Carrying the beacon of excellence: social class differentiation and anxiety at a time of transition

In the current performance and ‘excellence’ culture that has so bewitched politicians and beset educators, there are no discourses available to voice and to make sense of the anxieties that consistently arise for children who are pushed towards ever-higher performance. Drawing on the findings from a study of children's transitions from primary to secondary school, this paper examines some of the structural and emotional consequences of current school-choice policy in the UK. Deep-seated fears of downward mobility held by some sections of the middle classes are potently mobilized when faced with the constraints of local secondary schools markets. Children from professional middle-class families are pushed towards high performance as a response to these fears with parents using a range of strategies to place their child in a high performing school, including entering them for selective schools' entrance examinations. In the pursuit of the kind of attainment seen to be necessary in order to ensure the successful reproduction of professional middle-class status, we argue that difficult emotions have to be suppressed or split off. For middle-class girls in particular, the constant striving for and achievement of high attainment, rather than unproblematically engendering a sense of confidence in their abilities, can produce a sense of never being good enough. Nor is it only the middle classes who are implicated in these processes. There are serious consequences for working-class children and we discuss how they are positioned in relation to UK policy initiatives that prioritize ‘excellence’.     

The public positioning of refugees in the quasi-education market: linking mediascapes and social geographies of schooling

ABSTRACT

This article analyses some ways in which racialising discourses around refugees interact with the spatial and social dynamics of marketised schooling. It identifies conflicting discourses that contribute to the polarisation of school social composition and resourcing in the Australian state of Victoria. Media narratives around ‘ethnic’ gangs contribute to wider discourses surrounding working-class neighbourhoods and schools as dangerous and violent ‘hotspots’. At the same time, some elite private schools discursively produce themselves as providing a ladder of opportunity for talented and deserving refugee youth, offering volunteer tutoring and scholarships. These discourses work together to legitimate the funding of socially exclusive sites at twice the rate of the schools that cater to virtually all refugee-background students. The article draws on critical discourse analysis, based on media reporting on refugees, and interviews with parents selecting a secondary school for their children. The findings have implications for the management of school choice as a policy framework, suggesting that its exclusionary effects are heightened in the context of intense media and political attention to refugees as racialised subjects.     

Hierarchies and 'local' markets: the geography of the 'lived' market place in secondary education provision

While not providing a social class analysis of market competition this paper aims to build upon such work by introducing other factors that appear to be present in the education market place. In this paper market competition is considered along two broad dimensions. The first examines educational markets as spatial phenomenon. In the second an empirical study of competition and markets in action is undertaken based on one year's transfer of pupils to secondary schools across six LEAs, each with different geographies. The study proposes three key ways in which competition between schools can be classified. It also suggests that the education market place is, generally, hierarchical, and that the position of schools within these hierarchies is largely associated with their relative examination performances. The paper concludes by suggesting that the concept and the subsequent identification of the ‘local’ markets is necessary before addressing issues such as the impact on school rolls and potential social segregation of intakes.     

Developing mainstream resource provision for pupils with autism spectrum disorder: parent and pupil perceptions

The diverse needs of pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have led to a continuum of educational provision being promoted in many countries, and which is often developed at a local level. The majority of children and young people with ASD in the UK attend mainstream schools, and resourced mainstream schools are increasingly part of this continuum of provision. These schools offer additional environmental modifications and adult support over and above that normally provided by mainstream schools. How parents and pupils perceive such provisions has not previously been investigated. The current study was designed to explore the perceptions of parents and pupils in five primary and three secondary resource provision schools in one Local Authority during the pupils’ first year at the provisions. A series of interviews took place with 16 parents and 9 pupils during this initial year. Data were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecosystemic theory was used to conceptualise and organise the complex interactions between home, local education systems, school systems and sub-systems, and their impact on pupil outcomes over time. Findings and implications are discussed in relation to theory and practice.     

Children,families and inter‐agency work: experiences of partnership work in primary education settings

Despite UK government initiatives intended to address social exclusion, those with poor access to social and economic resources continue to experience unresponsive services. In these circumstances, small inter‐agency projects may offer accessible alternatives. This article explores the implementation of inter‐agency work at a local level, focusing on implications for families involved. It draws on a study of a Health Action Zone (HAZ) initiated project, working in primary schools in a deprived urban area, with children at risk of school exclusion. It examines children's and parents' experiences of the project, locating these within current social policy and social justice debates. While positive outcomes are evident, the article also highlights difficulties in inter‐agency collaboration, which potentially undermine support available to families and maintain pessimism about future improvements. By focusing remedies at the level of individual intervention, such initiatives may also neglect structural and organisational factors contributing to families' difficulties.     

Active agents of health promotion? The school's role in supporting the HPV vaccination programme

By providing a place in which children can be accessed, the school has long been a site for population-level health initiatives. Recent policy shifts towards health-promoting schools have however re-cast the school from passive host to active collaborator in public health. This paper examines secondary school teachers' views of their roles as partners in Scotland's human papilloma virus vaccination programme. Focus groups were held in seven schools across Scotland. Confusion was evident in relation to this role, with competing understandings of young women's sexuality, concerns about parental perceptions and uncertainty about professional responsibilities. Many teachers sought to distance themselves from the vaccination programme. Evidence was found of a ‘sedimentation of discourses’, as mass models of state-sanctioned health intervention persist alongside contemporary discourses of individual choice.     

A comparative study of children's attitudes towards deaf children,children in wheelchairs and blind children in Greece and in the UK

This comparative study explores the attitudes of children towards deaf children, children in wheelchairs and blind children in Greece and in the UK. A total of 463 children participated in this study, with 229 children from Greece and 234 children from the UK, in the fifth and sixth grades in primary schools. The views of the children were elicited with the use of an attitude scale. The roles of prior contact and current contact were examined. Results indicated that all children were positive towards the three categories of children and that girls were more positive than boys. Comparative findings showed that children's attitudes in the two countries differed in several ways. Children in Greece were more positive than children in the UK. However, children attending schools with special education units in Greece held more negative attitudes than children attending schools with special education units in the UK. Also, children in Greece who had prior contact with deaf children were less favourable towards deaf children compared with children in the UK. Furthermore, the results indicated that children held positive attitudes at a superficial level, expressing mostly social and emotional concern, and not a willingness to interact with these children. The findings stimulate a discussion regarding the impact of sociocultural characteristics upon children's attitudes towards children with special educational needs.     

School Admissions after the School Standards and Framework Act: Bringing the LEAs back in?

Historically, LEAs were responsible for the local planning and provision of schools. They 'mattered' because their organisational strategies and admissions policies contributed to the structure and equality of opportunities for families and children in their administrative areas. Some moved ahead with comprehensive schools earlier and faster than others, and some retained selection. Alongside admissions policies, these activites in turn shaped and reproduced the extent to which local schools were socially segregated. LEA capacity to shape the local school system was always constrained by the existence of the faith-based 'voluntary' schools sector and was further diminished, post-1988, by self-governing grant-maintained (GM) schools. The 1998 Schools Standards and Framework Act brought LEAs back into the admissions arena. In this paper we examine LEAs' admissions policies and the extent to which these regulate local patterns of socio-economic segregation between schools. In this study we draw on a sample of 74 LEAs to explore these issues. Our findings point to some interesting paradoxes, most notably the fact that the most commonly used criterion in the allocation of students to places, catchment areas, is likely to create and sustain socio-economically segregated patterns of secondary schooling because these are linked in complex ways to residential segregation. We also show that selective education is strongly associated with high levels of stratified schooling and that voluntary and specialist schools also contribute to local patterns of school segregation.     

异地中考政策促进随迁子女选择高中教育吗

为促进义务后教育公平,国家和地方政府出台了异地中考政策。利用“中国教育追踪调查”基线数据中的1071个九年级随迁子女数据,采用多项分类logistic回归分析方法,实证检验了异地中考政策的不同入学条件对随迁子女高中教育选择的影响作用。研究发现,当异地中考政策的入学门槛为“只能报考普通高中”时,对随迁子女选择普通高中没有显著影响;当异地中考政策的入学门槛为“可报考重点高中”时,对随迁子女选择普通高中具有显著促进作用;当异地中考政策的入学门槛为“不能报考普通高中”时,对随迁子女选择职业高中没有显著促进作用。     

Educational inclusion in Singapore for children with physical disabilities

Under Singapore’s inclusive education policy, children with mild physical disabilities are integrated into mainstream schools. There is currently no known published research yet in Singapore on the outcomes of inclusion for children with physical disabilities. Internationally, recent research had compared the school experience of children with physical disabilities to that of their typically developing peers. This study examined the social and academic impact of educational inclusion for children with physical disabilities. It investigated how their participation in school activities, academic performance, self-esteem, peer relationships, and social/emotional development compared to that of typically developing schoolmates. A total of 60 clients (n = 30 with physical disability; n = 30 typically developing students; age range = 8 to 16 years) in a local primary and secondary regular school participated in the study. The children with physical disabilities met academic expectations in school and had comparable levels of self-esteem, but experienced peer problems and participated less in school activities. Understanding children’s overall school experience is critical to becoming an inclusive society that enables children with a range of disabilities to benefit academically and socially. Implications for practice and future research were discussed.     

Long-term Consequences of Curriculum Choices with Particular Reference to Mathematics and Science

If what is taught is important but how well it is taught has only a trivial impact, then much of the work on 'school effectiveness' may be studying short term effects which quickly disappear from the system and have no long term consequences. If such were the case, then school effectiveness researchers would need to give greater consideration to what is studied, rather than simply how well it is studied. The influence of schools on curriculum choices may be more important than their influence on relative performance or "value added". In the UK 'A' levels represent a useful point at which to look at the impact of curriculum choice since students typically have to choose to study only two or three subjects for the final 2 years of secondary school. The choices are made at the age of 16 with little evidence available regarding the long term consequences. This article presents an exploration of the consequences of taking or not taking 'A' level mathematics. Evidence was available from a 5 year follow-up study of students who took 'A' levels in 1988. There were substantial differences between institutions in the extent to which students were attracted into mathematics, that is in the "Pulling Power" of mathematics departments. Focusing on students who appeared sufficiently able to have taken mathematics at A-level it was found that those who did and who were in high "Pulling Power" institutions, reported, 5 years later, a higher quality of life and a higher expectation for salaries than similarly able students who had been in institutions with low "Pulling Power" for mathematics and who had taken English at A-level.     

Making sense of the glass ceiling in schools: an exploration of women teachers’ discourses

There is extensive evidence of a ‘glass ceiling’ for women across the labour market. Though schools have widely been described as ‘feminized’ work environments, the under‐representation of women at school management level is well established. Based on a study of women teachers’ careers and promotion in the English school sector (in early years, primary and secondary schools), this paper draws on a critical discourse analysis of 44 individual interviews conducted with women teachers to explore their views of the ‘glass ceiling’. Despite significant evidence of the barriers to management positions faced by women teachers, interpretative frameworks drawing on discourses of individualization and personal choice are most prominent among these to make sense of the low proportion of women in school management. However, the paper also identifies the existence of alternative discourses recognizing the existence of gender inequalities.     

Developing mainstream resource provision for pupils with autism spectrum disorder: staff perceptions and satisfaction

The majority of children and young people with autism spectrum disorder are educated in mainstream schools. The diverse needs of this group of pupils has led to a continuum of provision being promoted in the UK and other countries, and developed at a local level. This continuum includes mainstream schools with resource provision which can offer enhanced physical and staffing resources beyond those normally provided in mainstream schools. How teaching staff perceive such provisions and their development over time have not previously been investigated. The current study was designed to explore the perceptions of staff working in five primary and three secondary school resource provisions in one local authority throughout the first year of the provisions and at three-year follow-up.Sixty-six interviews with senior teachers, mainstream teachers and resource provision staff took place during the initial year, with 21 three-year follow-up interviews. Data were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. Data provide tentative support for Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecosystemic theory as a framework for representing the complex interactions within the resource provision schools, between systems and their development over time. Findings and implications are discussed in relation to theory and practice.     

‘Just be friends’: exposing the limits of educational bully discourses for understanding teen girls’ heterosexualized friendships and conflicts

The present paper explores the conceptual limitations of the bully discourses that ground UK anti‐bullying policy frameworks and psychological research literatures on school bullying, suggesting they largely ignore gender, (hetero)sexuality and the social, cultural and subjective dynamics of conflict and aggression among teen‐aged girls. To explore the limitations of bully discourses in practice, the paper draws on a pilot, interview‐based study of girls’ experiences of aggression and bullying, illustrating how friendships and conflicts among the girls are thoroughly heterosexualized, en‐cultured and classed. Drawing on girls and parent interview narratives, I also trace some of the effects of bully discourses set in motion in schools to intervene into conflicts among girls. I suggest these practices miss the complexity of the dynamics at play among girls and also neglect the power relations of parenting, ethnicity, class and school choice, which can inform how, why and when bullying discourses are mobilized.     

What Counts as 'Success'? Hierarchical discourses in a girls' comprehensive school

In the UK, as in many parts of the world, educational policy is dominated by the 'standards agenda': the top-down drive to improve students' performance in examinations. Simultaneously, there is policy emphasis on (differing versions of) 'inclusive education', and mainstream schools are exhorted to remove barriers to learning and participation for students who would until recently have been educated separately in special schools. This paper examines one of the many tensions between these two policy imperatives. Using findings from an ethnographic study in one comprehensive girls' school in an English city, I identify three distinct versions of educational 'success'--'dominant', 'consolation' and 'really disabled'. This paper explores how students identified as having 'special educational needs' position themselves and are positioned by the three discourses, and suggests that the hierarchisation of what can count as 'success' is an important dimension in the enduring reproduction of educational and societal inequalities.     

Mathematics Teachers' Positions and Practices in Discourses of Assessment

Recent curriculum reforms have led to a wider variety of methods of assessment in formal 'high stakes' assessment regimes in many countries. Morgan's study of mathematics coursework assessment in UK schools identified a number of positions adopted by teachers as they assessed student texts. Using Bernstein's theoretical framework, we revisit Morgan's study in order to construct a model for understanding teachers' assessment practices and positionings. The model consists of opposing forms, generated by modelling agencies, agents, practices and specialised forms of communication, to identify their principles of construction, displayed as changes in the strength of boundary. This helps to distinguish practices of assessment as different modalities of regulation, and to understand the tensions within and between discourses and practices. Thus, for example, by interpreting tensions between discourses of 'mathematical investigation' and of 'assessment' in terms of the contradictory demands made by different modes of pedagogic practice, we can reveal the social assumptions of the pedagogic discourse.     

Group composition and National Curriculum assessment at seven years

This paper presents the initial findings of a long-term study to examine whether the introduction of compulsory school science for pupils in UK schools in 1991 is effective in raising the general level of scientific literacy. The use of the term 'scientific literacy' in the literature is considered and a definition of the term as it is applied in this study is offered. The scientific literacy level of two groups of initial teacher training studentswith contrasting experiences of school sciencewas compared. Students completed a simple science test that had been originally written for 11-year-old children. The average test score of students who had experienced compulsory school science from the ages of 11 to 16 was found to be significantly higher (p = 0.014) than that of students for whom school science was optional at secondary level. The study also highlights specific areas of conceptual difficulty in basic science experienced by almost all of the students tested. Test questions relating to the circulatory system, light and sound produced very low scores from almost all students, regardless of their science background. The paper considers the implications of these findings for science teachers and policymakers in both the primary and secondary sectors.     

School educational project as a criterion of school choice: discourses and practices in the city of Barcelona

In its advancement towards an education quasi-market, Catalonia has recently been driving the development of school educational projects in all schools (both public and private) as a tool to facilitate school autonomy and family choices. A school educational project is a formal document in which schools identify their pedagogical goals, missions and orientations, their academic resources and organisational structures. Through the analysis of 60 in-depth interviews with parents of children at the age of commencing universal pre-primary education (three years old) and data collected from surveys completed by a representative sample made up of 3245 families, this article explores the impact of this policy on discourses and practices of school choice amongst families in the city of Barcelona. On the one hand, we observe that interest in educational projects has penetrated the discourses of the most educated parents, even though, at the same time, we detect a generalised lack of knowledge of the content of such projects. On the other hand, we note that the social composition of schools is still a prominent factor in choice practices. Such findings question the ideal of the autonomous and rational citizen-consumer that underlies the policy of establishing educational projects.     

Making 'Good Citizens': The social and political attitudes of PGCE students

This article arises from a research project examining the understanding of 'citizenship' amongst trainee teachers in UK primary and secondary schools. The study covers attitudes to a broad range of social, political and moral issues and examines how these affect the students' perception of the socio-political dimension of their future professional role. Tracking a group of students through their postgraduate training year highlights the relationship between the individual's political world-view and their response to the school experience. One of the key findings is the high degree of political disengagement and cynicism about the operation of democracy in the UK; this is particularly strong amongst the youngest students, those coming to adulthood during the 1990s. Although the majority of students are positively inclined to fostering 'good citizenship values' in schools, there was much confusion over what it means to be 'a good citizen'. The concept of 'citizenship' was felt to be tainted with negative imagery, although a sense of 'being part of a community' was thought to be vital for social cohesion. In addition to this, a small minority of students displayed social attitudes and values incompatible with a pluralist, tolerant society. The teacher education experience did not appear to have given students a clear picture of what to teach or how to teach it, and both the pressures of the National Curriculum and the changing climate of schooling, favouring a more 'traditionalist' approach, may result in a greater unwillingness to tackle challenging issues.     

Supporting the education and well-being of children who are looked-after: what is the role of the virtual school?

The Children and Families Act (2014) placed a statutory responsibility on local authorities in the UK to establish a virtual school headteacher with the role of championing the education of all children looked-after within that authority. The current research was designed to illuminate how virtual schools are currently supporting educational outcomes for children looked-after, not only through educational interventions, but also through supporting broader psychological factors that might impact on attainment such as attachment, relationships and mental health. Virtual school headteachers from 29 local authorities completed an online survey about the services they provided to three target groups—children looked-after, foster carers and schools—with a particular focus on the transition years from primary to secondary school, which have been identified as being a difficult time for children looked-after. Using inductive thematic analysis, four overarching themes to service provision were identified: enhanced learning opportunities, specific transition support, well-being and relationships, and raising awareness. Direct work, interprofessional working and the development of supportive environments, particularly guided by attachment theory, were identified as important areas of practice. Practice is discussed in relation to resilience and ecological systems theory and suggestions for future research are identified.