New Labour's education policy: first,second or third way?

The education policies of governments have become increasingly directed towards economic ends, including the development of workforce skills. UK governments have been particularly committed to such policies and have adopted some quite distinctive tools, relying heavily on targets and emphasizing certificated rather than uncertificated learning. The underlying assumptions of such policies have been subject to sustained critique, but there has been relatively little empirical evidence available regarding their impact on individual adult learners. This paper uses a large national longitudinal data set to examine whether governments in the UK have met their objectives and how far these are consistent with the learners’ own. It provides, in particular, detailed information on the factors affecting acquisition of additional formal qualifications in adult life and whether there has been any shift in favour of the less skilled in recent years. It also examines the extent to which qualifications, and especially those prioritized by government, lead to increased earnings for their holders. The results strongly suggest that current policies are failing even on their own terms. In conclusion the paper provides some possible explanations for the findings and sets them in an international context.     

Imagined Communities,School Visions,and the Education of Bilingual Students in Japan

The purpose of this study is to analyze the policies and practices of schools in Japan that serve large numbers of bilingual students. Using the notion of imagined communities (Anderson, 1991; Norton, 2001), I examine the relationship between the schools' visions for their students, their current policies and practices, and the students' identities. Based on the ethnographic data collected at four schools in Japan that cater to very different groups of bilingual children, I argue that schools have visions of the communities and societies in which their students will grow up to participate. Moreover, these visions condition the schools' current policies and practices and ultimately affect the identities of the students. Because the students at the four schools are expected to lead different futures, they are being prepared for different kinds of bilingualism. In this stratification process, it is the least privileged bilingual children who are socialized into the most impoverished imagined communities.     

New public management as a global education policy: its adoption and re-contextualization in a Southern European setting

In the education sector, new public management (NPM) has crystallized in policies such as school autonomy, professionalization of school principals, standardized evaluation and teachers’ accountability, and it has been widely disseminated by international organizations, such as the OECD, which enjoy a great prestige when it comes to frame education reforms in European countries.

This article analyses the way NPM has been constructed as a global education policy, and its adoption and re-contextualization into the Spanish education context. This article shows that the reasons for adopting NPM are not so different from those prevailing in other countries where these policies have been implemented before. Counter-intuitively, although NPM is a reform programme traditionally initiated by conservative governments, in the Spanish education field, as also happened in other Central and Northern European countries, it has been adopted and regulated with social democratic governments. In all these countries, social democrats have tended to embrace NPM as an attempt to address the legitimacy crisis of the welfare state and of public services in particular.

Nonetheless, in Spain, the NPM reforms have been re-contextualized and regulated in very uneven and paradoxical ways. For a combination of political, institutional and economic reasons, the final form adopted by the NPM approach is far from the model advocated by the international community and is deeply contradictory.

Our arguments are based on intensive fieldwork that include, on the one hand, interviews with key education policy-makers and stakeholders and, on the other, document analysis of policy briefings, press releases and legal documents.     

Giving the 'Hidden Hand' a Helping Hand? The rhetoric and reality of neoliberal education reform in England and New Zealand

Recent moves in many parts of the world to restructure and deregulate state education have sought to link significant degrees of institutional autonomy with an emphasis on parental choice and competition, thereby creating 'quasi-markets' in education. This paper discusses such developments as part of a neoliberal project for education in two of the contexts in which these policies have so far been taken furthest-England/Wales and New Zealand. It compares five aspects of policy in these countries, namely school autonomy, diversity and choice, private sector involvement, privatised provision and accountability mechanisms. It argues that the rhetoric of neoliberal schooling policies is far removed from their reality, as governments confront the classic tension between fiscal imperatives and the need for legitimation. It points to the need for new political ways forward in a situation where there appears to be little creative thinking about alternatives to the policies of the New Right.     

Thin versus thick democracy in education: Porto alegre and the creation of alternatives to neo-liberalism

In this article, the authors describe the ways in which a set of policies has had what seem to be extensive and long lasting effects precisely because these policies are coherently linked to larger dynamics of social transformation and to a coherent strategy that aims to change the mechanisms of the state and the rules of participation in the formation of state policies. They describe and analyze the policies of the 'Popular Administration' in Porto Alegre, Brasil but, more specifically, they focus on the 'Citizen School' and on proposals that are explicitly designed to radically change both the municipal schools and the relationship between communities, the state, and education. This set of polices and the accompanying processes of implementation are constitutive parts of a clear and explicit project aimed at constructing not only a better school for the excluded, but also a larger project of radical and thick democracy. The reforms being built in Porto Alegre are still in formation, but the authors argue that they have crucial implications for how we might think about the politics of education policy and its role in social transformation.     

Every Child Matters: the perceptions of a sample of initial teacher education trainees in England

We discuss an investigation into the understandings of trainee teachers about government policy, using, as an example, the UK government's ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM). We discuss the research methods used to gather and analyse data from 197 initial teacher education trainees in three institutions in England drawn from six subject areas. The project focussed on trainees' reactions to the anticipated outcomes of ECM and their confidence to help implement the initiative in their roles as form tutors (home room teachers) and subject teachers. Trainees react positively to ECM but reveal uncertainty about its precise meaning and about the roles they would need to adopt as teachers. We suggest that it is problematic for governments to expect teacher education communities to assist with the implementation of policies that have been inadequately characterised. We make recommendations about the role of initial teacher education in the further development of ECM.     

异地高考政策对随迁子女高等教育机会的影响——比较乡-城、城-城两类流动人口的差异

大多数学者认为异地高考政策更加有利于家庭条件较好的随迁子女,少数学者则认为该政策能有效保障农村随迁子女的教育权益,但已有文献仍缺乏关于异地高考政策对两类流动人口高等教育机会影响差异的比较研究。基于2017年中国流动人口动态监测调查数据,本文探讨了异地高考政策对城乡随迁子女高等教育机会的影响,并探究了该政策的调节作用。研究发现,异地高考政策对农村随迁子女高等教育机会的促进作用显著高于城镇随迁子女,且这种效应仅在高政策门槛地区存在,低门槛地区不存在。从政策的调节作用来看,异地高考政策有助于提高农村流动人口子女随迁的意愿,且对农村随迁子女高等教育机会的促进作用要显著高于农村留守子女。同时,异地高考政策可显著降低农村随迁子女家庭社会经济地位对其子女高等教育机会的影响。为此,各地方政府应坚持并完善异地高考政策,充分发挥该政策促进高等教育公平的杠杆作用;流入地政府要进一步提高本地高中教育服务能力;中央政府要进一步推进、完善高考录取制度改革。     

The Labour Party and Higher Education: 1945–51

Assessments of Labour's achievements in education in the immediate post‐war period have been largely critical, but almost exclusively focused on schools’ reform. This article in contrast considers Labour's policies for higher education, particularly universities. Three themes dominated the post‐war agenda: science and technology, expansion (and access), and appropriate models of higher education. The demands of science and technology and the conse‐quent need for expansion were the main drivers in Labour's programme. But the failure to offer a clear view of post‐war development in higher education, together with a deep‐seated ambivalence as to the role of technology and vocational education in universities, meant that plans for science, technology and expansion were only partially realised. The issue of appropriate models of higher education has bedevilled subsequent Labour governments, including the present administration, in their search for a policy for higher education.     

美国英才教育中的选拔机制:能力要求与方法选择

英才的选拔是英才教育的起点和重点,美国在英才教育选拔方面积累了宝贵的经验。在能力要求上,联邦政策聚焦于智力水平、创新能力、艺术领域、领导能力以及特定学科领域。在此基础上,州政府对英才的能力要求已形成较大共识,但具体关注仍存在差异;在方法选择上,州政府开发并综合运用推选、标准化测验和其他非正式方法。美国的经验对我国英才教育选拔机制的形成与完善具有很强的借鉴意义。     

The limits of school choice: some implications for accountability of selective practices and positional competition in Australian education

The application of market principles to educational provision continues to attract governments across the globe, despite an international body of literature suggesting that marketisation can exacerbate inequalities. In light of a renewed policy push in Australia towards accountability via a market model, this paper analyses the impact of existing school choice policies in the state of Victoria, with particular reference to educational provision in an area of social disadvantage in Melbourne's north. This analysis challenges the claims of the now normalised market model, but also points to the need to expand research into this theme, which has attracted relatively little critical attention in Australia. I argue that both the operation of existing policies and the direction of new proposals imply an uneven system of accountability which applies different standards to increasingly polarised ‘closed’ and ‘open’ schooling sectors.     

Community financing of education: issues from Kenya

Given the squeeze on national budgets and the need for priorities over investment choices in education, many governments have turned to communities in the search for alternative sources of revenue. In Kenya, there is a long and rich history of community involvement in the financing of education at all levels, rooted within the phenomenon of the dynamic self‐help movement harambee, which underpins much of Kenya's grass roots development activity. Within education, the conscious partnership between communities and government has been most manifest within the unaided harambee secondary school sector, although a more recent policy shift has witnessed the transfer to communities of all capital expenditures associated with a structural and curriculum reform, particularly at primary level. Despite opening up access to education to a high percentage of the school age population, there remain, however, fundamental questions associated both with the quality and equity of systems dependent upon community financing.     

Educational Pluralism - a historical study of so-called 'pillarization' in the Netherlands,including a comparison with some developments in South African education

Recently, modern democratic governments have been facing religious and other minorities demanding state funding of separate schools. A system of completely equal treatment of both state and denominational schools has existed in the Netherlands since 1920 and is firmly rooted in the Dutch history of the previous centuries. It may be of interest to know how this pluralistic system of 'pillars'-as it has been called in Dutch historiography-came into being and how it has functioned ever since, even until the present day, when 'pillarization' is still a prominent feature of the Dutch educational domain, despite strong secularising and post-modern tendencies. This paper describes the historical roots of the Dutch pillarized educational system, i.e. of this remarkable subcultural segmentation of education-and of society in general-on the basis of different religious or philosophical views. In the process of pillarization a crucial part was played by Dutch Protestants. With South Africa being heavily influenced by these Protestants and South African educational history running partly parallel to Dutch educational history during the 19th century, it seems worthwhile to examine why pillarisation did not occur in the southern hemisphere. In order to understand the process of pillarization it is necessary to look well into the history of the Netherlands since the 17th century. Relevant similarities between the South African and the Dutch developments up to 1900 are presented as well. At the time when the Dutch system of educational 'pillars'-or 'voluntary apartheid' as it has recently been called-fully developed towards the end of the 19th century, South African educational history, however, took a completely different course towards compulsory racial apartheid. The present revolutionary changes in South Africa, however, seem to entail some new interesting parallels between the educational situations in both countries. To substantiate this, the paper highlights some relevant features of 20th century South African educational developments, before analysing the present Dutch situation and giving the reasons for the permanent strength of the pillars. Not only are the old pillars still standing firmly, but new minorities of immigrants have also discovered the uses of the system of pillarization for identity-building and cultural emancipation. To conclude, the paper addresses the question of whether pillarization in education can and should be adopted outside the Netherlands.     

Steering Dynamics in Complex Education Systems. An Agenda for Empirical Research

Many policy systems and education systems have grown more complex in the last three decades. Power has moved away from central governments in different directions: upwards towards international organisations, sideways towards private institutions and non‐governmental organisations and downwards towards local governments and public enterprises such as schools. Where once we had central government, we now have governance, which can be defined as the processes of establishing priorities, formulating and implementing policies, and being accountable in complex networks with many different actors. Steering in such complex education systems emerges from the activities, tasks and responsibilities of state and non‐state actors, operating at different levels and from different positions and often has un‐deliberate, un‐intentional and un‐foreseen consequences. There are many conceptual models that encapsulate this complexity, but this article suggests that there is a real need for empirical research. Without empirical research it remains unknown whether and how steering in complex networks works out in practice, what are its effects and for whom. Moreover, it is only through empirical research that we can find out whether central government has become less dominant, or rather whether its appearance has changed and it has become less visible, but not necessarily less influential. Foucault's governmentality perspective is a useful notion on which to build such a framework for empirical research which allows for a careful study of the interactions that signify steering. Inspired by Foucault, this article develops a trilogy of assumed conditions for steering to take effect in modern societies. Following this reasoning, ‘something' first needs to be made thinkable, calculable and practicable by different actors for steering to occur. This trilogy is a promising starting point for empirical research into very specific phenomena which can help us to understand how steering in complex education systems works.     

Bilingual education policy and social justice

This paper examines the Australian government’s Indigenous policy by interrogating the concept of partnership between governments and Indigenous communities through three examples. Increasingly, the Australian federal government is focusing attention on the poor literacy and numeracy outcomes for Indigenous children in remote and very remote locations. The three examples examined in this paper occurred between 2002 and 2007 during the development of the government’s policies about partnership accountability. A case study methodological approach evolved into a policy ethnography which was adopted to investigate the central question examined in this paper about the strengths and limitations of partnering as a policy concept. The strongest theme to arise from analysis was that parents and caregivers, and indeed their broader families and communities, had a distinctly different expectation of partnership to that of the government policy. Drawing on social exchange theories, the differences identified were concerned with the asymmetry and reciprocity. Indigenous communities are asserting the right to negotiated agreements that are accountable ‘both ways’ and governments seem to be more focussed on a ‘one way’ process of making Indigenous people accountable for education failure.     

Difference,diversity and difficulty: problems in adult peace education in Northern Ireland

The peace process in Northern Ireland has been hailed, variously, as the successful resolution to one of the world's most intractable conflicts, and as a failed attempt to reconcile the conflicting claims of the two main ethnonationalist communities. At both these points, and at every other point along the continuum, recognition is given to the centrality of education. This article looks at the role played by adult learning, and contrasts two fundamentally different approaches. In one, enlightenment assumptions about the power of knowledge to dispel prejudice have run alongside attempts to create a world of shared values; in the other, a postmodern acceptance of different cultures has accompanied a peace process that builds upon ethnic distinctions. As with the Dayton Accord and with other peace agreements brokered with international assistance, the consociational model of governance has been chosen for Northern Ireland in order to create a political equilibrium between the unionists and nationalists. Such a political framework reverses the direction of previous integrationist educational policies in favour of a celebration of difference, an approach that is fraught with difficulties.     

“Seeing Their Eyes in the Rearview Mirror”: Identifying and Responding to Students' Challenging Experiences

There is a noticeable gap in the educational research literature specifically focused on trauma and documenting effective educator practices. This case study captures the voice and perspectives of Mr. Sellers, an effective Black, male educator who, through making sense of the impact of his students' ecological realities, provides insight about trauma, traumatic experiences, and the ways in which he supports them. I conceptualize and name the experiences of these students as traumatic because this is the language that Mr. Sellers himself used to make sense of his students' situations. It is important to note that I focus on these occurrences not to highlight the negatives or deficits of this community; my point in naming these ecological situations is to point out how structural challenges can influence communities and, ultimately, the people (including students) in those contexts. Despite what established literature suggests about the unpreparedness of educators to respond to student trauma, this study documents effective practices of a successful educator in an urban school setting. In particular, the findings in this study offer three takeaways for educators to more adequately identify and respond to students grappling with trauma: (1) context-specific recognition, (2) trauma-conscious approaches, and (3) holistic responsiveness. The findings of this study also suggest that there is a need for broadening educators' capacity, adequately preparing them, and shifting the ways in which schools and policies understand an educator's role.     

Language,Power, Development and Geopolitical Changes: conflicting pressures facing plurilingual societies

This article argues that too little attention has been paid to the linguistic diversity of many poor countries by international donor agencies, given that the most plurilingual societies are also amongst the poorest. Now that recognition has been belatedly given to the language issue geopolitical changes are leading to conflicting pressures on governments. On the one hand there has been a steady decline in the number of global languages over the years. This process is likely to increase, especially given the pressures for globalisation and the growth of English. On the other hand there are also pressures to develop local languages. Ultimately decisions about language choice depend upon a mixture of politics, power relationships and cost. The choices facing governments in the poorer countries are becoming more difficult not less, but unless positive action is taken to develop local languages many, along with their communities, will decline.     

Education for sustainable development in Africa: The search for pedagogical logic

The United Nation's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) is past its halfway milestone; yet, its overall impact on educational thinking and practice remains unclear in most places and regions of the world. While several efforts and programs are currently in place to promote and affirm the role of education in the global quest for sustainable development, most of these efforts remain largely unknown and invisible in most communities around the world. The Decade and ESD, arguably, are neither seen nor heard of in most of Africa. Most institutions, including schools, governments, businesses, civil society and individuals are yet to know and understand the role of education in the quest for sustainable development. The paper argues that in spite of the Decade and all the attention it is getting in some circles, the subject is muted in most educational policies and practices in Africa. In calling for more focused commitment to the roles of education in sustainable development in Africa, the paper also calls for a reconsideration of what sustainable development means, or might mean for Africans in their different places and cultures and to use that as a starting point for the exploration of more meaningful educational philosophies and pedagogies that responds to Africa's unique challenges.     

Working in boundary practices: Identity development and learning in partnerships for inclusive education

There has been an increasing trend to promote partnerships for inclusive education that share responsibility for teachers' and students' learning. Yet, the complexities of collaborating across institutions and professions as well as the identity work that goes with it has been under theorized in inclusive education partnerships. Drawing from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and the literature on boundary practices, this paper advances theoretical tools to examine and further understand the work of inclusive education partnerships. We conceptualize partnerships as a fertile ground for learning and identity development as professionals work across institutional boundaries and face tensions and contradictions created by the overlap of different communities of practice and their respective policies and mediating tools. We illustrate theory with examples from our own work in a professional learning school for inclusive education and provide recommendations for teacher learning in teacher education programs.     

Migrants and minorities in Europe: implications for adult education and training policy

During the 1980s, individual member state government policy and that of the eu as a whole began to emphasise integration and multiculturalism, often in an attempt to diffuse tensions resulting from continued hardship and unemployment amongst minority communities. Although this signalled a move away from former assimilation approaches, there remains an ambiguity in policies which now advocate highly restrictive border controls on the one hand, and integration for those already ‘in’ on the other. Criticisms levelled at the eu's inability to acknowledge inequalities within migrant communities in the field of vocational training have recently increased, particularly in discussions about post‐1992 harmonisation and the benefit, if any, open borders will have on such communities. Current provision aiming to right these wrongs is primarily emphasising the insertion or re‐insertion of individuals into the labour market. Attempts have been made to link vocational training courses to labour market opportunities. Positive action strategies, positive career routes and job creation also play roles in this process. Funding however, especially from government sources, still tends to favour traditional providers, in spite of recent studies which have found that strategies emanating from the community ('consumer‐led') have a much more positive image amongst participants and tend to be more successful in their outcomes. Ideally, communities would set up their own projects, but failing this they can be empowered to do so by training professionals working in close collaboration with minority groups.