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In this article I begin by discussing the persistent problem of relations between educational inequality and the attainment gap in schools. Because benefits accruing from an education are substantial, the 'gap' leads to large disparities in the quality of life many young people can expect to experience in the future. Curriculum knowledge has been a focus for debate in England in relation to educational equality for over 40 years. Given the contestation surrounding views about curriculum knowledge and equality I consider the thinking of two philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas, and their work on justice, to trouble the curriculum framework and discourse of knowledge promoted through the policy text of The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper (2010) and later associated policy reforms to the General Certificate of Secondary Education ( GCSE) curriculum in England. The Schools White Paper aims to make the curriculum more challenging to students by introducing tight controls in terms of the assessment framework and curriculum knowledge. I argue that, when considered through Derrida's perspective on language and meaning and Levinas' view on the ethical responsibility for the other, the reforms present obstacles to the search for a just curriculum. I look to the work of Sharon Todd and Paul Standish for a re-imagination of curriculum as or through relations in the light of Derrida's and Levinas' philosophies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education reform is increasingly portrayed as a quest to achieve a ‘world class’ education system through a process of identifying and adopting the practices of those systems whose pupils perform best in league tables of achievement. This is the rationale for the range of new policies proposed by the coalition government in the schools White Paper published in November 2010, which promotes whole-system reform in England. This article examines the White Paper and analyses the sources and nature of the evidence for reform and the congruence between the policy intentions and their associated policy actions. The analysis suggests that the evidence for the proposed reforms and policy actions is at best tenuous. Both the White Paper and its key sources of evidence are characterised by: a selective use of data: a propensity to mix and match the sources of comparison; and an overall tendency to employ comparisons with high-performing systems elsewhere as a façade to legitimate preferred policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teacher professionalism in England may be considered to have been shaped by the set of professional standards, and the accompanying statutory performance management system, introduced by the Labour government in 2007. More recently the coalition government’s 2010 White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, announced reforms that will potentially re-shape teacher professionalism. In this article I examine the ‘shape’ of teacher professionalism in England, as defined by the professional standards. I reveal it to be a lop-sided shape, indicating a professionalism that focuses predominantly on teachers’ behaviour, rather than on their attitudes and their intellectuality. Presenting my conceptual analysis of professionalism, and examination of its link with professional development, I consider whether—and to what extent—teacher professionalism may in fact be shaped by government-imposed reform. I conclude that ‘enacted’ professionalism may be quite different from ‘demanded’ professionalism, and shaping professionalism involves a complex and indecipherable process that is better understood by examining the process whereby individuals develop professionally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper firstly presents Statement Archaeology, an innovative and rigorous method devised to systematically operationalise the approach to historical exploration used by Michel Foucault in pursuit of the question "how do certain practices become possible at particular moments in history?" Drawing on an analysis of the theoretical basis of Foucault's broad – and arguably equivocal – approach, a series of methodological procedures by which it can be systematically operationalised are set out. These focus on the interrogation of "statements", through a series of questions, against three criteria: Formation, Transformation, and Correlation. Secondly, through the use of a specific policy development in English Religious Education as an exemplar, the paper establishes the potential of the approach. Deploying Statement Archaeology in relation to this example reveals that the change under investigation became possible at a nexus of changes in the rules of what is thinkable and unthinkable within different domains of discourse, and complex and messy processes of changing legitimacies and normalisations, with previously unacknowledged policy-influencers playing an important role. Many existing accounts of this change have overlooked these matters. The paper concludes by arguing that Statement Archaeology has potential significance in any domain of enquiry that seeks answers to the question "how did this particular practice become possible at that particular moment?" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on an educational policy initiative taken by the New Labour Government in England in the 1990s-2000s to extend parental choice in publicly funded school education, and to widen social access to different educational approaches. As such, the policy which led to the opening of a Steiner Academy School in Herefordshire contained elements of educational diversity and inclusion, a degree of parental choice that had not been considered previously, and an extending of social access to different and distinctive educational approaches. For example, in the case of the Steiner Academy Hereford, the National Curriculum for schools in England was set aside in favour of the Steiner Waldorf curriculum framework. The paper seeks to set out the main features of the negotiation that led up to the state funding of Steiner education in England, along with an exploration of the processes, compromises, achievements and setbacks that were encountered along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines three questions: (1) (How) Is democracy promoted in secondary schools in England? (2) How is the promotion of democracy understood in education and teacher education policy? and (3) To what extent does existing education policy benefit the promotion of democracy in schools in England? To explore these questions, we first discuss the policy landscape surrounding democratic education in England. We then outline our data collection and analysis methods, which comprised (a) the coding of ten different policy documents, including curriculum specifications, teaching standards and inspection frameworks, and (b) the utilisation of an original survey of more than 3000 teachers working in approximately 50% of all secondary schools in England. Together, our data allow us to raise three important points. First, education and teacher education policy neglects to specify 'how' democracy should be promoted and by 'whom'. Second, schools are offering scant provision of democratic education. Third, the majority of teachers feel fundamentally underprepared to teach democracy. We conclude this paper by arguing that, if policymakers do wish to promote democracy, there is a need for a cohesive policy and teacher education approach that guarantees democratic education for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve education performance at home, countries cross nationally policy-borrow from jurisdictions ranked highly in international league tables. This paper examines a practical example of one such instance of policy borrowing, Teaching for Mastery (TfM). Over a six year period, interviews were conducted with teachers working in primary schools in the East Midlands region of England. The focus of these interviews was to explore informants' experiences of enacting TfM and their analysis of the UK government's motives for undertaking this borrowing. Applying Baudrillard's ideas around hyperreality and image to these data indicated two key themes: 1) TfM discourses masked crucial aspects of the original policy, with the result that 2) TfM became non-relational to the original and thus hyperreal. The paper suggests strategies that might mitigate against policy becoming hyperreal and concludes that government must carefully consider its motives for engaging in the borrowing process from the outset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, government policy in England has positioned further education almost exclusively as employment-orientated training for school leavers whilst also imposing severe budget cuts. During this period, values-based pedagogies that foreground social justice for students, many of whom come from low-income households, have been undermined. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there is evidence that the mental health and well-being of further education students has suffered but little is known about the pandemic's effects on teachers.This paper presents analysis of primary research data drawn from interviews with a small sample of further education teachers and managers in the English West Midlands about their mental health and well-being during the pandemic. The paper frames the research data by acknowledging that both mental health nursing and further education teaching are currently riven by contradictions with an epistemological basis anchored in meritocratic and neoliberal policy. Using Lefebvrian theory, our analysis suggests that for further education staff, the pandemic has sharpened the tensions experienced in an already precarious professional role. Key findings were that the further education funding regime drove a 'business as usual' management attitude during the pandemic, and an intensification of work and the erosion of pedagogical practice negatively affected staff's mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing consensus that existing arrangements for policy making in education are far from optimal. This paper is about policy making and the roles of—and relationships between—elected officials, civil servants and academics in the making of policy. It aims to open up a conversation about new ways of making education policy that make better use of academic expertise by shedding light on policy making from the perspective of a former policy broker. With specific reference to England, experiences of the world of policy are drawn on to provide an account of the following: the disconnect between academic research and policy; what good policy advice looks like; and, most significantly, what an expert policy advice mechanism in education could look like. The mechanism put forward is one possibility for further discussion within the academic community in the first instance: an independent group of diverse academic experts to provide trustworthy and transparent policy advice to the education ministry. It is envisaged that by bringing a set of insights together here, understandings of the world of policy making will be enhanced and further thinking and conversations about mechanisms for expert policy advice in education will be induced, starting with this flagship journal's readership. The subsequent accumulation of these discussions may then, in time, lead us towards better policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we make initial advances towards building an argument for the inclusion of Critical Literacy Awareness within the new Early Career Framework in England. Using illustrative examples from recent research projects, we argue that post-2010 education policy has discursively divided practitioners, structuring relationships between different groups of teachers in schools as hierarchical and competitive, rather than collegial and supportive. We argue that such hierarchies may be a contributing factor to the teacher retention crisis, given that research indicates teachers working in schools with a collegial culture are more likely to remain committed and motivated. We propose that engagement with CLA may enable early career teachers to critique and resist dominant discourses which differentiate and hierarchically divide them from their colleagues, and therefore, the utility of CLA should be explored within future iterations of the Early Career Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the intense politicisation of education, many teacher educators are caught in the cross-hairs of government's reform agendas, university expectations and student teacher needs. This paper reports on a study of 28 literacy teacher educators in four countries (Canada, US, Australia and England). This paper reports on the broad question: How is politics affecting literacy teacher educators? Three specific aspects are considered: their pedagogies, identity and well-being. It describes how their pedagogy (goals and teaching strategies) has narrowed because of mandated curriculum and exit exams. It shows how their identity as academics is being complicated because they often do not have time for their research. And their well-being is compromised because of excessive external inspections and as their community in the university splinters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper analyses the fracturing of civic and moral virtue within curricular policies pertaining to Citizenship in England since the late 1990s. A longstanding aim of education and schooling, the teaching of citizenship gained a more secure base in the English curriculum with the introduction of Citizenship as a statutory subject for 11–16 years olds from 2002, which owed a great deal to the Report of the Advisory Group on Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (Crick Report). The report drew intimate connections between civic virtue, moral virtue, and personal character. These connections have become seriously fractured over the years since the Crick Report. In charting this fracturing, the paper will examine how the character-influenced direction taken in the early/mid-2000s was replaced by, at first, a more general emphasis on British Values before morphing into a more specific, though no less problematic, concentration on Fundamental British Values. While character education has gained significant policy attention in England over the last six years, the civic dimensions have been at best underplayed, with little connection to education for citizenship. It is argued that without greater clarity and consistency about how the moral – including moral virtues – intersects with the civic in contemporary Britain, official curricular policy (whether for Citizenship education, character education or more generally) will restrict rather than encourage the education of young citizens who are informed, wise, responsible and active participants in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses prospects for the relationship between educational studies and educational practice, with reference to the current institutional and policy context in England. Drawing on the sociology of educational knowledge and practice, it is argued that educational studies can be conceptualised in contrasting ways, by considering internal structures, external relations and how disciplinary problematics are defined, but also by how educational practice is portrayed. To develop the analysis, Bernstein's work on knowledge structures and academic and professional discourses is articulated with philosophical work that distinguishes between different conceptualisations of practice prevalent in the humanities and social sciences. This enables critical reflection on three arrangements of educational studies (the foundation disciplines, the new science, and the deliberative traditions) each with their own internal dynamic, socio-epistemic assumptions, relationship to policy, and implications for the future production of knowledge. This process of reflection is illustrated with reference to some recent developments in England that illuminate the current position of educational studies in relation to educational policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, a critical examination of educational concepts, policies and practices, presents findings from research into the impact of accountability agendas on teacher professionalism and pedagogic practices. The study, theoretically framed through Halstead's notions of contractual and responsive accountability, and Gramsci's hegemonic practices, examined secondary arts teachers' pedagogical autonomy and professionalism in England and New Zealand. We provide an overview of current education policy contexts in both countries, and their impact upon secondary school arts education (years 11–16). Drawing from interview data from 15 England and New Zealand teachers, we offer a critique and innovative counter-narrative for the accountability measures currently dominating English schooling. Drawing together perspectives from both jurisdictions, we suggest more inclusive, democratic and responsive assessment and performative measures for the English context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising inflation and slow growth globally have led to governments focussing on value for money, and in the sphere of higher education policy that is often translated into graduate outcomes. In England, the Office for Students (OfS) has created the progression metric which for full-time, first degree and UK domiciled students requires courses to have 60% of graduates with positive outcomes 15 months after graduation. This paper utilises simulations to evaluate the likelihood that the OfS’s approach will fail to identify courses below the threshold (false positives) and incorrectly identify courses at or above the threshold (false negatives). The simulation adapts the levels of positive outcomes within the population (20-90%), sample size (40–1000), percentage sampled (30-90%) and crucially confidence intervals applied (90%, 95% and 99%) to identify courses below threshold. The three main findings are: the choice of 90% CI minimises the likelihood of false positives compared to 95% or 99% CIs; second, larger samples are essential to reduce likelihood of false positives; and third, preferring the 95% confidence interval instead of 99% for taking regulatory action will result in more courses incorrectly identified as below threshold. Governments that choose a statistical approach to regulate educational standards, like the application of confidence intervals to identify provision below quality standards, should utilise simulations to check the likelihood of false positives and false negatives since failure to do so could lead to both: (a) courses below standard not being identified and (b) regulatory action taken incorrectly against provision at or above standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article constitutes a 'reply and alternative' to two papers that appeared in a 2021 Special Issue of British Educational Research Journal. Both articles drew on theories of populism as a political logic to explain recent trends in England's education policy. I begin by highlighting how the contributors mobilise 'populist' political logics within their own 'anti‐populist' discourse. I then argue that the theory of epistemic communities, borrowed from the field of public policy analysis, offers an alternative interpretation of the dynamics described in (and exemplified by) the two articles. This alternative interpretation foregrounds the values, beliefs and policy enterprises of two rival communities that seek to influence education policy through the supply of expertise. I argue that attending to how these communities function helps explain how a new group of policy entrepreneurs has come to constitute an increasingly influential 'counter‐epistemic community' and established a mutually beneficial trade in legitimacy with English policy makers. To date, the theory of epistemic communities has been under‐utilised in the study of education policy, but applying the theory to education policy in England provides new insights into how these communities function when the nature of expertise is contested. England's educational policy context also exemplifies the importance of 'fit' between policy makers and experts' beliefs, and the role of policy makers in assembling and curating communities of experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization policy in English education has resulted Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs)-groups of schools governed and led by trustees. Research illustrates that many of these organizations are failing to connect with the school communities they serve. This paper uses documentary analysis and interviews with 30 MAT Board Members to examine this key area. The paper reveals that although there are some strategies in place to overcome this issue, that failure to implement fundamental processes such as communication strategies are leading to fragmentation and feelings of disconnect, and this raises questions as to the extent to which MATs are in touch with and serving their school communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In turning a spotlight on students in physical education, this paper seeks to extend applications of policy enactment theory, and particularly, the policy actor framework. Following the lead of Stephen Ball and colleagues, the research that this paper draws on examined the various dimensions of context shaping policy enactment in different schools. The focus of the research was policy associated with ability grouping, and setting particularly, in physical education. The research involved case study work in three mixed-gender secondary schools in England, with 15 physical education teachers participating in semi-structured interviews and 63 students participating in semi-structured focus groups. This paper reports on the data arising from focus groups with students. The actor framework is used to bring to the fore differences in student responses to policy, their capacities to proactively engage with policy, and explore what shapes the differences observed. Notably, the data signalled that students were by no means passive recipients of policy. There were clear instances of students exercising agency in physical education, sometimes questioning and challenging how they were positioned within and by setting policies, and at other times, responding in ways that demonstrated their capacity to navigate and mediate policy and its impact on them as learners. This paper therefore explores some of the ways in which students are both positioned by and position themselves in relation to policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine education policymaking in England during the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on the period from 2020 to 2022. We argue that the pandemic, while obviously damaging materially, economically and psychologically, seemed to have provided a rare opportunity for a step change, a chance to recalibrate and reconsider values assumed as 'truths'. However, policymaking in England appears to have been driven by a desire to return to normal as soon as possible or to double down on control. Through a rigorous policy analysis of two specific areas of policy - initial teacher education and inspection - we review policy and ministerial speeches, as well as academic papers, media articles and social media blogs published from the start of the pandemic in England, to analyse the extent to which policy formation was reactive in an attempt to maintain a steady state and return as quickly as possible to pre-pandemic normality and to previously stated intransigent policy positions. We suggest that this policy formation reflects a broader trend in policymaking, which seeks to use power and sustain privilege, underpinned by a constructed evidence base, to present a particular 'truth' about what needs to be done to improve education outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School architecture is often taken for granted both in use (where it is naturalized) and in writing on education policy (tending to feature simply as policy setting.) Built policy instead points up the active and ongoing role of the material environment in shaping education. From financing and procurement to the design of individual classrooms, the paper works across architecture, sociology and policy studies to clarify the relationship between different dimensions of physical and social space and so provide a useful theoretical ground for future work. What is special about school-building and architecture that enables them to do policy? How are they used to do it? By whom? From city planners to students, a range of actors use different space-organizing resources to attempt the instantiation of (and challenges to) policy in built form. These processes are explored first theoretically, then empirically through a new Academy school in England. The paper deepens understanding of what policy is, emphasizing its intimate if taken for granted spatial characteristics, its ongoing-ness in built form and its travel by means of circulating images of buildings and spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education policy increasingly takes place across borders and sectors, involving a variety of both human and nonhuman actors. This comparative policy paper traces the 'policy mobilities,' 'fast policy' processes and distributed 'policy assemblages' that have led to the introduction of new computer programming practices into schools and curricula in England, Sweden and Australia. Across the three contexts, government advisors and ministers, venture capital firms, think tanks and philanthropic foundations, non-profit organizations and commercial companies alike have promoted computer programming in schools according to a variety of purposes, aspirations, and commitments. This paper maps and traces the evolution of the organizational networks in each country in order to provide a comparative analysis of computing in schools as an exemplar of accelerated, transnationalizing policy mobility. The analysis demonstrates how computing in schools policy has been assembled through considerable effort to create alignments between diverse actors, the production and circulation of material objects, significant cross-border movement of ideas, people and devices, and the creation of strategic partnerships between government centres and commercial vendors. Computing in schools exemplifies how modern education policy and governance is accomplished through sprawling assemblages of actors, events, materials, money and technologies that move across social, governmental and geographical boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classroom music teachers in England design their own music curricula for Key Stage 3 (11 − 14 year olds, 6th – 8th Grades). These curricula are designed in a context where policymakers define, regulate and legitimate curriculum formulations. This study traced curriculum development in England, where government has validated a policy driven approach. It explored programs of study, which music teachers in England design as summaries of musical learning for Key Stage 3. The research consisted of documentary analysis in a two-phase study of 13 secondary (high) schools in the English midlands, exploring musical knowledge for musical learning, which is analyzed utilizing qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The paper concludes with a discussion which explores the impacts of music education policy on classroom practices, and presents a proposed model which captures this interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recounts the experiences of 24 primary and secondary teachers from a number of minoritised groups in the education system in England, using interview data collected for a project exploring the retention of minority teachers. The teachers' experiences of racism are discussed alongside other intersectional aspects of their identities – including gender, class, accent, and the subject they taught – to emphasise the variety of racisms experienced by these teachers. The stories of teachers, both early in their careers and with decades of teaching experience, provide powerful evidence of the cumulative effects of racism experienced by teachers and the continued power of race with the education system in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last decade education policy in England has been underpinned by a dichotomisation of education into STEM versus Arts. The rationale is that STEM graduates gain more lucrative employment via the desirability of the 'STEM skills' which it is stated are increasingly in demand and imperative for economic prosperity. Through a literature review and analysis of policy documents and reports this paper examines evidence regarding the assumptions that are inherent in this claim. In doing so it reveals that the rationale for this approach is deeply flawed, particularly in relation to future skills needs. This raises questions not only for the current direction of policy but fundamentally the notion of STEM as a useful and meaningful acronym in this context. The evidence instead calls for an integrated, dynamic and strategic approach to education policy that fundamentally moves beyond the false dichotomy of STEM versus Arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coalition Government's ' Green Paper' (DfE 2011) proposes a systemic overhaul of services for pupils with special educational needs in England, with increased parental choice of provision and 'sharper accountability' (p. 67) in schools. Deadlines for various stages of this reform have not been met, and its final nature remains uncertain. This paper reveals SENCOs' insights into their changing role in this turbulent policy context. This is achieved through the thematic analysis of 227 responses to an 'open-ended' question in the national Special Educational Needs Coordinator ( SENCO) Survey 2012. Findings from this sample indicate that SENCOs predict that schools in England will become more inclusive, with greater shared responsibility for achievement for all, and SENCOs' increased involvement in staff training and other whole school capacity-building activities. Respondents predict a greater partnership with parents, for whom they will provide advice and links to other services. They foresee their reduced involvement in direct teaching and an intensification of their work in other ways, especially in terms of paperwork associated with pupil tracking and other accountability measures. These changes are anticipated against a backdrop of resource cuts, requiring SENCOs to show increasing self-reliance and imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the English government’s vision for how research is proposed to lead to improvements in the system in the context of a school-led, self-improving system and rapid and sweeping legislative reforms. The debate about the role of research in the teaching profession has been sharpened by a large consultation effort in the academic community. The BERA-RSA inquiry suggests an empowering vision for teachers where research engagement informs practice and a role for schools in providing a ‘research-rich environment’. However, the government’s proposals offer a rather less empowering vision. The author of the paper contrasts a version of research-informed teaching and leadership with one where teachers are supposed to follow and be led by the evidence. The government’s education policy, especially as set out in the 2016 White Paper ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’ is analysed in relation to this position. Analysis of statements from the document are shown in the paper, and contextualised with examples from the English school system. The extent to which teacher agency is promoted through research evidence is explored. The article concludes that the government’s over emphasis on a ‘what works’/‘evidence-based practice’ model is unhelpful in achieving an improved education system. Suggestions for the role of universities and the College of Teaching in promoting research-informed practice are given. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Environmental and climate change education remains on the margins of education and climate change policy. This paper draws on Foucauldian theoretical resources to examine England's climate change education policy landscape and understand the causes of this marginalisation. Informed by policy historiography, we examine key events and shifts in climate change, education and environmental education since the turn of the millennium. Using policy archaeology, we 'excavate' the contemporary policy landscape and identify that: i) policy is lacking; ii) responding to the climate crisis is overlooked in education; iii) pro-environmental ambition is absent; and, iv) economic values dominate. In a global context where activists have called for 'more!' climate change education, the analyses reveal the complexity of the problem. A 'web of conditions' governing climate change education policy is illuminated. Foucault-informed analytical tools offer insights on how this web may be rebuilt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nearly 400 maintained nursery schools in England are schools for children aged 2–4 years. They hold a unique position in offering state-funded provision for this age group, outside of a primary school environment, and are disproportionately located in areas of disadvantage [EE. 2020. Briefing Note: The Comprehensive Spending Review and Funding for Maintained Nursery Schools. Accessed 13 October 2020. https://early-education.org.uk/sites/default/files/Briefing%20note%20-%20CSR%20and%20maintained%20nursery%20schools%27%20funding.pdf]. While there have been policy-based attempts to reduce the impact of social deprivation on educational outcomes, we argue that education policy has created a hostile environment for nursery schools. This arises from the national strategies on funding, 'free hours' for parents, and staff qualifications, alongside social policy. Based on interview data with staff and leaders in four nursery schools, the paper explores the views of these teachers and discusses them as policy actors within a precarious environment, faced with possible closure. We explore their agency as they navigate this hostile terrain and their ways of maintaining their sense of professional pride and commitment to social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the implications of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) for secondary school physical education (PE) departments and their teachers. The EBacc is a key performance measure that is published annually for each school, which privileges a particular set of traditional academic subjects, and in doing so, marginalises other subjects, including PE. At the same time as responding to this performance measure, secondary schools in England are required to respond to a wider set of policy reforms and innovations. This can sometimes result in overlap, collision and policy clash. For example, while PE is being sidelined and PE staffing reduced by the EBacc, there is national concern surrounding issues of fitness, health and well-being that schools are expected to address and which are often traditionally seen as the responsibility of PE departments. A reduction in their staffing will inevitably have consequences for their ability to respond in meaningful ways to such non-academic policy imperatives. Drawing on a study of the impact of recent curriculum and accountability reforms in English secondary schools (Neumann, E., Towers, E., Gewirtz, S., & Maguire, M. 2016. A curriculum for all? The effects of recent Key Stage 4 curriculum, assessment and accountability reforms on English secondary education. London: National Union of Teachers), this paper presents evidence of the marginalisation of PE and PE teachers' ensuing concerns about their job security. It also explores changes that have been made to the PE curriculum in an attempt to make the subject more academically demanding and considers what this means for PE teachers and their students. The authors conclude that if PE is going to contribute to broader fitness, health and wellbeing agendas, then there is an urgent need for a renewed debate – that reaches beyond PE communities and constituencies – about what PE is for, why it is important and how it can be better supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It would be easy to assume that social trust is a normatively good value to promote within institutions. Trust encourages cooperation between actors, and thus normalises policies, practices and behaviours that tend to work towards collective social good. To assume this would also be to assume that trust should be a central aspiration for policy design. However, this conceptual paper argues that the competitive landscape of the English Further Education sector does not lend itself to such values. The extent to which competition has become normalised makes concerns over financial health commonplace around the boardroom in FE Colleges. In this context, perhaps the benefits associated with building and maintaining trust in this context are problematic. Perhaps it is important to consider whether in fact, distrust is fundamental to institutional survival? This paper offers three theoretical concepts from the trust literature which conceptualise how the FE policy environment enlists organisations and individual actors towards objectives which are linked to competition, centrally devised standards and institutional survival. In this way, I suggest that strategies based upon distrust may be put to greater use in the design of institutional policy, as the need to establish control takes primacy over cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the notion that quantitative data – as a numeric truth – exist independent of a nation's political and racial landscape. Utilising large-scale national attainment data, the analysis challenges the belief that 'White working class' children in England, especially boys, are 'the new oppressed' – as a former equality adviser has publicly claimed. The analysis applies Quantitative Critical Race Theory, or 'QuantCrit', an emerging quantitative sub-field of Critical Race Theory in education. The paper argues that far from being 'oppressed', White boys continue to enjoy achievement advantages over numerous minoritised groups; especially their peers of Black Caribbean ethnic origin. Additionally, the analysis uniquely exposes racialised trends of 'equivalency' in core subject qualifications, whereby minority ethnic children are over-represented in certain lower-status qualifications that are counted as equivalent in education statistics but not in the real world labour market. The analysis concludes that knowing misrepresentations of quantitative data are at the heart of an institutional process through which race and racism are produced, legitimised and perpetuated in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how nursing education both exemplifies the contradictions of neoliberalism alongside its seemingly all-encompassing influence. We conduct a feminist critical policy analysis to trace the histories of nursing as a feminised vocation located outside the academy, and how this is reflected in recent policy. We then critically explore widening participation and social mobility in relation to nursing education, and demonstrate how a discourse of fairness is used to justify market solutions. The 'special case' of nursing is considered through an analysis of how 'the nurse' as subject is constituted in education policy discourse. Our discussion focuses on the effects of these reforms and demonstrates how historical discourses that centre on women as carers are assimilated into the 'neoliberal social imaginary'. The paper's scope is both local – the gendered history of nursing education in England – and global – the force of neoliberal globalisation in education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out original findings from analyses of the English National Pupil Database of Key Stage 1 (KS1) attainment, to examine educational outcomes of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The schooling of these children has been entirely within the context of the current SEND system, defined by the 2014–2015 policy of the Children and Families Act and Code of Practice. With a strong focus on children's needs and outcomes, the policy intends to achieve high educational outcomes for children with SEND. Our new results show, however, that children with SEND are one of the most disadvantaged groups in education, and they are far less likely to meet expected learning standards than their peers at KS1. For instance, about 44%, 31% and 23% of children with SEND met the standards in phonics, reading and writing, respectively, compared to 88%, 83% and 78% of children with no SEND. Further, our spatial analysis shows for the first time that this disadvantage displays large spatial variability across Local Authorities: there is a postcode lottery in the education of children with SEND. The new findings provide strong evidence that the new SEND policy is failing many children with SEND, and that this performance varies markedly across space. This adds further weight and evidence to a growing recognition, even from government, that the SEND system needs to change, and that the ambitious aims of the transformation of education and care for children with SEND in 2014 and 2015 are not being realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About one‐fifth of the total school population in England was recorded as having English as an Additional Language (EAL) in 2018. This paper reflects on the problems presented by the lack of a comprehensive national strategy and guidance for EAL provision, support, and training, and how these issues reveal the existence of ethnocentrism within educational policy and practice in England. The findings are based on interviews with educational staff and participant observation in schools conducted in three schools in Manchester, UK between December 2019 and February 2020 as part of the Horizon 2020 MiCREATE project. The authors question whether categorizing multilingual pupils in opposition to monolingual English speakers serves any practical purpose or merely 'others' these children, and they call for broader recognition of multilingualism within the national curriculum and educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School governing bodies in England have considerable powers and responsibilities with regard to the education of pupils. This paper draws on an analysis of policy and on qualitative research in the governing bodies of four maintained schools. It explores two policy technologies through which education and the work of school governing bodies are constituted as apolitical. Firstly, it considers the move to recruit governors with (unspecified) ‘skills’, rather than those with a representative role who might provide diverse perspectives. Secondly, it considers the technology of ‘prescribed criticality’, through which ‘effective’ governors are provided with the ‘right’ questions to ask. The paper argues that the operation of these policy technologies has significant implications for possibilities for democratic engagement in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Countries around the world are striving to improve their educational systems with a view to improving their economy and society. In this global competition, national and international test results are of considerable interest. In this paper, we show that national testing in England and the USA have shown little or no improvement over the years. This finding is not isolated; it appears to be a global phenomenon. Data from large-scale international assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS are remarkably stable over time. This paper reviews the trends from country-specific and international data and explores some of the reasons which have been offered for such stability. We argue that these explanations are insufficient and ways forward are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In common with other OECD countries, there is a gender gap in educational achievement in England favouring girls. This carries through to tertiary education. On the other hand, boys are far more likely to engage in STEM in post-16 vocational education and at university. The underachievement of boys overall, but over-representation in STEM, presents significant challenges for policy. This paper documents changes in the gender gap over the last 20 years in England and discusses findings in the light of international evidence. It concludes that education policies, in academic and in vocational spheres, can be designed to reduce gender inequalities that exist in both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a neoliberal era of education, there has been a shift of policy focus to performativity and evidence-based practice, coupled with neoconservative ideology of a more traditional knowledge-led curriculum. The resultant, extant education policy context has received criticism due to its teach to test culture, the concomitant narrowing of curriculum and the highly prescribed, scrutinised and 'authorised' pedagogic practices prevalent in schools. The paper draws on empirical qualitative data from three modern foreign languages (MFL) secondary school teachers in high poverty contexts in the North West of England. The study examines how these teachers describe their pedagogical practice within the confines of the current policy landscape and how they respond to curriculum and assessment requirements. The paper concludes that, despite the limiting effects of the prescriptive approaches in the current educational system, there are opportunities for teachers to promote unauthorised pedagogies in their classrooms that respond to their specific contexts. However, it acknowledges a shift in teachers' professional identity and questions the current discourses associated with teachers' professional knowledge. In response to this, I call for better recognition of the politicised and antidemocratic nature of current education policy and for us to equip teachers to become public intellectuals with the professional confidence to act for social change by reclaiming pedagogic discourses and practices that benefit pupils living in poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student borrowing is a major higher education public policy issue, with students in both England and the United States increasingly relying on loans to finance postsecondary education. Our paper examines prospective higher education students' attitudes towards debt in England and the United States. It exploits a unique dataset which allows us to compare students' responses to similar surveys conducted in both countries during the same time period. Our study is the first of its kind to explore how students' borrowing attitudes differ across the two countries. It confirms widespread loan aversion among prospective higher education students in both countries. But students in the United States are more debt averse than their peers in England. These debt averse attitudes also predict lower intentions to pursue higher education, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities in access. We consider how these attitudes to borrowing are likely shaped by each country's distinctive student loan system. We conclude that the design of loans matters. England's income‐contingent loan repayments, in contrast to North America's mortgage style repayments, make borrowing less risky and reduce the impact of loan aversion on participation decisions, while borrowing is more common, and the system less complicated, in England. Thus, there are lessons for other countries considering introducing student loans or reforming their provision. We contribute to the extant literature on the determinants of, and socioeconomic differences in, higher education participation and the overlooked role of student debt aversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global policy transfer has become increasingly popular in recent years, and one recent example of such policy transfer is the England–China Teacher Exchange, which was initiated in 2014 with the explicit aim of raising attainment in maths in English primary schools by trialling concepts used in Shanghai schools, Shanghai rising to the top of the PISA rankings in 2009. However, as this paper will argue this is an overly simplistic attempt to transfer a policy between two wholly different contexts, the lack of success of the policy seen in the very limited impact on student attainment in the participating schools. Whilst such policy transfer has increasingly taken place in the context of isomorphism and global pressures to adopt policy from high performing education systems, it is argued that policy needs to be explicitly reconsidered in terms of the local context it is being imported into if it is to be embedded in an effective manner, as well as rooted firmly in research. It is also argued that the England–China Teacher Exchange reflects a broader ideological focus in coalition government policy on the marketisation of education alongside the PISA rankings, rather any wider consideration of how this particular policy would drive up standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is widespread agreement that participation in post-compulsory physics needs to be widened and increased, particularly among women and under-represented communities. This paper contributes to understanding of the processes that produce unequal participation, Methods: The paper undertakes a Bourdieusian analysis of longitudinal interview data from 75 interviews conducted with fifteen students, tracked from age 10-18, who studied Advanced level physics in England. Findings: The paper discusses evidence of a physics habitus that was strongly aligned with notions of intelligence/cleverness and masculinity and identifies how young women were particularly disadvantaged by a popular notion of the "effortlessly clever physicist", which encouraged even highly interested and high attaining young women not to continue further with the subject. We identified three main forms of pedagogic work performed by school physics (attainment-based practices of debarring and gatekeeping; curriculum practices of deferring 'real' physics and physics 'lies'; and interpersonal reinforcement of doxa), which helped cultivate student habitus over time and produce inequitable patterns of participation Contribution: Analyses show that school physics contributes to reproducing inequitable (and low overall) patterns of participation. Implications are discussed for science education policy and practice to support more equitable participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical education (PE) in England, has historically been and is increasingly seen as a subject in which political agendas can and are being enacted (Penney, [2008]. Playing a political game and playing for position: Policy and curriculum development in health and PE. European Physical Education Review 4(1): 33–49) as health, sport and /or leisure agendas compete for space against educational aspirations (Houlihan & Green, [2006]. The changing status of school sport and physical education: Explaining policy change. Sport, Education and Society 11(1): 73–92). Against this backdrop, in 2012, the U.K. Government announced the launch of 'Primary PE and Sport Premium' (PPESP) funding (amounting to £450 million) for English primary schools, initially for three years (although later extended). Drawing on the theoretical work of Basil Bernstein, particularly his concepts, 'pedagogic device' (PD) and 'classification' (c) and 'framing' (f), this paper sets out to explore how, in a neo liberal outsourced world of primary physical education (PPE), pupils construct knowledge of PE. The analyses illustrate how a performance pedagogy appears to dominate the school setting this research took place in. There was a clear focus on sport rather than PE which in turns impacted how pupils saw PE and construct understandings of ability linked to PE, raising questions over the future direction of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when neo-liberal policy agenda are resulting in many public services being taken away from families with young children, this paper draws on Basil Bernstein's concepts of visible and invisible pedagogies to reveal how professionals offer 'support' to parents of young (under five years old) children in a small town in the East Midlands (England). It draws on findings from an ethnographic study which show that mothers are 'taught' to support their young children's literacy development differently depending on the way English education policy is interpreted and enacted in the places they visit. It is argued that dominant policy discourses around 'good' parenting can lead to inequitable interventions, paradoxical pedagogies and the disempowerment of some parents. The paper therefore contributes to the wider debate about more equitable ways of working with families that will be applicable across other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how early years teachers respond to policy, using the case of Baseline Assessment, a new statutory assessment introduced to Reception classes (age 4–5) in England in 2015. Using interview and survey data collected during the period when the policy was introduced, the paper examines how teachers engaged in different forms of resistance to this unpopular policy reform. It is argued that as early years professionals Reception teachers draw on and draw strength from specifically early childhood-based knowledge and understandings, such as the emphasis on the whole child and an ethics of care, which provide them with justifications for resisting policy. This resistance is thus part of their identity as early years professionals and allows for a particular positionality within the school. However, it is also argued that sometimes taking the apparently resistant 'early yearsy' route can actually facilitate policy; this is discussed as compliant resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature of climate change education-related policy influence in England at a time when public consciousness about the need to accelerate climate change action was heightened, and as the 2018 climate strikes gathered momentum around the world. Informed by Foucault's concept of 'governmentalities', and using data generated through 24 exploratory interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, we examine the extent to which influential individuals were advocating for policy change. We discuss the nature of policy influence with particular reference to the 'stances' that individuals adopted relative to climate change education policy influence and noting a common tendency exhibited amongst participants which was a tendency towards 'deference'. Coupling our insights with theorisations of dissent, we consider how 'infra-political dissent' could support key individuals to 'step up' and influence for more effective policy relative to climate change education, and to other areas of education or environment policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educational policy. Drawing on theoretical work by Bourdieu and Foucault, we demonstrate how the students in this study appeared able to re-make disability as a liberal intellectual identity marker and use it as a form of capital within the bounded college sub-field. However, we argue that these empowered disabled subjectivities were strongly middle-classed and precarious. The findings have implications through advancing current understandings of young people's complexifying relationships with disability in education, of enduring inequalities around disability, and how social class is implicated in this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]