Ongoing inequality in a 'knowledge economy': Perceptions and actions

The concept of the 'knowledge economy' is increasingly used to underpin education policy in developed countries. In Australia, it has been applied to post-compulsory education policy, with efforts to increase retention in senior secondary education and reform of vocational education in the senior years. The article draws on two research projects with senior secondary schools. Many students (and their teachers and parents) perceived qualifications not so much as providing the knowledge considered necessary by government policy for the contemporary economy, but rather as a 'screen' used by employers to sort and select. Knowledge of opportunity structures and access to resources, while not only defined by social class, operated to create differential access to available choices in the educational market place. Despite ongoing inequality, the article argues that the hope many students expressed in relation to education can be fulfilled in practice.     

Social exclusion,and educational opportunity: the case of British education policies within a European Union context1

This paper first examines the New Labour government's redefinition of equality of opportunity in Britain, mainly with regard to education and the ways in which it mediates ‘opportunity’. In doing so, it also draws on wider social policy issues, such as the use of education policies to combat social exclusion. Second, the paper reviews European Union policies and selected documents that address questions of social inclusion, social cohesion and the role of education in achieving those policy goals. The main argument is that both New Labour policies in Britain and the examined EU documents promote rather minimal understandings of the term ‘equality of opportunity’, while, education, in both cases, is given an enormous burden to carry in balancing increasingly liberalised market‐driven economies, with the requirements of a socially just society.     

Home,work, families and children: New labour,new directions and new dilemmas

This article considers the relationships between children, parents and the state in the context of changing global, social and family structures and policy developments, providing a case study of New Labour policies in Britain. It first considers the changing ideological discourses about families, parents, especially lone mothers, children, 'home' and 'work'. Secondly, it reviews the evidence about the changing socio-economic context and for what has been termed the fragmenting family. Thirdly, it provides an analysis of the New Labour government's approach to education, welfare and family policies, including the national child care strategy and supporting families consultation document. It sets this analysis in the context of changing political discourses and from a feminist perspective, arguing that the policies are not 'joined up' but fragmented and diverse, deriving from a variety of sources and targeted on a number of different groups. Thus it is difficult to argue that there is but one modernisation project or 'third way' being espoused by New Labour. However, the underlying theme of all the policy developments is economic and oriented to work. This involves a rebalancing of home and work and the involvement of parents, especially mothers, in work rather than education or child care. The measures taken to achieve this have been both coercive and controlling and involve new methods of surveillance and regulation through standards. Whilst New Labour has developed a new direction for families in balancing home and work, this is fragmented and diverse and covers a variety of policies from education - early childhood through to lifelong learning - and social services, to fiscal measures, to health and welfare and finally involving the Home Office in new parenting initiatives. The balancing of home and work has become the central business of government in its various and diverse activities.     

Education,vocationalism and economic recovery: the case against witchcraft1

Abstract

The widening of access to higher education for mature students has been placed on the policy agenda by the government, in part as a response to demographic changes which will reduce the number of young graduates entering the labour market. This article examines the current position of students in the over 30 age group in UK universities with reference to their entrance qualifications, degree attainment and first destinations on leaving university. It compares the experience of men and women in this age group with young students in the conventional undergraduate population and questions whether a university degree is sufficient to overcome the barriers to the labour market experienced by older graduates. Finally it challenges the access model of equal opportunity implicit in the government's White Paper on Higher Education.     

Globalisation,modernisation and competitiveness: A critique of the new labour project in education

In this article, the author begins by examining the ubiquitous concept of 'globalisation' - a key theme of the New Labour Government. He question whether developments named as such are as widespread as proclaimed and whether the assumptions underlying the concept are misleading and occlude more than they reveal. The author concludes that, rather than 'globalisation' being viewed as a new epoch, the global movement of capital, which informs and underpins the globalisation thesis, might more accurately be described as an ongoing process, one which began 400-500 years ago. 'Globalisation', however, he suggests, is used ideologically to justify the New Labour programme, or the 'Third Way', which has two major anchors; competitiveness and modernisation. The former entails an economy in which everyone works, where the need for the untrammelled expansion of the free market is promoted as natural and inevitable and where there is the requirement for flexibility in the labour market and for low wages, in the context of the diminution of the welfare state. Since Keynesian demand management has been abandoned, one of the few strategic levers available to the New Labour Government to achieve these ends is to police the education and training of the workforce in the economy and in the educational market-place. This is all carried in the spirit of the 'essential modernisation' of British capitalism.     

Market as metaphor in central and East European higher education

Markets constitute the very centre of the post-communist reforms in the countries of Central and East Europe and the former Soviet Union. The two alternative approaches available for framing the market reform conceptually are, however, both inadequate. Those in favour of revolutionary theories fail to see the strong inertia of the academe and its desire for stability. Proponents of evolutionary theories of market reforms do not recognise qualitatively new relationships in many areas. Those eager to demonstrate the success of the market reforms as well as those presenting the success of the centralised higher education in a number of areas fail to realise the lack of legal framework for market reforms and missing political decisions on which the reforms could be based on. This article discusses the role of labour markets, markets of degrees and qualifications as well as the market of educational services as related to higher education reforms. It is proposed that downsizing the State has shifted many of its previous functions to random, often external agents. This creates a meta-level market - the market of market reforms in higher education. Through this quasi market formerly unified higher education systems and even institutions are broken into segments often ignoring each other's existence and seeking individual short term goals. As a result markets' pressure on higher education has taken extremely aggressive forms limiting access to quality higher education while the systemwide enrolment is rapidly growing through theactivities of new low calibre universities and diploma mills.     

Marxist state theory and state autonomy theory: the case of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education

Abstract

In recent times, there have been a number of critiques of Marxist and neo‐Marxist analyses of the state and education policy. These have drawn on postmodernist, ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ and state autonomy perspectives. While the postmodernist and ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ approaches have attracted critical response, to date, the state autonomy perspective has, to our knowledge, gone unchallenged. To address this theoretical lacuna, this paper analyses one writer's attempt, via an historical case study, to uphold state autonomy theory by detailing the ongoing relationship between one quasi‐state agency and the practice of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education. We argue that there are serious conceptual weaknesses in this latest attempt to apply state autonomy theory to educational policy analysis. The arguments in the case study under consideration are seriously compromised by a basically flawed hypothesis, a misrepresentation of contemporary (neo‐) Marxist education policy analysis and by a failure to look at ‘the big picture’.     

Publishing School Examination Results in England: Incentives and consequences

Since 1992, the quality daily national press in England has published the examination results of secondary schools. In this paper, we discuss the policy context, the results that are published, how they are used by parents making preferences for secondary schools and the consequences of their publication. Overall, the publication of examination results has created a range of incentives for those in the education market place. These incentives serve to strengthen the position of certain categories of pupils on the one hand and certain types of schools on the other. The findings are discussed in the context of the Labour Government's focus on those at risk of social exclusion. Modified and additional indicators are proposed to mitigate the effects of the newly created quasi-market in education. 'League tables' are here to stay, for once information is in the public domain it cannot easily be suppressed.     

Welfare Labourism versus the New Right: the struggle in New Zealand's education policy

ABSTRACT

New Zealand's radical education reforms (1987‐1990) provide a valuable case study for the examination of the politics, ideology and process of educational change. This paper examines the strategy of New Right agencies in attacking the established education settlement which embodies principles of Welfare Labourism. The crucial role of the New Zealand Treasury and of other agencies in bringing this settlement to crisis in the 1980s is analysed and discussed as is the response of the Labour Government. Many of the elements of struggle between Welfare Labourism and New Right market doctrines in education show similar features to struggles in other contexts such as the United Kingdom. However, the struggle in New Zealand makes visible and explicit the political and ideological features in a distinctive way. It also makes visible the significance of both race relations and of gender relations in the formation of education policy.     

British Labour Party education policy and comprehensive education: from Learning to Live to Circular 10/65

Fifty years after the production of Circular 10/65, which confirmed comprehensive education as the national policy for secondary education in England and Wales, it is possible to trace the idea of comprehensive education from the 1940s to the 1960s, to understand the position of the Labour Party in its development, and to assess the nature of the contribution of Circular 10/65 itself to comprehensive education in Britain. There were strong connections between the 1944 Education Act and Circular 10/65. In particular, Michael Stewart, the Labour Party education policy review of 1957–1958, and the 1958 report Learning to Live that arose from this, played a key mediating role. Awareness of public opinion through the then novel device of market research and a determination to consolidate ambitious reforming ideals into a practical strategy for educational reform over the longer term formed part of the party’s revisionist approach under Hugh Gaitskell, and helped to provide the basis for Labour’s policy on comprehensive education when it returned to power in 1964.     

Between ‘Bastard’ and ‘Wicked’ leadership? School leadership and the emerging policies of the UK Coalition Government

Barker argues that in England under New Labour, school leaders and teachers have been ‘bastardised’ and suggests that the situation in 2010, with a general election afforded an opportunity in education policy for the ‘pendulum to swing’. In this article, the key points about ‘bastard Leadership’ are briefly summarised. The article then develops a view of schools as sites of complexity and ‘wickedity’ as an alternative to the linear reductionist approaches of managerialists. These two perspectives present the extremes of a spectrum against which the trajectory of school leadership can be viewed as it emerges from the New Labour years and is now being developed by the Coalition Government. Evidence from ministerial speeches and the Coalition Government's flagship White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, are used to examine key issues of freedom and trust, reducing bureaucracy and increasing autonomy for schools as ways of exploring the extent to which the new government's policies on school leadership are, or are not, moving away from those of their New Labour predecessors.     

Sport,the aesthetic and art

Abstract

This article discusses some recent attempts to develop an economic case that can justify proposals for curricular and institutional reform in education of a radical kind. It investigates the claim, which underpins current debates around a Labour Party alternative to Conservative education policy, that a new phase of development, often referred to as ‘post‐Fordism’, of the dominant economies of the western world provides the basis, and the necessity, for a new system of education which would realise a programme of egalitarian and democratic reform.     

Towards a learning or a certified society? Contradictions in the New Labour modernization of lifelong learning

This paper examines the ‘Learning Society’ goal espoused by the new Labour government and inherited from preceding Conservative administrations. Section one notes the wide‐ranging consensus on this Learning Society target. Agreement reaches further than education and training (learning) policy to include other areas of policy associated with the proposed reform of the welfare state. Whether the social and administrative changes under previous Conservative governments ‐ changes that can be conceptualized in different ways the paper briefly indicates ‐ amount to the end of the welfare state is discussed in section two. The position of post‐compulsory or ‘lifelong’ learning in relation to compulsory or ‘foundation’ learning in the new ‘post‐welfare’ or Contracting State is then discussed in section three. Contradictions in New Labour's programme of modernizing lifelong learning are exposed. In conclusion, the question is posed how far a New Labour government will be prepared to reverse previous Conservative substitution of the market for representative democracy in the new type of Contracting State, or whether it will merely extend and further consolidate it. Throughout, evidence is presented, particularly from post‐compulsory education and training, to argue that the new government is bent upon pursuing the latter option.     

Participation and equity in higher education: are we going back to the future?

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

The opportunism of the 'glocal': Malta's education policies

This article examines the dynamic of the relationship between the global and the local in education policy through a case study of recent policy initiatives in the small island state of Malta. The main initiative has been the setting up of a Foundation for Educational Services, which is now competing with services previously offered by the state Division of Education. It is argued that whilst the global, in this case the transnational company (TNC) HSBC Bank and the supranational European Union (EU), has particular power and can develop opportunity structures, this power is never closed or complete. The local has the power to enter or exit the global discursive field, including specific practices and structures. When the local interprets its needs to coincide with the global, as with the Foundation for Educational Services, HSBC Malta plc and the EU, then there is evidence that some political, economic or cultural 'opportunism' leads to the development of 'glocal' policy making. In this process, new and promiscuous actors and structures may take the place of older and more democratic ones. Moreover, the 'Trojan horse' politics of TNCs lead to new policy agendas in which the TNCs may be the major beneficiaries. The 'glocal' is a contested terrain over which we need to struggle.     

The management of participation in the policy‐making process: the case of the Education Commission in Hong Kong

In 1984 the Education Commission was established as a quasi governmental body to advise on all aspects of education policy in the colony. Within the Hong Kong context the Education Commission's establishment was novel for it created a single body to advise on all aspects of education policy and it involved a greater degree of public participation in the policy making process. This paper examines the motives for its establishment, the means by which the state maintained control of the policy making process and the impact of the policy measures initiated by the Education Commission.     

The end of the credential society? An analysis of the relationship between education and the labour market using big data

ABSTRACT

A major focus of sociological research is on the role of the credential as a ‘currency of opportunity’, mediating the relationship between education and occupational destinations. However, the labour market has largely remained a ‘black box’ in sociological and education policy studies. This article draws on ‘big data’ from over 21,000,000 job adverts to explore how employers in the UK describe job requirements, with particular reference to the role of credentials. It challenges existing theories premised upon the notion that higher levels of formal education determine individual (dis)advantage in the competition for jobs. Although they have different views of the relationship between credentials, opportunity and efficiency, these theories assume that credentials largely determine occupational hiring. Our analysis suggests that formal academic credentials play a relatively minor differentiating role in the UK labour market, as the majority of employer’s place greater emphasis on ‘job readiness’. This raises a number of issues for sociological and policy analysis, including the future role of credentials in the (re)production of educational and labour market inequalities. Methodologically, the article highlights how the use of big data can contribute to the analysis of education, skills and the labour market.     

Lifelong learning and the Labour governments 1997–2004

Lifelong learning has been a key theme of New Labour’s education policy agenda since 1997, but is a broad and often amorphous concept. This article analyses New Labour’s ideological perspective in this context, outlines the main developments and difficulties, and evaluates the record over the seven years in office.

New Labour’s policy on lifelong learning can be divorced neither from its general education policy nor from its broader human capital approach to education, within an ideology of ‘marketised welfarism’. The article discusses these characteristics and notes both the continuities and differences between New Labour and traditional Labourism.     

Student Drop-out: A case study in new managerialist policy

Since the incorporation of the further education (FE) sector student drop-out has become an issue for policy makers, and colleges with higher than average rates of non-completion have been penalised. This process, which is consistent with the 'new managerialist' approach described by Randle and Brady (1997) in an earlier volume of this Journal, results in a loss of funding and 'naming and shaming' via inspection reports and performance tables. It is suggested that this policy response to student drop-out represents a mechanistic reaction to the 'standards' agenda and could impede other policy priorities such as widening participation. The paper examines the growing body of research evidence which challenges the view that drop-out is caused by colleges which 'don't care'. Studies of the influence of factors external to colleges, such as financial hardship, feeder schools and the impact of 'habitus' on a student's disposition, illustrate the problem of trying to reduce the complex issue of drop-out to a single, generalisable cause. The paper concludes that the development of a more sophisticated analytical model is necessary if student retention is to be improved.     

Effective Practices in Distance Education

Summary

Distance education is changing the landscape of higher education and many faculty are now developing Web-based courses. This paper describes the lessons learned by the authors' experiences and research and offers a specific set of pedagogical and assessment strategies that they have found to be successful in online settings. The authors have found that classes delivered on the Web provide a viable option for professional development of K-12 teachers, and that the learning that occurs is of equal quality to those university courses taught on campus. Web-based courses offer students an opportunity to take courses anytime, anyplace.