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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]

Whether enough highly qualified STEM workers are being educated and trained in the UK is an important question. The answer has implications not only for educators, employers and policymakers but also for individuals who are currently engaged in, or are considering entering, education or training in this area. Set against a policy backdrop that prioritises students studying more science for longer, this paper considers long-term patterns of participation in STEM education – from school science through to graduate entry into the highly skilled STEM labour market. Using a unique dataset that extends across seven decades and comprises many hundreds of thousands of students, the paper finds that patterns of participation in most STEM subjects have varied little over the period considered; suggesting that efforts to increase the numbers of students studying science in school has had limited impact on the throughput of students who study STEM, including the pure sciences, at university level and, subsequently, on the number of graduates who would be available to undertake highly skilled work in areas for which degree-level skills are a pre-requisite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

The private papers of Sir Philip Morris reveal how he prepared himself for the chairmanship of the 1959 Oxford Conference on Commonwealth Education with briefing from the Commonwealth Relations Office, what he brought to the meeting from his own experience, and what he learnt from the chair. British ministers and officials as hosts of the conference were ambivalent about its outcome. They could not disentangle the prospect of educational co-operation across the Commonwealth from all that was being done to set up a system for giving development assistance to the new states created by decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the summary of a lecture regarding the British government's 2003 education policy. Creation of a three-year financial settlement increasing institutional funding; Utilization of estate and equipment for teaching; Student finance and the introduction of price competition.

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.

The role of 'class strategies' in policy formation is sometimes unseen as plans are unrealised in practice over long periods of historical time. 'Subterranean class strategies' are an extension of existing work on class to consider 'class work' on policy in the 'long unenacted'. Using the example of emergency feeding in a national crisis, the stark difference in school meal planning for post-World War 2 emergencies when compared to the COVID-19 crisis is discussed. Through an analysis of archival records, it is shown that 'subterranean class strategies' - the devaluation of school catering expertise by the army and the private sector, the lack of co-operation of independent schools, and localisation and privatisation - diminished the role of schools in emergency feeding. The paper concludes by considering how the concept of 'subterranean class strategies' could inform work on educational think tanks, privatisation and subsumption, and intersectional areas such as race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, research comparing education systems across countries and jurisdictions is valuable and can elicit nuanced insights into how particular systems operate. This paper's interest lies in considering the scope and content of research comparing education systems across the four UK nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). This study sought to determine the coverage of UK cross-national comparative education research ('home international' research) between 2000 and 2022. We chose this time period as 1999 marks the devolution of education policy to each UK nation. We aimed to investigate what educational issues had been discussed in the literature and identify any gaps in the content covered by the research. An exploratory, high-level review of 'home international' education research was conducted, based on the review of abstracts. We searched several research databases using a variety of keyword combinations to identify relevant literature published since 2000. Our search identified 53 studies that met our selection criteria. Using a meta-synthesis approach, we coded the content of each abstract to build a picture of the range and thematic coverage of research involving comparisons between at least two of the four UK nations. The analysis of abstracts identified that, over the last two decades, UK 'home international' research has tended to include comparisons of all four nations, coverage of multiple educational phases and a focus on national education policy reviews. Furthermore, we pinpointed a number of gaps in coverage that might not have been anticipated (e.g. relatively little cross-national research focusing on assessment). This high-level review uncovers the landscape of recent 'home international' research, allowing us to view issues that are driving the cross-national research agenda in the UK and recognise implications relevant to education systems that may resonate with jurisdictions beyond these four UK nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current accounts of the British New Right in education during the 1980s generally begin with an observation of the tensions between its neoliberal and neoconservative wings. The subsequent task becomes to explain how they could be reconciled in bringing about the fiercest reform of education in history. This article reverses the interpretive strategy. It first notes that neoliberalism and neoconservatism had hardly been distinguishable in the Black Papers published a decade earlier. Focusing on the doctrines concerning the precondition of marketising education and the meaning of parental choice, it then shows their persistent compatibility to be more an intellectual legacy inherited from the late 1960s and 1970s than a product of practical compromise under Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Therefore, what needs further exploration is instead where, how and why neoliberalism and neoconservatism did eventually diverge. This is clarified by reference to the issue of educational authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fred Clarke (1880–1952), an English educationist, emerged as a leading figure with his liberal approach alongside such key figures as R. H. Tawney and Cyril Norwood in the reform leading to the 1944 Education Act. Many of his reform proposals, which were provided by the new Act, reflected his ideals of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, his contribution to the process of the legislation has not been examined thoroughly. Therefore, this paper explores his positions on educational issues in various debates and his approaches towards the reform. It also evaluates the extent to which the 1944 Education Act was in line with Clarke’s ideals and proposals so that a comprehensive assessment of Clarke’s contribution to the legislation can be made. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Editorial. Comments on the developments in educational policy in Great Britain. Improvements on academic papers in school; Suggestion of the International Advisory Board to provide International Editorial for the journal; Need to discuss developments in education; Problems on the quality of the papers.

This paper reviews issues about quality including the United Kingdom government's statements (White Papers of 2011 and 2016) and the development of audits. Institutional educational policies could provide the basis for quality enhancement centred around the White Papers. The development of a 'quality framework' or schema for the production of higher educational policies is presented and explored. Quality provision, of various types, reside in this schema that integrates aspects such as degree structures and educational components in an overall pedagogic framework. Ancillary provision, such as information and computer facilities and learning spaces, are also part of this structure. Academic subject areas are covered by benchmark statements but should be associated with principles for active learning and assessment as the Teaching Excellence Framework is extended in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance assessment is permeating increasingly diverse domains of higher education, even in areas previously perceived to be too complex and idiosyncratic to quantify. The UK's attempts to assess 'research impact' within the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are illustrative of this trend and are being closely monitored by several other countries. A fundamental rationale for employing narrative case studies to assess impact within REF, rather than taking a (less resource intensive) quantified approach, was that this would allow for the variation, complexity and idiosyncrasy inherent in research impact. This paper considers whether this promise of narrative flexibility has been realised, by analysing a combination of REF impact case study reports and interviews and focus group discussions with actors involved in case study production. Informed by this analysis, our central argument is that the very quality which allows narratives to govern is their ability to standardise performance (albeit whilst retaining a degree of flexibility). The paper proposes that REF impact case studies position narratives of impact as technologies of governance in ways that restrict the 'plot line' and belie the far more complex accounts held by those working to achieve research impact. This is partly because, as research impact becomes institutionalised within universities' measurement infrastructures, higher education institutions become impact gatekeepers, filtering out narratives that are deemed overly complex or insufficiently persuasive, while perpetuating particular approaches to recounting tales of impact that are deemed likely to perform well. Crucially, these narratives not only describe impact but actively construct it as an auditable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

R.H. Tawney (1880–1962), a leading English economic historian and prominent socialist, was vigorously involved in educational reconstruction during the Second World War. For Tawney, the war was a war for social democracy. His ideals of social democracy formed a basis for his case for Public (independent) School reform and free secondary education for all. Despite this, the connection between Tawney’s ideals and his perspectives on educational issues has not been addressed fully by historians and thus there has been a lack of a proper explanation for his often criticised sympathy for the public schools and his indifference towards the multilateral school. Hence, this paper aims to re-examine the link between them in greater depth. It concludes that, according to Tawney’s ideals of social democracy, the abolition of the public schools was not necessary for the establishment of a democratic educational system. Moreover, Tawney did not launch an attack on the tripartite system proposed by the Norwood Report of 1943 since it was not against his ideal of equality as long as different secondary schools were equal in quality and status. Equality, he believed, must be advanced through the raising of the school leaving age to 16 and the abolition of fees in all secondary schools. Thus, he laid more emphasis on the school leaving age and tuition fees than on the multilateral school. In brief, on various issues pertaining to secondary education, Tawney’s opinions and actions were deeply grounded in his distinctive ideals of social democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The December 2008 special issue of the Oxford Review of Education provided a review of education policy during Tony Blair's tenure as Prime Minister. This paper forms a response to the ten contributions to that special issue and discusses some of the issues raised in them. While a few positive aspects of education under New Labour were identified in the special edition, it focused more on the failures of New Labour than its achievements. A common theme to emerge from the papers included the government's pursuit of neo-liberal market policies at the expense of its professed commitment to social justice. While accepting that the government's failure to tackle the differences in educational outcomes between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils constitutes a major failing, the present author argues that significant achievements, such as early years provision, were neglected in the special issue. He also discusses the electoral considerations facing New Labour and the personal role of Tony Blair in determining policy. The paper goes on to consider whether New Labour's education policy has changed since the departure of Blair and identifies some hints of a potentially more progressive approach developing under Brown. It concludes by suggesting that contributing towards a debate about alternatives to Blairite policies should now become a priority for the 'educational establishment'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1998, Byrne and McKeown examined the churches’ roles in Northern Ireland’s (NI) schooling system. NI was then governed by direct-rule from the UK’s Westminster Parliament. The authors concluded that the desire of the Protestant churches to re-establish their influence in schools was ‘unlikely to succeed’. This was contrasted with the ‘success-story’ of Catholic influence in schooling. This article tracks the fortunes of the Protestant churches in NI’s educational policy developments in the last 18 years. Of particular interest are the government’s proposals to establish an Education and Skills Authority (ESA) under a new Education Bill. A careful reading of the Protestant churches’ annual education reports indicates the alarm with which these proposals were met. In the early years of the new millennium it seemed that the conclusions of the 1998 paper were prescient. However, extensive lobbying by the Protestant churches in a changed (devolved) political context secured almost all their demands. This article concludes that the ‘tension’ (claimed in the 1998 paper) between the Protestant churches and the state has largely been resolved. The article evaluates the significance of recent developments for the Protestant churches and their involvement in schooling. More critically, the propriety of these developments is questioned asking if they mark an advance for the Protestant churches and/or schooling in NI. [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]

Over the last decade, teachers in Poland have observed an increase in the number of primary school children with bi/multilingual and culturally diverse backgrounds. Regardless of their complex experiences, they face many cultural, social, linguistic and educational challenges upon entering primary school. English teachers are often at the forefront, helping them navigate through the intricacy of their seemingly 'dual lives' (Li and Zhu. 2013. "Translanguaging Identities and Ideologies: Creating Transnational Space Through Flexible Multilingual Practices Amongst Chinese University Students in the UK." Applied Linguistics 34 (5): 516–535, 531). The paper presents the results of an interview study among 23 Polish EFL teachers with a view towards investigating Polish EFL teachers' experiences and ways of working with bi/multilingual children directed at child integration and socialization into the new environment. The collected data was coded following the content analysis approach (Krippendorff. 2003. Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage) and analysed from the ecological perspective (see Bronfenbrenner. 1979. The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; van Lier. 2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers), whereby successful child socialization was observed to be dependent on an intricate network of interrelated factors. The role of the exosystem, i.e. the school system, has been found the least supportive due to the absence of a comprehensive multilingual policy, and lack of teacher support via teacher training, all of which have been concluded to be of urgent need in the emergent multilingual setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly after taking power following the May 2010 UK general election, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government published its education white paper, The Importance of Teaching. In this, certain features for primary school pedagogy can be discerned. Using the lens of the “position call”, this article examines the discourses implicated in the white paper to highlight the position calls offered to the primary profession concerning pedagogy. These are compared to those made by New Labour in its previous 13 years in power. Accordingly, the article proposes that whilst the previous administration offered the position calls for primary education of pedagogy as collective craft and pedagogy as collective performance, continuity and discontinuity can be seen in the recent white paper, namely that the position calls now being made are for pedagogy as individual craft and pedagogy as individual performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the analysis of polices for lifelong learning, the gap between the rhetoric and reality has become the focus for much debate and concern. Reality is compared with rhetoric and both are found wanting. In this paper, we argue that such critiques misconceive the significance of rhetoric and we outline the form a rhetorical analysis of lifelong learning policy could take. Using the UK government's 1998 Green Paper and 1999 White Paper on lifelong learning as illustrations, we suggest that rhetorical analysis helps to point to the politics of discourse that is at play in policy-making processes. This is a politics – often dismissed as spin-doctoring – with which we need to engage if our own attempts to develop lifelong learning are to be persuasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a reflective and critical review of research relating to widening participation (WP) in higher education (HE). The motivation for undertaking this was the twentieth anniversary of the Dearing Report Higher Education in the Learning Society (1997); a document that ignited a wide range of WP activity and policy. Dearing's report was published in the United Kingdom and represents one of the most significant reviews of higher education in this country since the Robbins' Report of 1963. His vision for HE included a "compact" between local and regional communities and their universities, and emphasised WP and greater student diversity. I draw on my own research in WP since Dearing, compare with other research projects, and compare with my experiences as a practitioner and researcher in various contexts, including most recently in a post-1992 university known for being a WP institution. This paper identifies several core themes that emerged from WP activities over the last 20 years and leads to the development of an added dimension in WP research. It calls for more consideration of the complex and heterogeneous identities of WP students today. It then returns to some of Dearing's original themes and considers how WP is situated in the current neoliberal climate affecting HE; it presents a set of ideas for discussion with respect to the future of WP research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the continuity and changes in Clarke’s ideas about the State and community in education, especially in relation to a rapidly changing political situation in England in the 1930s and 1940s. His ideas evolved in the intellectual context of British idealism. Moreover, in response to the threat to democracy arising from Fascism or Totalitarianism, the distinction between the State and community was a key theme in Clarke’s ideals of liberal democracy. Additionally, this paper also proposes the implications of Clarke’s ideas for future educational development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines changing policy orientations to widening participation through college-based higher education in England. After more than 30 years of increasing and diversifying participation in higher education (HE) in a wide range of countries, such policy goals are coming under increasing scrutiny in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in an age defined by austerity in public spending. The paper focuses on England, as an example of opening up access in one country, with parallels internationally such as the American Graduation Initiative in the United States. In England such policies have changed the landscape of higher education, with claims that college-based HE plays a distinctive role. The paper reviews the nature of the ‘distinctiveness’ of college-based HE, including what students report about their experience of moving into this form of higher education during the 2000s. The paper highlights the challenges under current conditions, for creating a distinctive and valued college-based higher education pathway that opens up opportunities for underserved and disadvantaged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The broad aim of this paper is to track the evolution of adult literacy policy in the UK across three decades, highlighting convergences between policy phases and the promotion of democratic learning spaces. It is anchored onto the argument that, although it is generally accepted that democratic learning spaces are perceived as beneficial to adult literacy learners, policy has often deterred its promotion and, therefore, implementation. The paper identifies three block phases of adult literacy development: the seventies to mid-eighties, the mid-eighties to mid-nineties and the mid-nineties to the Moser Committees. The features of each of these phases are highlighted to map out convergences and divergences to the ethos of democratic learning spaces. The paper argues that, with the evolution of policy in adult literacy, the ethos of democratic learning space continuously diminished, such that as policy evolved year on year, the principle of democratic learning space found itself at counterpoint to policy. We draw on two theoretical frameworks, the NLS view of literacy and Bourdieu's capital framework to explain these divergences and conclude that the dominant perception of literacy and the prioritised capital in the context of policy appear to limit the vestiges of democratic learning spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses continuing vocational education and training policies in the UK in the period 1979–2010 with a focus on regulation and governance. It reviews Conservative and Labour party policies to ascertain their principal components and explore their evolution through time. More specifically, the paper reviews the paradoxical existence of three seemingly opposed accounts of recent dynamics in the management of continuing vocational training: one that sees it moving inexorably to the political right, one that emphasises the singularity of social-democratic policies and one that focuses on the difficulties of any movement, towards the political left or right. The paper concludes that while there has been a degree of convergence between right and left, differences remained in terms of their favoured institutional decision-making structures. However, Labour played a two-level game, which combined the establishment of new channels for dialogue and coordination with key stakeholders, with a limited scope for meaningful stakeholder input to policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Early in its period of office the new United Kingdom coalition government produced an Education White Paper containing potentially devastating news for higher education training institutions in England and Wales. Drawing on research papers and policy documents, this article takes an historic approach to map the changing face of teacher training over the past 30 years. A variety of approaches to the training of teachers are examined in terms of the partnership arrangements each model espouses and the training approaches that each locality arrangement represents. A small-scale research project maps early responses from higher education institutions as they consider the implications of new policies. Finally, a future scenario where higher education institutions struggle for survival as meaningful providers of teacher education is postulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper establishes and explains the important role of the Conservative Government of 1959–1964 in supporting the raising of the school leaving age in Britain from the age of 15 to 16. This was a significant and high-profile national issue that generated much educational, social and political debate around conflicting priorities during this period, and was emphasized in both the Crowther Report of 1959 and the Newsom Report of 1963. The Treasury was strongly opposed to the proposal due to its high financial cost. There was a large element of electoral opportunism involved in the Conservative Government’s approval of raising the school leaving age (ROSLA), announced in January 1964, but it also highlighted deeper complexities and reservations in Conservative attitudes to ROSLA as well as a long-term ambition to consolidate education as a Conservative issue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In an era of neoliberal reforms, academics in UK universities have become increasingly enmeshed in audit. A new Teaching Excellent Framework (TEF) emerged in 2017 with results determined primarily by proxy data of National Student Survey (NSS) scores, retention data and Longitudinal Educational Outcomes data (LEO). The TEF has been rapidly repurposed in order to shape the behaviour and priorities of both students and academics. The discourse of the TEF legislation, bolstered by studies from HEA/HEPI, assumes the source of inequality of outcome is poor teaching requiring corrective action by universities. Further justification for surveillance and quasi-regulation is borne by appeals to 'value for money' and 'competition'. I argue that what seems to be an arbitrary constellation of proxy data points has in fact been a calculated plan to render universities, staff and students as neoliberal subjects. The accident of accessibility, inasmuch as it overlaps with the neoliberal imperative, has determined which data shall function as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the whole assemblage is cemented by discursive choices which align with neoliberal principles. The Government White Paper Success as a Knowledge Economy, May 2016, forms the text for corpus analysis of keywords, discourses and metaphors. Abbreviation: BIS: HM Government Department of Business, Innovation and Skills; BME: Black and Minority Ethnic; DLHE: Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education; HEI: Higher Education Institution; HERA: Higher Education and Research Act; HESA: Higher Education Statistics Agency; HEA: Higher Education Academy; Hefce: Higher Education Funding Council for England; HEPI: Higher Education Policy Institute; HND: Higher National Diploma; KEF: Knowledge Exchange Framework; KPI: Key Performance Indicator; LEO: Longitudinal Educational Outcomes; NSS: National Student Survey; NUS: national Union of Students; OfS: Office for Students; POLAR: participation of local areas; QAA: Quality Assurance Agency; RAB: Resource Accounting and Budgeting; REF: Research Excellence Framework; ROI: Return on Investment; SDS: Strategically Deployable Shifter; SKE: Success in a Knowledge Economy; TEF: Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework; WP: Widening Participation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the characteristics and processes associated with more and less effective schools in a diverse range of contexts. However, this remains a contested field of inquiry and has been subjected to significant critique. This paper examines the origins and development of EER and summarises the key critiques and defences of the field during the past 30 years. It then moves on to examine the recent critique of the field by Stephen Gorard in the UK and responds by highlighting statistical errors and simplistic claims made by Gorard about the field's involvement with the development of national value-added systems and interaction with policy-making in his recent papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines market orientation following a critique of existing literature. It then operationalises this definition via a model containing three behavioural elements (customer orientation, employee orientation, and organisational co-ordination) linked to a long term survival requirement The model is tested in the context of the development of market orientation in the further education sector (in which professional--rather than commercial--values have tended to dominate). This sector is characterised by dynamic change in both its social/demographic and economic circumstances as well as the impact of government policy initiatives--especially the Education Reform Act of 1988 and Local Management of Colleges. The empirical focus of the paper is on three large FE Colleges in the English Midlands. It provides evidence to support the operationalisation of the definition of market orientation in the context of the management of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s teacher preparation for the schools sector in the United Kingdom was subject to a series of reforms and innovations including the establishment of new institutional arrangements to oversee the sector, namely the Teacher Training Agency (TTA - now the Training and Development Agency, TDA). Since 2002 the arrangements for training teachers in the broadly defined learning and skills sector have also been subject to scrutiny and a wide-ranging reform agenda has been put forward by the Government. This paper examines the key reforms using a three stage model to analyse the policy development process and discusses the functions and status of the sector skills council, Learning UK (LLUK), in order to examine its relationships with external stakeholders. Contrasts are made with the approach adopted by the TTA during the reform of teacher training for school. The paper concludes with a tentative assessment of the progress of the reform agenda and the identification of a number of salient issues that warrant further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From his very earliest days in office, Tony Blair believed that if he was to achieve his broader educational reforms then the teaching profession itself needed modernising—it had to become a '21st century profession'. This paper charts the background to this aspiration and the complex range of interrelated policies used to achieve that reform. They included: a changed role for initial teacher education; a more differentiated workforce; strategies to 'focus' professionalism (appraisal, standards and CPD); and a redefinition of professional knowledge. Through these policies, the Government hoped to harness teacher professionalism to their broader reform agenda. The paper concludes with a discussion of Tony Blair's legacy in this field both in England and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reflects on the use by the UK central government of statistical evidence in educational policy matters. Particular attention is given to school league tables. The paper is generally critical of government attitudes, but suggests that progress towards rational decision-making does occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets the scene for a collection of papers based on The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the learning and skills sector, a research project funded from January 2004 until July 2007 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of their Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). We raise some general issues about researching the impact of policy, and offer a brief description of the learning and skills sector in England, highlighting two important features: its turbulent recent history, and the diversity and divisions within the sector. We then outline the scope of our research and discuss aspects of our methodology, which has sought to engage practitioners and policymakers in a variety of ways throughout the project. Finally we introduce the six other papers produced by members of the project team in the second and third year of the research, and the two commentaries from our external discussants, Mary Hamilton and Phil Hodkinson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the origins of the concept of personalisation in public sector services, and applies it to school education. The original conceptualisation stressed the need for ‘deep’ rather than shallow, personalisation, if radical transformation of services were to be achieved. It is argued that as the concept has been disseminated and implemented through policy documents, notably the 2005 White Paper, it has lost its original emphasis on deep personalisation. The focus in this article is particularly upon gifted and talented students whose education provides the best case example of how the theory of personalisation might work in practice. Two examples of the lessons in a sixth form college are used to illustrate the character of personalised pedagogy in practice. The implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to explore the design and implementation of early years educational policy in England in the period 1997-2004. First to be described are the innovations in policy (i.e. the promise), followed by the 'evidence base' for new policy (i.e. the research), the delivery of new services (i.e. the achievement), and finally the tensions and gaps which remain (i.e. the shortfall). The paper will focus on evidence concerning expansion of services and on the benefit of early years education on children's development. It is argued that early years education in England has been transformed through the following: integration of education and care at local and national level, the introduction of the Foundation Stage Curriculum 3-6 years and its birth-3 years supplement, and the firm focus on families as well as children in the delivery of services. There are, however, gaps and tensions to be resolved before the overall vision can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the background, context, design, and findings of a collaborative research project designed to develop a future roadmap for strengthening an Australian research-rich and self-improving education system. Building on the BERA-RSA Inquiry into the role of research in the teaching profession in the UK (Furlong, 2013), the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA), Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) initiated a national study across education systems and jurisdictions to identify ideas, issues, challenges and opportunities to strengthen teacher education and education policy development through research. The mixed-method study, inclusive of focus groups and an on-line survey collected data from pre-service teachers, teachers, academics and leaders across schools, universities and education departments. A set of recommendations highlight the need for research literacies to be embedded at all stages of a teachers' career and that the profession would benefit from professional learning strategies where teachers are positioned as both critical and discerning consumers and active producers of research. The importance of teachers being able to respond to data within their own set of contextual factors was a key message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments across the world are seeking improvements in school performance. One avenue to improvement that has been widely promulgated is the reform of teaching through the development of evidence-based practice. This paper reports evaluation data from a national programme in England that sought to put teachers at the heart of the search for evidence on which improvements in practice could be based. The analysis indicates that in each stage of the process of generating and using evidence, practices came to be refined or adopted--whether for the individual teacher, peers or schools--only if they connected closely with the situation in which the evidence for improving practice arose. The paper suggests that the concept 'situated generalisation' contributes to our understanding of how teachers generate, validate and use research knowledge to improve professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the term 'social exclusion' in the context of new social and education policies being constructed in the UK. It examines the links with terms such as 'poverty', 'deprivation' and 'equality' and the implications of policy developments for those identified as socially excluded. Tensions and contradictions appear to be emerging between the UK government's stated policy intentions to address social exclusion, and local knowledge and experience. Issues of power, market power, participation and inclusiveness are explored specifically in the context of education. The paper draws on research being undertaken in a deprived inner-city area with voluntary sector organizations that provide education for marginalized young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘System leadership’, as applied to the running of schools, refers to a form of leadership that extends beyond a single institution, where headteachers work with establishments other than their own. This approach is predicated on certain beliefs about the role and purpose of collaborative school leadership and management in a marketised system of state schooling and the benefits of a distributed and networked approach to school improvement. But what are the potential benefits and limitations of school system leadership? What normative interpretations of the system are best suited for purpose? This paper explores these issues with reference to the English school system, where system leadership is actively promoted by government through education policy and school reform. In order to do this, use is made of Gunter, H., D. Hall, and J. Bragg (2013. “Distributed Leadership: A Study in Knowledge Production.”Education Management, Administration and Leadership41 (4): 555–580.) framework of distributed leadership in schools. The framework identifies functionally normative, functionally descriptive, critical and socially critical positions in the school leadership literature. The paper concludes by putting forward potential alternatives to the largely functional policy narratives and solutions of recent decades, which are based on a broader understanding of ‘the system’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One key finding that has emerged from our study of the impact of market reforms on the school systems in England and Wales is that there has been overall decline in the social stratification of schools. Nevertheless, between-school stratification remains high. There are regional and local variations in the pattern in which stratification has decreased in some areas and increased in others. In this paper we focus on the role of LEA admissions policies and show how these regulate the choice of school afforded to parents and suggest how geographical variation in between-school social stratification is maintained and reproduced. The four case study LEAs discussed in detail here (Cardiff, Brent, Carmarthenshire and Hertfordshire), which offer significantly different market scenarios, are part of a larger study examining the admissions arrangements and impacts on school intakes for all 161 LEAs in England and Wales. In total 23 LEAs were interviewed about their admissions arrangements, each one representing different kinds of LEAs—English to Welsh; metropolitan to county; urban to rural—with contrasting admissions policies and different levels of segregation between schools. The paper reports that post-1998 school admissions policies, put in place to overcome some of the difficulties that arose from open enrolment, including children being denied places at nearby schools, have done little to redress the advantages the grant-maintained and church-affiliated schools previously enjoyed in the recruitment stakes. Nor have they broken the mould of 'selection by mortgage' where residential segregation gives rise to schools with very different socio-economic intakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, a default retirement age no longer exists and more people choose to 'stay on' in their academic posts. 'Staying on' poses opportunities and threats in the academic labour market. Older academics can make a positive contribution to their institution through their expertise and experience. By continuing to work, paying tax and keeping healthy, they may directly and indirectly reduce social health and welfare costs. Alternatively, in a context where academic jobs may be decreasing, older workers may be positioned as limiting the employment and promotion opportunities for younger colleagues by staying on. Drawing on twelve in-depth semi-structured interviews with academics who have stayed working in university education departments, this paper explores these issues alongside policy-related questions about employment in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical analysis of the Chartered Institute for Management of Sport and Physical Activity's (CIMSPA) transformative aspirations for UK Higher Education (HE) based Sport and Physical Activity Vocational Education and Training (SPAVET) provision. In doing so, we apply selected elements of Giddens' Structuration theory to offer an analysis of CIMSPA's structural properties (as rules and resources) and dimensions (signification, domination and legitimation). Illustration of CIMSPA's structural properties and dimensions was developed through adopting an institutional analysis strategy alongside a document analysis method. Publicly available strategic documents and web-based resources (N = 18) were selected and analysed using open-coding techniques. Our analysis shows how continued state-sanctioned decentralisation of the UK HE sector has led to CIMSPA becoming an increasingly influential transformative structure; attempting to use its structural dimensions and resources as a medium to gain and exercise power, to promote (signification) – market-orientated discourses, practices and pedagogies in HEI provision, (domination) – in an attempt to significantly influence regulatory control over UK SPAVET provision and (Legitimation) – create partnerships which normalise its position and message within selected UK HEIs. We conclude that whilst the transformative aspirations of CIMSPA offer a number of possibilities for the HE SPAVET sector, they also raise critical questions. The central issue requiring debate is how these aspirations shift dialectical control towards vocationally focused, market-orientated principles and away from the liberal educational, research-led principles of some current UK HE SPAVET provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Conservative trends across western schooling contexts are signalling an explicit devaluing of social and moral learning within their official curriculum mandates. These mandates are increasingly privileging the ‘academic rigour’ of traditional subject disciplines. This paper draws on interview and observation data from a case study of a large and highly diverse English secondary school to explore this school’s prioritizing of social and moral learning. Such prioritizing is supported at this school by its ‘Academy’ status—which in the English context allows schools a measure of freedom over curriculum as part of broader government moves to increase school autonomy. The paper’s focus is on how these conservative trends are understood and disrupted to support a critical view of existing curriculum and a desire to modify and re-shape it to support more relevant and connected learning for students. The paper describes particular examples of practice at the school in the areas of Citizenship and Religious Education to illustrate this approach. Engaging with social and moral learning along these lines is argued as productive in working within and against the constraints of current conservative curriculum priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The three main programmes of the Geneva-registered International Baccalaureate (IB) have grown substantially worldwide over the past decade, although the programmes have found a natural ‘home’ in the United States. This paper charts the growth of the IB in the United Kingdom (UK) revealing that involvement there, mainly in England and mainly with the original pre-university Diploma Programme (IBDP), peaked at about 230 schools in 2010, but since then the IBDP has begun suddenly to decline. Yet, in no other country has there been a fall in IBDP provision. This paper offers some key explanations for this phenomenon, where a lack of funding and continued lack of university recognition in the face of Advanced Level (A-Level) reform and numerous ‘baccalaureate’ developments has led to many state-funded schools in particular dropping the IBDP. Thirdly, this paper discusses a number of implications, both for the IB itself and education in the UK in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Vocational qualifications in England are undergoing another round of reform. This paper starts by reviewing the alleged weaknesses of English vocational qualifications, but argues that these do not necessarily establish a case for radical reform. The issue is not so much whether the system needs to be changed as the nature of the change that is needed. The paper argues for a more deliberative and incremental approach and proposes five principles upon which this should be based. These are the following: that the process of change is as important as the content of change; that institutions matter; that the purposes of reform need to be clear, consistent and realistic; that reforms should help to create a more unified qualifications system; and that the interests of the UK’s other home countries should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on data that formed part of a major three-year longitudinal study (2008–2011), which set out to investigate basic skills (BS) provision and needs in the British army and its relationship to operational effectiveness. Using mixed methods, the findings draw on qualitative data from 60 semi-structured interviews with 26 young recruits and interviews and survey data with 1518 recruits, with an average age of 19.6 years. The research also uses testimony from their line managers and trainers. The first part of the paper looks at educational BS provision that the army provides. While the benefits of this provision are discussed, there is a debate about the extent to which BS programmes provide recruits with qualifications rather than enduring and transferable skills, which would make them more operationally effective and useful to the army organisation. The second part deconstructs the concept of what is meant by being ‘operationally effective’ and the role BS play in reaching this ultimate military objective. [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]