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The article offers information on the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Swann Report in Great Britain in 2005. The issues investigated by Swann remains resonating both in Great Britain and beyond and the significance and the legacy of the report remain subjects of significant debate. There were 51 papers presented over the two days conference at the University of Birmingham. The subject of Gary McCulloch's article is about class and more particularly the education of the middle age class. Christine Mayer's article is providing details on the changing educational practices for girls and women between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Germany.

This paper uses Basil Bernstein’s work on pedagogic discourses to examine a largely neglected facet of the history of vocational education – the liberal studies movement in English further education colleges. Initially, the paper discusses some of the competing conceptions of education, work and society which underpinned the rise and fall of the liberal studies movement – if indeed it can be described as such. The paper then draws on data from interviews with former liberal and general studies lecturers to focus on the ways in which different variants of liberal studies were, over time, implicated in inculcating certain forms of knowledge in vocational learners. Whilst it is acknowledged that liberal and general studies always represented contested territory and that it was highly variable both in terms of content and quality, the paper argues that, at least under certain circumstances, liberal studies provided young working-class people with the opportunity to locate their experiences of vocational learning within a critical framework that is largely absent from further education today. This, it is argued, can be conceptualised as an engagement with what Bernstein described as ‘powerful knowledge’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores doctoral candidates' experiences of making progress through the doctoral space. We engage concepts associated with the 'new mobilities' paradigm (Urry, J. 2007. Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press) to provide insight into the candidate experience of the doctoral journey; exploring specifically the interplay between the fixed structure provided by institutional-level progression frameworks that are commonly implemented by UK universities to measure 'timely progress' across disciplines and the borderlands space that enables and facilitates intellectual freedom, creativity, becoming and adventure. Drawing on notions of 'moorings', 'home on the move', 'connectivity and transit spaces' and 'rhizomic thinking' we analyse narrative data generated through the reflective diaries of doctoral candidates at a modern university in the English Midlands to offer new insight into how universities can provide better doctoral education, that supports: candidates to make a contribution to knowledge; protects well-being; and facilitates timely completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares access to full-time undergraduate higher education (HE) by members of less advantaged social classes and ethnic minorities across the four ‘home countries’ of the UK. It uses data on applicants to HE in selected years from 1996 to 2010. In all home countries students from intermediate and working-class backgrounds retained a broadly level share of a rising total participation in HE, while ethnic minorities increased their share. Intermediate- and working-class students were more likely to study within their own home country, as were ethnic-minority students in England, but minority students from Northern Ireland and Scotland were much more likely than white students to study elsewhere (usually England). Some aspects of the admissions process appear to have been ‘unfair’ to lower class applicants; this was the same across the UK although the relative success of applications from colleges and independent schools, which might accentuate or mitigate inequalities, varied across the home countries. In England and Wales, ethnic-minority applicants were less likely to be offered a place but they compensated (only partially in the case of older universities) by gaining entry through clearing; in Scotland they were as likely to be offered a place but less likely to enter HE. The paper discusses the potential of such comparisons for benchmarking and for policy learning. It concludes that the similarities between the home countries are more substantial than their differences, and that administrative and political devolution in the 1990s has had little impact on inequalities in HE. There is no evidence of a significant impact of the divergence between market policies in England and the more social-democratic policies of the devolved administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Changes to the relationsbetweensport-education and employment labour markets have resulted in the increasing diversity of how academic and vocational skills, knowledge and practices are valuedwithinthe micro-level of qualifications. The implications of this are particularly felt by further education (FE) sport-lecturers in the UK, who are required to select, transform and transmit messages from both vocational education policy and the sport-industry sectors. To illustrate the implications of these changing relations, the paper offers insight into the experiences of one FE sport-lecturer, Janet (all names are pseudonyms), who, as part of her professional development, engaged within a process of reflective practice that focused on her pedagogic interactions within a Foundation Degree in Sport Coaching (FdSC). Drawing upon a Bernsteinian informed analysis we illustrate how Janet attempted to use a range of pedagogical strategies toframethe selection, transmission and evaluation of academic skills. This process supported students to begin recognising the value of academic skills and assimilate these with the more established vocational skills within the FdSC qualification. The experiences of Janet are then used as a starting point from which to discuss how the possibilities of change to pedagogic relations within the FdSC may be encouraged, developed and enacted across the vocational sport-education sector. We suggest that institutions and stakeholders responsible for shaping higher education sport-qualifications should consider how lecturers are supported in the framing of pedagogical relations that enable academic skills and practices to be integrated and valued within FdSC curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have been subject to much recent debate within the educational community. Whilst growing numbers of educators celebrate the potential of social networking to (re)engage learners with their studies, others fear that such applications compromise and disrupt young people's engagement with 'traditional' education provision. With these ongoing debates in mind, the current paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of the Facebook 'wall' activity of 909 undergraduate students in a UK university. Analysis of these data shows how much of students' education-related use of this social networking application was based around either the post-hoc critiquing of learning experiences and events, the exchange of logistical or factual information about teaching and assessment requirements, instances of supplication and moral support with regards to assessment or learning, or the promotion of oneself as academically incompetent and/or disengaged. With these themes in mind, the paper concludes that rather than necessarily enhancing or eroding students' 'front-stage' engagement with their formal studies, Facebook use must be seen as being situated within the 'identity politics' of being a student. In particular, Facebook appears to provide a ready space where the 'role conflict' that students often experience in their relationships with university work, teaching staff, academic conventions and expectations can be worked through in a relatively closed 'backstage' area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the changing nature of a range of information technology (IT) application skills that students declare on entering an accounting degree over the period from 1996 to 2006. Accounting educators need to be aware of the IT skills students bring with them to university because of the implications this has for learning and teaching within the discipline and the importance of both general and specific IT skills within the practice and craft of accounting. Additionally, IT skills constitute a significant element within the portfolio of employability skills that are increasingly demanded by employers and emphasized within the overall Higher Education (HE) agenda. The analysis of students' reported IT application skills on entry to university, across a range of the most relevant areas of IT use in accounting, suggest that their skills have continued to improve over time. However, there are significant differential patterns of change through the years and within cohorts. The paper addresses the generalizability of these findings and discusses the implications of these factors for accounting educators, including the importance of recognising the differences that are potentially masked by the general increase in skills; the need for further research into the changing nature, and implications, of the gender gap in entrants' IT application skills; and the low levels of entrants' spreadsheet and database skills that are a cause for concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the extent to which diversity in the backgrounds of students and diversity in the forms and characteristics of universities combine to produce diversities in learning experiences and outcomes. It draws on a recent major national study in the UK which has been investigating how student learning is mediated by a series of social and organisational factors. Fifteen case studies of student experiences in different universities lay at the heart of the study and provide extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence about the realities of diversity in UK higher education. The paper reports both diversities and commonalities in the student experience and its outcomes, some of which challenge the predominantly hierarchical and reputational conceptions of diversity and differentiation currently dominant in debates about UK higher education. The student 'voice' on these matters as reported here does not fully coincide with current policy priorities and 'voices'. Student perceptions of the ways in which they have changed as a result of the experience of higher education embrace a range of factors within which the social and the personal are at least as important as the academic. Although the focus in this paper is on student learning on undergraduate degrees in the biosciences, business studies and sociology, a model of university learning contexts and settings is presented which may have wider applicability to achieving a better understanding of higher education's increasing diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines claims that recent reforms to UK education have led to significant organisational changes in primary school and higher education. It also examines two main theoretical explanations for these, namely post-Fordism and New Managerialism. Examples of changes in both schools and universities, including flexibility and teamwork, are explored. Up to the mid-1980s, publicly funded educational organisations did display bureaucratic features, including rules, staff hierarchies and complex procedures. However, professionals employed in these organisations retained discretion and autonomy in their work. Since then, the introduction of an audit culture and a greater emphasis on management and regulation of the work of teachers and academics has decreased discretion and autonomy. This paper suggests that theories of New Managerialism offer a more satisfactory explanation of the changes explored than post-Fordism, which has more often been used as a normative model of what contemporary organisations should look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain's higher education institutions (HEIs) face fundamental and unprecedented competitive pressures due to lower government funding (Cm 5735, The Future of Higher Education , Department for Education and Skills, 2003) and a government agenda focused on a "widening participation agenda". We employ the resource-based view (RBV) of strategy development to explore potential coping strategies. The RBV has not previously been applied to HEIs, partly because of limited relevant strategic data. The paper explores whether or not universities possess sustainable competitive advantages and concludes that they do, particularly knowledge-based, reputational, innovative and architectural related advantages. Further research is proposed into the competitive advantages of individual HEIs. The paper argues that a resource-based perspective could provide new and valuable insights for strategy development at UK universities and that these same principles can be applied in other parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the functionality and user-interface issues associated with the design of an automated system that provides a visually based online index to multimedia information. This generic software has been used to provide 'one-stop'access to a substantial corpus of teaching material required by students undertaking one module of an engineering degree. In particular the paper addresses the metaphorical access to and provision of teaching material, non-linear access to that material, user-interface issues that interfere with the learning process, and the multifarious nature of the material needed for such courses. It concludes that there is a need for a hypermedia system that presents an integrated view of the material with graceful navigational dynamics. It should enable the student to organize interrelationships between that material according to need, while retaining the 'published' structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the periodical "Studies in the Education of Adults," will publish a symposium in 2007 on the theme of learning through the lifecourse: connecting identity, agency and structure, led by Kathryn Ecclestonc, University of Nottingham, Great Britain. All papers submitted for the symposium will be refereed in line with the normal procedure and criteria for studies. In addition, papers will be selected for their relevance and contribution to the symposium theme. The complex links between learners sense of identity, their capacity to act autonomously and the effects of structural conditions on their success in different parts of the education and training system have long been an interest of researchers in all sectors. The Autumn 2007 edition of the periodical will therefore seek to make a contribution to a debates in relation particularly to the education of adults. The layout of quotations and notes follow the conventions shown in the current number of the periodical.

Universities of the Third Age (U3A), lifelong learning institutes, and "senior universities" are terms used to describe organizations that provide education for older adults, specifically for those who are retired or in the "third age" of life. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive, historical overview of the evolution of these organizations across global settings. This article highlights the importance of older adult education while discussing U3A's structure and models. The article explores the origins and historical development of the U3A model and its influence on recent initiatives like the Age-Friendly Universities movement. It then focuses on the impact of French and British Models of U3A on providing older adult education. There is a general discussion of the expansion of these organizations in several countries and a comparison of each's curricular structure and approach. The article concludes with suggested future directions and potential areas of improvement (e.g. technology access, accessibility, and inclusion of older adult learners; diverse needs and interests) and ways these models can remain relevant to the ever-changing older adult learner population. Through this analysis, the article contributes to the understanding of U3A organizations and their role in promoting lifelong learning for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a postal survey designed to examine the teaching of taxation in UK universities. The project looks at taxation in undergraduate accounting degree programmes and adopts an objective centred focus. The principal aim of the survey was to examine the relationships between some characteristics of individual tax courses, including the course objectives and coverage, staffing, teaching and assessment methods, in an attempt to draw some conclusions on the nature of tax education in UK accounting degrees. The results of the survey and consequent analysis may provide taxation and accounting educators, professional bodies and researchers into accounting education with an insight into approaches to, and methods used in, taxation teaching. It may also present a framework for comparative international research in tax education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the professional identity of marketing academics in UK universities by focusing on two aspects, i.e. (1) their background characteristics and (2) the activities typically pursued by them. Specifically, the characteristics of marketing academics are explored in terms of demographic profiles, educational background and career structures, while activity patterns provide insights into the composition and length of the working week, research record and the relative importance of outside sources of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of tuition fees for undergraduate programmes in the UK universities, there has been a great deal of attention paid to the impact of the changes on higher education. But the lack of coverage given to the effects of the growing consumerist discourse that was influencing teaching methods and assessment approaches was puzzling [Naidoo, R., and I. Jamieson. 2005. “Empowering Participants or Corroding Learning? Towards a Research Agenda on the Impact of Student Consumerism in Higher Education.”Journal of Education Policy20 (3): 267–281]. There has been a similar silence within the critical management education (CME) literature despite the anecdotal accounts of the progressive erosion of the educational space for criticality. The changes to the educational environment present an opportunity to take stock of how critical approaches are able to respond – or if they are able to respond – to a more consumerist environment where different generational priorities and expectations of education are being expressed. This paper seeks to open up the debate and outline a research agenda to examine CME in the new higher education in the context of marketization, generational change and internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a critical overview of the way in which higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK have had their research activity subject to review. There have been six such reviews to date, the first two carried out by the Universities Grants Committee and, from 1992, by its replacement, the four UK higher education (HE) funding bodies (HE Funding Council for England, HE Funding Council for Wales, the Scottish HE Funding Council and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland). The paper provides a broad outline of the key elements of the process, focusing on the two more recent research reviews and their impact on the subject of education, with the references providing specific detail for those interested in the minutiae of the reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research evidence that well-executed formative assessment raises achievement and enhances motivation and autonomy has influenced policy and practice in schools and universities in the United Kingdom. Formative assessment is also built into the aims and assessment activities of outcome-based qualifications in post-compulsory education. Behind these apparently positive developments are important questions about the nature of motivation, autonomy and achievement that formative assessment fosters. This paper draws on empirical studies of assessment practices in advanced level vocational qualifications for 16-19-year-olds in the UK. It argues that a socio cultural understanding of assessment illuminates the ways in which political concerns about engagement and participation, rather than goals of subject-based knowledge, encourage formative assessment practices that improve rates of achievement whilst encouraging instrumental and limiting forms of motivation and autonomy. This raises questions about the acceptable trade-off between achievement and education for students whose learning careers already put them at a disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barnett, in several of his published works, often refers to pragmatism in rather ungenerous terms. Most recently he criticized pragmatism as an allegiance to anything goes. In response to that caricature this paper shows that the most prominent of current pragmatists—Richard Rorty—offers his strong allegiance to a range of principles which actually coincide with many of those Barnett himself actually espouses. These principles—or ideals of the university as Barnett calls them—include cheerfulness, tolerance, reasonableness, generosity and a will to go on. The paper examines what Barnett has to say about each of these in his latest book and then shows where they have their counterparts in Rorty's work. Overall the paper suggests that Barnett has a problematically limited view of Rortyan pragmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emergence of education as a marketable service with institutions now seeking to market themselves in a professional manner. A comparison is made between two samples- one of administrators within educational institutions in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States, the other of college and university students in Australia. Statistical analysis identified a series of key factors considered critical to the successful marketing of these institutions. A comparison of institutional and student views is made concluding that significant differences exist between the two groups. Managerial and research implications are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During its time in office, the UK’s Labour government gave a strong message that having caring responsibilities for a young child should not be seen as a barrier to engaging in education and training. Its widening participation strategy included a specific commitment to increasing the number of mature students in higher education (HE) – students who are more likely than their younger peers to have caring responsibilities for dependent children. Furthermore, considerable resources were devoted to encouraging teenage mothers to return to education and training soon after the birth of their child. Nevertheless, despite this policy focus, there have been relatively few studies of the experiences of ‘student-parents’ within HE. This paper draws on findings from a cross-national study (funded by the Nuffield Foundation) to explore the support currently offered by UK universities to students who have parental responsibilities for one or more children under the age of 16. It compares this support to that offered by Danish institutions, to assess whether differences in ‘welfare regime’, the structure of the HE system and pervasive assumptions about gender relations have any discernible impact on the way in which student-parents are both constructed within institutional cultures and assisted by institutional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Innovations in assessment practice have become widespread in Higher Education (HE) throughout the world. Taking a case study approach, this paper examines the nature of students' assessment preferences at one English university, and compares the views of UK students with a sample of learners from a number of other countries studying at the same institution. A brief discussion of the literature is followed by a methodological overview, before turning to an examination of the study's findings with regard to the students' views and experiences of assessment. Similarities and differences in preferences are explored, and an attempt is made to account for these on the basis of the insights supplied by the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article responds to recent UK proposals on measuring and recording student achievement (Universities UK 2007) to highlight issues that are relevant across different higher education contexts, which are increasingly intertwined through the expansion of the Bologna process. Drawing from wide-ranging literature on assessment and sociology, this paper argues that the introduction of new assessment technologies cannot be seen from a purely technical perspective but instead requires a deeper appreciation of assessment as a social practice, which contributes powerfully to the construction of learner subjectivities in ways that are not necessarily benign. Although not suggesting this leads to any easy solutions, the concept of 'meta-social' awareness may be useful in better supporting a diverse student body in confronting the complexities of the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traveller education takes place through family and community life regardless of formal school input. This paper defines the benefits or otherwise of education to support the social and economic mobility of Gypsy/Travellers. It outlines the background of the struggle against discrimination in education in the UK and the EU, and demonstrates how increasingly supportive legislation has made a slow and small rise in Gypsy/Traveller numbers in schools and other educational institutions. Research from Europe and the UK is used to show the endemic issues that illustrate Traveller resistance to 'mainstream' initiatives on their behalf throughout. However, the question consistently arises whether educational efforts are viewed by them as positive or are seen to fail because Travellers are doing what they always have done and still do, and that is taking control for themselves and choosing what specific educational opportunities on offer will benefit them. Finally, the way forward is seen to lie in ensuring that Gypsy/Traveller cultures are recognised and welcomed as a critical aspect of social capital which needs to be developed, shared and acknowledged, through its transparent inclusion in the process and outcomes of education and preparation for employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years in England, considerable attention has been given to a range of apparent crises in mathematics education, one of which has been the long term decline of participation in university-entrance level (Advanced or A level) mathematics. Given the negative impact upon mathematics participation of a national reform of Advanced level qualifications, commonly known as Curriculum 2000, together with the government's emphasis on science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM), the political intent to increase participation in Advanced level mathematics is clear. This paper uses the National Pupil Database (NPD) to develop a descriptive statistical account of how completion of Advanced level mathematics varies along the social axes of socioeconomic status, ethnicity and gender. The process of working with the NPD is discussed in some depth in order to clarify the processes involved in this type of quantitative analysis and then to illustrate how such analyses can be used to raise questions about who is studying mathematics in the post-16 age-range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a model developed by Brookfield (1995), a deliberately reflective approach is taken in this paper to the relationship between the author's earlier work in a department of adult education and her current teaching on a course for new university lecturers. As increasing numbers of mature students are being encouraged into universities, she wonders whether the principles and practices of adult education have a place in the pedagogic practices of higher education. She summarises the development of adult education departments in British universities, and draws attention to different pedagogic approaches in adult and higher education. Looking through various 'lenses', the author concludes that there is a need for a new professional agenda in higher education - where commonality and difference provide the starting points for mutual exploration and self-understanding - and that the traditions of adult education have a significant contribution to make to this agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes briefly the academic tenure and its legislative terms in the UK, over the last twenty years. The author refers to the current wider situation/trends in the international higher education arena of two categories of academic staff - "established" staff (on permanent contract) and fixed-term staff - and to how their levels of protection can have an impact on the overall health of the universities and their academic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A considerable sum of money is allocated to UK universities on the basis of Research Assessment Exercise performance. In this paper we analyse the two main funding models used in the United Kingdom and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. We suggest that the benchmarking used by the two main models have significant weaknesses, and propose an alternative benchmark. It is shown that the different models have quite different implications for the focus of UK research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how the Excellence Model® developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) can be used and applied within higher education, with practical examples accompanying the Model in a Russian University to raise management quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite rapid growth in UK postgraduate education and a current focus on issues of access to higher education, consideration of possible social class differentials at the postgraduate level is missing from the sociological literature. Using Higher Education Statistics Agency data, this paper presents a preliminary investigation of the relationship between social class and progression to postgraduate study in England and considers the interplay with other salient variables, including subject of study, institutional type and first–degree achievement. Evidence of a social class differential in progression to higher degrees is used to test various sociological theories, particularly those proposed by Bourdieu. There is support for the concept of ‘institutional habitus’ developed in recent UK studies. It is concluded that there is scope for further in–depth empirical research into social class and postgraduate study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the problem of falling recruitment to foreign language (FL) degrees in higher education, outlining some of the recent changes in secondary FL education which have contributed in part to this situation. It draws attention to the lack of research into the impact that the fall in numbers of students taking a foreign language A level is having on the quality of the intake onto HE foreign languages courses. It reviews the findings and conclusions of the only major study in this area and then presents the results of a new longitudinal study of FL learning at a major UK university. The findings challenge the prevalent view that A level foreign languages are becoming the preserve of the academically elite and raise questions about the type of skills rewarded at foreign language A level. The study confirms previous research findings relating to poor progression rates in university FL learning, but questions the assumption that poor tuition is the root cause of this malaise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A selection of abstracts on aspects of educational media, taken from "Educational Technology Abstracts" are given. "A UK study into the potential effects of virtual education: does online learning spell an end for on-campus learning?". "Teaching and teaching technology in higher education: student perceptions and personal reflections". "The trials of going online: the image database of British library bookbindings". "From informational technology in biology teaching to inspirational technology: where have we come from and where are we going?". "The theory and practice of the virtual university: working through the work of making work mobile".

The recent UK government Green Paper proposes reform for the supply side of 14-19 education, establishing four key goals. This article focuses on the first of these goals: meeting needs and improving choice. The article draws on research on sixth form colleges, general further education colleges and schools. It argues that employers, one of the two groups highlighted in the Green Paper, are a relatively weak force in shaping provision. The second group, young people, are more powerful due to current funding incentives, it presents evidence which suggests that colleges and schools perceive both practical and attitudinal difficulties in collaborating to meet needs by offering flexible routes and a distinctive range of choices. A long history of intervention in the supply side has not achieved widening participation nor equity amongst the choices offered. A more radical approach to influencing the demand side may be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finesse is a computer-based game that has been developed by a number of UK universities with funding provided by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC). It aims to support student learning in finance, encourage group work, save staff time in monitoring student performance and aid in the assessment of students’ understanding of financial issues. The game was used for the first time in 1998/1999. This paper demonstrates the features of the game, discusses the results of a questionnaire survey of the students’ assessment of the game and evaluates the use of the game in assessing students’ performance at one of the universities involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the effect of 1976 adult education studies released in Great Britain dubbed the Russell Report and another released in the U.S. as part of the Carnegie Commission Reports, on the provision of adult education in the two nation's universities. The two papers appear to be shaping the ideas and policies for the future. The Russell report is viewed as a conservative document that failed to offer proposals for a course credit system through which students can build up a degree. The Carnegie report endorsed the need to create a conducive environment for adult education students but they do not see the universities' role as one which should shoulder the burden for the students' emotional growth.

This section presents several articles offering sociologists' views on cuts in British higher education as of 1984. John Brennan contributes a nation-wide view of the cuts in the public sector, outlines institutional policies and prejudices and suggests strategies for survival. His paper also shows that the distinctive ecology of public sector higher education poses both threats and opportunities for sociology. Meanwhile, Alan Waton provides a macro-view of the UGC action. Rosemary Deem writers of her experience as a County Councilor involved in working for the retention of courses in a public sector college and provides the only contribution with a happy ending. Also Ivan Reid discussed the problems and potentials of strategies for survival. According to Brennan, there never was a golden age for the polytechnics. He further said that they have experienced cuts and financial stringency over a long period of time. He also said that the effects have been gradual and have become almost taken for granted. Ivan Reid stated that it is difficult to establish whether sociology and sociology of education face threats over and above that posed to higher education in general. The intimate relationship of sociology of education with teacher education has meant that it has shared the fate of closures and cut-backs with the other disciplines of education and faced many of these well before the present situation.

The present paper extends this earlier work by focusing on inter-university disparities in two first destinations which reflect the success of graduates in obtaining a satisfactory first destination. These are the proportion of each institution's graduates who obtain a permanent job and the proportion proceeding to further education or training. In effect, this means that a more detailed statistical analysis of the success or otherwise of each university's graduates in obtaining a satisfactory first destination is undertaken in the present paper than in earlier work.
The questions which this paper seeks to answer are as follows. Do differences between universities in the success of graduates in obtaining a satisfactory first destination accurately reflect corresponding differences in their performance? Are universities, which have a high proportion of graduates proceeding to permanent employment, more efficient and more effective than universities with a low proportion? Indeed, can we rely on the first destination data for comparing the performance of graduates from different universities in obtaining a satisfactory first destination?
The remainder of this paper is in five sections. Section I describes and evaluates the first destination database. Section II shows that the first destination of graduates differs considerably between UK universities and Section III presents some a priori explanations for these differences. Multiple regression analysis is used in Section IV to investigate the extent to which inter-university variations in the first destination of graduates can be explained. Finally, Section V presents the main conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates a three year programme in a UK university which recently won the Partnership Award from Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte for innovation in higher education. The programme aims to encourage students to work in groups and to reflect upon the processes and the group dynamics involved. The first part of the paper provides the context for the paper and the context in which the programme runs. An example of a case study used in the programme is described in detail and the way in which it draws together subject areas within the degree is illustrated. Finally the programme is evaluated in terms of its successes and its problem areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing graduate students in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) is increasingly popular across different institutions in the United Kingdom. GTAs support students' learning as well as assisting academics in preparing sessions and, at times, with research. The GTA scheme is seen as a developmental role for graduate students who wish to pursue a career in the education sector; it is the first step on the ladder to becoming an academic. This paper provides an insight into the GTA role, outlines the challenges GTAs face and the rewards they receive while engaging with students, academics and research in a UK-based university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK government has committed to reducing its carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are high energy users, with the largest proportion of their energy demand for space heating; an area still dominated by carbon-intensive fuels. This research addresses the UK HEI space temperature policy landscape, making direct links between space temperature policy and carbon management, advocating the development of evidence-based policies as a critical tool for reducing carbon emissions within the sector. Sixty-six space temperature policies were reviewed, and five experienced energy managers were interviewed to understand the range, development and use of space temperature policies in UK HEIs. The research identified a lack of consistency across these policies, leading to missed opportunities for making energy and carbon savings. The research highlights gaps in the available data and literature needed to connect policy to its effectiveness, and identifies the use of policy as a defensive tool against complaints rather than an active driver of energy reduction. A series of recommendations are proposed for national and institutional policymakers, suggesting areas for improvement and future research to facilitate effective development and practice in space temperature policy towards net-zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an analysis of narratives that emerged from a recent interdisciplinary design thinking careers intervention exploring how employability is represented within one UK University. We conducted a critical discourse analysis using a policy analysis framework that revealed four emergent problem representations. These exposed tacit assumptions about students' lack of employability skills and the responsibilisation of 'employability', amplified silences around opportunity structures and highlighted unquestioned expectations about employability in the neoliberalist paradigm. The need for critical discourse is foregrounded, as is the importance of collective engagement in reframing these narratives. Design Thinking shows promise as a novel intervention for future career education practice, enabling practitioners and individuals to begin to co-create a new critical consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

† University of Westminster and Open University, UK [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the problem of validity in geography assessment in the universities of Great Britain. The subject's characteristics range from the aesthetic and the historical, through the humanistic and the social scientific, to the mechanical, the mathematical and the purely scientific. Validity of assessment can be interpreted in two ways: internally and externally. In the internal sense an examination is valid if it makes demands and yields results consistent with the objectives of the course of training preceding the assessment. There is in the minds of many students a growing dissociation between educational aims and what they are required to do for and in examinations. The cardinal problem is that these educational aims are rarely explicitly formulated in terms that students can readily grasp: if stated at all, they are couched in vague, if eloquent, language. Validity is also concerned with the correlation between assessment results and external criteria such as success in a future career or in research.

Our paper offers a partial analysis of the recent University Funding Council assessment exercise across higher education institutions. That exercise was based to a considerable extent upon a subjective evaluation of the 'quality' of the research submitted by each institution. Taking the Economic Journal as a proxy for a 'quality' outlet, we examine its performance in relation to the ratings obtained by United Kingdom universities. Using a variety of statistical tests, we conclude that an institution's/department's publishing record in the Economic Journal corresponds closely to the rating it received from the Universities Funding Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forming part of its wider counter-terrorism apparatus, the United Kingdom's "Prevent duty" imposes a legal requirement on various sectors to show "due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism". Since its introduction in 2015, the duty has been subject to increasing empirical research, with a particular focus upon the education sector. There has been, however, a distinct lack of scholarly works that specifically explore the issue of far-right extremism within this context, reflected in the often-reluctant policy development in this area. This article directly addresses this gap in research by drawing upon the qualitative experiences of 39 respondents with responsibility for the implementation of the duty within various schools and colleges across Sussex. Thus, through an empirical exploration of the challenges and complexities attached to its enactment, this article is one of the first to offer insights into educators' negotiations of the duty in relation to far-right extremism. Within the data, three themes were particularly dominant: the normalisation and mainstreaming of far-right narratives; the associated challenges with the implementation of Prevent duty on the ground within classrooms; and considerations around the effective enactment of the duty. The findings demonstrate that addressing far-right extremism within schools and colleges is predictably problematic and closely reflects developments in wider society. It is also argued here that although addressing far-right extremism needs urgent attention, there should be a concerted effort to avoid the same oversights experienced with previous attempts at Prevent-related counter-terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the decisions of the UK government, following the Brexit referendum, may impact on higher education in Africa. Ghana and South Africa are the two countries chosen to exemplify the claim that academic staff in African higher education will lose opportunities to acquire experience in British universities. Academic mobility between Africa and the UK is expected to fall significantly following Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides insight into different expectations between Chinese and British academic culture for distance learning. The article is based on a pedagogic research project, a case study, and is centered on a distance learning course in maritime law proposed by a British university for a university in China. Some important commonalities and gps between perceptions of deliverers and receivers of the proposed course were identified. There were important differences between Chinese and UK respondents about the value of open educational resources, the sequential access to course materials, the type of technologies that were important for delivery of content and for communication, the value of peer assessment, and the time expectations for feedback. Recommendations are suggested for bridging the cultural gaps in distance learning between a British and Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the United Kingdom comics have become part of the curricula of English university programmes. This roundtable discussion, held at the Third International Comics Conference at Bournemouth University in July 2012, examined the growing presence of comics on English literature degrees. Participants shared their experiences of introducing and designing undergraduate courses on comics, of embedding comics in modules dominated by poetry and prose literature, and of teaching students unfamiliar with the comics medium. This article ends with a collaboratively written evaluation of what the future holds for comics in higher education in Britain – on English degrees and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article aims to provide a framework for exploration of a strategic approach to entrepreneurial university development. It draws on earlier reviews by the author of the entrepreneurial concept and of the now considerable global literature on the theme of the entrepreneurial university, although there is a strong focus in this article on the UK. It also draws lessons from practice in exploring with several universities the potential for creating strategic synergy between existing activities in the institution not all of which would be labelled entrepreneurial in the conventional sense. Each of these key activities are briefly reviewed in turn and presented as a basis for action in drawing together a strategy for the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes the case - in three parts - that many Anglo-Chinese university collaborations (joint ventures) to date have seriously underestimated Chinese (student) history, the Chinese university setting and Chinese national governmental steering as part of the process of 'glocalisation'. Recent turbulence in this particular HE collaborative sector was evident, even before the current (2008-) global financial meltdown, but this has now become much more pronounced. Western university managers and academics alike have been far too economically-driven in their internationalisation strategies and not humble enough to local sensitivities. Drawing on historical accounts, 'insider' revelations and recent shifts in Chinese HE steering, it can be seen that narrowly calculative and short-term approaches are now unlikely to succeed in what has become a highly complex environment. Using Bourdieu's notions of 'academic capital' and 'cultural capital' to counter-balance the over-insistence on 'economic capital', a tentative, 10-case typology is drawn up to demonstrate possible ways forward in a more mutually respectful reshaping of such alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]