversity, funding and examination 'league tables'. The Labour Government can be seen as having embraced the quasi-market with a similar enthusiasm to that of its Conservative predecessors although it has tended to emphasise social inclusion as opposed to competition. While it has attempted to soften the edges of the quasi-market it has not tackled some of its major deficiencies such as the power that schools that are their own admission authorities have to distort the admissions process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as its starting point the special provision made for grant maintained schools through the 1998 School Standards and Framework Act and suggests that the compromise it represented may be considered as an example of New Labour' Third Way in politics. The latter is discussed in terms of general and educational policies with specific regard to the characteristics of self-governing schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of empirical research on leadership of educational organisations, and especially of schools, which has stressed the importance of being sensitive to context, is not great. This paper seeks to highlight the challenge presented by this situation. First, context is defined. Second, attention is drawn to what can be learned in the area of school leadership from the emphasis in other bodies of scholarship within the broad field of education studies on paying attention to matters of context. Third, an overview is provided of some of the key considerations arising out of the small body of work undertaken in the field by those researchers who have focussed on the broad range of issues that can arise for school leaders in distinctive contexts. Finally, five key and interconnected propositions to guide practice with regard to leadership in diverse contexts that have been generated from an analysis of the latter body of work are presented. In doing so, it is recognised that these are tentative in the absence of a much larger corpus of work. Overall, we hope that, along with providing intellectual sustenance, each of the four areas considered will also stimulate discussion on areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

This article argues that it is important to understand militarism in schools as an affectively felt practice that reproduces particular feelings in youth and the society. The analysis draws on affect theory and especially feminist scholarly work that theorises militarism as affect to consider how militarism is affectively lived in schools. In particular, the article examines the ethical and political implications of affective militarism in schools and suggests an 'affective methodology' for exploring militarism's affective logics in schools. It is also suggested that resisting militarism in schools involves a serious ethico-political dilemma, namely, how to engage with the value of honouring fallen soldiers without inadvertently condoning the moral and political ideology of militarism. In seeking insights into the affective dimensions of militarism in schools, it is crucial to identify the complicated, productive and ambivalent intersections between militarism in schools and broader moral and political economies of military cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the ways in which the history curriculum in Schools in Great Britain has been subject to contestation, and highlights the implications of the impact of postmodernism upon the teaching of history. Relationship between `official history' taught in schools and `unofficial histories' which influence children; Discussion on the future direction of history in schools.

In 1987, U.S. Secretary of State, Kenneth Baker, announced his plan for twenty independent City Technology Colleges (CTCs) to be established and in operation by 1990. These CTCs were intended to provide a 'new choice of school' for 11-18 years olds in inner city areas and to have to a curricular bias towards science and technology. While their recurrent costs were to be met by central government, so that they did not have to charge fees to parents, all or a substantial part of their capital costs were expected to be met by business sponsors.

Discusses efforts of the British Association for the Advancement of Science aimed at promoting scientific education in British schools. Date the association was founded; Number of members appointed to study the scientific qualifications of inspectors in elementary schools; Reason why the committee's term of reference was altered in 1981.

Examines the linkages and relationships between the officially prescribed school ethos and that which emerges from social interaction in Great Britain. Analysis of the existing perspectives on the concept of ethos using two main positivist and anti-positivist viewpoints as a framework; Ethos in each of the school types.

Examines how school admissions policies and practices in Great Britain are affected by educational reforms. Analysis of the 1988 Education Reform Act; Overview of the criteria for school admission; Problems associated with school admissions; Necessary prerequisites for school admissions.

The article seeks to explore five fundamental dilemmas that are confronted by in history teacher education. These dilemmas, related to debates about history teaching, the coherence of the Post-Graduate Teachers Certificate (PGCE) courses, the value of school based PGCE work, the personal agendas and concerns of beginning teachers and the introduction of the National Curriculum derive from an interaction of long standing problems in teacher education, the initiatives of the present government and debates within the subject discipline. Each dilemma is elaborated in the context of PGCE programs for history student teachers and the work concerned with the classroom teaching of their subject.

Evaluates the implications of career education research for schools of unemployment and the growing uncertainties about the future of work in Great Britain. Aspects to be noted in evaluating the state career education; Effects of the rise in employment on education in general and career education in particular; Issues relating to the future of work.

Focuses on the debate over the development of multi-bias schools for students beyond the age of 11 in Great Britain. Demand for increased enrollment; Recommendation of main criterion for admission to secondary schools; Attempt of cataloging the opinions of educational organizations and individual educators.

Evaluates the effectiveness of planned curriculum change in Great Britain. Citation of the minimal impact of curriculum change on schools and colleges; Requirement of changes in the internal organization of the school; Involvement of teachers in decision-making.

Education is a key mechanism for the restoration of inter-community relations in post-conflict societies. The Northern Ireland school system remains divided along sectarian lines. Much research has been conducted into the efficacy of initiatives developed to bring children together across this divide but there has been an absence of studies into the impact of educational division on teachers. A number of policies, separately and in combination, restrict teachers' options to move across and between the divided school sectors. The recruitment of teachers is excepted from fair employment legislation; details of teachers' community identity are consequently not collected, and little is known about the impact that ethnic identity, educational policies and sectoral practices have had on teacher deployment. This quantitative project investigates the extent to which the deployment of teachers in mainstream schools in Northern Ireland reflects the enduring community divide. It is observed that, whilst primary schools are staffed mainly by community-consistent teachers, there has been an increase in cross-over teachers in post-primary schools – particularly in the grammar sector. Around one-in-five teachers have had no educational experience outside of their community of origin; this cultural encapsulation may contribute to a reluctance to engage with contentious issues in reconciliation programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talks about progressive education. Impediment of progressive education in schools; Contributions of phenomenology to educational thinking; Impact of family and society on individual's traits.

This article draws upon recent theorising of the ‘becoming topological’ of space– specifically, how new social spaces are constituted through relations rather than physical locations – to explore how standardised data, and specifically test data, have influenced teachers’ work and learning. We outline the varied ways in which teacher practices at a primary school in Queensland, Australia, were actively constituted through processes of ‘tracking data’ and ‘keeping data on-track’, and how teachers were simultaneously being disciplined, or ‘tracked’, by these very same data. Our analyses suggest that what appear to be more ‘technical’ activities and tasks of ‘using’ data are, in fact, actively constituted modes of governance, enabled through and deployed by ongoing practices of comparison and topological respatialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I respond to the work of Gert Biesta regarding the question of what education should be for. He maintains education ought to be oriented towards the ‘good’ rather than measurement, accountability and efficiency. While sympathetic to such claims, I nonetheless question his avowal that discussion of the purposes of education needs to entail reflection upon tripartite processes of qualification, socialisation and subjectification. I also argue that the concept of subjectification presented by Biesta is elusive. He says educators cannot plan to produce it in students. He also suggests there is an unhelpful surplus of reason in education that constrains possibilities for subjectification. According to Biesta, education partly reproduces ‘rational communities’ that stifle the emergence of human uniqueness and inhibit persons from challenging accepted social orders. In response to this, I argue there is currently a deficit rather than a surplus of reason in education concerning the common good. Following MacIntyre, I claim that educational institutions should support students to learn how to think for themselves and act for the common good. I conclude that such utopian thinking about the purposes of education may be needed, now, more than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While research has focused on the role of racism in (re)producing ethnic/racial inequalities in education, there is very little research that investigates how variability in minority students’ responses to racism can be explained. By using an ecological approach to integrate existing research on actors’ responses to racism, this study finds that researchers have generally neglected factors and processes situated at the micro- and meso-levels of analysis. Qualitative interview data with Turkish–Cypriot children enrolled in schools in the predominantly Greek-speaking part of the Republic of Cyprus are used to investigate their strategies in response to racism and the factors that explain the observed variability in their responses. The findings suggest the importance of and interactions between factors situated at different levels of analysis, including the level of organizations and social groups and face-to-face interactions in explaining variability in young people’s responses to racism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Presents an overview of issues related to policy developments in education in Great Britain. Assessment of quality in schools; Role of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative on the quality; Critique of educational policies.

Even if the literature on the effects of pupil composition has been extensive, no clear consensus has been reached concerning the significance and magnitude of this effect. The first objective of this article is to estimate the magnitude of the school composition effect in primary schools (6th grade) in French-speaking Belgium. Different indicators of school composition are used: academic, socio-cultural, ‘language’ and sex composition. Except for sex composition, the results show that the school composition effect explains significant amount of between schools variance even after controlling for pupils’ initial performance, socio-cultural background, and non-cognitive dispositions. The second objective is to examine covariance between school composition and several organisational variables and their joint effect on school performance. The second set of analyses is intended to question the conceptual nature of the school composition effect, establishing whether it is direct or indirect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a theory about the ambition of most Inspectorates to realise ‘school improvement through inspection’. Literature about a number of direct and indirect interventions, such as reciprocity, communication and feedback is used to build a theoretical model stating the relations between working methods of school inspectors, reactions of schools and resulting effects and side effects. Finally two types of inspections strategies are described that can be used in different types of schools. We expect schools with a low innovation capacity and few external impulses to be helped best by a directive approach in which an inspector clearly points to the strong and weak points of the school, the probable causes of their level of functioning, and potential ways for improvement. The inspector should pressure the school to change by making written agreements on how to change and by asking the school to work out these agreements in an improvement plan. A school with a high innovation capacity and strong external impulses is expected to do better with a more reserved inspection approach. Inspectors only need to provide this school with some insight into their strong and weak points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the educative importance of ethos from a broadly philosophical perspective. It is argued that, for a range of reasons, the notion of ethos in the context of education needs to be brought into clearer focus. An analysis is offered of the concept of ethos, with particular reference to the context of classrooms and schools. The educative importance of ethos is explored, with reference to a range of difficulties and challenges which it presents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using various official sources (such as Ofsted reports), the article explores competing conceptions of the ‘under-achieving’ school which have been operationalised in recent years. It suggests that there have been multiple, potentially conflicting definitions in policy discourse to which recent innovations have merely added a further layer of complexity. Using a simple conceptual framework comparing judgements made within ‘standards’ and ‘progress’ frameworks for evaluating schools’ performance, it highlights the very limited range of conditions where judgements made within one tradition would complement those made within the other. As the educational system begins to turn increasingly to use of so-called ‘value-added’ approaches as a way forward, the implications of these analyses for policy development, particularly in relation to the alleviation of social and educational disadvantage, are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Gypsy Travellers’ changing views on their children's education. It highlights the positive means some schools use to encourage greater involvement of Gypsy Traveller parents. It argues that current educational policy needs to be re-developed to incorporate more effective and affirmative responses to interrupted and nomadic learning. It draws heavily on interviews with Gypsy Traveller families in an effort to give ‘voice’ to an under-represented community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of the changing geography curriculum illuminates the continuing struggles over subject knowledge at national level, and highlights more general issues about ideology and the politics of curriculum change 1991-2000. The investigation focuses on the processes and impacts of two National Curriculum Reviews and the changing policy trends and structures becoming apparent under New Labour. Three phrases of curriculum policy-making are tentatively recognised, raising questions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates the issue of separate schools in Great Britain, focusing multi-denominational education. Information on the relationship between the school as an institution and the population which is served; Concerns regarding publicly funded schools; Information on cultural diversity; Asymmetry between cultural and moral or religious commitments; Details on the educational grounds for supporting common schools.

Evaluates the effect of introducing markets into the institutional system of education and promotes the claim of a learning democracy in Great Britain. Chubb and Moe's arguments on markets and democratic control; Markets' promotion of autonomy; Suggested reading by Ministers of Education for their civil servants.

Looks into the importance of parental choice regarding the education of their children. Assumption regarding the production of greater diversity in educational provision because of parental choice; Significance of granting authority for parents to choose the school for their children; Concern regarding the capacity of public education to change or be changed.

Discusses the sovereignty of learning and the new educational virtuousness. Concern regarding the sovereignty of learning with the new ascendancy of market thinking in education; Perception of education as a product or quantifiable commodity; Association of modernity with new virtuousness in education.

Focuses on several issues concerning the work of primary teachers in Great Britain. Implementation of a new national curriculum that changes the nature of teaching; Examination of the working hours of infant teachers in a week; Assessment of the working conditions of teachers; Increase in the tasks of primary teachers.

Offers an interim assessment on the impact of grant-maintained (GM) schools and its policy on the emphasis of competition on parental choice of schools and education markets. Typology of schools seeking and achieving GM status; Degree of parental and pupil support for opted out schools; Benefits and disadvantages of opting out and of the challenges faced in running schools; Factors in choosing a secondary school that has been noticeable like the GM schools; Nature of the GM schools reputation.

Discusses the pattern of provision for special educational needs as a result of the Education Reform Act (ERA) in 1988. Features of ERA; Implication of the legislation for the education system; Integration of children with special needs into mainstream schools.

Focuses on the role of parents in ensuring that schools operate efficiently and effectively and provide value for money. Concern on school accountability; Definition of accountability; Data on market forces.

Focuses on the improvement of teacher education in Europe. Role of teachers in the reforms conceived and implemented for the school systems; Correlation between the teacher's position in the society and the objectives set for teacher education; Classification of the parameters of teacher's position.

Details an interim report of a comparative study of a series of recent documents concerning the education and training of teachers in various European countries. Information about the developments of teaching programs and policies; Data on the bureaucratic-managerial approach of education; Discussion on the professional approach program.

The article presents the author's view on the elimination of prejudice as an educational aim. Prejudice denotes that a mind has been made up without due consideration of and sometimes even in defiance of the evidence. The author has tried to explore an important objection to the view-- that since most prejudice is by and large natural and valuable, it makes no sense to speak of eliminating it through education or for that matter by any other means. An attempt should be made to eliminate only those prejudices which are socially unacceptable or socially dysfunctional. Education is no less natural, but involves reflecting upon one's prejudgment and experiences. One of the strengths of this view is that it runs counter to the notion that prejudice itself is caused by defective thought processes and can be remediated by training in cognitive skills. Categorization is fundamental to cognition because without it incoming information would not be cognitively manageable. It is often said that a prejudiced person is over-categorical in their thinking, but rigid categorization can only be maintained by subtle particularization. The author asserts that prejudice can best be tackled in schools by encouraging pupils to be active participants in a tradition of debate.

Lasting curriculum evolution is a slow process but it is continuous. Even at the level of the single institution, whole curriculum change is rarely obvious from one year to the next. The production cycle in schools begins in April/May for planning, is implemented in September 1990 and cannot be changed except in a dire emergency until the following year. There are acknowledged weaknesses in the system of education in the Great Britain. Science, technology and engineering have their share of them, though influential writers trace the causes of weakness far beyond education.

Discusses the contemporary rhetoric and practices dominant in British education. Major changes introduced in the British educational system; Impact of the economic condition of the country on education; External factors that affects the condition of education.

Focuses on the blueprint for the identification of good teaching. Focus on the curriculum in the selected schools. Existence of an "ideal state" of teaching; Link of teaching and educational quality.