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This article, by Jean Ware of Bangor University School of Education, examines policy developments in education in Wales since devolution, and their implications for inclusive and special education. This is set in the context of the demographics of Wales, which, it is argued, have a significant influence on policy and on the nature of educational provision as a whole. The discussion initially focuses on issues related to the Welsh language. The article then discusses four policy initiatives (the Foundation Phase, the Literacy and Numeracy Framework, the Masters in Educational Practice and the proposed reform of initial teacher education and training), intended to respond to Wales's poor performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment, and their potential impact, as well as the White Paper on reforming the special educational needs system in Wales. It is too soon to discuss the impact of these special educational needs-specific reforms, but the differences from the English special educational needs reforms highlight the inherent tensions in special educational needs systems. It is argued that the Tabberer Report's critique of the teacher education system in Wales, which emphasises the need for teacher education to be strongly connected to relevant research, provides an opportunity to improve the quality of education in Wales for all children; but that considerable investment, and a willingness to address the potential tensions between the different initiatives, is necessary to achieve such an outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Labour and New Labour alike have been the enemies of education. Consider the brutalism of Charles Clarke--'history for display purposes only'; statistics of achievement based on the soft marking of soft subjects to achieve soviet pig-iron statistics; fat inspection and thin curriculum; compulsory lesson plans and paper plagues; foreign languages as too difficult. Before all that, remember Anthony Crosland 'destroying their schools if it's the last fucking thing I do' and the consequent rise of the public schools as bought excellence. What to do : Follow Housman's dictum, 'Knowledge is happiness'; rescue good minds in bad places with state places in boarding schools; utilise the quiz nationally the as a pop method to stimulate the study habit; get back to French and German; take the educationalism out of education especially in training colleges; thin inspection down from terror to weather-eye mentoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on research undertaken between 2009 and 2012 into the former Labour government's extremely ambitious 'Building Schools for the Future' ( BSF) Programme and its withdrawal by the Coalition government. The project, which utilises analysis of policy documents, case studies in six local authorities ( LA) and semi-structured interviews with national and local policy actors, is being funded by Roehampton's Centre for Educational Research in Equalities, Policy and Pedagogy and the British Academy ( SG100363). The focus of this article is the implications for social justice of BSF and its subsequent withdrawal. The structure of the article comprises an introduction to BSF and a summary of some of the main issues arising from it. We then move on to explore the social justice dimension of BSF as it is expressed in LA documents and in relation to the social policy aspirations of the former Labour government. In July 2010 the Coalition government discontinued the BSF programme and we track events and policy from that time, particularly focussing on the radical shift away from Labour's transformational and communitarian agenda in favour of criteria based on efficiency and value-for-money. We present data from our interviews with local actors on the equality and social justice impacts of this re-orientation of policy. We conclude by arguing against the view that Labour abandoned social justice suggesting that BSF was one of a number of policies through which equality was pursued, albeit by stealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the situation of teachers in Great Britain in light of the publication of a government paper entitled "Teachers: Meeting the Challenge of Change," recent to July 1999. Subjects discussed include attempts to modernize the profession, performance-related pay schemes, and issues in public sector accountability.

A lot has been written about the lasting implications of the Conservative reforms to English schooling, particularly changes made by Michael Gove as Education Secretary (2010–2014). There is a lot less work, however, on studying the role that language, strategy and the broader political framework played in the process of instituting and winning consent for these reforms. Studying these factors is important for ensuring that any changes to education and schooling are not read in isolation from their political context. Speeches particularly capture moments where intellectual and strategic political traditions meet, helping us to form a richer understanding of the motives behind specific reform goals and where they fit into a political landscape. This article analyses speeches and policy documents from prominent politicians who led the Conservative education agenda between 2010–2014 to illustrate how politicians mobilised a deliberate populist strategy and argumentation to achieve specific educational goals, but which have had broader social and political implications. Concepts from interpretive political studies are used to develop a case analysis of changes to teacher training provision and curriculum reform, illustrating how politicians constructed a frontier between 'the people' (commonly teachers or parents) and an illegitimate 'elite' (an educational establishment) that opposed change. This anti‐elite populist rhetoric, arguably first tested in the Department for Education, has now become instituted more widely in our current British politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an evaluative account of its authors' involvement in three major national improvement initiatives. Set in the context of three of the countries that make up the UK, these developments were focused in particular on the promotion of educational equity. Unusually, the analysis provided compares evidence collected from an insider perspective with data generated through independent evaluations. In so doing, it considers how research and researchers can contribute to system change by using research evidence to influence policy‐makers and practitioners at all levels of the system. The article argues that this requires the coming together of different perspectives in a process of social learning and knowledge creation within particular settings. This means that researchers have to overcome a number of barriers related to social, cultural and political factors. They therefore have to develop skills in creating collaborative partnerships that span boundaries between actors who have different types of professional experience. It is argued that researchers also need to mobilise support in dealing with the pressures that this involves. The article concludes with the presentation of a strategic framework that can be used to think about how school systems can be helped to make better use of research knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Robbins Report was the most deeply researched and most highly regarded report ever written on British higher education. By common consent at the time it marked a watershed in the development of higher education in Britain and took its place as one of the most influential contributions to the growth of British society since Beveridge. However, some of its most important recommendations were not accepted and for nearly 30 years the pattern of development that it proposed was in abeyance. This article describes the context of the establishment of the Robbins Committee, considers the processes that it followed in reaching its conclusions and offers an account of why some key recommendations were rejected. The article is intended to provide an historical introduction to the articles in this special issue of the journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of inconclusive evidence on the extrinsic successes of quasi-markets, policy defences of school choice and competition in education have often discussed the intrinsic, empowering value of choice for consumers, arguing that school choice for parents is 'what people want'. Discourses often imply that choice is desired for its own sake rather than merely as a means by which families can escape what are deemed to be poor quality schools. Support for an idealistic, abstract notion of 'choice' is also taken to imply support for quasi-markets overall and is not considered alongside possible competing values that people may hold at the same time as they value choice. Additionally, views of parents are often examined without considering possible differences in views between parents and non-parents. Contributing to debates about how far a public desire exists for quasi-markets in education, this article draws on data from newly designed questions fielded as part of the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey. The article finds that while choice 'in the abstract' is supported widely by both parents and non-parents (albeit slightly more so by parents), a valuing of choice among the British public appears to be more instrumental than intrinsic - potentially problematic given evidence on the extrinsic benefits of quasi-markets is mixed. Support for choice is tempered among parents and non-parents by clear opposition to vouchers, school diversity, government spending on transport costs to facilitate choice and by strong support for the idea of sending children to the 'nearest state school'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the development of a new National Curriculum in England following the general election of 2010. The prevailing political ideology of an approach based on securing 'core knowledge' in a limited range of preferred 'academic' subjects and its deleterious impact on the arts in schools is described. The vigorous debate accompanying these 'reforms' is summarised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conceived as an opportunity to reflect on the place of action-research in the contested landscape of educational change in the UK where increasing emphasis has been put on the use of evidence to drive reform. In the context of a government-sponsored project in Scotland, this study looked at the impact of a scholarship initiative supporting classroom teachers to undertake action-research projects on a topic of their own choice with the assistance of a mentor. Data collected from interviews with teachers and analysis of teacher action-research reports pointed to a multi-faceted concept of practice unfolding from individual inquiry and dialogical conversations with colleagues and university mentors. The study argues for further analysis of the use of action-research as a means to develop teachers' knowledge and to recover the value of collective and creative engagements in education to guide reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers possible future directions for education policy and public service governance under the Conservative-led coalition government. The article considers the extent to which Conservatives might develop a distinctive strategy for managing public services that breaks decisively with that of the New Labour era. The coalition faces a markedly different political and economic context for public service reform compared to its predecessor. This article argues that these contextual constraints make a continuation of the New Labour governing strategy less viable, but unresolved tensions in the coalition education policies enacted to date may hinder the development of a novel project for education reform. As a consequence, the New Labour education project seems likely to remain largely intact for the foreseeable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on 14-19 educational reform and training in Great Britain. The government commissioned an independent report on the future of this education, the Tomlinson Working Group which, in October 2004, recommended the establishment of a multi-level diploma system as a new framework for post-14 learning. this article we will argue that if the Tomlinson proposals are to spearhead a movement out of a medium participation system, then not only will they have to be accepted in full but also immediately reinforced by the creation of a more collaborative institutional framework and, in the longer term, by significant reform of the youth labour market and the role employers play in 14-19 education and training.

In this article, the author constrains to write about contemporaneous debate over British education and its reconstruction, culminating in the Education Act of 1944, rather than give a commentary on the 1942 Beveridge Report. The act was a milestone since the country has the poorest overall educational record of any developed nation. In the consultations leading up to the act, opinion favored the raising of the school leaving age beyond 14. Important as were the advances made by the act, the consequences of creating this tripartitie system led to years of intense political, social and educational controversy.