‘Mature regionalism’ and the genesis of ‘functional projects’: ‘educational regionalism’ in small (and micro-states)

This article advances that the movement towards ‘deeper’ Caribbean integration has generated a shift from ‘immature’ regionalism to a ‘mature’ form of regionalism. Thus, mature regionalism, a new governance mechanism, in regulating the institutional and legal framework of Caribbean Single Market and Economy is drastically altering national education governance within the Caribbean Community. In focusing on the functional aspects integration, this article suggests that mature regionalism in education is built upon collaborative governance and encompasses multipartner governance arrangement – with the state, private sector, civil society, and the community as well as hybrid public–private and private–social partnerships and co-management regimes. It concludes that the instrumentalisation of mature regionalism in education is giving way to ‘educational regionalism’ defined by the movement towards structured institutional mechanisms, to facilitate the deepening of Caribbean integration.     

Towards a ‘critical cultural political economy’ account of the globalising of education

This paper outlines the basis of an alternative theoretical approach to the study of the globalisation of ‘education’ – a Critical, Cultural Political Economy of Education (CCPEE) approach. Our purpose here is to bring this body of concepts – critical, cultural, political, economy – into our interrogation of globalising projects and processes within what we will refer to as the ‘education ensemble’ as the topic of enquiry, whose authoritative, allocative, ideational and feeling structures, properties and practices, emerge from and play into global economic, political and cultural processes In the first half of the paper we introduce and develop the concepts that will underpin our approach. In the second half of the paper we explore the explanatory potential and epistemic gain of a CCPEE approach by examining the different manifestations of the relationship between globalisation as a political, cultural and economic project and an education ensemble. We conclude by reflecting on the possibilities this perspective offers.     

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.

     

‘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.     

‘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.     

Reforming teacher education in England: ‘an economy of discourses of truth’

This paper is an attempt to think aloud about the current policy proposals in circulation in England that address pre-service teacher education. Rather than dealing with details of policy and points of specificity in practice, the focus of this paper is with how propositions are justified and the overall ways in which meanings are being managed; a fundamental aspect of policy analysis.     

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.     

The political economy of post-secondary education: a comparison of British Columbia,Ontario and Québec

A policy sociology approach is taken to examine the connections between neo-liberalism, post-secondary provincial education (PSE) policy in Canada and the impact of those policies. Our thesis regarding the broad political economy of PSE is that over the last two decades the adoption of this ideology has been a major cause of some dramatic changes in these policies and has brought about a fundamental transformation of PSE in Canada. The discussion builds on a comparative, multiple, nested case study conducted at the provincial (Québec, Ontario and British Columbia) and national level. Through the analysis of key provincial and federal documents, the team concludes that five themes dominated the PSE policy-making process. These themes are Accessibility, Accountability, Marketization, Labour Force Development and Research and Development. In discussing these themes, we illustrate their impact on and within the three provincial PSE systems: BC, Ontario and Québec. In the conclusion, we place the changes in their political and economic contexts and explicate the intended and unintended consequences of these policy priorities. We argue that the pressure for access has led to the emergence of new institutional types, raising new questions about differentiation, mandate and identity and new lines of stratification. A trend toward vocationalism in the university sector has coincided with ‘academic drift’ in the community college sector, leading to convergences in programming and institutional functions across the system, as well as competition for resources, students, and external partners. Unprecedented demand has made education a viable industry, sustaining both a proliferation of private providers and a range of new entrepreneurial activities within public institutions. Levels and objectives of public funding have swung dramatically over the period. Public investments in PSE, in the form of capital grants and tuition subsidies, have alternately expanded and contracted, being at some times applied across the board and at others targeted to specific social groups or economic sectors. Likewise, policymakers have treated PSE at times as a mechanism for social inclusion and equality, at others as an instrument for labour force development, and at yet others as a market sector in its own right.

The changing status of higher education in the ‘moronic inferno’

Getting a good and relevant education is difficult enough to achieve within a context where social and economic needs are constantly unsettled by political policy. The public funding of the education sector has become a contested arena irrespective of a government’s ideology. Recent graduates from various disciplines from Town Planning to Philosophy report in university destination surveys that they have only found employment in areas unrelated to their academic training – for instance, in supermarkets, restaurants and other low-level service industries. How has it happened that the universalisation of mass higher education has contributed to a disconnect between the individual’s social aspirations and their economic status? What happened to the tacit promise that an extended period of intellectual development would prepare the individual for a life of valuable social contribution and financial security? Part of the answer lies in the success of higher education itself. Its popularity has changed its transformative capacity and allowed operational efficiencies to overrule academic quality. The university, ideally seen as a repository of intellectual intuition, has been remade into yet another modern corporation concerned with the bottom line and financial security. Why has it been necessary to remake the university in the image of the department store, supermarket or bank, and how has it been achieved without more critique?     

Adult participation in higher education and the ‘knowledge economy’: a cross-national analysis of patterns of delayed participation in higher education across 15 European countries

‘Delayed participation’ in higher education (HE) is an increasingly important feature of modern HE systems in many countries. Despite this, surprisingly little empirical research has been undertaken seeking to better understand levels of delayed adult participation in HE across Europe. The present article responds to this gap by analysing country-level data on delayed adult participation in HE across 15 European countries and by modelling associations between participation levels and a range of theoretically derived economic, social, demographic and systemic factors. The findings suggest that there is considerably more cross-national variation in levels of adult delayed participation and that prevalent typologies of HE, such as Trow’s, fail to give recognition to the importance of delayed participation. The modelling work finds that social and demographic factors exhibit relatively strong associations with delayed participation in HE. This questions the pre-eminence of economic factors within much of the academic literature, policy discourse and policy activity.     

The possibilities and limitations of applying ‘open data’ principles in schools

Large quantities of data are now being generated, collated and processed within schools through computerised systems and other digital technologies. In response to growing concerns over the efficiency and equity of how these data are used, the concept of ‘open data’ has emerged as a potential means of using digital technology to democratise data access and use within whole school communities. Drawing on participatory design research in two Australian secondary schools, this paper explores the possibilities of making existing school data openly available in digitised form for teachers, administrators and students to access, interpret and use. The results of these interventions – while only partially successful – provide valuable insights into the technical, informatic, organisational and social issues surrounding the use of data in schools. The paper concludes by considering the practical and theoretical limitations of attempting to democratise data engagement within school settings.     

The social construction of time in contemporary education: implications for technology,equality and Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’

Abstract

This article discusses how the introduction of technology has led to a fundamental shift in the relationship between education and time. As a means of analysing the extent of such changes on pupils from different backgrounds, I use Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’ as a framework for evaluating the impact new understandings of time in education are having on disadvantaged social groups in England. I conclude that Bernstein’s framework presents a useful way of illuminating the complex interplay of personal agency and the external environment. Consequently, here we see that new definitions of time in education, specifically with regard to synchronous versus asynchronous learning, have resulted in new inequalities for those in deprived areas.