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This paper is a reflection upon the research findings of Rebecca Allen and Anne West in relation to religious schools in London. While welcoming this contribution to the systematic study of faith schools (a neglected area of empirical inquiry), the paper argues that the use of 'religious schools' as a unitary category is problematic for the analysis. It also suggests that certain historical and cultural contextual knowledge is required when analysing the characteristics of different categories of religious schools. This response is intended to be helpful for future researchers into the different types of faith school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with segregation and school selectivity in secondary schools with a religious character in London, England. Analyses of the characteristics of pupils at religious and non-religious schools reveal that the former tend to cater predominantly for pupils from particular religions and/or denominations and ethnic groups, so fostering segregation. In addition, they educate, in the main, pupils who are from more affluent backgrounds and with higher levels of prior attainment than pupils in non-religious schools. Moreover, the evidence suggests that some 'elite' secondary schools are 'selecting in' and 'selecting out' particular pupils. A range of different admissions criteria and practices are identified which appear to foster school selectivity. It is argued that there may have been a distortion of mission for at least some religious schools given that they were originally set up to educate the poor. Implications for policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, whether it is officially accepted in education policy and school curricula or not, where bilingual children are present in classrooms, so are their languages, and those languages are put to use in their learning. The increasingly sophisticated technologies of sound and visual recording have opened up new possibilities in revealing the sub rosa world of pupil interaction, and the part that languages play in the construction of pupil identities in the classroom. A detailed study of children at work in one inner city primary classroom illustrates the way in which pupil identities are jointly constructed through interaction. Children are not passive pawns in the socialisation processes of the school, but active participants, taking up different positions within the alternatives open to them through both pedagogic and peer discursive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]