Education policy and the ‘inter’‐regnum

In the UK, the vocabulary of public services is becoming infused with the prefixes ‘inter’‐, ‘multi‐’ and ‘co‐’. Public‐sector agencies are being encouraged to adopt ‘multi’‐ or ‘inter‐agency’ configurations; ‘workforce reform’ seeks to dissolve once‐impermeable professional boundaries; leadership is to be ‘distributed’. This tendency is referred to as the ‘inter’‐regnum in education policy. (This does not mean that we are dealing with an ‘interregnum’ in the sense that we are somehow between modes of governance.) The term ‘regnum’ is used to emphasise that this propensity for the ‘inter’ is asserting itself as a new ‘reigning philosophy’. Examples of the ‘inter’‐regnum are presented from the UK (mainly England), and these are located conceptually within an analysis of hierarchies, markets and networks. Thereafter the cultural, intellectual and economic contexts which allow for the ‘inter’‐regnum to emerge as policy are explored. The ‘inter’‐regnum draws its legitimacy from a number of sources. First, it resonates with the culture of consumerism, and it takes further that earlier market‐based regime of governance which was associated with the new public management. Second, it is functional for the ‘new capitalism’ as a new work order of affinity‐ and solution‐spaces. Third, it has important intellectual supports: that is, in addition to its association with recent marketing theory, it can appeal to emerging theory and research in organisational learning.     

Are the needs of children and young people with social,emotional and behavioural needs being served within a multi‐agency framework?

This article discusses the effect that recent policy and legislation has had on services for children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural needs (SEBN), particularly ‘Looked After Children.’ The article highlights the Government's overarching plan to promote social inclusion and effective multi‐agency collaboration and discusses the confusions arising from the use of ‘multi‐agency’ terminology. Two case studies of individual children then illustrate the manner in which collaborative working is either supportive of, or hinders, positive intervention. Finally the article discusses how general policy issues impact on practice with children with SEBN.     

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.     

Organizational epistemology,education and social theory

Organizational learning or epistemology has emerged in order to manage the creation of knowledge and innovation within contemporary capitalism. Its insights are being applied also to the public sector. Much of the research in organizational learning has drawn upon the discipline of psychology, particularly constructivist theory. Two approaches in organizational epistemology are considered here: Nonaka’s theory of knowledge creation, and Engeström’s expansive learning theory. Notwithstanding the reference to ‘learning’, these approaches have so far had little application to schools, especially at the level of pedagogy. But there are indications that re‐culturing, ‘workforce re‐modelling’ and inter‐agency working are becoming more prominent within the public services in England. In these endeavours, government may come to regard organizational epistemology as an important new procedure in the management of change. Thus far, sociology has had two kinds of ‘relationship’ with organizational epistemology: first, social phenomenology and ethnomethodology have been of practical use; and, second, critical theory objects to the near‐absence of a consideration of power and ideology within the discourse of organizational epistemology.     

Voluntary organizations and the contribution to social justice in schools: learning from a case study

Partnerships are seen as vital to the functioning of many social institutions and the contribution that the private and voluntary not‐for‐profit sector organizations can make to the provision of statutory services is particularly valued. The Church of England Children’s Society Genesis project worked for nearly 5 years in one urban, secondary school with a remit to promote inclusion. Despite much recorded good work, Genesis was not continued after its contract ended. The school had a series of head teachers and was in special measures for part of the period, but key problems centred around the extent of the project’s contribution to the school’s core business and the absence of a positive management of the multi‐professional project by the school. The evaluation examines ways of proceeding which are of relevance to more complex projects. The paper also reviews the place of voluntary and non‐profit making organizations in meeting current challenges to collaborative, multi‐agency working and proposes a more robust, directive, and managerialist approach to make the most efficient and effective use of the resources and expertise of voluntary and statutory agencies (Inter‐agency Czar and Stalinist environment!). Genesis has gone on to work more successfully in six further schools having absorbed the messages of the evaluation of this first enterprise.     

Foreign languages and the modern engineer

Engineers, in the modern world, concern themselves in several ways with ‘communication’. They are aware of the importance of satisfactory communication within a team engaged on a project; they understand the need to maintain communication between themselves as a task-oriented group and the local town or community in which they are working; they deal in a sophisticated manner with communication in the sense of the efficient transfer of information throughout complex systems; some of them work in communications engineering, a special and reflexive case of concern for communication. Yet engineers of all kinds as individuals are surprised and frustrated when they discover that practical communication on the job is prevented by a language barrier: inability to handle a foreign language. The purpose of this article is to assure all engineers that, in the present age, this barrier can be overcome. Any engineer can learn any language.     

Evaluating a method for eliciting children's voice about educational support with children with speech,language and communication needs

This article reports the development and evaluation of a toolkit‐based approach to eliciting children's experiences of educational support, where the children in question experience speech and communication needs. The ‘Your Voice Your Choice’ approach was evaluated using a cross‐case analysis methodology, which represents a novel approach to critical examination of the effectiveness of such resources. We explored seven case studies within a critical realist framework. We found that the toolkit was effective at supporting most (although not all) of the children with speech and communication needs to explore their school learning and support experiences through a scaffolded emotion‐based ‘dialogue’, which was corroborated by observations and other data sources. The toolkit facilitated access to children's voice as they revealed how they felt across a number of relational, learning and support areas, which could be used by services to focus provision and consider how to better support children's social and emotional needs.     

School leavers with learning disabilities moving from child to adult Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) teams: SLTs’ views of successful and less successful transition co‐working practices

School‐leaving for pupils with long‐term speech, language, swallowing or communication difficulties requires careful management. Speech and language therapists (SLTs) support communication, secure assistive technology and manage swallowing difficulties post‐school. UK SLTs are employed by health services, with child SLT teams based in schools. School‐leaving entails transition from child‐ to adult‐services. Little is known about the process, or how SLTs develop co‐working across managerial boundaries. A qualitative study within one health board employing separately managed child and adult SLT teams interviewed SLTs and analysed their views on successful and less successful school‐leaver transitions. A critical incident approach elicited views on transitions that ‘stuck in the mind’, rather than typical instances, identifying supportive and risky co‐working factors. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, checked and thematically analysed. Three linked overarching themes emerged: SLT team remits and properties; communication and information exchange across SLT teams, and outside influences on teams. These applied to successful and less successful transitions, suggesting robust constructs along which SLTs evaluated transitions. Risk factors included unclear provision, pupils’ earlier discharge by child SLTs affecting referral at school‐leaving, and practical issues in accessing notes. SLTs used existing social‐capital relationships to facilitate transitions. Implications for practice and ways of improving transitions are discussed.     

Tightrope walkers and solidarity sisters: critical workplace educators in the garment industry

This article focuses on the complex negotiations of critical workplace educators positioned amongst contradictory agendas and discourses in the workplace. While philosophically aligned with critical pedagogical agendas of transformation and collective action for workplace change, these educators perform an array of pedagogic articulations in everyday practice to secure their continued presence in the workplace. What becomes evident in these seemingly opposing articulations are various strategic political positionings of educators alongside their juggling of demands, attachments and inter‐identifications with both learners and managers. The pedagogy that emerges challenges conventional binaries of ‘transformative’ and ‘reproductive’ learning. Dynamics of transformation and liberation as well as reproduction and subjugation appear to be interlinked, along with expanding nets of social relations that blur power hierarchies and spatial boundaries, in a pedagogy that ultimately appears to mobilise hope and agency among workers. The workplace educator works a delicate balance of these dynamics to survive. The argument is based on a case study of a garment factory in Canada in which an adult education programme managed to thrive for 17 years: both workers and educators were interviewed in depth.     

An examination of the role of values in working‐class students' career decision‐making

The literature suggests that members of the working class value informal (‘hot’) information rather than formal (‘cold’) information. They are also said to lack a future orientation; have a fatalistic (and pessimistic) attitude to life; and have low aspirations. These values should influence the way students from working‐class backgrounds approach career decision‐making. Thirty in‐depth interviews with full‐time undergraduates in their final year of study were carried out to find out if this was the case. The research found that students from working‐class backgrounds did not possess many of the values indicated in the literature. They did, however, show a reluctance to make use of formal sources of information from places like the university careers service. Their failure to utilise such sources appears to be a key factor contributing to significant gaps in the students' knowledge and understanding of the graduate labour market. It also means they are inadequately prepared for making the transition into graduate employment. The article concludes by suggesting that the provision of better careers information is not enough. There is a need to make university careers services more welcoming so that they become a source of ‘hot’ information. The article also suggests that students should be encouraged to reflect critically on how they undertake career decision‐making and planning. By getting students to engage in activities that challenge their taken‐for‐granted assumptions and biases, they are more likely to develop alternative approaches to career decision‐making.     

RESEARCH SECTION: Multi‐agency working: what are the perspectives of SENCos and parents regarding its development and implementation?

With a national drive in England for the development and restructuring of services encouraging interdisciplinary approaches and multi‐agency working, the question remains as to how services should be developed and why it is perceived as so important. This study by Pearl Barnes, who is an Every Child Counts Teacher Leader and a member of the Specialist Advisory Board for nasen and the Child and Family Public Education Board at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, explores the perspectives of special educational needs co‐ordinators (SENCos) and parents regarding the rationale for multi‐agency working and explores what an effective service might look like. The interviews revealed overwhelming support for multi‐agency activity. Although no single rationale was identified, the general consensus was that a multi‐agency approach can provide a child‐centred pedagogical response, tailored to the individual needs of the child. Multi‐agency working was perceived as enabling and enhancing inclusive education by providing an early and holistic assessment of individual needs through identification of all individual barriers to achievement. No specific set of protocols was identified as offering the most suitable way forward within the project region. However, there was general agreement that a multi‐agency teamwork approach, accessed directly by schools and intervening proactively within the community, was an effective way forward.     

Measuring students’ transition into university and its association with learning outcomes

Previously we showed how we measured pedagogy and revealed its association with learning outcomes of sixth‐form college mathematics students. In this project we followed a similar approach to the study of university transition. We particularly sought to identify the students’ perceptions of the transitional experience, and measure the association with learning outcomes. We drew on longitudinal surveys of students entering different programmes in five universities. Following them into their first year or so, allowed us to track their ‘disposition to complete the course’ and their ‘disposition to study more mathematics’, inter alia. We developed and validated two ‘fit‐for‐purpose’ measures of students’ perception of their transition, one we call ‘perception of the transitional gap/jump’ and one we call ‘degree of positive feeling about the transition’. We report some statistically and educationally significant associations between these and the students’ developing dispositions, and discuss the prospects for this approach to studying transition.     

Fugitive and codified knowledge: implications for communities struggling to control the meaning of local environmental hazards

The purpose of this qualitative research was to determine the ways that knowledge is constructed and used by emergent citizen's groups (ECGs are grassroots, action‐oriented, problem‐solving groups) engaged in environmental conflicts, and by a state government environmental regulatory agency that interfaced with them. Four historical‐organizational/observational case studies of conflict dynamics involving ECGs and the government were undertaken. Case studies in a qualitative research paradigm were used since they particularize information in a complex, process oriented manner that reports life experiences. All of the grassroots groups in the study cited ‘education’ as a goal of their organizations. The research documented the struggle for who controls the meaning of hazardous scenarios. ECGs were cultural producers at the local level, developing the intellectual and moral faculties of the community, especially through collective education and collaborative and social learning. The state agency, on the other hand, constructed intellectual and moral capacity from a bureaucratic locus. As such, both were instrumental in community learning, as well as sites of contest. The results show that regulators most frequently relied on ‘codified’ or ‘official’ knowledge that reproduced the status quo. ECGs constructed ‘fugitive’ knowledge that escaped the control of institutional specialists, and that reinforced their local (and at times global) interests. Bureaucrats seldom used local knowledge to make environmental decisions. Citizens responded with rebellious collective action, quiescence and at times despair.     

Pre‐school Home Visiting Projects: a case study of mothers’ expectations and experiences

Since the 1970s there has been a steady growth in the use of preschool home visiting schemes by a diversity of statutory and voluntary agencies, working with families (commonly mothers and their children) who are either themselves labelled disadvantaged or live in areas which have been termed ones of multiple disadvantage. The schemes appear to have followed individual patterns. However, it will be argued that there are two themes common to them all: ‘education for prevention’ and ‘participation’. This paper seeks to critically examine these themes in the light of their concentration upon working‐class mothers, and to consider, through a case study of one such scheme, the perspectives of the mothers receiving the services.     

Learning in third spaces: developing trans‐professional understanding through practitioner enquiry

The paper explores the value of practitioner enquiry in the development of common language and shared understandings for a group of mid‐career professionals from a variety of public service backgrounds, brought together to formulate responses to the English agenda for integrating services. It draws upon data gathered from multi‐professional action learning and focus groups via a collaboration between an English University and six regional authorities. Theories of ‘third space’ and ‘hybridity’ are engaged in arguing that the achievement of ‘integrated’ or ‘trans‐professional’ knowledge can develop within ‘undecided’ reflective spaces through which new ways of working are discovered. It concludes that collaborative multi‐professional practitioner enquiry offers a realistic means of embedding this challenging aspect of policy.     

Young people's views of multi‐agency working

This article outlines the findings from an Economic and Social Research Council funded research project that investigated the impact of multi‐agency working on children and their families. It explored the ways in which young people experience multi‐agency working and it investigated whether young people perceive any benefits from a coordinated approach to frontline service delivery. The in‐depth, qualitative study focused on a cross‐section of five local authorities and collected data through semi‐structured interviews with young people and their parents. The study found that where multi‐agency working is effectively integrated and where different professional services are streamlined, there is evidence of a positive impact on young people and their families.     

Postmodern Challenges and Modern Horizons: education ‘for being for the environment‘

This article argues that a ‘humanly‐constructive’ critical theory of environmental education called ‘a critical ecological ontology for educational inquiry’ provides a necessary complement to the ‘socially‐critical’ perspective. This humanly‐constructive curriculum theory focuses on our individual and collective ‘being‐in‐the‐world’. It invites learners, teachers and researchers to study how their ‘lived experience’ of socio‐environmentally problematic circumstances is shaped and stretched globally by various economic and technological imperatives. In so doing, ‘a critical ecological ontology’ highlights the personal politic required for a socio‐ecological praxis. Of particular relevance to the socio‐ecological politic ‘for being’ are interpretations of postmodern agency that emerge from three practical applications of ‘a critical ecological ontology’. This dialogue of theory and practice is necessary in the critical curriculum project of environmental education     

Inner‐city femininities and education: ‘race’, class,gender and schooling in young women’s lives

This paper considers how urban, ethnically diverse working class girls’ constructions of femininities mediate and shape their dis/engagement with education and schooling. We discuss how girls generated a sense of identity value/worth through practices such as ‘speaking my mind’—which prioritized notions of agency and visibility and resisted the symbolic violences associated with living social inequality. However, we argue that this strategy was inherently paradoxical because it countered dominant discourses of the normative (middle class) female pupil and hence resulted in drawing girls into conflict with schools—a position that many girls came to ‘regret’. We illustrate how the girls’ attempts at resistance and transgression were constrained by gender‐ and class‐based discourses around moral worth, as girls struggled to be recognized as ‘good underneath’ and attempted to ‘change’ over the course of the project and their final year/s of schooling (to ‘become good’). This process, we suggest, illustrates the implication of reflexivity in the production of gendered and classed identities and inequalities, and illuminates how an internalization of multiple discourses of authority and surveillance of the self is integral to the production of the working class female educational subject.     

Audio‐visual Education in Primary Schools: a curriculum project in the Netherlands

Since 1978 the National Institute for Curriculum Development (SLO) and the National Institute for Support of Arts Education (LOKV) have been working together with two schools in Zaandam on audio‐visual education in primary schools. The project made its object to work out of the aims of audio‐visual education (or ‘media education') in the primary school (children aged 4‐12 years), to explore the nature of audio‐visual education, and to establish a curriculum. ‘Audio‐visual education’ aims to increase audio‐visual literacy, helping pupils acquire information and an insight into the meaning of mass media in order to learn how they are used for communication. It also entails using audio‐visual means as a method of expression and using audio‐visual equipment in education. The teachers in the project schools have designed and implemented lessons in audio‐visual education. After these lessons were given they were discussed and analysed by the advisors, project leaders and colleagues. This developmental approach led to a total curriculum, which is described     

‘Drop in for Coffee’: working with parents in North Perth New Community Schools

In this article, Patricia Illsley and Morag Redford explore the role of one New Community School project in Scotland in its engagement with families and the wider community. They describe the use of a community learning and development approach to inter‐agency working, which has enabled parents to take an active role in the project. The authors consider the importance of initial contact, the informality of provision and the benefits for both parents and staff in working together to build an inclusive school community.