Rationalisation and Professionalisation: A comparison of the transfer of registered nurse education to higher education in Australia and the UK

During the latter part of the 1980s registered nurse education was transferred from hospital-based training to higher education in Australia and the UK. Examining this transfer process, analytical attention is focused on the contrast in subsequent funding arrangements for registered nurse education between the two nations. It is argued that the difference in funding arrangements can be explained by an analysis of two separate movements impacting on health care policy in both Australia and the UK: those of professionalisation in nursing and economic rationalisation. This paper discusses the implications of these movements and the subsequent differing educational funding arrangements in terms of the professionalisation of nursing in Australia and the UK.     

Re-inventing the Historical in Comparative Education: Reflections on a protean episteme by a contemporary player

It has been said, not in jest, that while the future may be predictable, the past is unpredictable. This essay first constructs yet another, but hopefully different, historical overview of the episteme of comparative education in the USA, the American comparative proteus (after the Greek mythical sea-god who, according to the Oxford English Dictionary , would assume different shapes and appearances 'to avoid answering questions'). The focus of the second section is a comparative view of the British comparative proteus. In both cases, the analysis is focused on the epistemological-cum-methodological orientations of the two 'comparative educations'. It is argued that in the period after the 1960s the two proteuses were metamorphosed from essentially being historical to social scientific. In the third section it is argued that this metamorphosis has impoverished the field, and a call is made for the re-invention of the historical dimension in comparative education. It is further argued that the reclamation of the historical legacy, among other things, would help to humanise comparative education in a cosmos of economic globalisation and instrumental rationality.     

Classical Political Economy and the Role of Universities in the New Knowledge Economy

Higher education has become the new star ship in the policy fleet for governments around the world. The public policy focus on higher education, in part, reflects a growing consensus in macroeconomics of 'new growth' or 'endogenous growth' theory, based on the work of Solow, Lucas and Romer that argues that the driving force behind economic growth is technological change (i.e. improvements in knowledge about how we transform inputs into outputs in the production process). Knowledge about technology and levels of information flow are now considered critical for economic development and can account for differential growth patterns. In short, universities are seen to be a key driver towards the knowledge economy. Accordingly, higher education institutions have been encouraged to develop links with industry and business in a series of new venture partnerships. This emphasis in higher education policy also accords with initiatives to promote greater entrepreneurial skills and activity within so-called national systems of innovation. This paper focuses upon the economic importance of higher education as a key component of the knowledge economy. It discusses the genealogy and contributing strands to the newly emerging discourse and considers universities in the knowledge-driven economy by reference to the UK White Paper Our Competitive Future. It also considers the arguments advanced by Joseph Stiglitz (ex-Chief Economist of the World Bank) for the 'analytics of the knowledge economy' and discusses universities in terms of 'knowledge cultures'. Finally, the paper provides a critique of the policy discourse of the knowledge economy as a basis of the new challenges facing universities under knowledge capitalism.     

The Women's Movement in Canadian and Australian Education: From liberation and sexism to boys and social justice

This article provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the women's movement was able to effect change in educational policy and practice in Australia and Canada between 1970 and 2000, drawing on interviews and document analysis in both countries. While the movement in both countries drew on similar international texts and conversations, it had more sustained state support in education in Australia. Despite the different degrees of institutionalisation, similar trends emerged in both countries. There was more public visibility for the movement in the 1970s and 1980s than in the 1990s, and a shift in discourse from 'women's liberation' and 'sexism' to boys and social justice. It is argued that the movement continues to be a creative source of ideas and change even when it is less visible and less formally represented, and that differences in outcomes are not easily linked to differences in institutionalisation. In both countries, major change has occurred, although the demands of the movement have not been realised.     

Globalisation,Post-modernity and the State: Comparative education facing the third millennium

In this article, the implications for globalisation and Post-modernity are assessed in terms of the self-understanding and practice of comparative education, particularly in relation to contemporary theories of the state, and civil society. It is argued that, while globalisation and post-modernity are usually seen as discrete phenomena, each raises complex questions of difference and hybridity, power and collective action, which can no longer be seen in relation to the nation-state alone. Different meanings of globalisation are canvassed, based in part on Sklair's taxonomy, while examples of the impact of globalisation, especially on higher education, are given. The implications of post-modern thought are also analysed, particularly for research and understanding in comparative education. Referring to Putnam's work on civil society, it is argued that both globalisation and post-modernity are linked to changes in the nature of late capitalism, and crises in the modern state. It is finally argued that neither offers much in practice to the much needed renewal of democracy, including in education; indeed that both arguably contribute to a trend towards individualism, and a retreat from democratic engagement and visions of the social good.     

The Construction and Challenges of Australia's Post‐binary System of Higher Education

Abstract

In 1988 Australia commenced the transition to a post‐binary system of higher education as the UK is currently doing. In both countries the generally acknowledged obsolescence of the dual system had provoked the structural change. In Australia, the new direction was also motivated by official concerns that the universities be made more accessible to government priorities, particularly economic priorities, at a time of national economic decline. Unlike the UK, the Australian post‐binary era has been founded on a government programme of widespread amalgamations based upon the universities.

This article explores the process of constructing the unitary system, the difficulties experienced in conceptualising the new order and its impact upon the other provider of tertiary education. The Australian approach has ignored a canon in higher education, that varied structures and types of institutions preserve diversity. Further, in contrast to Britain's gradualist path into a unitary system, Australia moved quickly to form large undifferentiated universities to serve the needs of a mass system of higher education.     

Benchmarking academic standards in the UK

Abstract

The Dealing Report in the UK supported the use of benchmarking in higher education, taking as its stimulus the use of benchmarking in industrial and commercial contexts. The UK Government's concern regarding academic standards has raised the question of whether benchmarking could be applied to them.

This article reports on a pilot study of the benchmarking of academic standards in the UK, and demonstrates ‐ with reference to empirical data ‐ that benchmarking in this context needs to be approached differently from benchmarking in industrial/commercial milieux, since it requires a combination of finely‐drawn comparisons and professional judgements if valid conclusions are to be drawn. It is argued that the complexity which underpins academic standards is inimical to the production of statements about standards that will be applicable across the span of a diverse national system of higher education. The argument presented can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to systems of higher education beyond the UK.     

Going Dutch! A perspective on the Dutch system of special education

Abstract

The comparative study of education systems and processes is a greatly undervalued science. This report argues that there is much to be learned from the study of the Dutch system of special education in informing proposed developments in its UK counterpart. Despite inevitable cultural and evolutionary differences between the systems, careful study can potentially prevent the failings in one being replicated in the other. This is nowhere more relevant than in relation to the integration versus segregation debate. Though it is argued that Dutch constitutional law has severely handicapped developments in Dutch special education, particular practices such as the systematic approach to planning, the extensive use of negotiated contracts, the development of integrated support systems and the close association between research and provision seem to be most worthy of serious consideration within the context of a rapidly changing system of UK special education.     

Towards social justice in education: contradictions and dilemmas

The article builds on prior arguments that research on issues of social justice in education has often lacked constructive engagement with education policy-making, and that this can be partly attributed to a lack of clarity about what a socially just education system might look like. Extending this analysis, this article argues that this lack of clarity is perpetuated by a series of contradictions and dilemmas underpinning ‘progressive’ debate in education, which have not been adequately confronted. At the heart are dilemmas about what constitutes a socially just negotiation of the binarised hierarchy of knowledge that characterises education in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. Three exemplar cases presented from contemporary education curriculum policy in England and Australia are used to illustrate these dilemmas. We then extend this argument to a series of other philosophical dilemmas which haunt education and create tensions or contradictions for those concerned with social justice. It is maintained that we need to confront these dilemmas in efforts to extend conceptual clarity in what it is we are seeking to achieve, which in turn can better equip us to provide the empirical and conceptual information necessary to effectively engage policy-making to remediate inequalities in education.     

Comparative Education for the 21st Century: Retrospect and prospect

During the 19th and 20th centuries modern Western education systems have become so globally embedded that alternative forms of educational provision-and goals-have become almost inconceivable. The article argues the likely need for a substantial reconceptualisation in the content, organisation and evaluation of contemporary education systems in response to the profound changes currently impacting on society. Comparative education, it is argued, has a unique capacity 'to make the familiar strange' but so far, despite the advent of exciting new methodologies and the rapidly increasing prominence of comparative studies as a tool for policy-making, comparative education has largely worked within the conventional 'delivery model' conception of education. By so doing, it has arguably helped to reinforce the status quo. Thus the second half of the article offers a prospective vision for the mode, purpose and context of comparative education studies which is in tune with the emerging new educational aspirations of the 21st century and the acknowledged shortcomings of conventional forms of educational provision. Such a 'neo-comparative education', it is argued, would focus on learning and its relationship with culture; would become perhaps better conceptualised as Wa 'comparative learnology' as the means of understanding how individuals can be encouraged to engage successfully with the many new forms of learning opportunity that are likely to characterise the third millennium.     

Modular Vocational Education and Training in Scotland and The Netherlands: Between specificity and coherence

Modularisation has frequently been advocated as a means to reform and modernise vocational education and training, to make it more flexible and responsive to economic, technological and social change, to take more account of individual differences and needs, and to improve its coherence and efficiency as a system. In this article developments in modularising vocational education and training in two countries-Scotland and The Netherlands-are compared. The analysis is restricted to modular initiatives within initial vocational education and training at a non-advanced level (that is at craft/technician level). Features and developments of the modular system in both countries seem to be closely related to strategies chosen to deal with the need to offer customised vocational (that is specific) training for various client groups, which at the same time does not limit opportunities for progression and transfer-the coherence of the system. In confronting the modular systems and strategies with these somewhat contradictory needs this comparative analysis draws on two perspectives: a sociological and a psychological, educationallearning theory. From these perspectives it might be argued that collaboration and/or certain characteristicsof modular vocational training offer a way out of the quandary of 'specificity' versus 'coherence'.     

Post‐graduation reflections on the value of a degree

This article investigates the impact of a changing higher education system on young adults' priorities and motivations. A considerable number of studies have explored the impact of recent changes on patterns of participation within higher education. However, there has been less emphasis on how such changes have been played out in the experiences of graduates and, more specifically, in the interface between higher education and lifelong learning. To redress this gap, this article explores the changes to graduates' experiences brought about by the ‘massification’ of the higher education system. Research conducted amongst young people in Australia has suggested that as result of the normalisation of post‐compulsory education and the encouragement of high aspirations, young people have come to assume a one‐to‐one relationship between being qualified and having a lasting professional career. It has been argued that as a result of these assumptions, young adults are often disappointed when they do eventually enter the labour market, and experience uncertainties previously associated with the end of compulsory schooling. If young adults do indeed feel misled about the rewards of a higher education, it is possible that this may have a significant bearing on their perceptions of the value of engaging in further education and training in the future. Drawing on 90 life history interviews with graduates in their mid‐twenties, this article explores the prevalence of such attitudes in the UK and their impact on young adults' attitudes to lifelong learning.     

Why the Aims of Education Cannot Be Settled

The dominant model of curriculum design in the last century assumed that school education could be organized around aims, defined primarily in terms of students' behaviour. The credentials of this model were questioned by, among others, Lawrence Stenhouse, who pointed out that education serves purposes that cannot be stated in terms of behavioural objectives. In this article, I offer support for Stenhouse's conclusion and go beyond it, showing that if education aims at critical understanding of its own value, then it is even more radically open‐ended than Stenhouse argued. My argument is based on two premises. One of them is that the reason why people disagree about what education involves is that they have less‐than‐perfect knowledge of what human characteristics are worth cultivating. This premise is supported by a theory of meaning advanced by Hilary Putnam. The other premise is that one of the aims of education is intellectual independence. From these premises, I conclude that a successful course of education serves purposes that cannot be completely stated in advance.     

Some problems with the translation: conductive pedagogy in the context of comparative education

ABSTRACT

Some of the difficulties for the uptake of conductive pedagogy in the UK lie in cultural differences that are worth examining as issues of comparative education. In part, the difficulties arise from differing national perceptions of disabled people in society, from the low availability of authoritative information on the pedagogy and from different perspectives on the curriculum. In part, the different cultures of therapists and teachers in the UK may cause problems too. Collaboration may be difficult in an area, such as motor disorder, where more than one professional group has a legitimate and close professional stake. Failure to address these issues will make it difficult for conducting to establish a place in British education.     

John Wilson and the Place of Morality in Education

This paper asks whether it would be better not to talk about morality in schools. The issue is raised through a consideration of changes in public discourse and especially in educational discourse, where categories such as ''personal, social and health education'' and ''citizenship education'' are more salient than ''moral education''. Drawing on John Wilson's arguments, the paper considers claims for the indispensability of the concept of morality. It is argued that such claims, in Wilson's own writings, are applied to both an ''individual'' and a ''social'' conception of morality. Contrary to Wilson, the paper argues that the ''wisest strategy'' for public education is to take the social conception of ''morality in the narrow sense'' as a central focus.     

教师教育课程改革的国际趋势

我国《教师教育课程标准》的研制建立在对国际教师教育课程改革研究的基础之上,本文对美国、英国、德国、法国、澳大利亚和日本等发达国家教师教育课程改革的理念和实践展开比较分析,指出教师教育课程改革的国际趋势表现在:开展旨在教师终身专业发展的、以学习者为中心的教师教育课程改革;注重教师教育课程的前沿性、灵活性和实用性;注重模块式课程的开发和教育临床研究;注重以学生为中心的课程实施方法;注重质的评价和严格把关相结合的课程评价。     

International student migration: a comparison of UK and Indian students’ motivations for studying abroad

ABSTRACT

This paper breaks new ground in its comparative analysis of two international student migration (ISM) streams, one from the Global South to the Global North (India to developed Anglophone countries), and the other within the Global North (UK to North America, Europe and Australia). These two ISM movements reflect different positionalities within the global system of international student movements, and hence necessitate a critical perspective on the assumptions behind such a comparison, which questions the dominance of ‘knowledge’ about ISM that derives from ‘the West’ as a theoretical template. Two methods are employed to collect data: an online questionnaire survey of UK and Indian students who are, or have recently been, studying abroad; and in-depth interviews to UK and Indian international students. Motivations for studying abroad are remarkably similar in the questionnaire results; more subtle differences emerge from the interviews.     

Girls in the Education Market: Choice,competition and complexity

ABSTRACT This paper considers the role of girls' schools in the UK education market and, concomitantly, the positioning and 'value' of girls in the education market place. Themarketing and public presentations of two schools are examined and the messages and impressions presented to parents are analysed. The relationships of these schools to their 'competitors' are also explored. These are set against the 'choices' and choice-making of a sample of local parents considering the possibility of single-sex schooling for their daughters. It is argued that the current conditions of competition in the UK education market offer some advantages to girls but that these advantages have to be set against the continuing contradictions and oppressions of single-sex schooling.     

Towards a meta-research agenda in science and enviormental educaion

Abstract

This paper begins by establishing the existence of a debate in the broader educational community about the nature, meaning and significance of educational research, and its recognition that different approaches to educational research do not simply represent different strategies for data collection but rest on and express different ideologies that implicate different political attitudes among teachers, students, subject‐matters,schools, support agencies and researchers themselves. Evidence can be seen that this debate is beginning to appear in the science education literature and it is believed that the arguments can be extended.

It is argued that research in science education and environmental education needs to consider methodology in the political terms of ideology, rather than simply in the technical terms of method and technique. Some of the recent thinking about the politics of method in both science education and environmental education, is then considered briefly and a number of meta‐research questions are proffered that might focus further attention on the political theory of research in these two fields.     

The upward Brain drain and a myth

Abstract

A recent article on education in China succeeded in giving a fresh tweak to the arguments concerning whether aptitude or achievement testing is more likely to promote equality of educational opportunity. In ‘The Diploma Disease’ Ronald Dore expounded the view that aptitude testing is to be preferred for selection purposes on the grounds that it gives more weight to ‘innate potential’ (his term) than does achievement testing which produces results more affected by quality of schooling, an influence which is all too variable, especially in emerging countries. Although shot through with considerable ambivalence, Dore's view could still be instrumental in persuading educational and political authorities in those countries that aptitude testing will do what he says it will do ‐ ‘make for greater equality of educational opportunity and be more effective in mobilizing all available talent’. And even if these authorities have never set eyes on Dore's book, there is sufficient evidence that some of them are acting as if they had taken Dore's view on board for it to be worth re‐opening the question. It is argued here that Dore's position cannot be supported.