Participation and equity in higher education: are we going back to the future?

The December 2008 special issue of the Oxford Review of Education provided a review of education policy during Tony Blair’s tenure as Prime Minister. This paper forms a response to the ten contributions to that special issue and discusses some of the issues raised in them. While a few positive aspects of education under New Labour were identified in the special edition, it focused more on the failures of New Labour than its achievements. A common theme to emerge from the papers included the government’s pursuit of neo‐liberal market policies at the expense of its professed commitment to social justice. While accepting that the government’s failure to tackle the differences in educational outcomes between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils constitutes a major failing, the present author argues that significant achievements, such as early years provision, were neglected in the special issue. He also discusses the electoral considerations facing New Labour and the personal role of Tony Blair in determining policy. The paper goes on to consider whether New Labour’s education policy has changed since the departure of Blair and identifies some hints of a potentially more progressive approach developing under Brown. It concludes by suggesting that contributing towards a debate about alternatives to Blairite policies should now become a priority for the ‘educational establishment’.     

Language,discourse and teaching the language arts: The development of imaginative self‐understanding

Paul Ricoeur asks that we conceive of the imagination less in terms of visual images than in terms of language. He develops this idea as part of the hermeneutic work of interpreting literary texts and posits that the world disclosed by the literary work provides a space for the imaginative consideration of new possibilities for the self. I describe some principles for educating children in a literary tradition that may assist in the development of linguistic expression and self‐understanding. Furthermore, some suggestions are made concerning the education of language arts teachers in this regard.     

Time for curriculum reform: the case of mathematics

Mathematics education is rarely out of the policy spotlight in England. Over the last 10 years, considerable attention has been given to improving 14–19 mathematics curriculum pathways. In this paper we consider some of the challenges of enacting curriculum change by drawing upon evidence from our evaluation of the Mathematics Pathways Project (MPP). From 2004 to 2010 this project, which was directed by England's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, aimed to improve the engagement, attainment and participation rates of 14- to 19-year-old learners of mathematics. Our particular focus is upon the temporal problems of piloting new curriculum and assessment and we draw on Lemke's discussion of timescales, heterochrony and the adiabatic principle to consider the interlocking and interference of various change processes.     

Inference by Eye: Pictures of Confidence Intervals and Thinking About Levels of Confidence

A picture of a 95% confidence interval (CI) implicitly contains pictures of CIs of all other levels of confidence, and information about the p‐value for testing a null hypothesis. This article discusses pictures, taken from interactive software, that suggest several ways to think about the level of confidence of a CI, p‐values, and what conclusions can be drawn from inspecting a CI.     

Making R&D More Than Research Plus Development

Much criticism of educational research has focussed on the problem of its effective dissemination to practitioners. This paper explores an alternative model, in which research, in some of its modes at least, is linked with development rather than dissemination. This argument is made in the context of further education. Most further education colleges have a tradition of involvement in development work, and many have a senior member of staff responsible for it. An examination of this has led to the conclusion that a two-way link needs to exist between researchers and those who have the role of development manager in colleges. It is argued that a well developed model embracing both research and development could be very powerful, and could establish a new and more productive relationship between colleges and universities. However, it is also argued that this relationship cannot be fully effective without some form of mediation. This requires the creation of a new kind of professional to undertake this function. The model proposed is one in which research and development remain distinct activities, each with their own disciplines and expertise, but where R&D as an integrated concept becomes more than the sum of its parts.     

Developing a ‘leading identity’: the relationship between students’ mathematical identities and their career and higher education aspirations

The construct of identity has been used widely in mathematics education in order to understand how students (and teachers) relate to and engage with the subject (Kaasila, 2007; Sfard & Prusak, 2005; Boaler, 2002). Drawing on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), this paper adopts Leont’ev’s notion of leading activity in order to explore the key ‘significant’ activities that are implicated in the development of students’ reflexive understanding of self and how this may offer differing relations with mathematics. According to Leont’ev (1981), leading activities are those which are significant to the development of the individual’s psyche through the emergence of new motives for engagement. We suggest that alongside new motives for engagement comes a new understanding of self—a leading identity—which reflects a hierarchy of our motives. Narrative analysis of interviews with two students (aged 16–17 years old) in post-compulsory education, Mary and Lee, are presented. Mary holds a stable ‘vocational’ leading identity throughout her narrative and, thus, her motive for studying mathematics is defined by its ‘use value’ in terms of pursuing this vocation. In contrast, Lee develops a leading identity which is focused on the activity of studying and becoming a university student. As such, his motive for study is framed in terms of the exchange value of the qualifications he hopes to obtain. We argue that this empirical grounding of leading activity and leading identity offers new insights into students’ identity development.     

Information management in law enforcement: The case of police intelligence strategy implementation

Strategy implementation is important because failure to carry out strategy can cause lost opportunities and leave police officers reluctant to do strategic planning. Lack of implementation creates problems in maintaining priorities and reaching organizational goals. The strategy execution task is commonly the most complicated and time-consuming part of strategic, management. Yet, strategy implementation suffers from a general lack of academic attention. This research paper makes a contribution to police strategy implementation literature by developing a, research model to study the extent of intelligence strategy implementation.