The regulation of teaching as symbolic politics: rituals of order,blame and redemption

This article explores the school inspection as a political ritual for the management of tensions between competition and equality inherent in neo-liberal educational regulatory regimes. At the centre of the article is a case study of how teachers in an allegedly failing working-class English primary school coped with issues of social class, educational success-and-failure and an Office of Standards in Education (OFSTED) inspection and related accountability measures. National educational policy – relative performance data and inspection – generated a crisis within the school, and intervened in teacher discourse about the role of social class in pupil attainment. Whereas previous scholarship on OFSTED and inspections has emphasised their harmful effects on teachers and teaching practice, the current article broadens the focus from regulatory to political issues, from specific schools to the stability of the educational order more generally. Based on this case study, situated within a broader analysis of shifting discourses about social class and education in English educational policy, I argue that (1) the current regulatory regime makes ‘failure’ inevitable, thereby posing a symbolic problem for policy-makers and politicians; (2) by identifying failure and allocating blame, the inspection ritual fulfils an important symbolic function; which (3) serves to buttress the legitimacy of the neo-liberal educational order.     

Decentralization in educational governance and its challenges in Korea: Focused on policy conflicts between central and local government in education

Decentralization of educational governance is characterized by the recent education reform in Korea. With the election of progressive superintendents and local council members, educational policy conflicts have often occurred and deepened in the process of decision-making and implementation of policies such as School Violence Prevention, National Assessment of Education Achievement, Autonomous Private High School, and Teacher Appraisal for Professional Development. This paper examined what were key issues related to these conflicts, what caused these conflicts, and how they progressed by analyzing recent legal cases during the last 5 years (2010–2014) between central and local governments. Findings showed that three factors might be associated with policy conflicts in educational governance: Ambiguous authority and responsibility of educational administration, tensions of political and educational ideas and ideologies, and inadequacy of conflict prevention and coordination. Final findings of the study will provide valuable information to enhance cooperation between central and local educational governance.     

Reflections of being “A Man of Truancy”: 40 years on

This paper reflects upon a career of 40 years involving teaching and research into the causes and solutions for school absenteeism and truancy. It includes insights into both professional and empirical work and notes how the subject has become increasingly ‘politicised’ over the last 25–30 years by governments of both persuasions: Left and Right. It also reinforces difficulties which educational researchers can face in obtaining funding for their chosen field and notes how stubbornly difficult improving school attendance and reducing truancy and school absenteeism has become, despite innovations and the changing curriculum and educational policy scenes. Moreover, truancy has changed from being a largely male phenomenon to one where girls now play an equal role.     

New languages of possibility: early experiments in education as dissent

This paper reviews the work of four early radical educators: the cultural nationalist Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Asia’s first Nobel Laureate; Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), Cambridge mathematician and philosopher; the Irish educationalist and insurgent Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) and Leonard Elmhirst (1893–1975), co-founder of Dartington Hall school in England. Each represents a type of radicalism that is particular to his own era but resonates in twentieth-century educational provision and policy. Each articulated his political vision through the establishment of a school and all contributed to modern pedagogical practice. The paper argues that ideological and methodological similarities not only compel us to consider them as radical founders, whose ideas are in many ways identical, but to identify them as pivotal theorists in early conceptualisations of education as dissent and disengagement, as a means of decoupling thought and habit from the mainstream of educational practice, colonial imposition or curricular conservatism. In particular, the paper concentrates upon the work of the Irish educationalist and political radical Patrick Pearse and, employing his educational writings and practice as a template for dissension, demonstrates that it was both typical of and reflected the wider tone of early formulations of education as dissent.     

The Decision to Form the Kangan Committee 1 ‐‐ A Case Study in the Educational Policy Process

This paper examines the decision to form the Interim Committee of Inquiry into Technical and Further Education. In doing so it explores the incremental nature of educational policy‐making in Australia, particularly as it has applied at the federal level. The paper illustrates that the policy process, rather than being goal oriented and rational, is rather a series of adjustments to existing policy, dictated by political expediency, often over many years and changes in governments, which in turn leads to decisions which reflect the instability of their origins. In this case the interim committee which emerged was a consequence of many years of adjustment and realignment of post‐secondary education policy emerging from the federal governments, although the Kangan Committee appears to have emerged almost as an afterthought in the policy process. The decision to appoint the committee was a policy adjustment suited to the political and social circumstances of the time rather than a consequence of a process with clear goals and objectives. Indeed, the consequences of this committee have been far‐reaching and the policies generated as a result of its recommendations (and those of future commissions) are further illustrations of the incremental nature of the educational policy processes at the national level in this country.     

Looking for patterns in OfStEd judgements about primary pupil achievement in design and technology

Respective English governments have placed considerable faith, political weight and not inconsiderable sums of money in a system of school inspection organised and led by the Office for Standards in Education (OfStEd). This article considers a so-called foundation subject, design and technology, and the extent to which we might meaningfully use OfStEd school and annual national subject summary reports over time to establish a clear picture about pupil achievement in design and technology. Change over time is almost certainly occurring but because of terminology and variation in information reported no clear picture emerges. If national school inspection is to be a vehicle for improving overall pupil achievement in subjects such as design and technology other approaches may be necessary.     

National Plan for School Improvement and Students First: the predictable nature of school education policy and the problem of student achievement

This paper explores two Australian school education policy documents and the inputs they describe to boost student achievement. The paper suggests that current reform efforts in schooling like others previously configure student achievement in input–output terms confining school education policy to predictable inputs that sideline broader influences on educational output including, for instance, school funding. The national policy documents that are the subject of the case study in this paper are the National Plan for School Improvement and the current Students First. Student achievement is explored as an object of study that can be worked on by policy, including for across-the-board national ‘non-educational’ purposes. The analysis, critical in outlook, suggests that current school education policy trades on a predictable set of evidence-based inputs as correctives to declining levels of student achievement without weaving into the student learning equation the complex mix of relations that frame the educational system.     

Education service contracting in the Philippines: human rights as trumps, goals, or policy talk?

In recent years, the goals and purposes of education within the international development discourse have shifted significantly away from education for productivity or human capital development and towards education for the fulfillment of the individual through human rights. The current global education climate provides governments with an environment to support policies of free basic education, driven by a global diffusion of the central principles of education as a human right. This article considers the function of international human rights law and political movements within educational policymaking and practice, specifically regarding policy efforts to increase school access. Using the Philippines as a case study, this article addresses the guarantees for free secondary education in Philippine legal and policy documents, and assesses the current government policy for secondary education expansion??the Education Service Contracting (ESC) Program??to discuss the impact of the country??s human rights commitments on educational policy. Using Kingdon??s multiple streams model of policy analysis, I account for human rights law within ESC policymaking and determine the drivers that have led the country to take up its current model of private expansion. In conclusion, the human right to a free education should be deliberated, not as a trump card to supersede local educational obligations, but as a guiding principle, placed within problem, solution, and political contexts to assess the current state of education and adequately protect those who need publicly funded schooling the most.     

论政党政治对英国中等教育综合化政策的影响

政党政治制度形成以来,各国的教育改革实践不断受到执政党政治思想的左右.英国相对成熟的两党制政治对教育政策的形成与变迁产生着非常深刻的影响.通过分析工党与保守党在中等教育综合化政策中的政治博弈,可以清晰地揭示出英国政党政治对教育政策制定与实施过程的作用机制.     

The shifting politics of the private in education: debates and developments in researching private school outreach in India

This paper addresses the politics of researching private education with special reference to the Indian context. Due to a recent increase in privatised forms of education globally and recognition of the private sector by governments, international agencies and researchers as a policy and academic interest, this is shifting ground. The evolving nature of the politics of researching the private in the recent past is discussed with reference to research on private school outreach for out-of-school children in India. First the author critically examines the reception of this research when it was conducted in 2000–2003 in relation to the discourse and policy in Indian education at the time. The research is then revisited in the contemporary context in the light of considerable changes in Indian education policy, involving increased public–private partnership. In this new climate private school outreach is reconceptualised – previously considered an educational anomaly, it now has renewed relevance. Finally, findings from the research are drawn on to shed light on emerging concerns about the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act's (2009) requirement for private schools to reserve at least 25% of school places for economically disadvantaged children in their neighbourhoods.     

我国农村中小学撤点并校的政策变迁及其出路探寻简

2001年,国务院发布《关于基础教育改革与发展的决定》,对农村义务教育学校进行了布局调整,被称为“撤点并校”。这一政策在当时的条件下,较好地整合了教育资源,提高了办学资金的利用率,一定程度上满足了农民子女在“有学上”之后“上好学”的愿望。但是一些地方的过度集中办学也带来一定的负面影响。此政策在实施十年之后,被国务院紧急叫停,2012年11月,教育部要求各地暂停撤点并校。文章对撤点并校政策十年的变迁进行整理了分析,找到政策变迁背后的原因,为完善撤点并校政策提供合理的建议。     

In the public eye: Swedish school inspection and local newspapers: exploring the audit–media relationship

This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate’s media strategy, how inspection is represented and conveyed, the messages sent, and who gets to speak. Literature on governance, and the role and function of the media in the wider audit society is applied theoretically. Four municipalities were selected to represent different demographical and economical structures and previous inspection experiences. The empirical material includes interviews with leading inspection officers and newspaper articles. The local newspapers portray the Inspectorate as a legitimate institution acting on behalf of and protecting the public, and even more so, the educational consumer. The current format used by the Inspectorate – a succinct reporting only on deviations – links with a favored format of the media, reinforcing the tight media–inspection relationship and leading to implications for education governance and policy.     

Deconstructing Education for All: discourse,power and the politics of inclusion

The UNESCO World Declaration on Education for All from 1990 sets in motion the new agenda for educational reform that provides basic education for all disadvantaged children and adults in the global context. Since its formulation, a set of consecutive policy texts has been issued by international agencies to monitor, evaluate, and strengthen the capacity of governments to ensure that the goals of Education for All are met by 2015. This paper applies critical theory and discourse theory to provide an in‐depth analysis of the hegemonic ideologies of this global policy framework through the deconstruction of policy texts and discourses. It is argued that Education for All is a modernist project of the new imperialism, structured through the selecting, assembling and underpinning of policy discourses, to expand the ideological project of new capitalism in the global context. Discourse of inclusion is discussed both at the educational and political levels to portray the tensions of the global community in grappling with the issues of justice at the international, national, and local context.     

Government Policy and School Development

The last 10 or 15 years of this century have been a time of great challenge as well as considerable excitement for educational systems around the world. Governments everywhere have been embarking on substantial programmes of reform in an attempt to develop more effective school systems and raise levels of student learning and achievement. We see in these policy initiatives an unfortunate paradox that inhibits them from realising their aspirations. The community of educational change researchers and practitioners has finally begun to learn something about how ongoing improvement can be fostered and sustained in schools. However, government policy on education has not taken adequate account of this knowledge about school development, with the result that an enormous potential source of synergy has been lost and student learning continues to lag behind its potential. Our argument in this article is that as a consequence of this gap government efforts to improve schooling are less effective than they might be and that many school improvement efforts have to swim against the current of government regulation. Following our analysis of this central irony in educational policy, we go on to outline an approach that would be more likely to help governments achieve their educational objectives by building policy initiatives more explicitly on the knowledge base of school development.     

Shared Education in contested spaces: How collaborative networks improve communities and schools

Societies which suffer from ethnic and political divisions are often characterised by patterns of social and institutional separation, and sometimes these divisions remain even after political conflict has ended. This has occurred in Northern Ireland where there is, and remains, a long-standing pattern of parallel institutions and services for the different communities. A socially significant example lies in the education system where a parallel system of Catholic and Protestant schools has been in place since the establishment of a national school system in the 1830s. During the years of political violence in Northern Ireland a variety of educational interventions were implemented to promote reconciliation, but most of them failed to create any systemic change. This paper describes a post-conflict educational initiative known as Shared Education which aims to promote social cohesion and school improvement by encouraging sustained and regular shared learning between students and broader collaboration between teachers and school leaders from different schools. The paper examines the background to work on Shared Education, describes a ‘sharing continuum’ which emerged as an evaluation and policy tool from this work and considers evidence from a case study of a Shared Education school partnership in a divided city in Northern Ireland. The paper will conclude by highlighting some of the significant social and policy impact of the Shared Education work.     

SCHOOL INSPECTION: Thirty‐five years of school inspection: raising educational standards for children with additional needs?

In this invited article, Chris Marshall, teacher, educational psychologist, university lecturer, and a former book reviews editor for BJSE who has been a leading figure in Her Majesty's Inspectorate, examines the inspection of schools over a period reflecting the 35 years during which BJSE has been published. Chris Marshall provides here a history of school inspection as an activity and traces key changes in provision for pupils with special educational needs in England. He examines the purposes of inspection and explores the role that inspectors have played in monitoring the impact of profound changes in legislation and policy upon pupils with special educational needs. He asks searching questions about whether the inspection regime has fulfilled its purposes in respect of these pupils – especially in relation to the vexed question of raising standards. Chris Marshall then provides a critique of inspection methodology – and an overview of the changes that have been introduced in the inspection system as a result. He reviews the contributions that inspection has made to our understanding of how children with special educational needs learn, and looks to the future to consider how inspection could be made to contribute more effectively.     

From Desegregation to Privatization: A Critical Race Policy Analysis of School Choice and Educational Opportunity in North Carolina

ABSTRACT

School choice policies and the movement to privatize education have become the currently preferred school reform methods on both the state and federal levels under the guise they will provide equal educational opportunities and access for all students. The 1954 school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education arguably paved the way for equal educational opportunities, including school choice; however, we contend that the present-day school choice and privatization movements may be a part of a larger social, political, and legal cycle of inequality that has established residence in the American educational system for more than a century. We conduct a critical race theory policy analysis using a framework that has been effective in previous work with examining cyclical inequalities, the convergence-divergence-reclamation cycle (or C-D-R cycle). In this article, we are focusing our analysis on the state of North Carolina due to its complex legal and political history with school desegregation and its recent support for various school choice options and privatizing public education. We assert that the push for school choice and privatizing public education in North Carolina demonstrates a broader, recurring problem in American public schools-–creating progressive education laws and policies appearing to promote educational equity and opportunity and then regressing to policies supporting White privilege while maintaining the status quo of inequitable educational opportunities for historically underserved and minoritized students.     

The politics of gaming in schools: a sociocultural perspective from Western Australia

This paper discusses gaming in a Western Australian school for boys. The overriding ethos of the school is supportive of the potential of ICT to better engage students and deliver enhanced educational outcomes. The school sees game-based design as at the vanguard of innovation, but also accepts its important duty of care responsibilities. Tensions were revealed between the opportunities presented by educational gaming and the perceived problem of managing student distraction, particularly the tendency for students to spend large amounts of time playing games that have little or no educational value. The paper describes the forms of gaming that emerged at the school, considering both their educational impact and propensity to detract from students' opportunities to learn. It is argued that the perceived benefits and risks of gaming are not well understood, and that powerful political forces are at play which shape school policy, teachers' pedagogy, parent perceptions and student actions.     

Sexuality education including lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender (LGBT) issues in schools

Should children and adolescents be educated in school about gender diversity, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues? This is a question many governments and educational policymakers discuss in their process of reforming relationships and sex education. However, these reform plans face resistance from parents, religious groups, and political parties. Specifically, opponents argue that (a) children who learn about LGBT issues in school will engage in same-sex practices or even become homosexual, bisexual, or trans* themselves; (b) schools force a particular view on children that stands in contrast to the heteronormative, religious, and/or political views of parents; and (c) teachers act as role models and change the sexual orientation and gender identity of their students. This systematic literature review aims to offer evidenced-based answers to these arguments on the grounds of biological, sociological, psychological, and educational research. First, twin studies and genome scans in behavioral genetics research unveil strong biological roots of sexual orientation and identity that will not change through inclusive sexuality education. Second, psychological and sociological research signals that heteronormativity, homosexuality non-acceptance, and negative attitudes toward LGBT people in general are associated with lower levels of education and intelligence as well as higher levels of religious belief and political conservatism. For at-risk sexual minority students who show gender nonconforming and gender atypical behavior, schools can create a safe climate and protect adolescent health if they succeed in reducing homophobic and transphobic discrimination, bullying, peer victimization, and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. Third, action research and ethnographic narratives in educational research tend to indicate that queer educators as role models in classrooms do not change the sexual orientation and gender identity of their pupils. In summary, based on this systematic review, governments and policy makers can expect that reforming the teaching of sex education to include LGBT issues in schools will have positive effects for heterosexual students and for students belonging to a sexual minority.     

经合组织国家教育改革中的放权及其启示

20世纪80年代以来,经济合作与发展组织国家对公立学校进行重构与放权的尝试,主要包括:重新定位国家的角色,中央政府权力下放;扩大下级中层机构对学校管理和监督的权力;扩大学校的自主权;扩大社区与家长参与学校事务的权力几方面。改革之后,更多的权力从中央下放到地方和具体的学校,在管理自身事务以及提高教育质量方面,地方与学校发挥着更大的作用,承担着更多的责任。针对当前我国教育管理体制改革的情况,政府应该着重进行四个方面职能的定位:政策的制定应有利于支持权力的下放;关注加强学校能力的建设;严格的督导与评价;鼓励改革与更新。