The ‘new vocationalism’: Further education and local labour markets

Current policies aimed at promoting a ‘new vocationalism’ through changes in vocational training in further education are based upon a particular functional model of labour market behaviour, which sees the relationships between technical qualifications, training and recruitment to jobs as unproblematic. In fact, however, this model bears little relationship to the realities of actual labour markets, especially given the enormous diversity which exists between economic conditions in different localities. What this implies, therefore, is that there are considerable tensions between the imperatives of a national training strategy, promoted centrally by the Training Commission (and previously by the Manpower Services Commission), and its local implementation mainly by the local education authorities and their colleges of further education. In many local labour markets, far from promoting closer responsiveness to the needs of employers, current policy initiatives may actually be making it more difficult for the colleges to react to employers' demands. These general arguments are illustrated here by reference to a large‐scale empirical study which was specifically designed to investigate the inter‐relationships between the labour market behaviour of employers and the implementation of the ‘new vocationalism’ in further education.     

Personalisation: the emerging ‘revised’ code of education?

In England, a ‘revised’ educational code appears to be emerging. It centres upon the concept of ‘personalisation’. Its basis is less in educational theory, more in contemporary marketing theory. Personalisation can be regarded in two ways. First, it provides the rationale for a new mode of public‐service delivery, one which seeks to enable ‘users’ to co‐produce with professionals a solution to their needs. In this endeavour, it takes further that process of marketisation which had been set in train under the New Public Management. Second, it portends a new ‘grammar’ for the school, in the guise of ‘personalised learning’. At this stage, what shall count as personalisation—particularly in relation to personalised learning—remains incoherent and inchoate. For its justification as a policy, personalisation appeals to child‐centredness, to democracy and to consumerism. The analysis draws on contemporary social and marketing theory.     

Seeking inclusive education: disrupting boundaries of ‘special’ and ‘regular’ education

The present paper is part of a larger study carried out in North Queensland, Australia, between 1999 and 2001. The original study focused on the perceptions of 15 women who each have (or had) a child who was medically, educationally and socio‐culturally constituted as having a disability. Qualitative methods were used for research design and to gather data. Poststructural and feminist perspectives were added to provide additional methods of data analysis. The primary focus in this paper is the spatiality of inclusive education with/in the discursive site of (special) education. It also considers the binary of regular/special education in relation to the spaces of educational discourse through the perspectives of the mothers, covering a temporal frame of 40 years. The mothers’ perceptions provide a historical lens on the changes that occurred in special education in North Queensland over this time, while at the same time offer an insight into the spaces disability occupies in education discourse.     

The ‘Third Wave’: education and the ideology of parentocracy

In this paper it will be argued that we are entering a ‘third wave’ in the socio‐historical development of British education and that similar trends are also evident in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The ‘first wave’ can be characterised by the rise of mass schooling for the working classes in the late nineteenth century. The ‘second wave’ involved a shift from the provision of education based upon what Dewey called the “feudal dogma of social predestination” to one organised on the basis of individual merit and achievement. What is distinct about the ‘third wave’ is the move towards a system whereby the education a child receives must conform to the wealth and wishes of parents rather than the abilities and efforts of pupils. In other words, we have witnessed a shift away from the ‘ideology of meritocracy’ to what I will call the ‘ideology of parentocracy’. This paper will consider the evidence to support this conclusion and examine its sociological significance.

     

‘Distance education’ and ‘e-learning’: Not the same thing

This article examines the distinct differences between ‘distance education’ and ‘e-learning’ in higher education settings. Since the emergence of the new information and communication technologies (ICT), many have related to them as the new generation of distance education, and some have referred to their implementation in academia as challenging the very existence of campus-based universities. Many policy makers, scholars and practitioners in higher education use these two terms interchangeably as synonyms. But the fact is that distance education in most higher education systems is not delivered through the new electronic media, and vice versa – e-learning in most universities and colleges all over the world is not used for distance education purposes. ‘Distance education’ and ‘e-learning’ do overlap in some cases, but are by no means identical. The lack of distinction between ‘e-learning’ and ‘distance education’ accounts for much of the misunderstanding of the ICT roles in higher education, and for the wide gap between the rhetoric in the literature describing the future sweeping effects of the ICT on educational environments and their actual implementation. The article examines the erroneous assumptions on which many exaggerated predictions as to the future impact of the ICT were based upon, and it concludes with highlighting the future trends of ‘distance education’ and ‘e-learning’ in academia.     

Religious education and social literacy: the ‘white elephant’ of Australian public education

As a result of globalisation, the boundaries that once limited the trade of ideas and culture have largely dissolved. In Australia, the fruits of intercultural exchange have largely been enjoyed, yet this expansion of Australian interaction with diverse Others has posed a perceived threat to some. This parallel expansion and contraction of cultural engagement demonstrates the need for Australia to represent diversity more adequately as a part of our society. A central point of tension in this discussion is religion. This paper reports on a study that explored the question: Why is it so hard to talk about religion in public classrooms? This narrative inquiry attempts to unpack some of the challenges facing Australian educators at present. This study brings out the conflicting priorities and pressures of the secular system against student needs and puts forward an argument for the development of social literacy education that addresses education about religion in Victorian public schools.     

The management of ‘emotional labour’ in the corporate re-imagining of primary education in England

The last 20 years has witnessed the spread of corporatism in education on a global scale. In England, this trend is characterised by new structural and cultural approaches to education found in the ‘academies’ programme and the adoption of private sector management styles. The corporate re-imagining of schools has also led to the introduction into the curriculum of particular forms of character education aimed at managing the ‘emotional labour’ of children. This paper argues that character education rests on a fallacy that the development of desirable character traits in children can be engineered by mimicking certain behaviours from the adult world. The weaknesses in the corporate approach to managing ‘emotional labour’ are illustrated with empirical data from two primary schools. An alternative paradigm is presented which locates the ‘emotional labour’ of children within a ‘holding environment’ that places children’s well-being at its core.     

‘Ethnographic dazzle’ and the construction of the ‘Other’: revisiting dimensions of insider and outsider research for international and comparative education

This paper presents some initial ideas on how the theoretical concepts of the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’ might be re-examined in an era where advances in comparative, qualitative research methodologies seek to be more inclusive, collaborative, participatory, reflexive and nuanced. Earlier essentialist definitions of the outsider as detached and objective, and the insider as culturally embedded and subjective, are re-examined and set within an international research and teaching context that recognises the increased migration of people, ideas and educational policies. It is argued that, in the context of such change, it has become more difficult to categorise and label groups and individuals as being ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ systems, professional communities or research environments. Such essentialist notions, which often underpin the production of large-scale, international datasets of pupil achievement, need to be challenged so that more complex understandings can inform not only new methods of research design, research ethics, data collection and analysis, but also the creation of new knowledge, giving more validity to related education policy making. We recognise that individual and group identities can be multiple, flexible and changing such that the boundary between the inside and the outside is permeable, less stable and less easy to draw. The concept of a ‘third’, liminal space may have the potential to encourage new meaning which is constructed on the boundary between worlds where historical, social, cultural, political, ethical and individual understandings meet.     

Hugs and behaviour points: Alternative education and the regulation of ‘excluded’ youth

In England, alternative education (AE) is offered to young people formally excluded from school, close to formal exclusion or who have been informally pushed to the educational edges of their local school. Their behaviour is seen as needing to change. In this paper, we examine the behavioural regimes at work in 11 AE programmes. Contrary to previous studies and the extensive ‘best practice’ literature, we found a return to highly behaviourist routines, with talking therapeutic approaches largely operating within this Skinnerian frame. We also saw young people offered a curriculum largely devoid of languages, humanities and social sciences. What was crucial to AE providers, we argue, was that they could demonstrate ‘progress’ in both learning and behaviour to inspectors and systems. Mobilising insights from Foucault, we note the congruence between the external regimes of reward and punishment used in AE and the kinds of insecure work and carceral futures that might be on offer to this group of young people.     

Biopolitics and the ‘subject’ of labor in science education

Viewing science education as a site of biopolitical engagement—intervention into forces that seek to define, control, and exploit life (biopower)—requires that science educators ask after how individuals and populations are governed by technologies of power. In this paper, I argue that microanalyses, the analysis of everyday practices and discourses, are integral to biopolitical engagement, are needed to examine practices that constitute subjectivities and maintain oppressive social conditions. As an example of a microanalysis I will discuss how repetitive close-ended lab/assessment tasks, as well as discourses surrounding careers in science, can work to constitute students as depoliticized, self-investing subjects of human capital. I also explore the relationship between science education, (bio)labor and its relation to biopolitics, which remains an underdeveloped area of science education. This paper, part of my doctoral work, began to take shape in 2011, shortly after the 2008 economic crisis achieved a tiny breached in the thick neoliberal stupor of everyday (educational) life.     

‘Why are you applying there?’: ‘race’, class and the construction of higher education ‘choice’ in the United Kingdom

Despite entering higher education in good numbers, candidates from some black and minority ethnic groups are concentrated in less prestigious institutions. A similar pattern is evident in candidates’ applications, raising important questions about the role of ‘self-exclusion’. Statistical analysis confirms that candidates from some minority ethnic groups tend to target lower-ranking institutions, but these differences are almost entirely explained by other variables, particularly academic attainment, type of school attended, number of A-levels taken and subject mix. It follows that some minority ethnic groups appear to be indirectly disadvantaged by patterns of schooling that do not prepare candidates for elite higher education. Similar processes are evident in relation to social class, although candidates from less privileged family backgrounds remain less likely to target high-status institutions even when other variables are taken into account.     

Privatization and ‘destatization’: school autonomy as the ‘Anglo neoliberalization’ of Irish education policy

Symbolic of the rise of neoliberal principles in Irish education policy, there is now a move towards advancing school autonomy and decentralizing decision-making to individual schools, possibly emulating the academy model that has become widespread in England. Increasing the freedom and independence of schools may involve using private actors to provide what has traditionally been the service of the state, but it will most definitely involve schools behaving more like private sector organizations. While some of the new powers that would be devolved to schools might seem attractive, especially in how they are presented at an official level, this paper highlights how features of autonomous schools that may initially seem appealing are, in practice, likely to be unsuited to the Irish context. In this regard, this paper advises that school autonomy should not be advanced in Ireland.     

Higher education ‘massification’ and challenges to the professoriate: do academics’ conceptions of quality matter?

Ensuring and assuring the quality of higher education have become dominant policy discourses in many jurisdictions across the globe. Yet, the pressures of massification and its attendant problems mean that academics now have increasingly demanding roles to improve student learning, particularly so in systems ravaged by a paucity of resources. The study reported in this article explores the experiences of and the challenges faced by academics in a large public university in Ethiopia during a period of graduate education expansion. The study found that academics hold onto ‘exceptional’ and ‘transformative’ notions of quality as they made judgements about the quality of education, which they saw as declining since the onset of expansion. As well, academics associated the entire expansion effort with burden, alienation, enhanced workload and loss of autonomy for the professor. The study suggests that policies intended to improve the quality of higher education should, inter alia, attend to the concerns of front-line academics.     

‘In and against the museum’: the contested spaces of museum education for adults

This paper focuses on museum and gallery education for adults in Dundee, Scotland. Dundee has recently experienced a shift from being mainly working class to an educational, cultural and tourist centre. Hence, an interesting field for the examination of the educational policies and practices of the city museums/galleries and the different fashions they receive and act upon wider developments in the museum world has emerged. Questions arising are how the new, open and accessible museum (and gallery) has changed the way education is constructed and offered in the museums in the city? What is the relationship of education with marketing and the new discourse of social inclusion and participation in museums and galleries? For example, one of the most pertinent findings was that, at least in Dundee, activity-based and individual learning has been over-valued, at the expense of a more social and dialogic educational experience that participants seemed to largely prefer and indeed propose as more meaningful to them. Although new ideas and participatory practices have improved attendance and the engagement of the local adult population, other issues, such as the new economic reality for museums and the close relationship of education with marketing are policies that were often treated with resistance, if not opposition, by the research participants.     

Learning ‘about’ and ‘from’ religion: phenomenography,the Variation Theory of Learning and religious education in Finland and the UK

The paper addresses the relationship between the twin tasks of enabling pupils both to learn about and learn from religion in the state education systems of Finland and the UK. Recognising that the relationship between these two tasks is the subject of considerable confusion, it is argued that the most appropriate way to view the connection is fundamentally ontological. In a plural society in which there is no basic agreement about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, there nevertheless remains a common concern to enable pupils to live flourishing lives in harmony with the ultimate order‐of‐things. The paper draws on phenomenography and the Variation Theory of Learning to unpack the pedagogic implications of this argument.     

Whole-school management issues concerning the PE department: ‘a natural division of labour?’

Utilising the labour ideas of Adam Smith and Emile Durkheim as a theoretical basis, the main objective of this study was to investigate the perception that Heads of Physical Education (HoPE) face unique management and leadership challenges. Results showed that HoPE believe that they are overburdened with tasks primarily involving the delegation of finance and exam administration. Many felt that their efforts were undervalued by senior management teams (SMTs). However, HoPE themselves could work more closely with the latter and instead of developing a culture of antagonism and mistrust they should seek to partake more fully within whole-school initiatives to demonstrate capabilities and so increase the status of their department.