Welfare Labourism versus the New Right: the struggle in New Zealand's education policy

ABSTRACT

New Zealand's radical education reforms (1987‐1990) provide a valuable case study for the examination of the politics, ideology and process of educational change. This paper examines the strategy of New Right agencies in attacking the established education settlement which embodies principles of Welfare Labourism. The crucial role of the New Zealand Treasury and of other agencies in bringing this settlement to crisis in the 1980s is analysed and discussed as is the response of the Labour Government. Many of the elements of struggle between Welfare Labourism and New Right market doctrines in education show similar features to struggles in other contexts such as the United Kingdom. However, the struggle in New Zealand makes visible and explicit the political and ideological features in a distinctive way. It also makes visible the significance of both race relations and of gender relations in the formation of education policy.     

革命根据地反奴化教育的斗争

晋察冀等敌后抗日根据地广大师生,在严酷的战争环境下,为反抗敌伪奴化教育,采取多种形式瓦解了敌伪教育、坚持了抗日教育阵地,为夺取全国抗战胜利优做出了杰出贡献。     

The road to collaborative and integrated education: Success and struggle in a university classroom

Abstract

Although much of the contemporary discourse on collaborative teaching is positive, there is a dearth of information about and research on the practical issues of undertaking such an endeavor at the university level. The authors of this article team taught a course that combined three educational methods classes (Instruction in Elementary Language Arts, Instruction in Elementary Reading, and Instruction in Elementary Social Studies). This undertaking evoked positive experiences for the instructors and students but also evinced areas that caused conflict and concern, including conflicts regarding student assessment, amount of time required, and lack of administrative support. As we continue to incorporate and refine collaborative teaching at the university level, economics, recognition, and status issues also need to be examined.     

The politics of education policy in England

In this appreciative discussion paper I provide an overview of the reforms made to education in England, and engage with the politics of education through examining the simultaneous and inter-related processes of politicisation, depoliticisation and repoliticisation of educational matters. I engage in a discussion of the papers in this special issue through this framework.     

关于我国教育方针中增设美育之立法建议

当前,美育虽已正式列入党和国家的教育方针中,而其在我国的宪法和教育法中却是隐性存在,从立法的角度讲,至今仍是空白点。重视和加快美育立法,将使美育获得更明确的法律地位、更强的效力与更大的权威性。这既是解决当前美育实施的现实需求与法律滞后矛盾的需要,也是法律创制本身的需要,有利于进一步推动“科学发展观”及“构建和谐社会”理念的落实。     

英国高等教育国际化政策研究

高等教育国际化是当代高等教育发展的主流特征之一.通过研究英国高等教育国际化政策的具体内容和特点,对我国的高等教育国际化发展提供一些启示.     

Bureaucratic response to policy change: implementation of adult education policy in Norway

Our main concern was to investigate the implementation of the new Education Act, giving adults the statutory right to complete upper secondary education. Referring to a ‘top‐down’ and a ‘bottom‐up’ perspective we have investigated how the representatives of the county authorities (the bureaucrats) interpret and practise the specific section of the Act in relation to their definition, moral evaluation and economic view. The interpretation of the section in the Act and the practice varied. Two counties were proactive, result‐oriented and generous, while four counties were passive, act‐oriented and restrictive in their implementation. The implementation was influenced by the bureaucrats’ attitudes, decisions and actions. They had their own agenda, moral standard, interest and so on, which influenced their interpretation and practice. Our study indicates that it is not enough just to formulate a right. How it is formulated, and how it is interpreted and perceived may affect the implementation process.     

Examining practice to address policy problems in teacher education

This article puts forward a case for addressing policy problems in the rigorous pursuit of new practices in faculties of education. Recent policy developments in pre‐service teacher education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia are discussed in terms of a programmatic rift between study in foundational disciplines, on the one hand, as component bodies of knowledge included in a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree, and, on the other hand, the practical experiences provided in a 1‐year Professional Development Program. This article includes a discussion of underlying assumptions about the nature of learning to teach that inform a framework for a B.Ed. programme that attempts to strike a better balance and more meaningful integration of academic study and the practice of teaching. The concept of schools of practice is discussed in the context of some of the author's experiences in the Professional Development Program. Excerpts from ‘the Summerfest letters’ ‐ taken from a summer school in science that was taught by SFU education students to a class of elementary children ‐ are presented to demonstrate a potential policy direction to educate teachers in practice.     

Coming to matter in practice: enacting education policy

This article is offered as a counterpoint and complement to the symposium on policy enactment in a previous issue of Discourse by Stephen Ball, Meg Maguire and colleagues. Although their focus was largely on the discursive, and policy actors and policy subjects, this article is concerned with researching the emergent materiality of policy and draws on an Australian Vocational Education and Training policy study. It focuses on one particular object (a mini-warehouse) and one policy (Productivity Places Program) and develops an approach to researching a topology of policy enactment along three intersecting axes. In this topology, the material is given an ontological status, which is ‘in-here’ as opposed to ‘else-where’; where reality is emergent in practice. The research focus therefore is on policy processes and the assumption is that these processes are not benign as the world continues to be (re)articulated unequally; the point of policy research being to investigate the ways in which policy processes contribute to or work against this inequality.     

The policy object: a different perspective on policy enactment in higher education

This paper proposes a new perspective for higher education policy research. It introduces the concept of policy object to designate the discrete preoccupation(s) of a policy text (e.g. a new governance regime, a quality system, or new degrees) and suggests that actor conceptualisations of the policy object intersect with other elements in the policy process to shape enactment and outcomes. First, the policy object concept is described. It is argued that the policy object does not have an objective existence and two concepts are proposed to explain it: ontology and enacted ontology. The former refers to what actors believe the policy object is, a socially-construed context-determined conceptualisation, whereas enacted ontology refers to what the policy object becomes further to enactment under the influence of ontology. Second, the paper presents the findings of a comparative study of master degrees further to the Bologna process in different national and institutional settings to illustrate the policy object approach. This research puts forward arguments to suggest that the policy object could be an important variable to consider in policy research. This somewhat different lens, inviting fine-grained attention to a specific policy object (its ontologies and enacted ontologies), could bring additional insight into policy outcomes.     

The impact of aid on education policy in India

In the early 1990s, large numbers of children in India remained out of school. International commitments to achieve education for all (EFA) globally meant that India was an important case for donors. India was pressed to accept aid for primary education, and agreed with some reluctance. Although subsequent donor involvement was substantial and influenced aspects of both policy implementation and management, it is shown that Indian education policy priorities remained self-determined. The Government of India – though falling short of securing universal education for its children – succeeded in using external resources and expertise in ways which suited its own purposes, whilst minimising external impact on policy development. The politics and economics of this process are discussed.     

The impact of the national policy on education on indigenous education in Nigeria

Indigenous education in Nigeria is contrasted with Western orientated education. The former includes both the traditional and more recent locally generated modifications of educational procedures. Until recently the two have been in equilibrium but this is now under attack. Nigerian society is undergoing rapid change. The Government is aiming to create a national identity, eradicate regional inequities, and eliminate parochial and inefficient indigenous educational practices. But the author challenges the assumption that the school system alone can accomplish these tasks. Quick implementation of the plan to regulate indigenous private educational institutions and craft apprenticeships could aggravate the employment situation, while local communities under an increasingly centralised education system will have little authority to initiate local adaptive responses to perceived weaknesses.

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Zusammenfassung In diesem Artikel wird die einheimische Ausbildung in Nigeria mit der westlich orientierten verglichen. Erstere schließt sowohl traditionelle Erziehungsmethoden als auch neuere, vor Ort entwickelte Änderungen ein. Bis vor kurzem bestand zwischen beiden ein Gleichgewicht, aber jetzt soll sich das ändern. Plan der Regierung ist es, eine nationale Identität zu schaffen, regionale Ungleichheiten auszumerzen und lokale einheimische Erziehungspraktiken zu unterbinden. Der Verfasser bestreitet die Annahme, das Schulsystem allein könne diese Aufgaben erfüllen. Eine schnelle Durchführung des Plans der Regierung, lokale private Bildungs- und Ausbildungsgänge von oben zu regulieren, könnte die Beschäftigungslage verschlechtern und die Gemeinden hätten unter einem stärker zentralisierten Bildungssystem weniger Möglichkeiten, örtlich Maßnahmen zur Beseitigung wahrgenommener Schwächen einzuleiten.

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Résumé Le système indigène d'éducation au Nigéria est mis en contraste avec une éducation orientée vers l'Ouest. Il comporte les procédés éducatifs traditionnels aussi bien que des modifications plus récentes qui ont été développées localement. Jusqu'à récemment, les deux étaient en équilibre mais maintenant celui-ci se trouve menacé. La société nigérienne est en rapide évolution. Le gouvernement a pour but de créer une identité nationale, d'effacer des inégalités régionales, et d'éliminer des pratiques d'éducation indigènes qui sont trop localisées et inefficaces. Mais l'auteur s'oppose à la présomption que le système scolaire seul puisse accomplir ces tâches. Une exécution rapide du projet sur la réglementation des institutions d'éducation privées indigènes et de l'apprentissage dans l'artisanat pourrait aggraver la situation de l'emploi, alors que les communautés locales sous un système d'éducation toujours plus centralisé n'auraient que peu d'autorité pour introduire des adaptations locales visant à répondre aux faiblesses ressenties.