Universities after postmodernism

Universities have a contribution to make towards the creation of a more just society. To do so, not only must the new language from industry be challenged, there needs too to be a break from the postmodernist mindset which still defines much academic debate. Drawing on ideas from political economy, critical social science and feminist theory and practice this paper urges a re-positioning of higher education which requires moving on from the ‘linguistic turn’ towards a more ‘practical turn’. It proposes that mass university higher education has a future if it actively engages with adults from a much wider social spectrum than at present and if it re-engages with notions of the public nature of truth and values through working to articulate urgent problems with people other than academics.     

Social exclusion,and educational opportunity: the case of British education policies within a European Union context1

This paper first examines the New Labour government's redefinition of equality of opportunity in Britain, mainly with regard to education and the ways in which it mediates ‘opportunity’. In doing so, it also draws on wider social policy issues, such as the use of education policies to combat social exclusion. Second, the paper reviews European Union policies and selected documents that address questions of social inclusion, social cohesion and the role of education in achieving those policy goals. The main argument is that both New Labour policies in Britain and the examined EU documents promote rather minimal understandings of the term ‘equality of opportunity’, while, education, in both cases, is given an enormous burden to carry in balancing increasingly liberalised market‐driven economies, with the requirements of a socially just society.     

Full service and extended schools,disadvantage, and social justice

Despite successive waves of school reform, the English education system, like many others, continues to be characterized by marked inequalities of outcome. These seem to be related to factors in students’ family, community and wider societal contexts that schools traditionally have been powerless to tackle. This paper argues, however, that schools can intervene in these contexts by offering a wider range of services and activities to children and adults under the aegis of ‘full service and extended’ approaches. The paper outlines how these approaches have evolved in England and elsewhere, and reviews the evidence for their effectiveness. It concludes that their current limited impacts could be enhanced if the work of schools were aligned with wider social strategies. Such a move, it suggests, raises questions about how school systems are governed and about what kind of society schools are expected to help build.     

Beyond employer engagement and skills supply: building conditions for partnership working and skills co-production in the English context

Education providers and employers working together to prepare young people and adults for employment is internationally accepted as a key factor in effective technical and vocational education. In the English context, however, we argue that two related orthodoxies have prevailed – ‘employer engagement’ and ‘skills supply’ – in which education providers have striven to gain employer involvement in their programmes and meet their skills needs. The effectiveness of these twin orthodoxies has been limited by the ‘New Low Skills Equilibrium’ (NLSE) involving a symbiosis of weaknesses on both the education and employer sides. The article draws on findings of a two-year research and development programme in East London which explored the process of education-employer partnership working to support inclusive growth in key economic sectors. The research suggested that this aim was best supported by processes of ‘co-production’ that actively involved both partners in attempting to address features of the NLSE. The research also pointed to constraining factors. The article concludes by identifying the conditions required for the realisation of co-production approaches that include the development of new collaborative structures – High Progression and Skills Networks (HPSNs) – involving a wide range of social partners at the local and regional levels.     

Closely Observed Training: an exploration of links between social structures,training and identity

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests that, while there is a wealth of work on the economic benefits of training, relatively little attention is being given to relationships between vocational training and broader social structures and trends. The focus here is on social processes within vocational training. The paper is based on ethnographic research into training for employment in the field of institutional care. This study documented dramatic adjustments in young people's attitudes towards work which occurred in the course of training. The paper explores ways in which training contributed to these adjustments. Two fundamental inter‐related processes are identified, which may also have wider relevance: screening for social and cultural attributes and discipline. The analysis of the discipline of training draws upon the work of Foucault in order to highlight the importance of current trends towards increased ‘surveillance’ and accountability at work. Through such processes, it is suggested, training may both serve to reinforce links between class, gender and occupational destinations and may also reinforce the control of labour within occupations.     

The influence of neighbourhood crime on young people becoming not in education,employment or training

ABSTRACT

The influence of living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood on young people’s transitions from education to the labour market has not received much attention in past research. This study examines the extent to which social disorganisation, understood as the level of crime experienced in the neighbourhood, can influence young people’s educational and employment outcomes. It draws on data collected from Next Steps, a longitudinal nationally representative cohort of English young people. Using logistic regression and propensity score matching techniques and controlling for family background, prior educational attainment, ethnicity and gender, victimisation and risk behaviour of the young person, the results suggest that living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood increases the probability of young people experiencing Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) status at ages 16–19. Sensitivity analysis shows that these results are robust to selection bias.     

Can mimetics,a theatre‐based practice,open possibilities for young people with learning disabilities? A capability approach

While the significance of the social model of disability for articulating inclusive approaches in education is recognised, the application of capability theory to education is less well developed. This article by Jo Trowsdale of the University of Warwick and Richard Hayhow of Open Theatre considers how a particular theatre‐based practice, here described as ‘mimetics’, can alter and extend the aspirations and achievements of children and young people with learning disabilities, and might be understood as applied capability theory or ‘capability practice’. Mimetics has been crafted from experimental psycho‐physical actor‐training processes by Open Theatre Company working in collaboration with actors with learning disabilities, and adapted to support the learning and development of young people with learning disabilities. This study draws upon an action research project set up by Creative Partnerships with Open Theatre Company and a special school, where children demonstrated increased motivation and capacity for communication and socialisation, improved well‐being, learning and wider achievement. To illustrate the process, we offer a case study of one child with an autistic spectrum disorder.     

’Always knowing’ and ‘never being sure’: familial and institutional habituses and higher education choice

In 2008, the UK Labour government unveiled plans to abolish the Learning and Skills Council and transfer funding for the education and training of 16–19‐year‐olds in England to local authorities (LAs). The transfer of 16–19 funding complements the responsibilities that LAs have already acquired in relation to the raising of the education and training ‘participation age’ and ensuring that all young people have access to a full 14–19 curriculum entitlement in their area. Such a move might be read as part of the ‘new localism’ that has gained currency under the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, as well as an opportunity to rein back from an English education and training system that has become increasingly centralised and ‘top‐down’. Indeed, some commentators have argued for a new model of governance based on ‘devolved social partnership’, with input from a wider range of stakeholders and the space for policy levers to be shaped more at local level. Drawing upon interviews with key personnel in LAs and other stakeholders, this paper examines the opportunities and challenges that LAs face in their new role, whether this amounts to a genuine devolution of power, and the prospects for ‘devolved social partnership’.     

Challenges in theorising ‘Black middle‐class’ women: education,experience and authenticity

This viewpoint draws on discussions at two seminars to consider ambivalent attitudes amongst a group of Black women towards considering themselves and/or other Black people as ‘middle class’. The first seminar highlighted the experiences of a group of Black ‘middle‐class’ parents and the second, which was organised as a result of the reaction the first seminar received, sought to explore attendees views as to whether they thought Black people could be Black and ‘middle class’. The viewpoint contends that the concept ‘Black middle class’ is incompatible with some Black women’s notions of self, and that their ambivalence about the ‘Black middle classes’ is partly rooted in an emotional need to remain connected to the wider Black community. Whilst these women’s understandings of the ‘Black middle classes’ are informed by their gendered and racialised experiences, there is also evidence of a denial of (class) privilege.     

Representing self‐in‐society: education for citizenship and the social‐subjects curriculum in Scotland

The documented social‐subjects curricula for Scottish 5–16 year olds are analysed for representations of ‘self‐in‐society’. Such representations are important in Scotland because it is expected that the new Education‐for‐Citizenship framework will in part be delivered through the social subjects. However, citizenship education is also relevant throughout the UK and beyond and our analysis of the social subjects has wider relevance.

An ideal‐type analysis was used on documents including national guidelines, examination syllabuses, examination papers, and assessor instructions. Our analysis suggests that in these documents: the self is seen as an abstract; people are understood by category; society is the sum of discrete institutions; self‐in‐society is fully defined; and this representation of society is not contested. This representation becomes increasingly exclusive with age/ability and may be linked to assumed modes of curricular division, teaching and assessment. We discuss how this overall picture might affect students’ sense of ‘agency’ in the light of citizenship education. We conclude that the social‐subjects’ curricular representation of self‐in‐society may not fully support the Scottish Education‐for‐Citizenship framework.     

Graduating as a ‘native speaker’: international students and English language proficiency in higher education

The current concern about low levels of English proficiency among international students who graduate from degree courses – that students’ English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience – reflects negatively on the quality of Australian higher education and its graduates. More careful selection of students and increased use of English language testing are among the solutions put forward. These debates over English language proficiency tend to construct English language as a skill that can be applied in any context and ‘native‐speaker’‐levels of language ability as essential for employment. Within such a formulation international students can only ever be defined as in deficit. Drawing on socio‐cultural theories of language learning and academic literacy, alternative understandings of language proficiency in internationalized higher education are explored. Improved communication skills among graduates are likely to be achieved through a better understanding of issues beyond classroom instruction, such as barriers to social integration with native‐speakers, which reveal many international students unable to access adequate levels of language experience. Without wider perspectives on the debate over English language proficiency in higher education, the many benefits of having international students in higher education institutions are obscured by negative attitudes and unrealistic expectations.     

Non-disabled children’s ideas about disability and disabled people

This article discusses findings from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study exploring non-disabled children’s ideas about disability. This represents the first in-depth sociological investigation of children’s ideas about disabled people as members of wider society. Data are presented from focus group discussions with children aged 6–7 and 10–11. The article draws upon William H. Sewell Jr’s theorizing of structure and agency and, in particular, employs his concept of ‘cultural schemas’. The article explores non-disabled children’s enactment of various cultural schemas relating to disability and argues that although they are capable of questioning, even transforming, schemas, they are primarily engaged in enacting a series of ‘hegemonic’ schemas that maintain their privileged position as non-disabled people. The article concludes by urging schools and educationalists to do more to encourage non-disabled children to think differently and positively about disabled people.     

Gendered distribution of ‘knowledge required for empowerment’ in Swedish vocational education curricula?

Sweden is internationally commended for a high degree of gender equality, but many divisions in Swedish society, including the labour market, disadvantage women. This paper addresses gendered divisions of preparation for civic participation in the vocational upper secondary national curricula, which may participate in reproduction of the pattern. In a comparative analysis of the curriculum guidelines for different vocational upper secondary programmes, we focus on the inclusion of important knowledge for empowerment and how knowledge is contextualised in terms of valued labour positions. We deploy Bernstein’s concepts of horizontal and vertical discourse and Connell’s concepts of production, consumption and gendered accumulation. A general finding is that vertical discourse is contextualised towards discourses of consumption in girl-dominated programmes and towards discourses of production in boy-dominated programmes. Boy-dominated programmes include more knowledge that can be clearly classified in recognised disciplines or fields, whereas girl-dominated programmes include courses of undefined knowledge, such as creativity and entrepreneurship. We conclude that the vocational curricula reinforce rather than challenge existing gender structures in the labour market and wider society. In a historical perspective, it can be concluded that Swedish vocational education policy has a continuum of ‘gender-blindness', and thus confirming with wider norms.     

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.     

What is Knowledge in English and Where Does it Come From?

By offering a close reading and interpretation of one conversation between four Year 8 pupils about Robert Swindell’s Stone Cold, I aim to address questions of what might count as knowledge in English and to suggest how it might develop not only out of the qualities of a text, but from particular social relations and a set of pedagogic choices. I argue for a refocusing of attention away from the ‘acquisition’ of ‘cultural capital’ or ‘powerful disciplinary knowledge’ by individual pupils, towards the cultural resources and cultural productivity of pupils and teachers. I go on to suggest that serious consideration of such conversations as evidence of learning poses a significant challenge to dominant theories and research methodologies that locate knowledge and ability within the minds of individual pupils. Instead, my reading of this classroom interaction suggests the creative potential of discussion in diverse, urban classrooms to contribute to a fuller account of learning that pays proper attention to its roots in the social and affective realms. Crucially, part of my argument is that classrooms such as the one in which the conversation took place offer unique opportunities and conditions for the development of a pedagogy that both draws on and negotiates difference and is therefore culturally productive in a wider sense.     

Promoting the development of a supportive learning environment through action research from the ‘middle out’

This paper reports on a case study of a supportive learning environment initiative (SLEI) for students on health and social care undergraduate programmes in one English university. It involved the development of small scale support projects that are firmly grounded in the outcomes of prior research as well as the ongoing experience of students and staff at the institution. The paper begins by identifying common themes which point towards principles and strategies for educational change though a brief review of three concepts that are central to the initiative: ‘action research’, the ‘learning environment’ and ‘change management’. The account of the SLEI focuses on some of the processes of change management that were deployed and the subsequent discussion draws on the theoretical review to reflect critically on possible lessons for the promotion and management of localised change in higher education.     

Inbound,outbound or peripheral: the impact of discourses of ‘organisational’ professionalism on becoming a teacher in English further education

This article explores constructions of teacher identities at a time of significant changes to public service professionalism. The article draws on different discourses of professionalism, contrasting ‘organisational’ and ‘occupational’ professionalism, with discourses of ‘personal’ and ‘critical’ professionalism, to explore changing meanings and enactments of teacher professionalism in the 2000s. Narratives of three novice teachers, followed over eight years, are used to consider the impact of dominant discourses of ‘organisational’ professionalism in English further education, resulting in inbound, outbound and peripheral trajectories. In response, the article considers how practitioners might engage critically with current changes, arguing that it is necessary to work with what matters to teachers, such as their relations with students, teaching and learning and subject specialism. Such work might create, at least temporarily and locally, spaces in which more favourable conditions towards socially just and enabling educational practices can be worked towards.     

Education for enterprise: the state and alternative employment for young people

The state, industry and the voluntary sector are all investing resources in encouraging the development of the ‘enterprise culture’ among the young unemployed. Such measures can be interpreted as an attempt to sustain the work ethic while changing attitudes, aspirations and expectations towards employment. They constitute a major effort to change work cultures. The alternatives being advocated, such as self‐employment, small businesses, co‐operatives and community businesses have starkly opposing ideologies behind them.

So far there has been no systematic research on the development of alternative forms of work by young people, not even at the level of charting the extent and form in which they are emerging. This paper seeks to make a start by exploring the rhetoric behind the ‘education for enterprise’ movement and the patterns of support and advice on offer. It then discusses the implications of the fostering of the ‘enterprise culture’ for our analyses of state intervention in youth unemployment and the early labour market experiences of young people.     

All the lonely people: the struggle for private meaning and public purpose in education

This paper argues that the ‘new world order’ achieved at the end of the cold war is in crisis, not generated from the threat of ‘war’ between Christian and Islamic worlds but from within western societies, specifically from the growing commercialisation and ‘privatisation’ of social and community life which has uncoupled the systems and activities of society from the collective and individual purposes of people who comprise that society. Drawing on interview data (life and work histories) from three cohorts (1950s-1960s, 1970s-1980s, 1990s to present) of US and Canadian teachers, the paper identifies evidence of this crisis in the fields of culture, education and public service (e.g. in the turning away from public and towards private pursuits as the motivation for one's ‘life's work’ or ‘passion’). It also looks to these fields in the search for answers to what motivates people and sponsors their meaning-making, specifically whether privatisation should be our only route to human meaning. The paper concludes that the personal ‘missions’ that people bring to their employment may be accommodated in some parts of the business world where people are given freedom to pursue their own ‘projects’, but these are largely frustrated in the micro‐managed and re‐regulated regimes of the public sector. Indeed, without invoking some ‘golden age’, the sense of vocation, public duty and ‘caring professionalism’ that characterised the ‘top end’ and ‘backbone’ of the public sector is diminishing as large numbers begin to withdraw their ‘hearts and minds’ while implementing the mandates and missions of others.     

Youth lifestyles,employment and the labour market: concepts in need of clarification

Abstract

This paper attempts to throw some light on issues which are currently of major concern both to governments and individuals. Specifically it focuses on the transition process from school to work and unemployment. A selective review of recent major researches in this area indicates the complex interplay between life circumstances, employment and unemployment as they influence the ‘career’ development of young people. The notions of lifestyle, employment and labour markets are examined for their conceptual usefulness and are found to be wanting.

The paper begins with a definitional note on lifestyles and this is followed by a review of two recent qualitative and quantitative studies which have focussed on the employment‐related circumstances of young people. Such studies are utilised to clarify some of the processes which may be subsumed under the heading of occupational socialisation and, hence, point up the ambiguities in such received notions as employment, unemployment and the labour market.

By way of conclusion a preliminary analysis of data reflecting the perceptions of school leavers provides further conceptual clarification of the concepts in question by identifying six components of ‘lifestyle’ labelled, moral cynicism, work ethic, independent action, occupational passivity, financial management and survival optimism.