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The promotion of ‘critical citizenship’ has become a key objective of official school curricula around the world. Using an analytic framework developed by the authors, this paper identifies the diverse conceptions of critical citizenship that are promoted, by comparing the official school curricula for citizenship in England and France. The analysis goes beyond the dichotomous distinctions prevalent in comparisons of education in the two countries, especially those that focus on the contrasting degrees of centralisation–decentralisation, and suggests that there were significant differences in the goals promoted in their curricula with regard to four key dimensions: ideology, the collective, the individual and action. While these differences reflect historical, political, social, economic and cultural differences between the two nations, the analysis indicates a lack of symmetry across the levels of the curriculum, which contributed to the significant spaces that were found to exist which have the potential for teachers and students to creatively interpret how critical citizenship can be understood and implemented in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws parallels between the market trend in the English NHS and Polanyi's (1957) The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time, Beacon Press: Boston (originally published in 1944 in the United States as The Great Transformation, Rinehart: and Co: New York, and in 1945 in England as Origins of our time, Gollancz: London) account of how the rise of markets provokes a self-protective counter-reaction that tries to re-embed economic relations in social relations. We report findings from a qualitative study of NHS contracting, which examines the recent move to harder-edged contracts with greater use of financial penalties and incentives. In practice, use of these techniques tended to be confined to nationally-mandated sections of the contract rather than emerging from local bilateral agreements, and when things went wrong the parties relied more on cooperative behaviour than on the provisions of the contract to find solutions. Making the current contracting system work depended more on existing relational networks than on the incentive structures created by recent 'marketisation' initiatives, but the inability of the market to evolve as expected has encouraged policy makers to publish plans for further radical reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe the incremental approach to the marketisation of the English National Health Service (NHS) since the introduction of an 'internal market' in 1990 until the 2010 White Paper, 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', and the subsequent Health and Social Care Bill published in January 2011. The introduction of a competitive market for a universal, tax-financed health system requires fundamental changes in regulation in order that market bureaucracy can be substituted for direct management. The components of reform are insufficiently captured by the framework of hierarchies and networks in new public management theories of decentralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore an apparent disjunction between espoused professional ethics and ethics in practice, and between law in statute and law in action. Social work in England is used as the main case study, however, research from other jurisdictions is drawn upon to demonstrate wider concern about departures from moral and legal rules. The evidence of the disjunction is presented, drawing principally from judicial review cases, investigations by the Commissioner for Local Administration (Ombudsman), inquiry evidence and government reports. The article critiques the current regulatory apparatus in England and the mechanisms by which staff and service users can hold public organisations, particularly councils with social services responsibilities, accountable. The interface between law and ethics is reviewed. The paper concludes with observations about strengthening legal and ethical literacy in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central challenge for local skills strategies is whether they can contribute to 'inclusive growth' including more and better jobs across a local economy. Skills strategies, it has been argued, must go beyond simply boosting skills supply and be integrated with policies that shape employer demand for, and utilisation of, skills, including economic development and business improvement. Among developed countries, this is particularly challenging for neo-liberal economies, with weakly regulated labour markets where many firms compete through low wages and low-skill job design. How much progress can be made locally is unclear. The article focuses on England, a highly centralised neo-liberal economy, with high levels of low-wage work and over-qualification. Since 2010, UK governments have promised to empower local communities to drive growth, reforming the infrastructure for sub-national economic development and localising elements of skills policy, as part of a devolution agenda for England set in the context of austerity. There are important questions around how local actors understand the 'skills problem' and whether they can evolve integrative approaches that might contribute to inclusive growth. Drawing upon qualitative research with local actors in the Midlands, the article explores their assumptive worlds in order to shed light on opportunities and constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research critically analyses the decentralisation of the BBC’s Department of Religion and Ethics, from its base in London to the office of BBC Manchester in 1994. It examines the rationale behind the BBC’s decision to move this production unit, and analyses the long-term impact of this policy on both the logistics and programme-making culture of the unit. Using interviews with staff working within the department at the time of the move, this research demonstrates how policy decisions such as this are negotiated by professionals within the Corporation and the conflicts which arise around efficiency and equality. The case of the Department of Religion and Ethics also provides important lessons for the future decentralisation of BBC departments to Salford Quays which is due to be implemented in 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]