Search

Drawing on a Levinasian ethical perspective, the argument driving this paper is that the technical accountability movement currently dominating the educational system in England is less than adequate because it overlooks educators’ responsibility for ethical relations in responding to difference in respect of the other. Curriculum policy makes a significant contribution to the technical accountability culture through complicity in performativity, high-stakes testing and datafication, at the same time as constituting student and teacher subjectivities. I present two different conceptualizations of subjectivity and education, before engaging these in the analysis of data arising from an empirical study which investigated teachers’ and stakeholders’ experiences of curriculum policy reform in ‘disadvantaged’ English schools. The study’s findings demonstrate how a prescribed programme of technical curriculum regulation attempts to ‘fix’ or mend educational problems by ‘fixing’ or prescribing educational solutions. This not only denies ethical professional relations between students, teachers and parents, but also deflects responsibility for educational success from government to teachers and hastens the move from public to private educational provision. Complying with prescribed curriculum policy requirements shifts attention from broad philosophical and ethical questions about educational purpose as well as conferring a violence by assuming control over student and teacher subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Taking England as our case study, this paper reviews secondary school environmental education from a policy perspective. By drawing on Stevenson's typologies for environmental improvement and Lucas' categorisation of environmental education, we analyse national policy documents, local authority and Multi-Academy Trust policies; and individual school planning documents. Our findings suggest in these areas a general absence of environment education policy, and where identified a rhetoric towards conservative reform framed as technology solutions, where learning is about the environment, rather than for the environment. We explain how the (lack of) environmental education rhetoric is a result of global economic changes and national austerity policies, and offer insights and signposting for policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political importance of mathematics in post-16 education is clear. Far less clear is how mathematics does and should relate to vocational education. Successive mathematics curricula (e.g. core skills, key skills) have been developed in England with vocational learners in mind. Meanwhile, general mathematics qualifications remain largely disconnected from vocational learning. Following a brief historical survey of mathematics within vocational education, the paper presents findings from a nested case study of student groups in three large Further Education colleges in England. The primary unit of analysis herein is student groups learning Functional Mathematics in two vocational areas: construction and hairdressing. We show how approaches to organising teaching, developing connected curricula and classroom pedagogy tend toisolateorintegratemathematics from/with the vocational experience.Integratedapproaches are shown to impact positively on student engagement and attitudes to learning mathematics. The paper concludes by discussing the potential impact of academic qualifications displacing vocationally relevant mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents selected findings from a wider study on the expression of health within physical education (PE) curricula in secondary schools in England and Wales. The study revealed that the expression of health in PE broadly reflected ideologies associated with promoting ‘fitness for life’ and ‘fitness for performance’ and that representations of both discourses were present, to a lesser or greater extent, in all schools in the study. Curiously, however, rhetorical ‘fitness for life’ discourses were commonly expressed through ‘fitness for performance’ practices in the form of testing and training activities. This paper attempts to explain this mismatch between health-related policy and practice by focusing on what was revealed about the influences on the expression of health in PE. A case study approach was adopted, involving five state secondary schools, three in England and two in Wales. Data sources included health-related school documentation, interviews with PE teachers and observation of a health-related unit of work in one of the schools. The reasons that testing and training activities were the most common contexts for the delivery of health-related learning included the following: conceptual confusion and limited understanding, leading to a belief that training and testing activities are unproblematic and result in increased health, activity and fitness levels; the resolution of pragmatic issues associated with large groups, limited space and minimal equipment as well as preparation for accredited courses in PE; tradition and a desire by teachers to remain with familiar content and teaching approaches, and limited awareness of alternative ‘fitness for life’ pedagogies. This study has served to increase awareness of the influences on and tensions between health-related discourses in secondary school PE curricula in England and Wales and has provided further demonstration of and insight into the complex relationship between health-related policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides an historical case study of an abortive attempt to revise policy and legislation relating to Religious Education (RE) in English schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing upon published sources, including parliamentary debates, as well as previously unutilised national archival sources from the Department of Education and Science, it comments upon events which have hitherto been omitted from the historiography of RE, but which help to contextualise significant changes in RE theory and practice at that time. Moreover, it demonstrates that the current parlous state of RE in schools is in part the result of latent and longstanding issues and problems, rather than a consequence of present-day government policy alone. Therefore, in reviewing and developing RE policies and practices, all stakeholders are urged to look more closely at both changes and continuities in the subject’s past and the contexts in which they occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Debates about the purpose and content of history education in schools have been prevalent in most Westernised democratic nations over the last 30 years. Under discussion are essential questions concerning national identity/ies, competing narratives and the aims of history education. The impact of ‘history wars’ has been felt within both Australia and England, as conservative commentators – including politicians and historians – have raised concerns about the depth and effectiveness of history education and have sought to make significant changes to the history curriculum for schools. This analysis examines the history wars in Australia and England, exploring the view that history education has been in danger and/or crisis and examining the curricular implications of a move toward greater recognition of national narratives. It raises some essential tensions that remain regarding two aspects of history teaching in both nations: (1) historiography and (2) chronological understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]