Search

This paper looks at the flexibilisation of teachers' employment relations in England in the context of an accelerated deregulation of work and employment conditions and of educational provision. It brings to light a contrasted picture, where external flexibilisation, through the recruitment of unqualified teachers, seems to be contained by a mixture of diverse but convergent interests and norms from the State, teacher unions and employers. Meanwhile, forms of internal flexibilisation (regarding working time, pay, and job boundaries and workplaces) appear to be more pervasive. This raises fundamental questions about the meaning of 'standard' employment relations in the teaching sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little conclusive evidence linking academies reform in England with school improvement. While this reform has been effective in improving educational outcomes in some contexts, it has been resoundingly unsuccessful in others. Nevertheless, political faith in autonomous schooling as key to a world-class education remains strong. This paper considers how matters of context impact on approaches to and enactments of this policy. Drawing on case study data from two groups of primary schools from (1) a local authority and (2) an academy chain, the paper examines the particular situated, professional, material and external factors that impact on these schools' capacities to cope with and respond to academies reform. In light of the continued tendency within policy for schools to be dematerialised, the paper argues the ongoing significance of greater attention to matters of context in understanding how schools are navigating the complex terrain of this reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by a desire to improve academic outcomes and transform ‘failing’ schools, governments around the world have often turned to the development of new forms of state-funded school. This paper looks at three such instances of the introduction of new forms of schooling, within three urban localities (academy schools in London; charter schools and small schools of choice in New York City; and Schools of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro). It considers the extent to which these types of school did improve academic outcomes for their students and draws comparisons across each case study in order to understand their similarities and differences. It concludes that although the quasi-marketisation of school systems through the introduction of new (often private) providers might improve outcomes, this is not the only means by which improvement can be attained; and that instead the introduction of new forms of school may be successful because this enables certain other changes to happen. It highlights the limited nature of impact evidence available in all instances, which restricts our ability to properly evaluate the effect of new school types on outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

The research reported in this article contributes new understandings of systemic change by studying the form of system redesign known in England asacademisation. The data illuminate tensions within the neoliberal policy complex that are surfaced in a single secondary school. Although several studies have described academy conversions retrospectively, there has been little research that both analyses the complex month-by-month realities of decision-making and investigates the changing views of policy actors. Drawing on data from documents, observations and interviews, we argue foracademisationto be understood, not as a policy or a complex of policies, but as system redesign.Academisationis not simply a legal process: a school can beacademisedwithout officially becoming an academy. The new knowledge from this research speaks to a global audience, because the political, economic and cultural processes on which it reports are under scrutiny in other systems with experiments in school autonomy as a form of publicly funded but ‘independent’ schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]