Half Full, Not Half Empty: A Positive Look at Part-time Higher Education

This article explores the largely negative view of part-time higher education in contemporary policy discourse and the academic community. It presents the available data and re-interprets it in a positive way demonstrating that part-time students are not only in the (silent) majority but represent a model of lifelong learning, generate significant income for the universities and represent a resource of great potential for higher education. However, it concludes that there remains an outstanding research agenda and policy debate before its full potential can be realised.     

Educational and Vocational Policy and Construction of the European Union

Drawing on the author's current ESRC-funded research (The Impact of Performance Threshold Assessment on Teachers' Work), this article focuses on a current policy initiative in England, namely, the establishment of a performance management regime in schools and, in particular the Threshold Assessment. They examine three aspects of these developments. First, the manner in which the policy was initially established and the current situation regarding its development and implementation. Next, drawing upon the research they are undertaking in schools, they consider what the process of Threshold Assessmenthas felt like for various actors within the school context. Finally, they place this particular initiative within a global setting by drawing upon interviews recently undertaken in Australia and connecting these discussions to more general debates around 'globalisation'.We have progressively established a kind of 'Macworld' capitalism, where product choices whether for hamburgers or computers are increasingly homogenized and standardized across all countries, and where systems and tastes are alike controlled and developed in a proprietary mode by large corporations … The scale of markets and competition has decisively escalated in some areas, screening out local solutions and corporations in favour of transnational companies, dominant brands and standardized solutions. Cultural barriers to product acceptance have crumbled even in areas where they once seemed insurmountable. (Dunleavy, 1994, p. 50)     

Research dissemination in creative arts,humanities and the social sciences

An ethnographic case study of issues related to research performance and promotion of research was conducted within the Creative and Performing Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) disciplines of a regional university. The purpose of the study was to explore a variety of ways in which the research work of those disciplines could be made more visible to others, both within and outside the university. In reviewing the research performance, concerns and orientation of academics in AHSS disciplines, this paper addresses the issue of disciplinary variations in research activity and research focus, with implications both for future programs of research performance assessment, and for the promotion of research activity among currently disenfranchised AHSS academics. In the context of current Australian debates about a research quality framework, the data considered address issues of impact, rather than quality.