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Widening participation--though it has only recently been labelled as such--has been a continuing concern for policy makers and higher education institutions in the United Kingdom since 1945 (and before). This article reviews the evidence for four key target groups--women, lower socio-economic groups, mature adults and ethnic minorities--to produce an overall assessment, a score card, of what has been achieved, and what remains to be done. It concludes that, while progress in the recruitment of women, mature adults and ethnic minorities has been substantial--though with some qualifications--it has been much less so for lower socio-economic groups. (Contains 5 tables.)

This article addresses the question, How do changes in policy discourses shape public representations of literacy learners and the goals of adult literacy education? It examines specifically how the agency of adult literacy learners is constructed. We carry out a critical discourse analysis of two key adult literacy policy documents from the U.K.: the manifesto "A Right to Read" (British Association of Settlements,) and "Skills for Life: The National Strategy for Improving Adult Literacy and Numeracy Skills" (Department for Education and Skills,). We describe the overall structure and genre of the documents and analyze the semiotic resources in the texts to explore the discursive shaping of adult literacy learners. Our analysis shows that, while a functional discourse of individual deficit is prominent throughout the texts, each document expresses it differently. A discourse of rights and participation in the earlier text changes to a discourse of social inclusion, conditional on duty and responsibility and narrowed to the sphere of paid employment. The profiles of individual learners are heavily framed by the dominant discourses of literacy and education that constitute the texts. We argue that the discursive shifts we trace in these national documents relate to wider changes in notions of social disadvantage, rights and citizenship, and the emergence of literacy as a key indicator of progress. Our analysis demonstrates the powerful ways in which policy documents articulate relationships between national and transnational literacies.

Purpose: The paper explores the relationship between vocational education and training (VET), the labour market and social justice in the current conjuncture. Approach: The paper adopts an approach rooted in critical policy analysis. It consequently sets the discussion within the wider socio-economic and political context. Such an approach enables an exploration of the changing nature of waged labour in current conditions. Results: A critical policy analysis facilitates a discussion of the labour process, waged labour and its intensification. At the same time these processes are allied to the effective expulsion and marginalisation of particular groups of workers from employment. Importantly, such processes need to be placed in their localised and spatial context within particular social formations. Conclusion: Equity models of social justice that emphasise equal opportunities, are restrictive and can be contrasted with equality models which have a more expansive and philosophically rooted understanding of justice. The paper through its examination of the salience of VET in the current conjuncture as well as its significance for a post austerity democratic and radical politics, argues for a relational analysis that seeks to interrupt the patterns of inequality precipitated by neo-liberalism.

AACSB adopted new and revised standards in 2020 that require business schools to demonstrate positive societal impact through internal and external activities. While many schools are already engaged in such activities, there seems to be no agreed-upon conceptualization or measurement of societal impact. This paper aims to help business schools organize, measure, and demonstrate their efforts to create positive societal impact and thus meet the updated AACSB standards. By using data from semi-structured interviews, this paper identifies different dimensions of positive societal impact and offers enablers and barriers in business school efforts to create such societal impact.

Purpose: This paper seeks to assess the level of impact of COVID-19 pandemic on professional practice for members of professional organisations and the general public in the conduct of business. Investigations into practice using events, attendance records and registered views are carried out. The aim is to identify the challenges and actions being taken to mitigate against them in moving from physical (face-to-face) to virtual (online) mode of operations. Design/methodology/approach: The past two years have seen a complete change in the way we live from life at home, at work and in education. This has impacted the way professional organisations now conduct business including the need to revise ways of upskilling and sustaining practice. Core to all of this is the role of computing and communication for all persons in all works of life. The current study focusses on professional activities and support provided to members of British Computer Society (BCS), The Chartered Institute for IT. The authors examine the events provided, the conduct support provided to members and the general public. The method includes use of surveys of all stakeholders and analysis of data obtained. Findings: The onset of COVID-19 pandemic was perceived as a real shock for everyone everywhere. Contrary to expectations, faced with the reality of having to do everyone online, the current study found that there were observed increased in the number of activities of professional organisations worldwide. Most interesting is that fact that the number of people participating in these events was found to be increasing using e-learning and other associated online tools and resources. Participants of these events were no longer restricted to local members but widespread globally. There was the appetite for more events to be put up and willingness for more individual and groups to volunteer and/or participate. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of current study are that only a few of the many activities have been investigated in this one professional body, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. The fact that more events are now being carried out for the many groups and branches implies a lot more digital data would be available for further study to inform developments of members and the general public. Practical implications: The impact of COVID-19 pandemic is a huge and evolving. It remains and presents a complicated case for the world to deal with. Amongst the many realities is that living life online has become a new normal and one everybody must learn to adjust to. Professional organisations such as the BCS would need to think of not only their members but also the general public and how well society and business can be sustained going forward. This involves considering developments of educational resources and appropriate platforms to meet the needs of the public, private and the voluntary sectors in society. Social implications: Due to restricted physical (face-to-face) interactions, previously developed processes would require reviewing. New informed policies would need to be developed and implemented by professional organisations on revised practices resulting from impact of the pandemic. The emanating global participation from local activities presents challenges involving time, space (geographical location) and cultural differences. The digital divide that exists in society and access to the fast and reliable Internet services are also worth considering. Originality/value: The impact of COVID-19 on professional practice applied to education and business is important in the face of the many and varied challenges everyone is facing everywhere in the world. This has been intense at home and at work globally. Although the true cause is yet to be established, it is important that ways to address challenges and continue with life are found and implemented. This paper establishes some of the impacts and present recommendations that are useful in forging ahead for people in the information technology profession.

This is a conceptual paper that examines the origin and development of universities and their current role in global society. There has been an unprecedented and exponential growth of technology and artificial intelligence capabilities over the past ten years which is challenging current working practices and affecting all areas of society. The paper examines how this role may change to match the new demands placed on them by a digitally enabled society that has greater leisure time. The design of the paper is first to detail some of the changes in work practices that are taking place and how these will impact on society. It then offers several ways in which universities could modify their role to respond to these emerging challenges. This could include new courses, new organisational structures and new pedagogical practices. The paper provides a platform for discussion and debate around the strategic vision and direction of travel for higher education.

By 1989, fascism had long been defeated in Europe, and reforms in the Soviet Union appeared to signify the collapse of communist ideology, prompting Francis Fukuyama to famously declare the 'end of history'. Since then, neoliberalism has been rolled out globally. This paper argues that, with regard to higher education, Fukuyama's claim that the pursuit of knowledge will be replaced by the 'satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands' is prescient. What, then, prompted Fukuyama to qualify his predictions in 2018? Citing both the turmoil of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, Fukuyama blames identity politics for the breakdown of consensus over what the nation is, or should be, and suggests that the promotion of creedal identity might rescue Western democracy from populism. This paper disagrees: using the examples of Brexit and the promotion of Fundamental British Values in schools, it argues that creedal identity has become another expression of populism. Rejecting the claim that identity politics are the ultimate source of populism, it argues that populism is the predictable outcome of recession in the market economy.

Historians of education are well placed to engage in applied historical approaches providing authoritative evidence of the past to inform policy and practice. This article is based on the presidential keynote delivered at the History of Education Society (UK) annual conference in 2019. As such it reflects on possible future directions for the history of education and considers the role of informal educational activity that takes place outside the classroom, including that of children's reading for pleasure. Stories in the interwar British, Canadian and Australian "Girl's" and "Boy's" annuals provide an example of how appropriate gender roles were presented to their young readers at a time of intense social and political change for Britain. With Brexit heralding a similar significant moment of change and the pandemic lockdowns resulting in children spending more time at home, it is concluded that the significance of 'informal' education, both historically and today, requires our attention.

This is an edited transcript of the Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture, given by Ken Jones, at the request of the Socialist Education Association, in November 2020. The lecture situates Caroline's work in the context of the 'Long Revolution' of twentieth century Britain. The lecture discusses the meaning of that revolution for education; it charts the course of the right-wing reaction to it from 1976 onwards, and the growth of managerial cultures at the level of the school which have blocked its further development. The effects within education of the Black Lives Matter and the COVID pandemic have revived, in both practical and ideational ways, some of the themes of the Long Revolution. The lecture argues that this is a change of historical significance. The possibility of change as a collective democratic project has been reawakened.

This essay offers a broken narrative concerning the early history of anti-oppressive practice as an approach in the U.K. to youth and community work and the struggles over this in the context of UK higher education between the 1960's and the early 2000's. Educating informal educators as youth and community workers in the UK has been a site of contestation. Aspects of a genealogy of that struggle are presented in ways which link publicly available histories with personal memories and narratives, through the use of a personal archive developed through collective memory work. These are chosen to illuminate the links between theory and practice: on the one hand, the conceptual field which has framed the education of youth and community workers, whose sources lie in the academic disciplines of education and sociology, and, on the other hand, the social movements which have formed the practice of informal educators. Six have been chosen: (1) The long 1968: challenging approaches to authority; (2) the group as a source of learning; (3) The personal and political: experiential learning from discontent; (4) Paolo Freire and Critical Praxis; (5) A critical break in social education and the reality of youth work spaces as defensive spaces; (6) New managerialism: ethics vs. paper trails. The approach taken, of linking memory work with present struggles, is argued to be a generative form for current critical and enlivening practice.

This paper gives an account of how Action Learning Sets (ALS) are used in two of The Rank Foundation investment streams to support the social action impact of charities and social enterprises. With the aid of two Case Studies, the paper illustrates how the ALS can help to connect, sustain and support the social action responses of the local organisations involved. The first case study considers the impact of diversity and the importance of composing sets reflecting the diversity of sector, community, age, gender, and sexual orientation. The second case explores how the ALS process helps participants reflect on the actions that are most congruent with their values and then supports them in their social actions. The paper concludes that the ALS structure offers a safe and critical thinking space for participants who are working with high degrees of complexity in the absence of simple answers. The opportunity for a deep connection between people and their issues, can helpfully connect individual challenges and local social actions with wider societal struggles.

The Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE) project was developed between the University of Southern Norway, VIA University in Denmark and the University of Cumbria in the UK and funded by Erasmus+. The project aims to co-create proposals to achieve an equitable and socially just education system through participative action research with 'Early School Leavers'. This paper establishes a conceptual framework called 'Equalities Literacy' that evolved from the first action research cycle of the project. The framework is informed by the practice experience and theoretical knowledge of the international and interdisciplinary research team. It is applied to one youth narrative in this paper to illustrate its efficacy in revealing socio-cultural in/equalities. The Equalities Literacy framework is proposed to challenge and inform practice and further research. Further, the 'Indirect Approach' is introduced and located within action research as a participatory methodology that other researchers may wish to adopt.

The premise of this brief opinion piece is that the fundamental paradigm of education appeared with Plato. It is that there is a co-location in time and space of learners, teachers, and resources. The absence of any of these elements can lead to shortcomings in the meaning of the term "to be educated". Recent events such as COVID-19 demonstrate that the paradigm is subject to challenge but that its premises are firmly established. It is recognised that there are complex philosophical and theoretical arguments surrounding distance education debates. It is not possible in a short article like this to canvass all the possible philosophical positions that affect education. Pointers to these debates are referenced in the article. For the purpose of this article, "philosophy" is taken to mean that department of knowledge or study that deals with ultimate reality, or with the general causes and principles of things. More narrowly, it is the study of general principles of some particular branch of knowledge, experience, or activity--in this case, distance education or flexible learning. "Theory" is taken to mean a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena.

This article explores the implications of learning in social movements on diaspora activists' engagement with struggle. Focussing on emotions within social movement learning and the connection to activists' multiple identities, the paper examines the complex terrain of learning as embodied and rooted in emotionally situated beliefs and values. The theoretical framework that informs this enquiry brings diaspora and identity into conversation with emotions in social movement learning and Boler's 'Pedagogy of discomfort'. Developing these connections contributes a new approach to understanding the emotional dynamics of activism and the implications of learning in this context on social movement participation. Based on qualitative research with diasporic accounts of participating in activism related to the continuing Egyptian revolution, the analysis contributes a deeper understanding of how learning in struggle shapes multiple forms of connectedness and the implications learning in this context can have for activists' engagement with struggle. The findings add to existing knowledge of learning in social movements through a framework where cognition and emotion are 'inextricably linked' (Boler, 1999, p. xix) and to diaspora studies by highlighting that engagement is underpinned by situated and embodied identities that shape possibilities for learning.

Background: In 2006, the United Nations agreed the "Convention On the Rights Of Persons With Disabilities." Article 19, 'Living independently and being included in the community' sets out the 'equal rights of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others…' A generation earlier, a small group of activists had come together at the invitation of the King's Fund--a major United Kingdom charity--to produce (in February 1980) the first pamphlet in an extensive series of contributions to improving the lives of people with learning disabilities. This became the "An Ordinary Life" initiative. I choose the generic word 'initiative'. This was not a government policy change--in England we had to wait until 2001 for the White Paper "Valuing People" to catch up with progressive practice. It was not a project as usually understood, although it inspired many local projects across the country. Rather this first pamphlet became the common currency for the emergence of a "social movement" aspiring to end the institutionalisation of disabled people (in 1980 there were still more than 50,000 people with learning disabilities living their lives in British institutions and many more at risk of this when no longer able to rely on parental support) and ensure their right to live like others in the community. The Narrative: My narrative here, writing as a participant, focuses on the period 1980-2001. It tells the story of how these activists--energised by scandal, international innovation and most importantly by personal experience--created a compelling vision of this better future, communicated this vision and helped to mobilise widespread action to deliver progress. It describes how good people were inventive in finding better ways of listening to people with learning disabilities and arranging ordinary housing and support to meet their aspirations. It considers how regional and national agencies created mutually-reinforcing elements in the infrastructure necessary to strengthen the local capacities required for success. Lessons: My account also offers an interpretive commentary on "how" transformative change was achieved. There was no grand plan. Emerging leaders, who appreciated the urgent need for change, inspired and learned from each other in ever-expanding networks. Serendipity often played a part, strategy developed through experience and change proceeded by what has been called 'scaling across'. Effectively the King's Fund and its allies created a system for continuous learning to support vision-driven innovation. There are lessons here for meeting the unfinished business of achieving "An Ordinary Life" in the 2020s.

Public engagement is recognised as having an increasingly important role in the changing landscape of higher education in the United Kingdom (UK), and is promoted as a 'pathway to impact' by many higher education funding bodies. However, there is limited evidence to support the outreach and impact gained by higher education institutes that undertake international public engagement activities. Similarly, little is known about higher education staff and student's experiences of participating in such public engagement activities. This study focusses on a Global Festival of Learning (GFoL) in delivering public engagement on an international stage through an integrated approach involving the fusion of education, research, and professional practice, and the perceived impact on staff and students. This paper proposes an adaptive model for public engagement founded on five strategic public engagement areas that can be transferred to other higher education institutes with an interest in developing their international outreach and impact.

Colonizers' educational system produced new seeds for cultivation of new culture. This reproduction effected the British colonies culturally and religiously especially to Arica and South Asia. The natives of two continents transformed slowly and gradually through the western education system. The Britain opened new schools in colonies to teach the natives in English language. In the result of new educational system a hybrid culture emerged which led towards resistance and transformation of the natives. It affected all the aspects of natives' lives, especially cultural and religious sides. The food, cloths, social norms and traditions also changed through the inculcation of new culture. It also affected the gender based relations and women started demand for equal rights. The changes occurred, were the result of the education introduced by the colonizers. Later on, appropriation of English language affected the natives' culture and transformed them to a large extent. Religious conversation and transformation also overshadows the natives' culture and religions. The natives' social norms and traditions changed with the passage of time. Moreover, there will be no wrong to say that education played a vital role in molding the psyche of the natives. West established superiority over East by occupying the academia. They have given blow to various theories which they generated and practiced in East. Educational transformation played a vital role to transform the world from bi-polar to uni-polar. This research paper is an investigation that to what extent the religious conversion and western education played its role in transforming the natives. How it generated independence, interdependence and dependence in the world?

It is difficult to ignore the impact that Web 2.0 and the subsequent social software revolution has had on society in general, and young people in particular. Information is exchanged and interpreted extremely quickly and in ways that were not imagined 10 years ago. Universities are struggling to keep up with this new technology, with outdated intranet systems and limited research into its application within the higher education sector. The aim of this paper is to firstly develop a greater understanding of the use of social software by students in product design education and the impact of blogs, wiki's, Facebook groups, Flickr images, Myspace pages, RSS feeds, Tweets and YouTube video posts on their learning processes. The research for the project involved a number of discrete methods over a four year period, initially involving a review of the technological platforms and the e-learning software available to product design academic staff and students and the effect this has had thus far on teaching practices. Product design academic staff were then asked to rank existing platforms against a number of criteria. This was followed by the examination of case studies of successful applications of social software within the writer's institution with a view to establishing if these technologies could be better integrated into higher education and current pedagogic practices in order to provide an enhanced learning experience for the student product designer. The first phase of the research culminated in a literature review to establish the state of play in the wider academic community and beyond. This preliminary research fed into action research which consisted of the formulation and design of a blog and information website for the institutions product design programmes. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted to establish the views and opinions of the blog from key stakeholders including university marketing directors, academics and the student cohort. Questionnaires followed so that qualitative and quantitative data could be analysed. The paper concludes with a description of the perceived validity and possible future developments for the blog and social software as a whole in the product design higher education sector. (Contains 7 figures.)

Adult education in art galleries sits on a fault line, at once an apparatus upholding the affirmative aspects of museum culture cultivated by global elites, a propellant in the whirring of an increasingly dislocated set of events on trendy and consumable political themes, and a site for 'allyship' and other kinds of radical and socially transformative work. Resurrecting Hannah Arendt's question, 'where are we when we think?' this paper explores how we might move from a moment in which the 'space' of the gallery is replaced by the 'time' of the event (Helguera) and towards embedded space-times that attempt to address contemporary urgencies through situated practices that collectively analyse and respond to conditions. Drawn from examples derived from the author's practice, the paper argues for the use of popular education and anti-colonial pedagogies in the production of adult education in galleries, suggesting that such processes support groups in collectively naming and thinking through conflicts to re-shape both the galleries in which they have congregated and the worlds beyond their doors. This paper suggests that the re-construction and use of the often forgotten genealogies of emancipatory education are pivotal to doing social justice work in galleries.

The creation of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) represents a significant development concerning the teaching mission of the university in the UK. This paper considers the background to, and the development of, the TEF. It explains the context from which the TEF emerged and unpacks a series of rationales which illustrate the need for, and the role of, the new framework. The TEF is presented as an instrument to fulfil a range of functions, including: a mechanism to determine tuition fee rises and inform student choices in a reconfigured higher education market; a means of updating the quality and regulatory regime; and a way of raising the esteem of teaching within the academy, and the importance institutions place on student education. The paper explains how the contested idea of "teaching excellence" is defined within the framework, and the metrics and methodology used to assess this. An overview of the submission process and results illustrates how the TEF works in practice. How the TEF embeds two agendas in higher education is discussed: the use of quantitative measures to capture and convey performance, and the role of the student as a consumer not just a learner. The paper concludes the TEF can be viewed as a multi-purpose evaluation tool, not merely designed by the imperatives of teaching excellence or quality assurance, but also by the need for a measure to provide market information to consumers and allocate fee increases to institutions, and this is reflected in its content and character.

This paper involves an examination of skilled manual work in the modern paper industry. The data were collected at five mills in three countries -- the UK, Australia and the USA. The questions were formulated in order to probe four theories of skilled work. The results suggest that the distinction between skilled and nonskilled work is a fundamental feature of occupational differentiation in all five plants. They also reveal that there are intra-skilled conflicts over relative pay and demarcation lines and that these are affected by the wider socio-political environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this article is the youth labour market and how changes within it have (negatively) affected the economic prospects of young Britons. It suggests ways in which schools and colleges can respond to such change in order to optimise the life chances of their students. The paper reviews the perspectives of two important groups of people well-placed to offer informed views to educationalists: policy commentators close to the political and academic debates surrounding youth employment; and, HR professionals with first-hand experience of recruitment. Synthesising perspectives, the paper highlights three key changes demanding attention: the growing complexity of the labour market; increased competition for entry level employment; and, the changing requirements of employers who increasingly seek new employees well placed to be personally effective in applying knowledge and skills in changing situations. The paper concludes by offering a framework for structuring school provision to optimise the school to work transitions of young people.

The article talks about the Working Paper published by the Modern British Studies (MBS) research centre on new ways of thinking about the transformation of British society, culture, politics and economy between 19th century and 2015. It highlights the cultures of democracy and the rising political, social and cultural change. It states that the paper can be used as a study material for understanding the state of history in present times.

Much has been written about the glass ceiling and pay differentials in higher and further education (HE, FE) for women academics (McTavish and Miller 2009, Rees 2007) but very little about discrepancies for women "professional managers" within UK higher education. Professional managers as a term needs to be defined as universities call their generalist administrative/management staff by a variety of titles, eg academic-related, professional services, support, administrators, managers etc. In this paper, the term "professional manager" is used as in Whitchurch (2007) to capture the professionalism of staff undertaking generalist roles, such as in student services or departmental/faculty management. For this paper, the author has carried out desk research looking at universities' annual monitoring reports in order to find the difference in the percentage of women at the varying pay grades in the professional manager grades of 6 to 9 and above. She hopes that this research will add to the debate on gender inequality for professional management staff in universities in the UK. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

This article addresses the life and educational thinking of Victor Lytton, second Earl of Lytton, who not only involved himself in a wide number of social causes but was instrumental in contributing to the development of progressive education in the early decades of the twentieth century. This he did through his work with the New Ideals in Education conferences but also as he became embroiled with Homer Lane and the Little Commonwealth. Lytton also write a number of books that developed a new theory of education. Drawing upon the archives held at Knebworth House, the paper seeks to explore Lytton's life and thought both by exploring his involvement with various causes but also by a close textual reading of his unique educational philosophy, which appeared as a combination of Christ and Freud. By so doing it seeks to reintegrate Lytton as a significant figure in the progressive educational tradition.

This study was conducted at an important chronological turning point with regard to the structure of the Greek community and Greek supplementary schools in the UK. This paper, following a mixed-methods methodology, aims to examine whether pedagogic practices and norms of the past that took place in Greek supplementary schools continue to exist today, in a word of continuous socio-political changes. This is undertaken with a retrospective examination of the education of Greek immigrant children in the UK in the past, an examination of how pre-existing, primordial notions of culture and ethnicity influence pedagogic practices and how these influence students' motivation and identity development at present. The findings call for a revisiting of policies, as well as curricular and pedagogic practices in Greek supplementary education, in order to reflect the current fluid and constantly changing context.

What do people need to learn to engage actively in social action for neighbourhood improvement or development? How important is emergent learning relative to planned learning in this context? Where does first-person knowledge fit into the body of knowledge required for success in bringing about change for the better in neighbourhoods through community-based projects? These are some of the questions raised by the development of a programme of knowledge and skills for active participation in community-based neighbourhood renewal projects. The programme was christened 'Action Learning Together' but was quickly abbreviated to the "ALTogether" programme. It was a programme that blended action learning with self-managed learning, that capitalised on the different knowledge and skills of different participants and that recognised that the knowledge and skills needed for each project were likely to be significantly different from that needed to tackle the projects of other participants on the programme. This paper focuses on the philosophy or theory underpinning the programme and issues raised in a number of areas including the relative weight attached to emergent and planned learning, the blending of action learning with self-managed learning and the applicability of self-managed action learning for social change in contexts like this.

This paper serves as a broad introduction to Disabilities Studies in Education (DSE). The emergence of DSE over the last decade has resulted in a vibrant area of academic scholarship as well as a critical forum for social/educational advocacy and activism. First, the authors trace the roots of DSE in the growth of disability studies (DS) within the UK and the USA. Second, they describe the formation of international networks dedicated to DSE. Third, they chart the evolution of DSE's conceptual framework, complete with tenets and examples, carefully crafted over time by a community of scholars. Fourth, they comment upon twelve papers selected for this special double issue of the "International Journal of Inclusive Education", highlighting the contribution of each toward both advancing and elucidating the tenets within the conceptual framework of DSE. Finally, the authors close with reflections on the significance of DSE, contemplating what it offers theorists, researchers, and practitioners, as well as highlighting future possibilities. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper is about how the transformatory pedagogical practice of popular/liberatory education can be further articulated within geography. It is based on the experiences of a third-year undergraduate course, "Autonomous Geographies", in which the author developed some of the core values of popular education, namely engaging with movements for change, making space for emotions, developing strategy and overcoming powerlessness, and building solidarity and cooperation. These were put into practice through coursework involving contact with social movements, a praxis-based reflexive journal, action planning and spokescouncils. The author reflects on how he engaged students with the possibilities of becoming active, critical and defiant citizens engaged in social change, as well as problematizing his own position and aspirations. On the author's part, this paper is a call to re-energize the links between geographical education and freedom, and a plea that we do not retreat from naming and confronting oppression. (Contains 5 figures and 8 notes.)

A whole flurry of new thinking and research about young people in the USA has been stimulated by Jeffery Arnett's theory of 'Emerging Adulthood'. This argues for recognition of a new stage of the life-course between adolescence and adulthood reflecting the extension of youth transitions to independence brought about by globalization and technological change. Although the perspective aligns with developmental psychology's conception of "stages of development", its appeal extends across the social science disciplines and policy domains. However, the rich theorizing of the same manifestations of social change in young people's experience in European Youth Studies appear to have been largely overlooked by Arnett. This paper attempts to redress this balance by drawing into the framework of Emerging Adulthood a wider set of theoretical concerns with structural factors and exclusion mechanisms to which (late) modern youth are subjected. The argument is exemplified by age-30 cohort comparisons across three British longitudinal studies starting in 1946, 1958 and 1970, demonstrating rising opportunities accompanied by increased social inequality. The paper concludes with a re-appraisal of the concept of youth as a phase of the late modern life-course in which the properties Arnett attributes to Emergent Adulthood are just one significant feature. (Contains 4 figures, 1 table and 1 note.)

The paper argues that powerful regional knowledge is necessary and possible and that there are historical precedents supporting these claims. Regional knowledge is being used in a double sense: the first Bernsteinian, the second in relation to knowledge generated outside the academy. Both are important if the debate is not to be confined solely to the global north and if the curriculum is to be responsive to geo-political realities. In order to think critically about access to higher education, we need to consider the sorts of knowledge, engagement, and opportunities that are open to newer actors. This includes recognising the contextual nature of professional practice and also that social movements beyond the academy can and do challenge academic knowledge. The paper concludes that many of issues addressed are not capable of theoretical resolution alone and that we need more empirical work to inform curriculum change and renewal.

Each country should look beyond the nationalistic stories and the everyday self-images popularly disseminated. UK students deserve an environment where school curricula, public debate, politics, media and memorials give balanced, factual and ethically informed narratives about Britain's past and current dealings with other races and nations. A mythical 'great' Britain underpins a 'racialized consciousness' shaping attitudes to race equality issues at home today and how of contemporary commercial colonialism is evaluated. 'White' is a socially constructed composite ethnicity with exclusionary and subjugating characteristics. With different national roots, and played out differently in different countries, the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests point to common, enduring global inequalities and injustices with 'white priority' at their root. This paper focuses principally on the school curriculum, its content and, how it is experienced and assessed. It examines understanding of, and attitudes towards, five interlocking themes: slavery; colonialism; 'righteous' wars; contemporary exploitative engagement with lesser developed nations; and racial and class inequalities in today's Britain. The limited current state of understanding of these issues poses challenges to the extension of multicultural education into meaningful antiracism and action for social justice. The school curriculum is only one part of wider action required to address (mis)understandings of Britain's past and present colonialism, to recognise current race related injustices at home and abroad and to resituate notions of 'belonging', ethnicity and equal worth. Even 'correcting' these perceptions, bolstered by the widespread 'Black Lives Matter' protests in many countries, will not lead to sustained improvements in racial justice without significant adjustments to legal, social and especially economic infrastructures.

The relationship between masculinity and sports that is naturalised and reproduced in PE settings has been well-documented, highlighting contexts that privilege certain boys, limit girls and where many teachers view girls as a problem to be fixed. However, social norms regarding what constitutes feminism, gender and sexism are changing, which may impact the experiences of girls in PE. Drawing on data from an ethnographic case study, this paper explores the experiences in PE of girls who resist traditional feminine identities within a progressive school context. In doing so, we aim to understand how this shift in social norms relating to their gendered identities is played out in context. Guided by Foucault's work around the disciplining nature of power, our analysis revealed several interrelated discursive and structural barriers that limited these girls' learning and opportunities in PE, a surprising finding given the progressive ethos claimed by the school. We conclude by suggesting changes that might make PE truly 'progressive' for all students.

The entrepreneurial university is a vague notion that has evolved by applying the concepts of enterprise and entrepreneurship to a university context. The blurring of enterprise with entrepreneurship has allowed the entrepreneurial university to be increasingly underpinned by a managerialist discourse, typified by functionalisation and marketisation; culminating in academic disempowerment, dissatisfaction and subsequent disengagement. In response to such dissatisfaction, this paper reflects on a playful space, called the Slow Swimming Club (SSC), produced by several academics. The research takes a collective auto-ethnographic approach and employs Foucault's heterotopology, as a conceptual frame, to understand the collective impact of this SSC entrepreneuring space. We relate the disconnection of the SSC to the process of critically connecting academics, back to their universities and consider whether such academic resistance, rooted in play, corporeal sensibility and emancipation, has the potential to enact social change and enhance entrepreneurial potential.

This paper examines the temporal and ethical affordances of commercial social media platforms, such as Twitter, as tools for engaging in social research and knowledge exchange. Drawing on activity that took place during the "New Frontiers in Qualitative Longitudinal Research" seminar series, the article reports on using Twitter and other social media platforms to document, share and archive 'data' from a series of research events. It also experiments with new modes of research writing, using fragments of 'data' from Twitter to distil research knowledge and ideas, whilst also capturing the pace and form of this live method of social documentation and knowledge exchange. Bringing together conversations within digital sociology about how to 'do' time in digital research, with methodological debates among qualitative longitudinal researchers about how to research social and biographical continuity and change, the paper argues that the presentist focus in digital research is far from inevitable. Attending to time in digital media demands that we are alert to questions of authorship, audience and co-production, recognizing the labour of research and the provenance of research knowledge, 'data' and ideas.

This paper focuses on a generational change taking place in the Polish academic profession: a change in behaviors and attitudes between two groups of academics. One was socialized to academia under the communist regime (1945-1989) and the other entered the profession in the post-1989 transition period. Academics of all age groups are beginning to learn how tough the competition for research funding is, but young academics ("academics under 40"), being the target of recent policy initiatives, need to learn faster. Current reforms present a clear preferred image for a new generation of Polish academics: highly motivated, embedded in international research networks, publishing mostly internationally, and heavily involved in the competition for academic recognition and research funding. In the long run, without such a radical approach, any international competition between young Polish academics (with a low research orientation and high teaching hours) and their young Western European colleagues (with a high research orientation and low teaching hours) seems inconceivable, as our data on the average academic productivity clearly demonstrate. The quantitative background of this paper comes from 3704 returned questionnaires and the qualitative background from 60 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The paper takes a European comparative approach and contrasts Poland with 10 Western European countries (using 17,211 returned questionnaires).

Purpose: This study aims to critically examine the effects of COVID-19 social discourses and policy decisions specifically on older adult volunteers in the UK, comparing the responses and their effects in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, providing perspectives on effects of policy changes designed to reduce risk of infection as a result of COVID-19, specifically on volunteer involvement of and for older adults, and understand, from the perspectives of volunteer managers, how COVID-19 restrictions had impacted older people's volunteering and situating this within statutory public health policies. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a critical discourse approach to explore, compare and contrast accounts of volunteering of and for older people in policy, and then compare the discourses within policy documents with the discourses in personal accounts of volunteering in health and social care settings in the four nations of the UK. This paper is co-produced in collaboration with co-authors who have direct experience with volunteer involvement responses and their impact on older people. Findings: The prevailing overall policy approach during the pandemic was that risk of morbidity and mortality to older people was too high to permit them to participate in volunteering activities. Disenfranchising of older people, as exemplified in volunteer involvement, was remarkably uniform across the four nations of the UK. However, the authors find that despite, rather than because of policy changes, older volunteers, as part of, or with the help of, volunteer involving organisations, are taking time to think and to reconsider their involvement and are renewing their volunteer involvement with associated health benefits. Research limitations/implications: Working with participants as co-authors helps to ensure the credibility of results in that there was agreement in the themes identified and the conclusions. A limitation of this study lies in the sampling method, as a convenience sample was used and there is only representation from one organisation in each of the four nations. Originality/value: The paper combines existing knowledge about volunteer involvement of and for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on qualitative data exploring the experiences of first-generation middle-class Black Caribbean-heritage parents, their own parents, and their children. We focus on the different ways in which race and class intersect in shaping attitudes towards education and subsequent educational practices. We argue that the nature of racism has changed, but it still remains, mainly in more subtle, insidious forms. We conclude that race cannot be simply "added on" to class. Race changes how class works, how it is experienced, and the subjectivities available to individuals. The paper illustrates how the two intersect, in complex ways, in different historical "moments".

This paper examines the emergence of schools "micro-computing" in the UK between 1977 and 1984--a period of significant educational, technological and political change. During this time, computing developed rapidly from a niche activity in a few select schools to the state subsidized purchasing of a "computer in every school" and the nationwide promotion of computers as a feature of curriculum and pedagogy. Through a series of in-depth retrospective interviews with key policy actors (n = 20) this paper develops a detailed "policy historiography" of this period--shedding light on the complex power relations and interests that underpinned these developments. In particular, the paper highlights the origins of these policy interventions in earlier activities, and examines the negotiations and conflicts between and within the two government departments involved in the mass introduction of computing into the UK school system.

This paper seeks to examine the influence of Fabian Socialist thinking as the primary force in the development of critical theory as applied to higher education in Britain. The paper covers the impact of scientific Fabian Socialism and the establishment of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Frankfurt School and the rise of critical theory and pedagogy, and offers a critique of these perspectives. The social reconstructionist theory, worked out in the USA, posits schools and teachers as planned agents of social and cultural reform by addressing and solving practical social problems. The reconstructionists and critical theorists embrace notions of equality, the eradication of social injustices, multiculturalism, increasing levels of social consciousness and the discussion of controversial issues through employment of critical forms of pedagogy. In Britain, Fabian Socialism led directly to the establishment of the Labour Party as a political entity.

The early twenty-first century is characterised by rapid change. Commentators note how permeating digital technologies engage increasing numbers of children, young people and adults as consumers and also producers. In the shifting technological landscape, childhood and youth are changing. Connectivity around the clock, with a parallel existence in virtual space, is seamlessly integrated with actual lives. Young people are skilful collaborators, navigating digital gaming and social networking with ease, capably generating and manipulating content, experimenting virtually with versions of their "social face". They are implicit, inherent and immersed consumers. They are digital "possibility thinkers" posing "what if?" questions and engaging in "as if" activity. This paper seeks to theorise such possibility thinking in a digital, marketised age, using two competing discourses: young people as vulnerable and at risk; or alternatively as capable and potent. The former perspective imbues anxiety about the digital revolution; the latter embraces it as exciting and enabling. As education providers seek to re-imagine themselves, neither is sufficient. Local and global challenges urgently demand our creative potential and wisdom. Drawing from work with schools, the paper argues for co-creating with students their education futures through dialogue to nurture the 4 Ps: plurality, playfulness, participation and possibilities. (Contains 3 figures and 4 notes.)

Rhetoric about young people's "ownership" of future socio-technical change is a familiar part of much educational and political discourse. This does not, however, translate in practice into a meaningful dialogue with young people about the sorts of futures they might wish to see emerge. This paper argues that a number of social and technological developments currently being envisaged by researchers, developers, industry and politicians bring with them a responsibility to rethink the relationship between young people, education and socio-technical futures. It focuses specifically on trends in the areas of personal augmentation, digital working practices and intergenerational spaces and discusses the implications of projected developments in these areas for young people's educational, economic and democratic futures. It argues that schools need to be cognisant of these future possibilities and need to create spaces and practices that enable young people together to understand and explore these issues. The school also is not immune to socio-technical change. The potential growth of online learning communities, the emergence of a body of adults able to participate as informal educators and the development of networked publics, in particular, have the potential to change the relationship between school, young people and society. These changes have the potential either to erode or to radically reinvigorate the capacity of schools to act as public spaces within which young people can be supported to negotiate and explore future socio-technical change. (Contains 7 notes.)

This paper is about changing concepts of equity in UK higher education. In particular, it charts the moves from concepts about gender equality as about women's education as a key issue in twentieth century higher education to questions of men's education in the twenty-first century. These changing concepts of equity are linked to wider social and economic transformations, the expansion of higher education and the growth in the knowledge economy, or what has been called "academic capitalism". Feminist theorists and activists, often called second wave feminists, developed concepts of gender equality in education, including higher education in the twentieth century, and these have been incorporated into higher education and policies with the expansions of higher education, especially around notions of widening participation. Notions of widening participation in policy and practice arenas focus on equity as about social class, socio-economic disadvantage, ethnicity and race, rather than specifically on gender questions. Equity is now twinned with diversity and where gender is now invoked it is largely about young and working class men's disadvantage in relation to higher education. In this paper, I will also provide research evidence from the UK's Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) which has been the UK's biggest ever initiative in education research about equity and diversity as currently conceived in UK higher education. I will show how gender has been incorporated with diversity questions and has lost its critical and feminist edge. I conclude with addressing questions about the future of higher education policies and practices to address questions of equity and diversity, attempting to counter the systemic inequalities in current forms of UK higher education. There are opportunities for developing new, critical and feminist pedagogies. More inclusive or "connectionist" approaches, rather than "teaching to the test", would engage socially diverse men and women students in a range of higher education subjects and settings.

This paper discusses the role of learned societies in knowledge exchange and dissemination. It attempts to "map" the organisations that are considered to reside under the term and discusses how they have developed through history. In doing so, it seeks to highlight that whilst several types of organisations inhabit the landscape of learned societies, they all share a commitment to knowledge exchange and dissemination. The paper then discusses the modern learned societies that were founded in twentieth-century Britain and now exist alongside their organisational predecessors. It raises questions of whether these organisations exist for the benefit of their members or wider society. The paper then discusses change and development in learned societies in relation to its case study, the Regional Studies Association. The paper concludes by arguing that "learned society" is an umbrella term for knowledge exchange and dissemination organisations whose functions are contextually specific and inextricably tied to the needs of their respective discipline, sub-discipline or field of intellectual enquiry. (Contains 116 footnotes.)

This paper provides a co-director's and co-author's review of and commentary on research carried out with Maurice Galton over the past decade. Its principal focus is the burden that recent education policies and ascent of a deleterious culture of performativity have inflicted on teachers' professional and domestic lives. It reports on four studies conducted for the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and two books: "Teachers under pressure" and "Re-inventing schools, reforming teaching". The latter offers alarming, if not surprising, insights into the process of national policy-making. It goes on to relate mutual experiences of recent work in Hong Kong and draws attention to Maurice Galton's contributions to education internationally. The keys to this paper, however, are the persistence, perspicacity and Maurice's personal concern for teachers and children, that have enabled the insights and injustices uncovered in these studies to be published.

This report provides a summary of findings from an ethnographic study of work-based learning provision for 16-18-year-olds who would otherwise fall into the UK Government category of not in education, employment or training (NEET). The research project took place in the north of England during 2008-2009, and investigated the biographies, experiences and aspirations of young people and practitioners working on Entry to Employment (E2E) programmes in four learning sites. The detailed research findings are reported in four papers covering the conceptual background to E2E, and the experiences of learners, tutors and Connexions personal advisers involved with the programme. This report highlights and synthesises some of the key issues raised by these papers and looks ahead to a three-year longitudinal study of NEET young people which is intended to continue and extend this work, providing an opportunity to follow this group during a period of far-reaching economic and political change.

This explorative paper works across discourses to suggest the possibility and potential of an integrative paradigm for sustainability education that reconciles instrumental and intrinsic educational traditions, informed and infused by resilience theory and social learning. It argues that such an integrative view is required in the context of the urgency of building more resilient local social-ecological systems (SES), and that such a view offers the possibility of new energy and direction in the sustainability education debate. The paper is essentially a thinkpiece that attempts to look at touchstones between discourses to suggest the possibilities and potential of mutual illumination and better integration. The paper begins by reviewing tensions between an instrumentalist view and an intrinsic value view of environmental and sustainability education, the former seeing such education as a means to individual and social change, the latter upholding the primacy of the autonomous learner who, secondarily may--or may not--take action towards sustainability. The paper then considers the discourse of the resilient learner, before reviewing social learning literature linked to resilience and discussing how far these various views can be brought together and reconciled. Parallels are made with tensions in the debate on sustainability when seen as a desirable ideal, or as a process. Transformative learning theory is then introduced in relation to addressing the paradox of resilient but maladaptive worldviews and the need to educate for resilience. The paper concludes with an argument for a transformative education paradigm--"sustainable education"--which necessarily integrates instrumental and intrinsic views and which nurtures "resilient learners" able to develop "resilient social-ecological systems" in the face of a future of threat, uncertainty and surprise. (Contains 2 tables.)

Purpose: This paper aims to examine whether the health education and health promotion literature is inclusive of people with physical mobility impairments. The English government Department of Health statistics indicate that the number of people living with physical mobility impairments is increasing and this is largely a result of chronic illness survival. The current UK Government has set targets to reduce inequalities that disproportionally affect those with disabilities. In light of the above points, it was expected that this interest would be reflected by a growing health promotion literature. Design/methodology/approach: In order to achieve an overview of health promotion offered for those with physical mobility impairments, a literature review was conducted. The literature was systematically reviewed using keywords and inclusion criteria. The range of published literature searched included research journals, health promotion texts, health and disability policy documents, as well as web sites offered on the internet. Findings: There is a dearth in the information and development of health promotion for those with physical mobility impairments. Health policy documents offer little that is specifically focused for this group of people in particular. The majority of the relevant literature comes from the USA. Two theoretical positions are offered in the literature: one argues that those with physical impairments require a medical model approach to support individual's adjustment to society; and the other argues that emphasis should be placed on social change to accommodate those with physical impairments. While there are a range of initiatives in legislation and policy that utilise the social model position, the lack of UK health promotion interventions and the small number of US studies for improving the health of those with physical mobility impairments tends to encourage the medical model approach. Research limitations/implications: This review focuses particularly on health promotion for those with physical mobility impairments. Although not exhaustive, it highlights the need for further research into effective development of health promotion for those with physical mobility impairments in the UK. Practical implications: Far more needs to be done to promote the health of those with physical mobility impairments. Both the medical model and social change approaches are required to deliver health promotion for this segment of the population. Originality/value: There are no other reviews of the literature with a focus on physical mobility impairment and health promotion. This paper considers an often-neglected group of people and identifies a need for effective health promotion information and resources.

Mission schools in Africa in the first half of the twentieth century were in many ways microcosms of the great educational debates of the times. The objectives of policies regarding access, governance and curriculum were part of a historical evolution of mission education but they were also increasingly a reflection of significant new trends that were to reshape the theory and practice of colonial education. New forms of educational research and professional expertise were to play an ever-increasing role in shaping the forms and content of the education provided. The brief of the mission churches was to meet with the increasing demand for schooling. Church and state gradually expanded their cooperation in the field as the costs of education outstripped the resources of the missions and the demand for mass education came to be linked to nationalist demands for political and economic rights. This paper is concerned to map the background to those international influences that shaped the policy and practices of mission education and the increasing engagement of colonial governments with the field of education. It addresses the question of the worldwide Protestant mission church's response to the changing political, social and economic environment of the first half of the twentieth century. In particular it seeks to explore how mission initiatives shaped thinking about education in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America by the 1930s. It also attempts to situate those issues within a wider educational framework by linking them to the emergent debate concerning pragmatism and utilitarianism in regard to progressive education in the USA and the quest for social democratic education in the United Kingdom and Europe as part of a response to socialism, nationalism and totalitarianism. In short, the paper explores the influence of the Christian mission churches with regard to social policy, in general, and the provision of education, in particular, during the interwar years, with special reference to areas influenced by the work of the International Missionary Council. At a time when there was a crisis of support for "foreign missions" how did the debates between fundamentalist-evangelicals and supporters of a "social gospel" transform themselves into debates regarding the role of missions in non-Western societies? And how did these essentially ecclesiastical/theological issues come to influence public policy, specifically educational policy, in the long term? The conclusions are that mission churches had a very significant influence on the shaping of educational thinking in the colonial and imperial context at a time when state influence in the sector was still often quite weak. The origins of the conference and research culture that has informed educational policy since the establishment of the United Nations Organization had its roots in the broad context of the Charter of the League of Nations, with a meeting of religious and secular goals, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Between 1910 and 1939 there was a significant history of educational reform and community development that has only been partially documented in relation to its global significance. This is an attempt to build a framework for understanding the nature of those changes and what was achieved. The investigation is conducted through an exploration of the three great World Mission Conferences of the International Missionary Council (IMC) held at Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928) and Tambaram, India (1938). The attempts of Christian churches to engage with dramatic social changes associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, poverty, cultural change and the rise of anti-colonialism, with specific regard to the field of educational policy, are documented and analysed. (Contains 5 boxes and 114 footnotes.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present experiences and insights from an higher education-led initiative to build leadership capacity within the South West of England in order to the shed light onto the processes and mechanisms of regional capacity building. Design/methodology/approach: The approach was one of participative action research, whereby the authors were actively involved in the shaping and delivery of the initiative, responding to ongoing feedback and reflection. The account given within this paper is an autoethnographic case study that identifies the main phases and lessons learned from the initiative. Findings: The paper identifies a number of discrete phases within the initiative, some of the challenges and how they were confronted and concludes with a set of ten principles that may help support regional capacity building initiatives for management and leadership. Originality/value: Despite increasing emphasis on capacity building and a tendency to promote leadership as a lever for change, limited academic research has been conducted into either of these processes at a regional level. This paper seeks to contribute to both theory and practice in these areas by combining the insights of an academic and a practitioner involved in one such initiative and highlighting the underlying and emergent processes therewith.