Academic career: on institutions,social capital and gender

During decades of change in the Western higher education sector, new ways of understanding academic work have reinforced notions of the impact of social capital. The present study investigates researchers’ experiences of their own career making within two areas of Education Sciences in Swedish higher education: Childhood Studies (CS) and Science Education (SE). The structure at the CS departments is collaborative and integrated; teaching and research are seen as an entity. This structure creates a coherent career path where members of the collective group jointly produce and accumulate social capital; it also appears to be related to discourses of femininity. In the SE departments, the career structure is strategic and differentiated; the two career paths work in parallel through a differentiation between teaching and research. This appears to be related to discourses of masculinity. In conclusion, our analysis shows how social capital and gender mutually create different ways of doing an academic career.     

Educational policy in Scotland: inclusion and the control society

This paper sets out to examine educational policy and practice in Scotland, showing how the ‘comprehensive and coherent programme to promote social inclusion’ – inculcating ‘readiness to learn’, ensuring that education equips the young for adult life, creating a demand for lifelong learning, above all through the presumption of mainstreaming – is indicative of and constitutive of a change in the way in which we are subject to governance in Scotland. This shift can be read as consistent with a move from a predominantly ‘disciplinary’ society as set out by Michel Foucault towards the ‘control society’ as elaborated by Gilles Deleuze – a society which does not operate through confinement but continuous control made possible by cybertechnology. Although it specifically draws on Scottish legislation and policy, it should be recognised that this is itself subject to emergent global education policy and so its relevance goes beyond these borders.     

Social capital and the educational achievement of young people in Sweden

Based on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of social capital (the social stratification perspective), this study examines the impact of social capital on the educational outcomes of young people in Sweden, with a focus on the extra-familial aspect of social capital – that is, social capital generated by parental networks and active membership in various social organizations and friendship networks. The results indicate that the class background of respondents is the main predictor of access to all three forms of extra-familial social capital. However, after controlling for class background, the children of racialized immigrant groups are more likely to have access to more types of social capital than others. All three aspects of extra-familial social capital positively influence the educational performance of pupils.     

Problematizing global educational governance of OECD PISA: Student achievement,categorization, and social inclusion and exclusion

Abstract

This study problematizes the global educational governance of OECD PISA and its statistical data as a governing technology in contemporary discourses of education reforms. The study examines principles that order the discourses and practices of the international comparative assessment. The effort of analysing the impact of an education reform regime led by OECD PISA reveals how statistical reasoning defines problems in educational systems and forms social discourse surrounding educational reform to solve such problems. In doing so, this article focuses on standardization, classification, and normalization for measuring and comparing student achievement and national effectiveness. The study also offers an alternative way of considering the politics of inclusion and exclusion embedded in practices of education reforms propelled by the international comparative assessment.     

论教育政策实施中的教育思想异化问题

教育政策中的教育思想主要体现在政策的合理性与价值选择上,但在实践中,教育思想却经常被异化,表现出实用性、迷惑性、无主体性等特征,并带来负面效应:政策失真、教育失本、实践失效.其根源在于政策自身因素,诸如实践性差、低效评价以及固有教育观念的自我保存属性的抵制等.     

从教育服务承诺看高等教育的政策调整

我国加入WTO签定的教育服务承诺具有鲜明的政策性意义。履行这一承诺要求对现行的教育政策尤其是高等教育政策作出一些必要的调整。高等教育政策调整主要包括宏观管理政策、招生政策、财政政策和高校教学政策等方面。调整教育政策又特别需要加强政策研究。     

Policy learning and governance of education policy in the EU

Open methods for coordinating (OMC) education policies in the EU rely on a number of techniques, one of which is policy learning. This article examines how policy learning and governance transform each other. More specifically, policy‐learning in the education OMC becomes differentiated into four distinct learning styles: mutual, competitive, surface and imperialistic learning. While they overlap with some forms of policy learning discussed in the literature, they are also different by focusing upon interactions and political dynamics between the European Commission and the member states. In seeking to understand how governing through learning occurs, we argue that any ‘impact’ of EU‐level policy‐learning is co‐constructed by both the European Commission and the member states. The analysis of this article is grounded in a discourse analytical and institutionalist perspective. It draws on qualitative data derived from semi‐structured interviews with officials from the Directorate General for Education and Culture in the European Commission and on EU documents generated during policy‐learning activities.     

Community identity discourse and the heritage academy: colorblind educational policy and white supremacy

This study focuses on the case of The Heritage Academy (THA), a predominantly white charter school in rural North Carolina. Through a critical race analysis, this article suggests that predominantly white charter schools like THA benefit from colorblind educational policies in a whitestream and white supremacist society. Specifically, this case study focuses on how white community activism around the creation of THA strengthened a community school identity discourse founded on the principles of whiteness as property. Because of the privilege of whiteness, predominantly white and middle‐class charter schools like THA may have greater access to economic and symbolic resources that ensure their success. This article raises questions about the use of school choice rhetoric as a raceless metaphor in the charter school movement that may result in race‐based inequality, separation and segregation.     

Education and nationalism: the discourse of education policy in Scotland

The paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine and discuss some of the key developments in the governing of education in Scotland since the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in May 2007. It analyses these developments, drawing on a study of key policy texts and suggests that discourse analysis has much to contribute to the understanding of the governing strategy of the minority SNP administration as reflected in its education policy. We suggest that there is a self-conscious strategy of ‘crafting the narrative’ of government that seeks to discursively re-position ‘smarter Scotland’ alongside small, social democratic states within the wider context of transnational pressures for conformity with global policy agendas. Thus the paper connects to current debates on the relationship between an emergent global education policy ‘field’ and the capacity of ‘local’ contexts to develop and sustain particular, embedded assumptions and practices.     

School choice: neoliberal education policy and imagined futures

The launch in Australia of a government website that compares all schools on the basis of student performance in standardized tests illustrates the extent to which neoliberal policies have been entrenched. This paper examines the problematic nature of choosing schools within the powerful political context of neoliberalism. It illustrates how key elements of the neoliberal worldview are normalized in the day-to-day practices of schooling and how certain norms and values that characterize neoliberalism are shaped and reinforced in the education system and also in personal, family and social imaginaries. The task for educational sociology, therefore, is to problematize and ‘re-imagine’ the prevailing neoliberal imaginary.     

The new compulsory schooling age policy in NSW,Australia: ethnicity,ability and gender considerations

The new schooling-leaving age policy in New South Wales, a state in Australia, requires all students to stay at school until they are 17?years old. The policy was introduced in January 2010, with little warning and, it appears, little consideration of its impact in complex contexts. In south-western Sydney, the most diverse region in the city, the impact is just being felt. In this paper, we draw on Ball’s approach to policy, maintaining ‘the complexity and scope of policy analysis – from an interest in the workings of the state to a concern with contexts of practice and the distributional outcomes of policy’. The paper explores the impact of the increase in school-leaving age on the curriculum, and the implications for ethnically diverse schools, and for students with learning and behavioural issues. Interviews with principals, teachers, parents and students suggest that there are dimensions of gender, ethnicity and ability to consider when responding to the new policy. Many schools find a lack of opportunity or too much competition for opportunities, and limited pathways. Whole school change is restricted by inadequate resourcing in some schools and by insufficient social networks in their communities.     

试论WTO规则与我国教育立法政策的完善

WTO教育规则对各成员国的教育立法与政策产生了重要的影响。我国加入WTO以后,面临着怎样为适应WTO的教育规则而完善教育立法与政策的问题。为解决这个问题,必须对WTO的教育规则有较为全面、深入的了解,对照我国现行教育立法与政策情况,要采取有力措施废止、修改与WTO规则不相适应的教育立法,以完善我国教育立法政策。     

Bringing democratic governance into practice: policy enactments responding to neoliberal governance in Spanish public schools*

This article explores different ways in which public primary schools sustain democratic governance structures created beyond those mandated by law in Spain. These new institutional designs, while not opposed to policy text requirements of having a governing body with representatives of parents, teachers and public administration, are being carried out against the grain of the hegemonic neoliberal managerial approach. The objective was to observe the different ways that some schools apply other institutional paths to the current governing bodies by aiming at widening decision-making not only to legal representatives but to all agents. Data come from focus groups, in-depth interviews and observations carried out in four public schools during fieldwork lasting two academic years. The findings show that while some schools are broadening current legal governing bodies, others generate ad hoc bodies transforming legal ones into new institutional arrangements.     

Industry school partnerships: reconstituting spaces of educational governance

Industry school partnerships have emerged recently in Australia as a policy solution for the management of problems associated with integration into the global economy. This paper draws on governmentality theory to examine a transnational partnership, the Gateways to the Aerospace Industry Project, which has been mobilised to manage transition risk for young people in the state education system of Queensland, Australia. It argues that globalisation emerges as an effect of knowledge producing practices and programmes that seek to reconfigure the governmental spaces and subjectivities in and around schools and communities.     

义务教育均衡发展的社会资本障碍及其政府治理

The balanced development of compulsory education, with a focus on the goal of educational equality, is both a matter of policy orientation and a practical educational issue. At present, people are mostly concerned with the unbalanced state of development of compulsory education, its causes, and issues regarding its administration. Various modes of production, policy choices, and institutional arrangements during different periods have been the practical, historical causes of differences in regional compulsory education, differences between urban and rural areas, and differences between schools. A direct consequence of the unbalanced development of compulsory education has been the emergence of irregularities in school selection. During the process of school selection, the strength of family and school social capital is increasingly influential, and it has increasingly negative effects: circumventing the policy of going to school near home, aggravating differences between families because of family and school social capital, and therefore damaging the prospect of educational equality. On this account, we present a constructive proposal for government policy to reduce the detrimental effects of social capital by means of reasonable policy choices and institutional arrangements. With prerequisite balanced allocation of school resources for compulsory education, the government reduces the role that family and social capital play in school selection and constructs a benignly competitive environment wherein school social capital works to placate social issues aroused by the intervention of the social capital of families and schools in school selection. __________ Translated by Zhang Lin from Beijing Shifan Daxue Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) 北京师范大学学报 (社会科学版) (Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Sciences)), 2008, (2): 24–32     

The politics of educational policy studies: a preliminary analysis of leading educational policy journal publications

This paper argues that the content, analytical approaches and institutional affiliations of authors of articles published in the latest issues of two leading educational policy studies journals provide useful insights into the contested nature of educational policy studies. The paper draws upon a selection of articles published in 2007/08 issues of two flag-ship policy journals, the UK-based Journal of Education Policy, and the US-based Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. At the same time, the article is also suggestive of how Pierre Bourdieu's analytical resources of field, habitus and capital might be used to understand the academic journal publication practices which contribute to this contestation. The paper suggests that these journals and the articles within them may be construed as valued capitals and ‘traces’ of a broader conflict over what is considered valid research within the field of educational policy studies.     

Sustainability policy and sustainability in higher education curricula: the educational developer perspective

Various studies have investigated the views of higher education staff and students about sustainability, yet educational developer perspectives are under-represented in the research. This project gathered educational developer perspectives about sustainability in the curriculum. It sought to capture their views about a national sustainability policy; about the relationship between educational development and sustainability curriculum change; and whether sustainability should form part of their own roles. It was informed by the ‘theory of the second-best’ and involved nine interviews. Educational developers raised concerns about the policy, whilst opinions about their own involvement varied. It is argued that policy should provide clearer statements about curriculum, and educational developers should be involved in its development.     

The critical policy discourse analysis frame: helping doctoral students engage with the educational policy analysis

This paper addresses an issue of increasing significance in the context of taught educational doctorates and argues that this may have wider applicability for doctoral students across a range of social science disciplines. It identifies the need to engage with policy analysis as a key element of such programmes and attempts to address students' concerns over a lack of practical approaches to do so by offering an analytical framework drawing on critical discourse analysis. This paper highlights the affordances of a taught doctorate context to consider the potential for more collaborative community approaches to doctoral pedagogies through reflecting upon the way the frame was introduced and used by one group of EdD students. In doing so, this paper offers both a practical analytical tool for doctoral students but also a pedagogical approach grounded in an invitation to dialogue and induction into the academic discourse community, through a notion of critical inclusion.     

Reading as Gender Inquiry in English Language Learning

Using Bourdieu’s forms of symbolic capital as the analytical framework, this article reports how a Taiwanese female university student, Huei, played out her linguistic, social and cultural capital in reading and responding to female-centred texts in a course entitled ‘Gender and Reading’. Journal entries were used as key sources for data analysis, while oral interviews and classroom observations were applied to verify the data analysis and interpretations. The results indicate that Huei exercised different forms of symbolic capital to revalue herself, leading her to changed perspectives and new understandings about her implicit beliefs as an English learner, as well as a female reader. Some pedagogical implications for classroom practices are also addressed.     

The role of social capital in the explanation of educational success and educational inequalities

This article examines the role that social capital plays in school success and in the explanation of social and ethnic inequalities in the German educational system. Based on Coleman's well-known concept of social capital, different aspects of social capital are distinguished, including social network composition, parent–school interaction and intrafamilial social capital. In sum, the overall results indicate that the different aspects of social capital influence the school performance of pupils. In addition, social capital endowment is found to be of relevance for the explanation of inequalities in school grades between social classes and ethnic groups. In this respect, the analyses indicate that social capital endowment is part of the underlying mechanism responsible for educational inequalities.