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This paper critiques recent developments in educational discourse through an analysis of two UK Government White Papers and three specific problems. We argue that the latter herald forms of 'biocreep'. Echoing the analysis of such phenomena in the work of Michel Foucault, this gradual extension of 'biopolitics' into the field of education is a tendency which has accelerated with the Coronavirus pandemic and raises many questions for policy analysis. First, we show how the White Papers' approach to life and its related assumptions embody an attempt to further entrench the techniques of biopolitical population management in secondary and further education settings. Second, our analysis of the two Papers shows not just a deepening discursive shift towards ways of instrumentalising educational processes, but also identifies a triple problem of political assemblage: primo, this shift relies on the assemblage of a 'problematic subject'; secondo, it simultaneously assembles the problem of value extraction; and tertio, it obscures the problem of desire or unruliness of the assemblages created. Just as discursive practices of instrumentation, administration and evacuation try to manage these assemblages, they remain unable to contain the three problems they enshrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, is here evaluated. The considerable strengths of the proposals – replacement of the TECs with Learning and Skills Councils, the adoption of social partnership in the membership of the new Councils, the substantial increase in resource and a large number of specific measures – are briefly welcomed. A number of serious reservations are then discussed in detail – for example, the absence of a model of change, the over-riding concern to meet the skill needs of business, the overreliance on human capital theory and the continued dependence on exhortation as a means of increasing employers' investment in training. Findings from The Learning Society Programme are then used to question some of the central assumptions underlying the official model of progress. It is argued that endless technocratic reforms are more likely to foster conformity, compliance and control rather than emancipation, empowerment and the enhancement of learning. Finally, it is concluded that the government is rightly pursuing radical, structural reform but is failing to recognize the potential of lifelong learning as a major lever on such change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fair access and widening participation currently occupy a prominent position in the UK higher education agenda, but these terms remain ambiguous. In this paper we identify two prominent strands of policy in the government's approach to access and the widening of participation and contrast these with a third, more progressive perspective. The academic strand seeks to attract 'gifted and talented' young people into an unreformed higher education system. The second strand, which we term the utilitarian approach, posits a need for reform. However, this is undertaken largely to meet the requirements of employers and the economy. In contrast, a transformative approach values diversity and focuses on creating a system of higher education that does not place the burden of change upon potential entrants. This framework is used to explore some of the implications of the government's White Paper The future of higher education. First, the purpose of higher education is discussed, with particular reference to the distinction between economic and social objectives. Second, the government's view of the structure of the higher education sector is examined, by scrutinizing the notion of institutional differentiation and the role of the access regulator. We conclude that within a more differentiated higher education sector different aspects of the access discourse will become dominant in different types of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticizes the National Educational Research Forum's Consultation Paper 'A National Strategy' because of its inadequate representation of educational research in Great Britain. Failure of the paper to attend to context and history; Key facets of the dominant paradigm of governance which the paper subscribes to; Simplistic assumptions made about the relation between educational research and classroom practice.

Comments on the article discussing the national education research strategy in Great Britain. Definition on the function of strategy in the national education research; Opposition to the proposed Education Priorities Group; Threats to the academic freedom.

Since the 2000s, successive governments in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have embraced the idea of ‘raising aspiration’ among young people as a solution to persisting educational and socio-economic inequalities. Previous analyses have argued that these policies tend to individualise structural disadvantage and promote a ‘deficit’ view of working-class youth. This paper adopts a novel approach to analysing aspiration discourses combining Michel Foucault’s four dimensions of ‘ethics’ and Mitchell Dean’s notion of ‘formation of identities’. Applying Foucault’s and Dean’s work in this way provides a new lens that enables an examination of how policy encourages particular forms of subjectivation, and, therefore, seeks to govern individuals. The findings presented in the paper complicate previous research by showing that raising aspiration strategies portray disadvantaged youth both in terms of ‘deficit’ and ‘potential’, resulting in a requirement for inner transformation and mobility through attitudinal change. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for the identity formation of young people and for conceptualising contemporary forms of governmentality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers questions of ‘employability’, a notion foregrounded in the Green and White Papers on the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The paper first questions government imperatives concerning employability and suggests a series of mismatches that are evident in the rhetorics in this area. This summary opens up elements of what I am calling the first ‘folly’ in the field. The second section of the paper considers recent research with individual academics engaged in employability activity. This research suggests another series of mismatches in the aims and outcomes of ‘employability initiatives’ and opens up a further series of ‘follies’ in the day-to-day practices of academics and students’ responses to them. The third section of the paper turns to academics’ reports of student behaviour in relation to the outcomes of their degree. This section develops an argument that relates to the final ‘folly’ associated with the current focus on employability. I argue that students’ focus on outcomes (which at face value suggests they have internalized the importance of employment) is contributing to the production of graduates who do not have the dispositions that employers – when interviewed – say that they want. The highly performative culture of higher education, encouraged by the same metrics that will be extended through the TEF, is implicated then innotpreparing students for the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Framed as being in response to terrorist attacks and concerns about religious bias in some English schools, 'British Values' (BV) curriculum policy forms part of the British Government's Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, 2015. This includes a Duty on teachers in England to actively promote British Values to deter students from radicalisation. This paper, first, traces the history of Britishness in the curriculum to reveal a prevalence of nationalistic, colonial values. Next, an ensemble of recent policies and speeches focusing on British Values is analysed, using a psycho-political approach informed by anti-colonial scholarship. Finally, we interrogate two key critiques of the British Values curriculum discourse: the universality of British Values globally, and concerns over the securitisation of education. Findings indicate that the constitution of white British supremacist subjectivities operate through curriculum as a defence mechanism against perceived threats to white privilege, by normalising a racialised state-controlled social order. The focus is on 'British' values, but the analytic framework and findings have wider global significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a particular gap in the further education (FE) literature offering an analysis of Incorporation within a theory of social change developed by Fligstein and McAdam, in their work ‘A Theory of Fields’. The authors argue that FE was subjected to the introduction of a quasi-market in advance of wider neoliberal reforms in the English public sector. The paper analyses the development of Incorporation arguing the marketisation of the sector developed a logic of its own which the authors term the ‘logic of Incorporation’. This logic overdeveloped areas of ‘market’ interest while neglecting other crucial areas such as teaching and learning, professionalism and the curriculum. These neglected areas are explained using the concept of ‘unorganised social space’ (taken from an undeveloped concept in Fligstein and McAdam’s work) which remain unstable and unresolved because the very logic of Incorporation blocks the discussion of other logics, discourses or alternatives. The paper concludes that the logic of Incorporation leaves many important areas underdeveloped including the strategic place or purpose of FE itself. It proposes that FE has yet to find the stability of a ‘strategic action field’ needed to maintain itself and should be returned to some form of local or regional government ownership and control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the discursive shifts of emphasis of school headship since the 1980s in England, and the ways in which the repositioning of head teachers has gradually transformed professional work and relationships in schools via a discourse of management. Specifically, the paper identifies a ‘trilogy of school headship in England’ to indicate a process by which school headship has been repositioned – from head teacher, to manager, and to leader from the Education Reform Act of 1988 onwards. Drawing primarily on policy texts, the construction, within policy, of a head teacher endowed with power, responsibility and freedom will be detailed. Informed by both Fairclough and Foucault’s conceptions of discourse, this paper concludes that as a policy technology management subjects head teachers to ‘a twin process of autonomization plus responsibilization’ within which they become the linchpin of the delivery chain of policy and play a key role in the formation of ‘performative professionalism’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, education and family policy in the UK has sought to incorporate the views of children and young people through an active participation agenda, in the fulfilment of children's rights under the obligations of the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child. Drawing on empirical evidence, this paper suggests that this aspiration is flawed. The inclusion of young people's voices in decision-making is context dependent, and influenced by individual relationships, both positive and negative. It is framed by policies that subjugate children within disciplinary technologies that determine a regime of 'truth' about effective and appropriate participation. Drawing on data gathered as part of a wider study on the relationships between services users and services providers in special educational needs, this paper demonstrates that active inclusion of the voice of the child can be illustrated to be at least variable, and at worst prejudiced. It is suggested that the notion of participation produces tacit forms of 'government' that further classify and divide young people, magnifying their marginalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to think aloud about the current policy proposals in circulation in England that address pre-service teacher education. Rather than dealing with details of policy and points of specificity in practice, the focus of this paper is with how propositions are justified and the overall ways in which meanings are being managed; a fundamental aspect of policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on theBuilding Colleges for the Future(BCF) initiative (2008) which saw a wave of new-build Further Education (FE) colleges spring up across England in the final years of the New Labour government. It draws on qualitative data from a research study focusing on four new-build colleges in the West Midlands of England to theorise the BCF initiative. Using theory derived primarily from Lefebvre, the paper contextualises BCF within a frame of neoliberalisation and discusses the impact of the ‘production of space’ represented by the initiative with a research focus on two areas: pedagogy and ideology. The main findings are that these new-build colleges can be interpreted as spatial expressions of policy-makers and others’ perceptions of teaching and learning; in ideological terms, they also trumpet a ‘new lifestyle’ and a ‘new art of living’ for FE staff and students that is however, in tension with residual pedagogical practices and values. The article concludes that despite being an expression of neoliberal abstract space, these new-builds can still be seen as providing a frame for alternative individual and collective encounters with education which may subvert and outlast the processes of neoliberalisation that they appear to embody. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United Kingdom (UK), Higher Education Institutions share with other educational providers the duty to provide reasonable adjustments for students who disclose disabilities. The role of academic administrators in the operationalisation of legislation-driven policy related to disability within the university context is overlooked within empirical and theoretical literature, and explicit recognition of the administrative role is often reduced to descriptions of bureaucratic processes and training requirements. This paper makes an empirical and theoretical contribution by explicitly recognising the unique operational and personal practices of educational administrators as they undertake disability-related work. Drawing upon a larger ethnographic study that employed observation, in-depth qualitative interviews and discourse analysis, the findings start to reveal the subtle interactional practices that administrators undertake during their everyday work with people disclosing of a disability; these revelations offer indicators for future staff training and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people's aspirations remain an enduring focus of education policy interest and concern. Drawing on data from an ongoing five-year study of young people's science and career aspirations (age 10-14), this paper asks what do young people aspire to at age 12/13, and what influences these aspirations? It outlines the main aspirations and sources of these aspirations as expressed by young people in England in the last year of primary school (survey of 9000+ Y6 pupils, aged 10/11, interviews with 92 children and 76 parents) and the second year of secondary school (survey of 5600+ Y8 pupils, aged 12/13, interviews with 85 pupils). We demonstrate how aspirations are shaped by structural forces (e.g. social class, gender and ethnicity) and how different spheres of influence (home/family, school, hobbies/leisure activities and TV) appear to shape different types of aspirations. The paper concludes by considering the implications for educational policy and careers education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new way of conceptualising education policy and also begins to develop a new method of policy analysis. In both instances, it draws on the theoretical and conceptual tools of Foucault, and in particular his concept dispositif. It posits an historical and ontological formation - a policy dispositif -with formative roots in historical reflections on 'how to govern". This contingent policy formation is comprised of a multiplicity of heterogeneous elements, including material objects, discourses, practices and subjectivities. Although it is argued that hegemonic discourses and rationalities have an ontological effect on the dispositif, as an amorphous polymorphic formation it is not so much deter-mined by these, but is rather engendered by strategic struggles over the meaning and governing of education. In developing a new method of policy analysis, three analytical trajectories are identified for investigating the performative and dispositional ontology of micro-dispositifs - power, truth and subjectivation -and are put to work through an empirical case. Although the paper focuses mainly on the education state in England, this new conceptual and analytical framework has wide applicability for policy research in a range of national and local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predominant focus in this paper is on issues of school context and, in particular, on the dimensions of context at a large English comprehensive school that enable it to thrive within the current demands of the contemporary audit culture. Featuring interview data gathered from a number of senior educators, the paper draws on Braun et al's. (Braun, A., S. Ball, M. Maguire, and K. Hoskins. 2011. "Taking Context Seriously: Towards Explaining Policy Enactments in the Secondary School." Discourse: Studies in the Politics of Education 32 (4): 585 -596) heuristic device for thinking about the 'situated', 'professional' and 'external' dimensions of context at the school. This device supports an analysis of the school's intake (in particular the high cultural and class related aspirations of parents and students) and its values (namely the school's traditional ethos of academic and behavioural excellence). The central argument of the paper is that these contextual dimensions contribute significantly to the school's capacity to forge a worthy school identity within the current hyperaccountable and competitive environment where academic achievement (along increasingly narrow and conservative lines) and maintaining standards in relation to this achievement are utmost priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first draws on the political philosophy of R.H. Tawney to outline some universal principles for the provision of socially just education. It then moves onto a more pragmatic approach, analysing where the injustices lie in contemporary British education and outlining policies and practices that are socially just, not in an instrumental neoliberal sense but in terms of more egalitarian social democratic and socialist traditions. The final section of the paper focuses on Finland as the closest example of a socially just education system, before arguing for a rethinking and reworking of Tawney’s educational thinking for the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports the findings of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study investigating patterns of participation in UK higher education science programmes across two decades. Using data on applications and acceptances to university, the paper describes trends in the proportions of candidates who choose to study science and science-related degree programmes. Two key findings emerge. Firstly, in terms of age, occupational background and ethnic group, patterns of participation in science subjects have remained relatively stable over the period considered. Where inequalities do exist they appear largely unaffected by policies aimed at widening access. Secondly, the characteristics of students who study the broad range of science and science-related subjects are little different to those of the wider student population. However, where differences do occur they are in the type of science degree that individuals choose, with entrants from traditional backgrounds more likely to study the more prestigious science subjects. This is exemplified in the physical sciences which remain largely the preserve of White, traditional-age students from professional and managerial backgrounds. The analyses suggest that policies aimed at increasing or widening participation in science in UK higher education appear to have had limited impact on the social composition of the full-time undergraduate science population, in terms of their age, occupational and ethnic group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of policy fracture and arms length governance within the decision-making processes currently shaping curriculum design within the English education system. In particular, it argues that an unresolved 'ideological fracture' at the government level has been passed down to school leaders whose response to the dilemma is distorted by the target-driven agenda of arms length agencies. Drawing upon the findings of a large-scale online survey of history teaching in English secondary schools, this paper illustrates the problems that occur when policy-making is divorced from curriculum theory, and in particular from any consideration of the nature of knowledge. Drawing on the social realist theory of knowledge, we argue that the rapid spread of alternative curricular arrangements, implemented in the absence of an understanding of curriculum theory, undermines the value of disciplined thinking to the detriment of many young people, particularly those in areas of social and economic deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of CCTV in schools is now commonplace in the UK. It is estimated that 85% of all UK secondary schools currently have CCTV systems in operation. The introduction of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) (enacted in March 2000) meant that for the first time CCTV had direct legislation governing its use in the UK. This paper attempts to apply the decree to the widespread introduction of CCTV technology in schools and argues that the various elements of statute are impractical or inappropriate to educational institutions. The ill-defined and vague legislation presented in the DPA 1998 provides very little protection to the data subjects in schools (mainly pupils and teachers). In addition, the ubiquity of CCTV in schools in the UK far surpasses the enforcement capabilities and resources of the Information Commissioner's Office and as such any contravention of the scant provisions of the Act is likely to go unidentified and under-enforced. In consideration of the DPA, the paper elucidates numerous examples to suggest that a large number of schools are in contravention of the law. The paper outlines the need for bespoke policy to govern and regulate the use of CCTV in schools. Whilst the paper focuses on the case of the UK, it speaks to an international audience in concluding that the use of CCTV and surveillance technologies in schools requires greater scrutiny and regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where 'enactment' refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and 'translated' by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an audit of the policies encountered in four case study schools in the south-east of England. The second part looks at one current English government policy, namely personal learning and thinking skills, and how this is taken up in two of the case study schools. In this way, the paper not just explores why a policy is adopted but also illustrates the capacity for school-based policy elaboration, where schools produce their own 'take' on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as well as on the situated necessities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the traditions of critical race theory, the paper is presented as a chronicle - a narrative - featuring two invented characters with different histories and expertise. Together they explore the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative approaches to race equality in education. In societies that are structured in racial domination, such as the USA and the UK, quantitative approaches often encode particular assumptions about the nature of social processes and the generation of educational inequality that reflect a generally superficial understanding of racism. Statistical methods can obscure the material reality of racism and the more that statisticians manipulate their data, the more it is likely that majoritarian assumptions will be introduced as part of the fabric of the calculations themselves and the conclusions that are drawn. Focusing on the case of recent national data on the secondary education of minoritized children in England, the paper highlights statisticians' ability to define what counts as a 'real' inequality without public challenge or scrutiny; reflects on the dangers of statistical 'explanations' in the realm of public debate and policy outcomes; and questions quantitative assumptions about the intersectional relationships between different forms of oppression, including gender, class and race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between changing forms of the governance of education and the growth and uses of data in the context of England - a context that can be described as the most 'advanced' in Europe in terms of data production and use. The paper links the shifting relations between the central department of education (variously known between the 1980s and the time of writing as the Department of Education and Science [DES], Department for Education and Skills [DfES] and the Department for Children, Schools and Families [DCSF]), the local education authorities and the schools to the growth and development of data-based systems of inspection and performance management, and suggests that the massive growth of data has unbalanced the relations of governing and created highly centralised system steering. Recent attempts to 'rebalance' steering through 'intelligent accountability' invoke network principles and self-regulation through self-evaluation, and thus give the appearance of deregulation, but the centre maintains control through its management and use of data, and local government remains peripheral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon an earlier analysis presented in this journal. Using official figures for school compositions and for outcomes at KS4 from 1997 to 2007, this paper considers each of the annual cohorts of new Academies in England, from 2002 to 2006. It shows that their level of success in comparison to their predecessors, national averages, their changing compositions and their changing exam entry practices are insubstantial. Of course some schools are gaining higher scores since Academisation, but others are gaining lower scores. Using the most recent results available there is no clear evidence that Academies produce better results than local authority schools with equivalent intakes. The Academies programme therefore presents an opportunity cost for no apparent gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two key themes of recent UK education policy texts have been a focus on 'quality' in public sector performance, and on 'equality' in the form of New Labour's stated commitment to equality of opportunity as a key policy objective. This twin approach can be seen at its most obvious in the concept of 'excellence for all'. This paper contends that in recent policy texts the vocabularies of quality management discourse and egalitarian discourse have become conflated, serving to mask key issues relating to educational inequality, seen at its most stark in the attainment gap. The paper argues that this has led to a failure to distinguish between the goals of quality management and the ends of egalitarianism. Discursive conflation of this sort risks obscuring the significance of socio-economic context and the limited impact of within-school action. The paper also suggests that the focus on equality in terms of school provision paradoxically risks entrenching social inequalities despite the appearance of egalitarian commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which the UK government's full service extended schools programme has the capacity to ameliorate educational inequality in urban contexts. It starts by examining a variety of explanatory narratives for educational inequality in urban contexts in the UK and suggests that the dynamics of social exclusion created by urban decline has generated particular types of polarised urban communities whose analysis has often been decoupled from research on educational reform programmes in urban schools. The paper argues for the need to re-couple educational process with the dynamics of urban context and suggests that the most recent educational policy development of full service extended schools (FSES) may present distinctive opportunities to complete such a synthesis. The paper then locates FSES within a broader set of government approaches that attempt to deal with social exclusion and educational disadvantage. It then draws on research conducted by the authors and others that has examined notions of FSES in the UK and beyond. It will argue that at present the evidence for the capacity of such an initiative to synthesise effectively educational process with the dynamics of urban context and hence resolve successfully the problems of educational inequality in such contexts is at best inconclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education policies of governments have become increasingly directed towards economic ends, including the development of workforce skills. UK governments have been particularly committed to such policies and have adopted some quite distinctive tools, relying heavily on targets and emphasizing certificated rather than uncertificated learning. The underlying assumptions of such policies have been subject to sustained critique, but there has been relatively little empirical evidence available regarding their impact on individual adult learners. This paper uses a large national longitudinal data set to examine whether governments in the UK have met their objectives and how far these are consistent with the learners’ own. It provides, in particular, detailed information on the factors affecting acquisition of additional formal qualifications in adult life and whether there has been any shift in favour of the less skilled in recent years. It also examines the extent to which qualifications, and especially those prioritized by government, lead to increased earnings for their holders. The results strongly suggest that current policies are failing even on their own terms. In conclusion the paper provides some possible explanations for the findings and sets them in an international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at Ofsted and particularly special measures regimes as part of a disciplinary mechanism. It examines issues such as school effectiveness theories, the increasing powers of Ofsted, and life under special measures and links it to performativity, discipline and surveillance using the metaphor of the panopticon. The change in teachers’ accountability is traced, along with the rise in the audit culture in teaching, and the increase in the power of Ofsted. The research context is a case study of a school over the period 1999–2003. During this time the school was placed into special measures and provided an opportunity to examine the effects of a key Government policy. The issues researched were Ofsted, special measures and the effects that these had on schools and teachers. The paper argues that a special measures regime is an example of panoptic discipline which I call panoptic performativity. The primary research is echoed by much of the existing research and first hand accounts of Ofsted inspections. I also locate special measures regimes in the context of Lyotard’s ‘performativity’, Foucault’s ‘normalization’, and the school effectiveness literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to examine current and evolving supply side transition policy initiatives in the light of (a) particular demand side needs of urban young people classified as those most disadvantaged and potentially marginalized; and (b) the emerging realities of accessing and operating within particular examples of high value-added knowledge work arenas of the new urban economies in the UK. The paper is a synthesis of qualitative research undertaken by the author over the last five years that has examined notions of transition, development and learning for both young people and adults as they attempt to navigate their pathways in, and through, the new economies of the post-industrial urban context. The paper communicates the importance of a number of sociocultural theoretical concepts as a way of illuminating transition choices, actions and opportunities for disadvantaged young people. These concepts also enable a broader set of critical questions to be asked about current 14–19 transition policy and practice, particularly with regards to Connexions and the Careers Education and Guidance in England 11–19 National Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge transfer (KT) has entered the higher education arena in the UK as the ‘third sector’ of higher education activity—along with research and teaching. Its antecedents lie in the commercialization and technology transfer of the late 1980s and 1990s, and this business-like orientation remains dominant in the KT policy discourse. This paper explores the extent to which policy for KT may be understood both as ‘travelling’ policy shaped by globalizing trends in pursuit of successful competition in the new knowledge economy (KE) and as ‘embedded’ policy mediated by local contextual factors that may translate policy to reflect local priorities and meanings. In considering evidence of ‘embedded’ policy the paper develops its arguments through preliminary analysis of KT policy in Scotland where—at least at the level of discourse—there is an attempt in post-devolution Scotland to encourage KT in the broader public interest. However, KT’s antecedents may continue to shape the engagement of academic staff in Scotland, as may the wider context of UK policy steering in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council's programme of research into 'Teaching and learning'. The project, entitled 'The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the new learning and skills sector', explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalized groups of post-16 learners. Drawing primarily on policy documents and 62 in-depth interviews with national, regional and local policy-makers in England, the paper points to a complex, confusing and constantly changing landscape. In particular, it deals with the formation, early years and recent reorganization of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), its roles, relations with government, its rather limited power, its partnerships and likely futures. While the formation of a more unified learning and skills system is broadly seen as a necessary step in overcoming the fragmentation and inequalities of the previous post-16 sector, interviewees also highlighted problems, some of which may not simply abate with the passing of time. Political expectations of change are high, but the LSC and its partners are expected to carry through 'transformational' strategies without the necessary 'tools for the job'. In addition, some features of the learning and skills sector policy landscape still remain unreformed or need to be reorganized. The LSC and its partners are at the receiving end of a series of policy drivers (e.g. planning, funding, targets, inspection and initiatives) that may have partial or even perverse effects on the groups of marginalized learners we are studying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an empirical analysis of education policy in England that is informed by recent developments in US critical theory. In particular, I draw on ‘whiteness studies’ and the application of critical race theory (CRT). These perspectives offer a new and radical way of conceptualizing the role of racism in education. Although the US literature has paid little or no regard to issues outside North America, I argue that a similar understanding of racism (as a multifaceted, deeply embedded, often taken-for-granted aspect of power relations) lies at the heart of recent attempts to understand institutional racism in the UK. Having set out the conceptual terrain in the first half of the paper, I then apply this approach to recent changes in the English education system to reveal the central role accorded the defence (and extension) of race inequity. Finally, the paper touches on the question of racism and intentionality: although race inequity may not be a planned and deliberate goal of education policy neither is it accidental. The patterning of racial advantage and inequity is structured in domination and its continuation represents a form of tacit intentionality on the part of white powerholders and policy-makers. It is in this sense that education policy is an act of white supremacy. Following others in the CRT tradition, therefore, the paper’s analysis concludes that the most dangerous form of ‘white supremacy’ is not the obvious and extreme fascistic posturing of small neo-nazi groups, but rather the taken-for-granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked in the political mainstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper raises questions regarding the ability of new qualifications frameworks and assessment systems to promote innovation and social inclusion. Of interest in this paper is the centrality of tacit skill in promoting innovation. Tacit skill is central to innovation, although its positional character is not well understood by policy-makers. It is argued that the relationship between tacit skill and innovation throws doubt on the relationship between assessment led change, and on the social and economic objectives of New Labour (in the UK) and the Labour-led Coalition (in New Zealand). This paper also reviews recent changes in the funding of higher education in New Zealand and in the UK, and explores the impact of economic change on the competition for advancement through education. This paper concludes by arguing that innovation and social inclusion are not compatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideology without competence is a dangerous vice. But competence without ideology is a limited virtue. (D. Miliband, Minister of State for School Standards, DfES) Opportunistic attempts have been made by successive governments to establish--some would say impose--sets of criteria against which the effectiveness of not-for-profit organizations like schools can be gauged. Most have been subjective: the extent of staff involvement in decision-making, the appropriateness of the leadership shown by senior managers, the percentage of inspected classes regarded as 'good', and so on. Lately, UK government rhetoric, using a lexicon borrowed from Business and Economics, suggests a willingness to move to new systems of reportage; centred on improvement rather than blame, on critical friendship more than on confrontation. There appears no longer to be the puritanical tendency among policy-makers to adopt measures that cause pain in the belief that they alone can be right, but do they constitute (as critics like Thrupp suggest) a random collection of well-intentioned but poorly theorized policies, or can they be cogently conceptualized into a whole? Previously, improvement measures judged schooling simply, in terms of external stakeholder outcomes, but failed to capture the essence of what it was to be (or what it took to become) a successful improving school. This paper suggests that current government policy, whether knowingly or not, is essentially describing improvement from a different perspective--an internal perspective of 'intellectual capital'. The paper knits together government policy statements on school improvement with a re-conceptualization of intellectual capital specifically designed for schools, offering an imposed coherence to government policy that could potentially change the way we think about inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social policy-making in the UK under the Labour government has galvanized around the issue of social exclusion, identifying young children (0-4 years) and their families living in areas of high social disadvantage to be particularly at risk. This paper attempts to recover the experiences and views of professionals concerned with the delivery and implementation of a multi-agency programme tackling the social exclusion of these young children and their families known as Sure Start. The data are based on the analysis of documentation, attendance and observation at meetings, and 32 semi-structured interviews with members of the inter-disciplinary team responsible for the Sure Start programme's delivery. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using open coding from grounded theorizing. The paper, in reflecting on the problems and dilemmas of multi-agency approaches and reported in other research, considers how the preliminary findings from this study suggest the team have managed to accommodate and overcome these potential difficulties, to facilitate an integrated, holistic and user-centred approach to the programme. The paper concludes by considering the possibility that the team's approach may be conceptually located within an organizational social capital framework as posited by Nahapiet and Ghoshal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'spin' is conventionally used to refer to the process and products of purposively managing information in order to present institutions, individuals, policies, practices and/or ideas in a favourable light and thereby mobilize support for them. Attempts to manage news and political communications are not new. However, the New Labour Government in the UK is frequently presented--by the media and political opponents--as being obsessively concerned with spin to the detriment of both transparency and substantive policy-making. In the collection and analysis of the data from the ESRC-funded study of the English Education Action Zones (EAZs) policy upon which this paper draws, spin arose as a prominent theme. For example, spin was often raised explicitly by those interviewed as an activity that they needed to be reflexive about and engage in. It was described as shaping the fortunes of the policy or in some cases as constituting the policy. Frequently overt attempts were made by those being researched to try to 'persuade' the researchers of a particular spin which should be put on the research questions and/or reports. The overarching purpose of this paper is to illustrate the complex relationship between spin and policy, using the English EAZs policy as an example. The first section of the paper defines spin and places the concept in historical context. It then goes on to explore the role of spin in the construction and evolution of the policy, drawing particular attention to the dynamic, endemic, and disciplinary nature of the policy of spin. Whilst spin is conventionally understood as something separate from policy, as something that is 'done to' policy in order to make it attractive to particular constituencies, the central argument of this paper is that spin needs to be understood as operating on two levels, often simultaneously. At one level it operates as a strategy of impression management, where a range of tactics are used to attempt to control the impression that 'the public' gets of New Labour policies. However, those policies and the spin that represents them to 'the public' cannot be understood as distinct and separate entities because the policies cannot be neatly abstracted from the spin. Thus, at another level, one also needs to focus on the constitutive role that spin plays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of A-level examination results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has become one of the major diary items in the news media's calendar. This paper is based, in part, upon the findings of an inter-disciplinary study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It explores two key questions about the relationship between the education sector and news media in the UK. Firstly, it asks why educationalists appear to have become pessimistic about the possibilities for raising the quality of media debate about education. Secondly, it takes the example of the annual coverage of A-level results, in order to discuss why education news coverage tends to adhere to templates that many educationalists criticize as producing ritualistic and polarized coverage. The paper concludes by exploring some suggestions for those who are seeking ways to influence the quality of education news coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to extend work previously published that points to the importance of rhetorical analysis to policy studies. It argues against the notion that policy can be dismissed as 'spin' and explores further the work of rhetoric within the UK government's policy texts of lifelong learning. For the authors, rhetorical analysis helps to point to the politics of discourse that is at play in policy-making processes. This paper points to some of the conceptual resources upon which one can draw in undertaking rhetorical deconstructions of policy texts and discourses, in this case, of lifelong learning, and one's own role, as analysts and sultans of spin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores constructions of the 'new' university student in the context of UK government policy to widen participation in higher education. New Labour discourse stresses the benefits of widening participation for both individuals and society, although increasing the levels of participation of students from groups who have not traditionally entered university has been accompanied by a discourse of 'dumbing down' and lowering standards. The paper draws on an ongoing longitudinal study of undergraduate students in a post-1992 inner-city university in the UK to examine students' constructions of their experiences and identities in the context of public discourses of the 'new' higher education student. Many of the participants in this study would be regarded as 'non-traditional' students, i.e. those students who are the focus of widening participation policy initiatives. As Reay et al. (2002) discovered, for many 'non-traditional' students studying in higher education is characterized by 'struggle', something that also emerged as an important theme in this research. The paper examines the ways in which these new student identities both echo the New Labour dream of widening participation and yet continue to reflect and re-construct classed and other identities and inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent UK government Green Paper proposes reform for the supply side of 14-19 education, establishing four key goals. This article focuses on the first of these goals: meeting needs and improving choice. The article draws on research on sixth form colleges, general further education colleges and schools. It argues that employers, one of the two groups highlighted in the Green Paper, are a relatively weak force in shaping provision. The second group, young people, are more powerful due to current funding incentives, it presents evidence which suggests that colleges and schools perceive both practical and attitudinal difficulties in collaborating to meet needs by offering flexible routes and a distinctive range of choices. A long history of intervention in the supply side has not achieved widening participation nor equity amongst the choices offered. A more radical approach to influencing the demand side may be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which a culture of performance has impacted on schooling in the English setting and draws parallels with other post-industrializing nations. There is a growing awareness amongst researchers and practitioners that improving the quality of teaching and learning through performance management is not working. In education policy terms the UK Government has made much of the importance of modernizing the teaching profession in raising levels of achievement, attainment, and success in schools and colleges. The proposed trade-off for teachers is improved pay for improved standards. Advocates of such reform point to the benefits derived from greater devolution of market principles to frontline professionals which, it is argued, enhance performance, remuneration, and motivation (Barber 2001). Critics, on the other hand, have criticized the deprofessionalizing tendency of tying performance management to government targets, which fail to connect with the contextual realities of teaching and learning in the classroom or education workplace (Elliott 2001, Merson 2001). Recently such criticism was rejected by the (then) Secretary of State for Education as cynicism. 'In education it is those who offer cynicism in the guise of experience who can drive young teachers to look for other careers. We shall always try to combat cynicism wherever it threatens progress on standards' (Morris 2001: 9). This paper seeks to avoid such reference by arguing for greater authenticity in the way education practice might drive, rather than being driven by the policy and performance agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by providing an overview of the UK's national key skills agenda, with a view to placing in context the subsequent description of the formulation and implementation of a skills policy by a traditional, research led university, namely Queen's University Belfast. The paper is written from the perspective of two members of academic staff who spent two years on part-time secondment as Skills Development Officers. We outline how a number of small-scale investigative projects informed our thoughts and decisions, how aspects of management and internal politics influenced the formulation or a university skills policy, and how a series of initiatives evolved that were aimed at supporting staff and students in implementation of that policy. We conclude that while external pressures to explicitly develop students' key skills within higher education are intense, restitutions need to reflect more on the implications of any policies and strategies for implementation they impose upon their staff. Within traditional institutions progress can be slow, with the pace of change influenced not only by the level off support and drive from senior management, but also dependent upon the knowledge, experience, energy and enthusiasm of academic 'champions' who have a balanced view' of the skills agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1997, the Blair administration has taken various steps to make school teaching a more inclusive occupation. For example, in England and Wales it has introduced measures to increase levels of male recruitment to primary teaching and attract more ethnic minority entrants to the profession. This paper shows how these policies have been legitimated by an appeal to commonsense notions about the salience of 'role models' in socialization. Underlying official discourse in this sphere is the assumption that the 'targeted recruitment' of male or ethnic minority teachers will provide much-needed 'role models' in schools for those groups most likely to experience educational failure and disaffection. Thus, matching teachers and children by gender or ethnicity is seen as a panacea for male or Black 'underachievement'. This paper begins by weighing the strengths and weaknesses of current policies on gender, ethnicity, and teaching. Having subjected the 'role model' argument to critical scrutiny, it moves on to discuss the dilemmas encountered by male entrants to primary teaching during the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and ethnic minority students preparing to teach in either the primary or secondary sectors. Drawing upon the findings of two recently completed studies, the students' responses to the policies under consideration and their lived experiences during school placement are considered. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of the discussion for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since coming to power in 1997, two successive Labour Governments in the UK have actively attempted to tackle the problem of what they have called 'social exclusion'. Their argument has been that social problems, which are overlapping and inter-related, need 'joined-up' policy solutions. For example, poor housing and low income can contribute towards and exacerbate lack of success in schooling and need to be tackled simultaneously. The Labour Government has argued that what is needed is a multi-agency partnership response which harnesses the strengths and expertise of a variety of welfare perspectives. This 'partnership' approach currently, characterizes social welfare policy-making in the UK. This paper critically explores the perceptions and experiences of those involved in one such multi-agency partnership which has been established to challenge an aspect of social exclusion: the exclusion of children from primary schools. At the same time, the paper examines the ways in which policy is constructed and enacted by those charged with its implementation. Initially, current policies are considered in respect of social exclusion focusing on some problems and dilemmas of multi-agency partnerships, as highlighted in other research. Drawing on data from one study, this paper goes on to examine partnership in one specific context, which combines health, education and social work in an inner-city primary school setting. Finally, it is argued that, if multi-agency partnerships are to achieve their potential, greater understanding of the difficulties involved in implementing new policies in such contexts needs to be considered at the outset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper places educational devolution in the UK within an historical context. It starts from the premise that the differences within the current educational systems of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland stem not only from the changed educational/political context following devolution but also from established contrasting histories and traditions. The paper combines historical and educational policy analysis to explain how this intra-national variation has come about, concentrating upon the period 1944 to the present day. In the process, it argues that a fusion of history and education policy analysis provides an illuminative method for understanding the multitude of factors that have contributed to the complex contemporary structures of education in the UK. It also suggests that both historians of education and policy sociologists have in the main failed to adopt a so-called 'home-international' approach to the analysis of education policy and have (understandably) been pre-occupied with the English context of educational reform, the effect of which has been to under-estimate the complexity of policy recontextualization in the UK. The paper concentrates particular attention upon debates over selection and comprehensive schooling and observes that, at the beginning of the 21st century, England has effectively ended its association with 'the comprehensive ideal', which in a post-devolutionary era, makes it distinctive from certainly two and possibly three of the other constituent parts of the country. The paper uses historical reference points to theorize about how this situation has come about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on an in-depth evaluation of a Single R egeneration Fund Budget funded partnership based on individual and community education as a means of promoting social inclusion. Partnership has become the preeminent mechanism for furthering the UK Government's social inclusion agenda. The paper focuses on the dynamics of partnership itself at management level. Bourdieu's concept of habitus is drawn upon in thinking about some of the processes facilitating or hindering partnership working. In particular, the paper draws attention to gender dynamics in partnership working and the ways in which these interact with organizational and professional practices. The article postulates that connections established prior to the formal partnership constituted cultural capital, which was transferred to the partnership. In particular, it was found that gender networks and practices constitute an important source of skills and dispositions. This way of viewing partnership working contributes to debates about sustainability, since it suggests that personal qualities that are essential to project success are a transferable resource and that there is a pool of cultural capital based on previously existing social networks that may transcend organizational and professional boundaries. The paper suggests that practices and networks on the ground may survive changes in both the language of public policy and models of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the issues surrounding student retention in higher education. It is based on the case study of a modern university in England that has good performance indicators of both widening participation (i.e. increasing the diversity of the student intake) and student retention. The two-fold nature of this success is significant, as it has been asserted that greater diversity will necessarily lead to an increase in student withdrawal. Furthermore, changes to student funding in the UK put greater financial pressures and stress on students, especially those from low-income groups. Nevertheless, many students cope with poverty, high levels of debt and significant burdens of paid work to successfully complete their courses of study. Drawing on the work of Reay et al. (2001), this paper adopts and explores the term 'institutional habitus', and attempts to provide a conceptual and empirical understanding of the ways in which the values and practices of a higher education institution impact on student retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the history of US influence on higher education policy and practice in the UK during the second half of the 20th century. The analysis is located in a broader context of cultural and policy encounters between the two nations during these years and considers the relevance of the contested concept of 'Americanization' to understanding the history of transatlantic influence. It argues for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the UK's orientation towards the US academy and draws on a range of relevant concepts from social science to illustrate the key themes and questions involved. Policy transfer and lesson drawing are considered as conceptual tools with which to identify the often complex and overlapping elements involved in the development of policy. Unpacking these concepts requires detailed historical investigation of who, why and what is involved in policy transfer and needs to be firmly located within the specific nature of educational policy making and politics in the UK. The empirical evidence suggests that the translation of US policy ideas and practices was far from straightforward and was invariably conditioned by a range of structural, cultural and political barriers. The paper concludes that the US exercised an important but ambiguous role in the development of UK higher education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the nature of contemporary professional identity. It looks at the ways in which 'discursive dynamics' come to re-write the professional teacher and nurse as split, plural and conflictual selves, as they seek to come to terms with a political impetus written through what the authors term an 'economy of performance' in uncertain conflict with various 'ecologies of practice'. The teacher and nurse are thus located in a complicated nexus between policy, ideology and practice. Epistemologically, the paper offers a deconstruction of professional identities, and criticizes the reductive typologies and characterizations of current professionalism. Politically, it reaches towards a more nuanced account of professional identities, stressing the local, situated and indeterminable nature of professional practice, and the inescapable dimensions of trust, diversity and creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]