Welfare and education in British colonial Africa and South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s

Contemporary educational policy discourse in South Africa that seeks to serve the poor and address equity issues needs to engage with the roots of twentieth‐century social reform debates if it is meet its goals. One of the weaknesses of the templates for reform at the present time is that they often fail to engage with progressive traditions which have a long history. Present‐day reforms look to agency recommendations or comparative examples of “successful” emergent economies, but often fail to recognize the value and significance of previous initiatives which sought to address these issues. The long debate over the need for social welfare and educational reform in British colonial Africa has some significance in this regard. The period between 1930 and 1950 marked a key turning point in such policy in colonial Africa, and significant reform initiatives in South Africa from the early years of the Second World War provide the benchmarks for such investigations. The social welfare policies and the educational policy initiatives of the United Party government during the 1940s provide important signposts for such policies. This article attempts to investigate that legacy.     

When Classrooms Matter: implications of between‐classroom variability for educational policy in Israel

This study assesses several policy implications of within‐school, between‐classroom variability in pupil achievement. It diverges from current school effect studies by directly modelling pupil achievement in the Jerusalem public primary school system. This three‐level study includes pupils, classrooms and schools, thus allowing an appropriate estimate of the variations between these three levels. The findings show that between‐classroom variability is consistently greater than the estimated variation between schools. These findings contrast with traditional school‐level analyses that usually ignore within‐school variability. In the light of these findings we address three educational and policy issues. First, we probe into the moral consequences of between‐classroom, within‐school variability, specifically focusing on issues of choice and commitment. Second, we scrutinize the administrative policy of ‘social integration’ and reflect on some educational consequences that result from our findings. Third, we assess the Israeli version of ‘school league tables’ and discuss their usefulness as a means of resource allocation     

Mild Mental Retardation: A Concept in Search of Clarity,A Population in Search of Appropriate Education and Supports,A Profession in Search of Advocacy

Mild mental retardation, or mild intellectual disability, has been identified as a disability of high incidence since the early 20th century. The field has historically received significant attention in the literature as professionals have sought to understand the concept and the disability and to recommend appropriate supports and services within and beyond the field of education. The purpose of this special issue of Exceptionality is to address current issues in the field and explore promising directions. This introductory article focuses on an overview of considerations of concepts of mild mental retardation, educational supports and services, and the issue of advocacy. This article is intended to serve as a foundation for the succeeding articles within this special issue that address key concerns within the field.     

Working with Boys

The author, a Special Educational Needs Co‐ordinator in an inner city primary school in North London describes an Equal Opportunities project that involved working with boys in a single sex group. The project sought to address theoretical concerns around sex stereotyping, peer group hierarchies and the greater level of alienation from the educational system boys seem to experience at primary stage. The article evaluates the effectiveness of the project to raise awareness and support change in relation to a number of significant issues — racism, sexism, bullying and collaborative group processes.     

Emotional and behavioural difficulties: the effects of structures,ethos and understandings on provision in Irish post-primary schools

Emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in mainstream schools in Ireland attract much attention and significant resources, yet little research has been conducted in the Irish context about how this concept is understood by practitioners, what influences that understanding nor how that influences provision in schools. This paper is based on the findings of a study which investigated these issues among principals, special education teachers and guidance counsellors in mainstream post-primary schools, employing questionnaires (n = 36) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). Several themes are presented regarding how EBD is conceptualised and responded to. The findings of the study suggest definitions of EBD appear to focus mostly on intrapersonal characteristics of students and suggest a resignation in the attitude of practitioners. The effectiveness of behaviour policies is ambiguous due to an imperative to produce written policies in many areas, traditional views of the homogeneity of the school population and a tendency to rely on SEN policy to address EBD issues. Responses to EBD vary considerably. Responsibility for most aspects of the school experience of students presenting with EBD appears to rest predominantly with special education teachers, even where there is access to guidance counsellors. Gender impacts on several of these issues, particularly in the type of language used in schools when discussing EBD.     

School leadership practices that promote effective whole school behaviour management: a study of Australian primary schools

When considering the management of student behaviour issues, a substantial body of literature, as well as logical common sense, points to the advantages of whole school policy over the individual efforts of teachers. Less is known, however, about the direct or indirect role school leadership plays in the development of well-implemented whole school behaviour management (WSBM) systems and policy in primary schools. This article explores elements of leadership practice likely to promote well-implemented WSBM, using an initial framework developed from related literature and applying it in a study of primary schools. The sample comprised 52 staff members from 31 government and non-government primary schools in 5 states and territories of Australia. Data were obtained from interviews which sought to gather information about how well each school’s WSBM was implemented. Results confirmed the theorised framework of leadership practices that encourage well-implemented WSBM. The article concludes with implications for future research and school leadership.     

Child labour,education policy and governance in Cambodia

This paper considers how the issue of child labour is located in Cambodian education policy debates and how it is affected by the major constraints surrounding the Cambodian education sector. In particular, it asks why Cambodian policy makers have not sought to address the issue explicitly despite its considerable, and adverse, impact on children's school education. In doing so it first identifies the Cambodian education sector's passive approach to child labour, leaving it as a problem to be resolved by wider economic development. Secondly, it finds that the major constraints surrounding the education sector, including the issue of its governance, contribute to sustain a wide gap between stated education policies and actual practice, thus further diminishing working children's chances to benefit from a school education.     

Schools for the twenty‐first century: School design and educational transformation

The Building Schools for the Future programme has been established to ensure that English secondary schools are designed or redesigned to allow for educational transformation. The programme represents the biggest single UK government investment in school buildings for over 50 years. For this reason, it poses a major challenge to those involved in the design of educational buildings. Inspiration is in part sought from exemplar schools around the world. The paper draws on a multiple case study of four such exemplar schools in Scandinavia that have been designed to address changes in the educational curriculum. The analysis depicts the degree to which the building design in each case supports the school approach to teaching and learning. The disjuncture between commercial and educational issues inherent in designing ‘good’ schools is highlighted. The findings show how it is important to find a balance between good design, commercial realities and educational approaches.     

Sibship composition,birth order and education: Evidence from Vietnam

This paper examines the effects of sibship composition and birth order on the school enrolment and educational attainment of children, using data from the Vietnam Population and Housing Census 2009. Utilizing an instrumental variable estimation method to address the endogeneity of sibship size, we find that it has a significant, negative effect on child education. Examining the impact of sibling sex composition, we find that having an additional boy lowers children’s average educational attainment for both girls and boys. We establish that birth order has a significant, negative effect on child educational attainment, although that effect seems to vanish with the youngest sibling. Our findings have several policy implications. First, the negative effect of sibship size on education implies that Vietnam’s lower fertility rate, the result of family planning policy during the 1990s and 2000s, may contribute to its remarkable educational achievements. Second, we find that birth order and sibling sex composition are more important than sibship size in children’s educational outcomes. As parents disproportionately allocate more resources for boys and earlier born children, government-targeted programs should tackle those issues to provide equal school opportunities for all children.     

School feeding and educational access in rural Ghana: Is poor targeting and delivery limiting impact?

In an effort to address social imbalances and equity in Ghana's education delivery and to achieve her Education for All (EFA) agenda, some pro-poor programmes have been introduced. Among these is the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) that aims among others, at providing safety nets for the poor, increasing school enrolment in addition to boosting domestic food production. While this programme has been implemented since 2005, there is paucity of information on the experiences of beneficiaries and implementers. The GSFP has been designed as a national programme to feed children in public kindergarten and primary schools, based on a single implementation framework. This single implementation framework does not make room for contextualization of programme implementation and allow the tapping into the knowledge base of both the school and the community in making judgments about who is really needy and who is not. Thus, the study sought to explore the experiences of beneficiaries and implementers of the programme within three rural communities in Ghana, using interviews and observations. Challenges of programme delivery, which include prolonged time spent on serving, eating and cleaning up, counter effective teaching and learning and pose a threat to education quality. There are policy conflicts, funding challenges and issues about targeting and sustainability of the programme. These give credence to the need to understand the local dynamics of poverty and how they affect demand for educational access in rural contexts. The paper finally proffers ways in which insights gained from these experiences can contribute to the current discourse on School Feeding Programmes in the context of developing economies.     

The contribution of ‘shared education’ to Catholic–Protestant reconciliation in Northern Ireland: a third way?

Northern Ireland has achieved political stability and its devolved government is now tackling public policy issues neglected during periods of sectarian violence. Notwithstanding the prevailing political optimism, one legacy of the conflict is a deeply divided society. This is particularly manifest in the education system where around 90% of children attend either state (controlled) schools (de facto Protestant) or Catholic (maintained) schools, with integrated schools accounting for less than 6% of the school population. In an attempt to address this duplication of services, in the context of 85,000 empty desks, external funders have piloted an initiative entitled The Shared Education Programme (SEP) where schools working in cross‐community partnerships deliver shared classes and activities in order to improve education outcomes. This paper attempts to: quantify the educational returns for pupils participating in the SEP; articulate the qualitative reconciliation benefits from the perspective of teachers, parents and pupils; and, locate the findings of the research in the ongoing policy debate about restructuring education provision in Northern Ireland at a time of budget retrenchment and declining school rolls.     

To attend or not to attend? Why some students chose school and others reject it

This article considers the issues of attendance and non‐attendance, the latter of which has been recently linked with ‘behaviour’ in a range of policy initiatives in England. John Dwyfor Davies and John Lee review some of the existing material on non‐attendance and then draw on data they have collected in one large English city. The authors summarise their discussions with 13 non‐attending young people and some of their parents, as well as conversations with 35 students who have a satisfactory attendance record, together with a perspective from educational professionals. The authors address the issue of why certain students, who apparently will gain little from school, in terms of certification, continue to attend school. They argue that ignoring the reasons why such students actually attend school is a major oversight in current research.     

Research and the Challenges of Contemporary School Leadership: The Contribution of Critical Scholarship

There is a widespread policy assumption that school leaders such as headteachers and governors need to have 'raining courses' which are constituted by a growing corpus of Education Management Studies (EMS) if they are to achieve successfully current schooling goals of 'effectiveness', 'quality', 'excellence' and 'value for money' Another body of work which attempts to address these issues in a wider cultural framework and which may be called Critical Leadership Studies (CLS) is regarded as interesting for those studying for higher graduate qualifications but hardly relevant for everyday school busyness. While EMS is constructed as 'practical'and therefore a necessary constituent of the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers and other training courses for school leaders, CLS is constructed as 'academic' and more suitable for the EdD seminar. It will be argued here that both cultural analysis and recent research shows this to be a simplistic and reductionist view with dangerous policy consequences. Critical scholarship in education has much to offer to those meeting the everyday challenges of school leadership. In particular, feminist critical scholarship offers oppositional models to both traditional and market forms of patriarchal school leadership.     

Kindergarten Educational Policies: Separating Myth From Reality

The critical question facing school districts today is, “What policies should we pursue to improve both the quality and accessibility of early educational programs for all children?” Toward the goal of maximizing the academic growth and development of all children, this article (1) profiles kindergarten policies and practices currently implemented in district schools, (2) reviews and analyzes the research supporting the major policy alternatives for six common kindergarten and school entry age issues that all school districts must address, and (3) identifies the optimum policy option alternative for each issue based on these analyses. Collectively, the policy alternatives recommended provide a model for early childhood education for schools and districts. These policies define a more developmentally appropriate kindergarten curriculum which should optimize the early learning and future achievement levels of all children.     

School Leaders Facing Real Change: shifting geography,uncertain paths

A central problem for school leadership in the United States is to create settings in which success for students motivates teachers. Meeting this objective is becoming more difficult as teachers, except the most brilliant, struggle to cope with the diversity of students in a changing socio-economic climate and a context in which there is a ‘policy vacuum’, an unclear articulation of policy issues and choices, and inconsistency in policy initiatives. This is where school leaders must step in. Improvement in classrooms rarely occurs without strong leadership from building and district leaders. The fact that many school leaders in the USA were trained to exhibit authoritative rather than democratic leadership has often led to ‘democratic minimalism’, where the emphasis is on statutory fairness and majority rule, but not on full involvement of affected parties, such as teachers, students, and parents. The issues in contemporary leadership in areas of disadvantage are illustrated through the experience of one Minnesota elementary|spagf|ro|epagf| |spagf|it|epagf|school principal, and the wider implications for school leaders are discussed.     

On the Rebound: Critical Race Praxis and Grassroots Community Organizing for School Change

This ethnographic research was conducted over a three-year period, and documents the efforts of a committed group of parents and community members who through community-based research sought to address the disproportionate underachievement of African American students within their city??s public school system. Specifically, the parents and community members who make up the group Parents of Children of African Ancestry (POCAA) offer a refreshing theory of action that explicitly addressed issues of racial inequity, and called upon the larger community to respond with the urgency the youth deserved. In effect, POCAA challenges dominant views of African American parents and re-envisions their involvement in school reform as a site of radical resistance.     

Authentic school partnerships for enabling inclusive education in Hong Kong

Education reform towards a whole school approach to catering for diversity within Hong Kong government schools has seen the initiation of several strategies to support mainstream schools in this transition. One of these approaches is the use of a resource school model. Special and mainstream schools in Hong Kong are being invited to establish themselves as resource support hubs for partner mainstream schools. This paper investigates how this model is being implemented by considering one of each type of resource school. Three broad themes have emerged that relate to the type of support being offered and sought: the school ethos and culture of the partner schools; and management issues. The effectiveness of a resource model is evaluated for its use in Hong Kong.     

School leadership for the future: heroic or distributed? Translating international discourses in Norwegian policy documents

School leadership as a key for school reforms has become a dominant theme in education, as demonstrated by a growing body of research during the last 15 years. Still, little attention has been paid to how changing international discourses on school leadership are translated into national public policy documents during the last decade. As such, this study provides additional insight into this field by analysing how Norwegian policy documents translate international discourses and re-contextualise national constructs of school leadership. Inspired by a critical approach, the authors address this issue by identifying discursive shifts in ideas about school leadership roles and practices. Based on an examination of four recent white papers on Norwegian education and school leadership, the authors argue that the policy documents constructed a tension between an international ‘explicit’ principal and a national ‘docile’ principal in 2003–2004, while recent documents construct a consensus-oriented, distributed leadership role for principals through the term ‘facilitating school leaders’. This may lead to contested interpretations as to how to perform school leadership in practice.     

The construction of the ‘ideal pupil’ and pupils’ perceptions of ‘misbehaviour’ and discipline: contrasting experiences from a low‐socio‐economic and a high‐socio‐economic primary school

This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high‐stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working‐class school and a middle‐class school, indicate that the effect of the ‘testing culture’ is much greater in the working‐class school. Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the ‘ideal pupil’, it is shown that these pupils’ learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle‐class school. While this study includes only two schools, it indicates a potentially significant issue for neo‐liberal education policy where education is marketised and characterised by high‐stakes testing, and schools are polarised in terms of social class.     

LGBTQ-inclusive curricula: why supportive curricula matter

There is growing attention to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) issues in schools, including efforts to address such issues through the curriculum. This study examines whether students’ perceptions of personal safety and school climate safety are stronger when curricula that include LGBTQ people are present and supportive. LGBTQ and straight middle and high school students from California (1232 students from 154 schools) participated in the 2008 Preventing School Harassment survey. They reported their experience of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, its level of supportiveness and perceptions of safety. Multilevel methods allowed for an examination of differences between individuals in the same school while controlling for differences between schools. LGBTQ-inclusive curricula were associated with higher reports of safety at the individual and school levels, and lower levels of bullying at the school level. The amount of support also mattered: supportive curricula were related to feeling safer and awareness of bullying at the individual and school levels. The implications of school- versus student-level results for educational policy and practices are discussed.