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This paper considers the way social partnerships tend to be represented as either horizontal localised networks or neo-liberal policy instruments. Building on two empirical studies of partnerships, we argue that partnerships cannot be understood in either/or ways but are negotiated at the interface between central agencies and local networks. They are mediated by networks operating through the partnership and through government and community, and by the different organisational logics of agencies. These complexities challenge our ways of analysing and representing partnerships, and justify further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines notions of 'educational time' with particular reference to the work of Basil Bernstein. It focuses closely on the 1967 Plowden report as a particularly appropriate policy case study to demonstrate how different constructions of time can exist within the same document. It then develops educational models originally mapped out by Bernstein, arguing that a full understanding of the areas of consensus and conflict among these models is vital if we are to understand how teaching professionals think about the future. The paper addresses the following questions: How does time affects education? What influence does this have on educational outcomes? How does this relate to public policy initiatives? Assuming a tacit, collective understanding of time and the future can undermine the very policy intentions a government might be seeking to promulgate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pervasive educational issues confronting Australia, and other countries, at the moment is the declining completion rates in high schools. While a period of success was experienced after the Second World War, there is now a pressing need to reform high schools in the ways they connect with young lives. In this paper, we present a 'sociology of the high school' as a way of encapsulating the high school as an institution that: is still largely stuck in a 'continuity of practice' (Elmore, 1987); has an 'attachment to familiar pedagogical routines' (Eisner, 1992); fails to listen to students; is hierarchically structured; treats students in immature ways; is hung up with passing on content; and seems more concerned with insulating itself from, rather connecting with or appropriating, young lives into the curriculum. As an alternative, we examine the notion of middle schooling that requires a version of whole school reform that engages with structures, cultures and changing pedagogy in ways more resonant with, and respectful of, young lives. We examine the tensions and dilemmas experienced at Investigator [1] High School in Australia, and conclude that the centerpiece has to be breaking the mold of the 'scripted' teacher and its replacement by the 'teacher-as-improviser'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the issue of social policy and education. Political debate about education has moved away from an apparent concern with inequality and the links between education and poverty or strategies to modify these problems, to discussion of education's role in the economic recession. At the same time, many social scientists have eschewed political participation in government as an arena for their research. Many have resorted to different political arenas for the implementation of their research-based strategies. Others have resisted political action and resorted to policy analysis. Many interested in educational policy have moved away from explicit lobbying tactics and focus less directly on the organization of compulsory education, especially secondary schools. Interest centers more on issues traditionally seen as marginal to compulsory schooling, although there is no consensus of what that interest should consist. Much recent work on education takes the state as central, as do other political economies of social policy, in attempts to understand the characteristics of the relationship between education and the economy. This approach cannot be separated from the current concerns of much of the contemporary sociology of education.

The article presents a reply to Harold Silver's review of Unpopular Education. Silver's review calls for a sustained re-examination and reappraisal of educational policy experience and for debate how to do it. Instead of debating our findings and arguments, Silver delivers a little inaugural lecture on the subject of real History. Indeed, he seems to be pretty sure what real sociology and real political science are too. The main charge against Unpopular Education is that it does not conform to any of these reputable academic practices. He casts it instead into a limbo of its own, along with some other restless characters. The first page of the review contains a number of formulations about the nature of history. Description entails selection and emphasis. All historical work is influenced, informed or governed by some kind of theory. Historical descriptions are often conducted as, or amount to case studies in the relevant theory whether or not it is explicit. The confusions in Silver's own stance allow him to hold simultaneously that Unpopular Education is a work of history and not history at all. As history it is faulty it omits themes central to any form of analysis of the period. As theory it is ideological because, so the argument seems to run, it is too explicit. Yet the foils against which these judgements are made remain extremely evasive. The logic of analysis seems indeed Platonic.