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Informed by the ideology of 'deliverology', performance measurement has become a core component of how English schools are held accountable for the quality of their provision. A wealth of research conducted in diverse national contexts where this approach has been influential has suggested that the unintended harms it generates – including a widening of inequalities, a test-driven pedagogic culture and a narrowing of the curriculum – may be outweighing its benefits. In an attempt to circumnavigate such perverse effects, the performance measures used in England have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, giving them a prima facie plausibility that has led to them being welcomed by some progressive educators as a means of increasing access to high-status knowledge for disadvantaged students. This paper uses data from a survey of English school teachers to interrogate this plausibility. The analysis suggests that when we drill down into the daily life of schools and its underlying logic it becomes increasingly difficult to be comfortable with the progressive defence of the performance measures currently in use; and that, far from improving educational quality, the measures themselves, and the wider deliverology framework with which they are associated, are in certain fundamental respects incompatible with quality improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservativism has gained significant influence on education-policy making and debates about education in many Anglophone countries. While conservative educational governments have advanced some neoliberal governance trends, they have also introduced characteristic neoconservative education elements, notably in the area of curricular content. This article focuses on the impact of conservative ideology on curriculum and assessment policies in English secondary education and specifically explores schools' first reactions to the introduction of a policy initiative that is emblematic of neoconservatism, the English Baccalaureate. The empirical discussion relies on a mixed methods study on the reception of the latest assessment and curriculum policies in English secondary schools. The findings suggest that the current reforms are transforming school subject hierarchies, resource allocation across subjects, and what counts as knowledge in English secondary schools, and introducing a new culture of subject—and by implication, teacher and student—'worth'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how children's perceptions of their agency, as something that is closely associated with its exercise, appear in relation to social structural factors, especially their socioeconomic positions, as they age. Using data from 862 10–18 years old in South Korea, we examine how children's expressed optimism about their ability to achieve their occupational choices can conceal the impact of structural factors on their 'choices' and dispositions for (non‐)action over time. Based on the findings, we argue for a more careful interpretation of children's sense of agency that recognises its propensity to continuously adjust in contexts of structural inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the intensifying pressures on critical research and academic integrity in a research policy context that has come to be increasingly dominated by an instrumentalist mind-set. Using sensitising resources drawn from Geoff Whitty's critique of the 'what works' agenda, we reflect on the current conditions of academic labour and some of the key issues and dilemmas they pose for critical researchers in the sociology of education and beyond. In particular, we underline the trend for 'what works' agendas to become constitutive of academic identities and practices, including at micro-levels, such that the option of 'standing outside' them is shifting from being merely personally taxing to being institutionally disallowed. In addition to highlighting the dilemmas this creates for critical researchers and the threat this poses to expansive and democratic approaches to education, the paper emphasises the centrality of relationship-forming in understanding and underpinning academic integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper returns to a long-standing theme in education research, the ways in which 'contextual factors impact on what schools do, as well as directly on what pupils achieve' (Lupton, 2004, 4). Drawing on a project designed to explore the early effects of reforms to national examinations, the curriculum for 14−16 year olds and school accountability measures in English secondary schools, this paper considers the perceptions and experiences of teachers currently charged with enacting these reforms specifically in the light of their situated school realities in three different settings. A case is made for a contextually sensitive approach towards policy making and policy enactment that takes account of some of the more nuanced distinctions among schools' contextual positionings. [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]

There has been a tendency to construct the teaching profession through a narrative of 'crisis' which places particular emphasis on high rates of attrition and poor wellbeing driven by a demanding work culture. Drawing on qualitative data from a mixed-methods study, this paper examines teachers' responses to reforms to English secondary education. It presents evidence that supports a 'profession in crisis' narrative with many of the research participants expressing negative attitudes towards the reforms and concerns about staying in teaching. However, the paper also illuminates a counter-narrative that highlights teachers' job satisfaction and their desire to remain in the profession. • Dominant discourses of a 'profession in crisis' in England. • Majority of participants provide evidence of crisis. • A counter-narrative comprise teachers who have positive views of the profession. • Danger that education research reproduces and reinforces the 'crisis' narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that UK universities are at risk from a process of ‘hollowing out’ – that is, of becoming institutions with no distinctive social role and no ethicalraison d'etre– and that this is a process which undermines the possibilities for meaningful institutional and academic identities. It begins with a condensed, and necessarily partial, review of recent UK higher education policy trends to indicate the historical context and direction of change and to highlight the growing separation of management and academic agendas and the linked rise in gloss and spin compared to academic substance. In the remainder of this article we focus on the normative dimension of these changes and unpack their implications for the nature of the university and of academic work. In so doing, we illustrate the breadth and depth of the threat posed by ‘hollowed-out’ universities, indicate alternative, more positive currents and call for a ‘re-valuation’ of the UK university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that theTimes Higherprovides a powerful tool for understanding the changing character of UK higher education (HE) and can usefully be seen as representative, and in some ways constitutive, of that changing character. Drawing on an analysis of a sample of stories from theTimes Higher, it documents the changing policy climate of UK HE from 1979 to 2010. It offers a broadly chronological account of themes that have emerged as prominent at different times during this period, pointing,inter alia, to fears about threats to the humanities, the rise of various forms of instrumentalism and the incorporation of HE institutions and agencies into a common mindset characterised by a preoccupation with marketing and corporate success. The last of these is embodied in the changing format of the newspaper itself and in its own activities as a key player in the HE sector, notably as a sponsor of university rankings and awards. Whilst being sensitive to countervailing tendencies, the authors suggest that the growing instrumentalisation of HE and related cultural shifts represent a changed ‘structure of feeling’ in UK HE. They conclude that the university rankings, awards and other image commodities that are a key part of this changed structure of feeling now play such a substantial role in the cultural life of universities that the norms of both rationality and professional ethics which tended to prevail in deliberations about university strategy 30 years ago may no longer be taken for granted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The shift towards greater user involvement in welfare provision is typically couched by its advocates as being ethically straightforward and as an unalloyed good, because it represents a transformation of users from a role of passivity and dependence on the paternalism of professionals to more active, empowered and respected autonomous persons. This paper problematises this reading, showing how it fails to represent the ethical complications of partnership working in welfare relationships and how it privileges individualist over more relational and political forms of involvement. In doing so, the paper also seeks to demonstrate some of the ways critical sociological perspectives on changing welfare relationships might be strengthened by a focus on the ethics of practical agency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we draw upon 14 semi-structured interviews with the participants in a teacher-researcher project on the theme of 'ensuring African Caribbean attainment' with the aim of shedding light on the purposes, processes and lived experiences of teacher research in a difficult and contentious intellectual and practical domain. After briefly reviewing the history and policy background of teacher research in England, we introduce the project and the specific purposes and motivations of its various stakeholders. In the second half of the paper we analyse the challenges and the rewards of participating in the project, including the challenges of facilitating teacher research, and we review the key implications of the research for policy and practice. We conclude that, in trying to make teacher research happen in a way that is meaningful and productive for those involved (whether as facilitators or teacher researchers), three things have to be negotiated at once: new roles for academic facilitators, new dimensions of teacher roles, and a viable conception of research that is authentically teacher research. All of these things involve rethinking assumptions about what it means to be a teacher and an academic and what is meant by research. Drawing on the lessons of this project, we suggest that the central challenge of building successful teacher research is the creation of genuine partnerships, characterised by respectful and critical dialogue, between university staff and teacher researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper Gewirtz and Cribb offer a response to Hammersley and Abraham's criticisms of their arguments about the place of values in social research published in this issue of BJSE. In doing so, they make clear that most of the positions that Hammersley and Abraham attribute to them are ones that they do not identify with and that, like Hammersley and Abraham, they would reject. In order to further clarify and specify their own position, Gewirtz and Cribb argue that: their advocacy of ethical reflexivity rests on the assumption that there are many incompatible sets of values in play within even a single vantage point; researchers should sometimes take an interest in knowledge use although they should not always be required to do so; and, whilst at the level of propositions it is always possible to abstract out and distinguish between factual claims and value claims, at the level of practice there can be significant resonances and linkages between the two, so it is important to be ethically reflexive about these entanglements. Finally, the authors agree that values should not be seen purely as a source of contamination but that attention to values can help to underpin 'objectivity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which recent UK governments and related policy agencies have extended, multiplied and refracted conceptions of the social function of museums. It observes that over the last ten years in particular policy discourses have continuously layered ever greater and ever more diverse expectations onto the museum sector and museum professionals. It is no longer sufficient for museums to work with their collections, nor even for them to focus upon their own problems or shortcomings (e.g. of unequal access) and seek to resolve them. Museums are increasingly being expected to orient their work towards what can be described as social policy objectives, and work with and help 'fix' the problems of individuals, communities and the broader society around them. It is argued that although official policies have always constructed museums as social and ethical instruments, New Labour policy discourses on museums have redefined them as a public service, with social inclusion as one of their central functions. The article brings into question the coherence and feasibility of this partly reconfigured and partly re-imagined museum sector and assesses its implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is organized around a single interview with an academic colleague who was asked to reflect on his changing experience of Ph.D. supervision. Material from the interview is used to raise some questions about the nature of responsible supervision in the humanities and social sciences, and the ways in which the possibilities for responsible supervision in the UK are constructed by the effects of the audit culture in higher education (HE). Specifically, the interview is used to examine and illustrate concerns about the implications of the audit culture for the quality of doctoral work, for equity in students’ access to and experience of doctoral study, for the autonomy of students and supervisors and for the nature of academic professionalism. In conclusion, it is argued that whatever procedures are in place to regulate student–supervisor relationships, there will inevitably be benefits and costs in terms of quality and equity: the challenges are to find forms of accountability that are less costly and for those with an interest in responsible supervision to be sensitive to the many ways in which quality and equity can be put at risk by well‐intentioned procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended as a contribution to the longstanding debate about the best way of handling value judgements in social research. In it we make a case for more ‘ethical reflexivity’ in the sociology of education and argue that a systematic attention to value questions should be viewed as a taken‐for‐granted component of methodological rigour. We elucidate what we mean by ethical reflexivity, why we think it is important and suggest what it entails in practice. Our arguments are developed through a discussion of, and in contrast to, Martyn Hammersley’s analysis of the role of values in social research. The central problematic that the paper addresses is the tension between, on the one hand, the goal of insulating the research process from ‘value bias’ and, on the other hand, the goal of contributing to political and social change through research. We suggest that the reason for the intractability of the problem of values in social research is a persistent failure to recognise that, in practice, these two goals are inseparable. We argue that rigour in research demands that both these goals are taken seriously and we set out some of the challenges involved in trying to combine them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on Iris Young's work to argue that social justice in education has to be understood in relation to particular contexts of enactment. More specifically, the author argues that it is not possible to make cross-national or other comparative assessments of social justice without consideration of the ways in which justice is enacted in practice. The contextualized approach to justice that the author is advocating involves: first a recognition of the multi-dimensional nature of justice and the potential for conflict between different facets of justice; second, attention to the ways in which concerns of justice are mediated by the other norms and constraints that motivate actors; and third, a consideration of the way in which contradictions between different facets of justice and these other norms and between justice concerns and the constraints that compete with justice are differentially shaped by the levels and settings in which the actors are operating. This contextualized approach is illustrated using an interview with one mother's encounters with the English education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavily influenced by Putnam's particular variant of social capital theory, the New Labour government in the UK has introduced several initiatives designed to raise educational achievement by building the social capital of families identified as socially excluded. One such initiative was the Education Action Zones (EAZ) policy. Whilst this policy has recently been eclipsed by other initiatives designed to enhance education in areas of disadvantage, many of the social capital–building components of EAZs have now become relatively widespread in schools in disadvantaged areas. In this article the authors use qualitative data from a study of EAZs to explore how parents experience initiatives designed to build their social capital and to examine the interactions between parents' values and the values implicit in these initiatives. In doing so, they identify and elucidate some key limitations of current attempts to operationalise social capital theory. The analysis offered in the article thus has significant implications for policy and policy scholarship. In particular, it draws attention to the need for policy makers and practitioners concerned with challenging social exclusion to pay closer attention to the real, as opposed to imagined, local sociocultural environments within which policies are implemented and to the voices, choices and values of the people these policies are designed to help. In so doing, the article also underlines the importance of policy analysts attending to these same complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'spin' is conventionally used to refer to the process and products of purposively managing information in order to present institutions, individuals, policies, practices and/or ideas in a favourable light and thereby mobilize support for them. Attempts to manage news and political communications are not new. However, the New Labour Government in the UK is frequently presented--by the media and political opponents--as being obsessively concerned with spin to the detriment of both transparency and substantive policy-making. In the collection and analysis of the data from the ESRC-funded study of the English Education Action Zones (EAZs) policy upon which this paper draws, spin arose as a prominent theme. For example, spin was often raised explicitly by those interviewed as an activity that they needed to be reflexive about and engage in. It was described as shaping the fortunes of the policy or in some cases as constituting the policy. Frequently overt attempts were made by those being researched to try to 'persuade' the researchers of a particular spin which should be put on the research questions and/or reports. The overarching purpose of this paper is to illustrate the complex relationship between spin and policy, using the English EAZs policy as an example. The first section of the paper defines spin and places the concept in historical context. It then goes on to explore the role of spin in the construction and evolution of the policy, drawing particular attention to the dynamic, endemic, and disciplinary nature of the policy of spin. Whilst spin is conventionally understood as something separate from policy, as something that is 'done to' policy in order to make it attractive to particular constituencies, the central argument of this paper is that spin needs to be understood as operating on two levels, often simultaneously. At one level it operates as a strategy of impression management, where a range of tactics are used to attempt to control the impression that 'the public' gets of New Labour policies. However, those policies and the spin that represents them to 'the public' cannot be understood as distinct and separate entities because the policies cannot be neatly abstracted from the spin. Thus, at another level, one also needs to focus on the constitutive role that spin plays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years ideas about social reproduction have become more sophisticated, as sociologists have attempted to grapple with and respond to some of the weaknesses in earlier, radical left theories of social reproduction. This article identifies some of the key questions and problematics brought to the surface by these recent and more sophisticated readings of social reproduction. These problematics reflect shifts in dominant conceptions of knowledge and the social world, and of the relationship between sociological knowledge and agency, and they have important ethical as well as epistemological implications for reproduction theory. The article draws attention to important shifts in the way in which social reproduction has been theorised in recent years. These new theorisations have sought to overcome some of the limitations of the earlier radical left theories. It has also pointed to some emerging tensions and four fundamental problematics that are embedded in these sophisticated readings of reproduction. In conclusion, it underlines two of the challenges that arise from the account that have been presented here.

Concern with multi-faceted or 'plural' conceptions of justice has grown within policy sociology. This paper briefly summarizes some of the dimensions and facets of such plural models and considers their implications for policy sociology. Three implications, in particular, are considered. It is suggested that: first, plural models of justice substantially enlarge the agenda of evaluation; second, tensions within and between different facets of justice need to be acknowledged and responded to; and third, plural models entail a collapse of the distinction between evaluation and action. The paper argues that the latter two implications are frequently overlooked in policy sociology, particularly in work with a dominant focus on critiquing educational and social reproduction in a style the paper labels 'sociology from above'. By contrast, the paper discusses examples of scholarship that meet the challenges of plural models - scholarship that has more in common with the cultural studies tradition. In so doing, the paper indicates the importance of a 'sociology of just practices', and a modified 'reflective equilibrium' approach is identified as one means of developing such a sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in July 1999, the UK Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, set out New Labour's vision for a system of education in which there is 'excellence for the many not just the few'. He outlined what is essentially a bi-focal strategy for achieving this vision. The first focus is on the education system itself, the structures and practices that New Labour believes need to be in place if schools and services are going to meet the needs of all children and not just a privileged minority. The second focus is on the need to promote 'a culture of achievement', as, according to Blunkett, the vision 'depends on changing attitudes as well as the system itself'. This paper focuses on this second strategy, more specifically the government's attempts to change the attitudes of parents. It is argued that this strategy aims to eradicate class differences by reconstructing and transforming working-class parents into middle-class ones, that it represents possibly the most important and far-reaching aspect of New Labour's policy agenda, and that it has not so far received the attention it deserves. The paper is in two parts. The first part sets out what is involved in New Labour's programme of re-socialization and explores the mechanisms by which New Labour is attempting to universalize the values, attitudes and behaviour of a certain fraction of middle-class parents. The second part develops a critique of this programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the conceptualizations of social justice embedded in the education action zones (EAZ) policy which has recently been implemented in England. Drawing on distinctions developed from Nancy Fraser's work, it argues that zone populations suffer three forms of social injustice – economic injustice, cultural injustice and associational injustice. Documentary analysis of the discourse surrounding the policy and of a sample of EAZ applications reveals that while the initiative may be based on a more complex understanding of social injustice than many preceding policies, this understanding remains inadequate. Economic injustices are recognized, but cultural and associational injustices are inadequately acknowledged. In addition, there is a mismatch between the remedies proposed in the bids and the problems they are designed to address. Although there are some redistributive and associational measures, these are likely to be superficial. For the most part, it is cultural remedies that are proposed – but the nature of the cultural 'problem' to be dealt with is either unacknowledged or misrepresented. The paper concludes by arguing that while policy pronouncements and zone applications do not determine practice, it is difficult to see how some of these injustices can be tackled if they are not acknowledged or tackled at a discursive level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the transformation of school headship in the education marketplace in Great Britain. Heuristic separation between welfarist and managerial headship; Focus on the case of Beatric Webb, an inner-city comprehensive school; Benefits arising from the task-centeredness of new management.

This paper considers the consequences of, and tensions within, New Labour's quality agenda for schools. In particular, it draws attention to the way in which official versions of quality, characterised by a narrow, economistic instrumentality, are being promoted in schools by various forms of quality control that are marginalising broader, more humanistic conceptions of quality. It is also argued that, despite New Labour's rhetorical emphasis on education for citizenship, the mechanisms of quality control favoured by the government tend to produce patterns of association which are authoritarian and, therefore, unconducive to giving teachers, students and parents opportunities to participate actively in key decisions in and around schooling. The analysis presented in this paper is underpinned by a concern to bring a consideration of educational politics back into education policy debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sheds light on some of the issues around effective schooling. Exploration of the complexities involved in trying to uncover the determinants of the differential `success' of schools; Information on two inner-London secondary schools; Impact of social environment.

This paper presents a response to some criticisms by James Tooley of our research on parental choice The paper argues that many of Tooley's criticism are based on systematic misinterpretations and misreadings of our work, ignorance of the procedures of qualitative research and the we of untenable speculations about sampling, data collection and the interpretation of data It is suggested that Tooley's criticisms are ideologically driven and that if taken senously would make qualitative social research impossible [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we look at the relationship between political, cultural and economic change, the 'position' of parental choice in the various policy texts (in particular, it's centrality to The Parent's Charter) and what we have termed the context of practice (Bowe et al., 1992). In particular, we raise some issues and concerns that arise from research to date, in terms of their methodologies, their analysis and their representations of choice. It is the failure, in all these respects, to consider the complexity and inter-relatedness of choice-making and political and economic change that gives rise to our concerns. We tentatively suggest a heuristic device, the metaphor of landscapes of choice, that we think might help us to explore the relationships between the various policy contexts, whilst recognising the embeddedness of the research process in precisely these contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the importance of values and ethics in the education market. Ethical dilemmas and value conflicts arise because the market functions as a system of rewards and punishments, a disciplinary framework, fostering particular cultural forms and socio psychological dispositions and marginalising others. Within a market culture it is acceptable for there to be winners and losers, access to resources which is differentiated but unrelated to need, hierarchy, exclusivity, selectivity, and for producers to utilise whatever tactics they can get away with to increase their market share and to maximise profits. In short, there is pressure on individuals (both producers and consumers) to be motivated first and foremost by self-interest. The social psychology of the market discourages the universalism and collectivism that in theory underpinned comprehensivism, whereby the educational needs of all children in an area, regardless of class, race, gender or ability, would be met by the local neighbourhood school. And the principles of comprehensivism may be further seen to be undermined by the controls the government have placed on the market.

The article discusses the attitudes to school choice and to City Technology Colleges of a sample of parents of children at the first City Technology College at Kingshurst, Solihull. In examining the views of these parents, wider questions about individualist and collectivist strategies towards education were raised. The City Technology College (CTC), Kingshurst was the first of what was planned to be a network of 20 new independent schools in Great Britain financed by industry and central government. According to a Department of Education and Science (DES) booklet on the scheme, these schools were to serve 11 to 18 year olds within specific catchment areas. The expressions of individualism and collectivism by individuals and families are often complex and contradictory. Such complexity perhaps reflects the individualist and collectivist dimensions of consumption. Sending a child to the CTC does not necessarily imply a commitment to a market system, individualism or a competitive system in education. Nor does it necessarily suggest hostility to Local Education Authorities or to comprehensive education. In many cases the choice of the CTC was simply a pragmatic response to a belief in uneven and inadequate local secondary school provision. Ideologies of individualism and collectivism coexist, with little evidence that the introduction of CTCs has fundamentally altered parents' attitudes.

Evaluates the education reforms in Great Britain. Reforms' contribution to the establishment of an equitable distribution of educational income; Definition of equity; Needs-based equity; Markets study; Market as middle-class mode of social engagement; Role of class and race in choice in education.

ABSTRACT This paper considers the role of girls' schools in the UK education market and, concomitantly, the positioning and 'value' of girls in the education market place. Themarketing and public presentations of two schools are examined and the messages and impressions presented to parents are analysed. The relationships of these schools to their 'competitors' are also explored. These are set against the 'choices' and choice-making of a sample of local parents considering the possibility of single-sex schooling for their daughters. It is argued that the current conditions of competition in the UK education market offer some advantages to girls but that these advantages have to be set against the continuing contradictions and oppressions of single-sex schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1987, U.S. Secretary of State, Kenneth Baker, announced his plan for twenty independent City Technology Colleges (CTCs) to be established and in operation by 1990. These CTCs were intended to provide a 'new choice of school' for 11-18 years olds in inner city areas and to have to a curricular bias towards science and technology. While their recurrent costs were to be met by central government, so that they did not have to charge fees to parents, all or a substantial part of their capital costs were expected to be met by business sponsors.

The article discusses interviews conducted with employees at science centers as part of a research on science centers and social and cultural inclusion. An argument on the development of differentiated configuration of science is presented which is different from the standard concept of science as a structured body of scientific knowledge and expertise. The science centers are examined to determine how science is mediated, re-inflected and reinterpreted. The combination of factors, circumstances and objectives to re-inflect science is highlighted to reframe it as a relevant set of exhibits, activities and events.

Presented at its launch in 1998 as the quintessential 'third way' welfare policy, the English education action zones (EAZ) experiment was one of a number of area-based initiatives in the UK designed to tackle social exclusion in disadvantaged localities. The policy was premised upon the idea that different bodies--public, private, voluntary, and community--should work together to deliver 'joined-up solutions' to 'joined-up problems'. This paper reports on the findings of an ESRC-funded research project 1 designed to investigate the origins, operation, and impact of the policy by interrogating the claims of its advocates and the counter-claims of its critics. Overall, the research concluded that neither the hopes nor fears surrounding the policy have been realized. The impact of the policy within zones has been limited and patchy. There have been instances of innovation and positive shifts in parents' perceptions, but these have not been matched by consistent improvements in pupil performance or embedded changes in classroom practice. Nor have zones brought about new and more democratic modes of educational governance. However, initiatives take time to embed, and those working in zones experienced difficulty reconciling the need for innovative strategies to tackle disadvantage with the pressure of short-term targets. Moreover, while the impact of the policy in particular localities has been limited, it may have contributed to a reordering of the politics of education, and, in particular, an erosion of some of the 'old' binaries around which allegiances have traditionally been structured. This paper argues that, as might be expected from a 'third way' policy, the policy has blurred the conventional oppositions of 'left' and 'right', 'government' and 'governed', and 'public' and 'private' sectors. Paradoxically, it has also reinforced new binaries--e.g. between 'wreckers' and 'reformers' and 'standards' and 'structures'--and created new boundaries--between zone and non-zone schools and policy 'insiders' and 'outsiders'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental choice of school is one of the main platforms of government education policy and is the centre piece of the Parents Charter. But sociological understanding of choice and choice-making is woefully underdeveloped. This paper draws on an ESRC study of market forces in education to explore social class variations in choice of school in one specific locality. The complexity of choice-making is portrayed using data from interviews with parents and it is argued that middle-class parents are taking full advantage of `the market' to sustain or re-assert their class advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English EAZ experience illustrates the difficulties of developing an innovative, responsive and inclusive curriculum within an evaluative state characterized by high stakes testing. Consequently, while government exhortations to 'raise standards', 'innovate' and 'promote social inclusion' clearly serve an important rhetorical function, they may underestimate the challenges involved and overestimate the capacity of schools within disadvantaged areas to 'make a difference'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Education Action Zone (EAZ) experiment is one of a number of area-based regeneration initiatives (ABRIs) that have been introduced by central government in recent years in England in an attempt both to tackle social exclusion and lever up educational achievement in some of its disadvantaged localities. The policy, regarded by some of its advocates as the epitome of New Labour's 'Third Way', is premised upon the idea that different bodies (public, private, voluntary and community) can work together to deliver localised 'joined-up solutions' to 'joined-up problems' - in this case those to do with how to address successfully persistent educational failure in poor neighborhoods. Drawing on the findings of a three and a half-year long ESRC-funded research project designed to investigate the origins, operation and impact of the EAZ policy, this article reflects on the degree to which this approach to educational regeneration is delivering on its objectives and highlights the lessons that can be learnt from its operation so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education Action Zones and their forums seek to draw together diverse constituencies of interest in order to develop and implement local plans for school improvement. As such, it has been suggested that they may better empower parents and communities (Blunkett 1999) than existing forms of school governance. This article, which is based on a textual examination of the first 25 applications for zone status, interviews with forum members, including seven EAZ Directors, and observation within two EAZs, explores the extent to which the early evidence suggests that EAZ Action Forums are offering a new way to democratise education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]