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This article deconstructs the language of the 2010 UK Coalition Government's White Paper, The Importance of Teaching. It uses analytical frameworks related to rhetoric established by Aristotle and Cicero. It explores the mechanisms of language using both critical discourse analysis and content analysis, offering quantitative data on the content of the paper and qualitative data on the literary strategies employed. It is concerned not only with how what is communicated persuades but also the ethics of persuasion; what is suggested and to what end. The article suggests a mutually reinforcing relationship between poverty of language and poverty of thought. The Coalition Government asserts an heroic stance to act radically to free victimised teachers from the burdens of bureaucracy imposed by the previous government. However, rather than radical action to make change, the findings suggest that the White Paper presents an illusory carapace of change that conceals fundamental continuity. It reassures all of the commitment of government and audiences to change while sustaining education as fundamentally unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the design and delivery of classroom pedagogies and students’ engagement with it in two different UK universities. Under the banner of curriculum design and Bourdieu's curriculum principles, the study set out to create modules that provided students with an interdisciplinary perspective on how the web is changing the way citizens live, interact and learn. Focusing on the idea that the web is becoming a tool of intellectual inquiry and an instrument of reproduction of knowledge inequality, the goal of this research was to transform knowledge practices by encouraging a learning habitus that relies on knowing how to learn rather than becoming ‘knowledgeable.’ The paper concludes that the Bourdieuian perspective on curriculum design still holds currency in the digital age, given that it shares an epistemology of practice similar to that advocated by a digital participatory culture. We also offer a critique to our approach, using Bourdieu's logic of practice to examine how education as a field displays (hidden) rules that students embody as their learning habitus. As students’ learning practices become doxified through their educational trajectories, learners find it difficult to engage with a curriculum that aims to diversify pedagogical structures and reflect a changing society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the relationship between education, parenting and family through the prism and particularities of family learning. Family learning is an example of an educational initiative, primarily aimed at parents and linked to wider policy concerns, which can be explored through a mapping of its social geographies; family learning is played out across and productive of different sites, spaces and identities. Based on qualitative research undertaken in West London, this paper draws on individual and group interviews with mothers participating in family learning classes and interviews with family learning providers. The key argument we extend is that focusing on the social geographies of family learning - of home, school, work, community and nation - allows us to see how educational initiatives extend the state's reach in family life, producing particular normative versions of family and 'good' parenting operating at a range of interconnecting scales. Education remains a cornerstone of family policy in the UK and detailed analyses of specific initiatives at the point of implementation - how they are practiced and received - is vital for better understanding their diverse and varied effects in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the role of schools, place and national identity in shaping the ways in which young people make sense of the geography of higher education choice in the Welsh context. Drawing on two qualitative studies, it illustrates how attachment to nationhood and localities, as well as the internal processes of schools, bear upon the geographical mobility of young people living in Wales. The analyses suggest that this choice-making process, and the ways in which young people rationalised these decisions about where to study, varies according to where they lived and which school they attended. The paper illustrates the importance of moving beyond exclusively social-class based analyses of university choice making and embracing the significance of school and place in young people's geographical mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of an analysis of primary-aged pupils' educational experiences over a 35 year period. Data drawn from a set of large-scale systematic observation studies, conducted in the UK between 1976 and 2012, are used to describe pupils' average classroom experiences at six points in time over this period. These data are then used as markers for comparing the experiences of a subset of pupils--those with special educational needs (SEN)--over the same period. Results for the average pupil show an increase over time in the proportion of time spent interacting with teachers and peers. In contrast, relative to these non-SEN pupils, those with SEN have experienced a more moderate increase in the proportion of time spent interacting with the teacher, and almost no change in the amount of time spent interacting with peers and in whole class teaching contexts. The increase in the number of teaching assistants in mainstream primary settings, employed and deployed to assist the learning and inclusion of pupils with SEN, is identified as a key observable influence on the difference between the classroom experiences of pupils with and without SEN over time. This paper additionally defends the use of systematic observation methods, and concludes that the broad, but stable, measures of activity and behaviour, plus the rigorous approach to data collection it provides, are necessary for painting objective, descriptive and retrospective pictures of classroom life that can elude other research techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores inspection, performativity and fabrication within the context of two English schools. Case studies are employed to compare and contrast the inspection experiences of two teachers at different points in their career trajectories. The paper focuses on comments made by Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of the Office for Standards in Education (Of STED), that schools were 'putting on a show' during inspections. Empirical evidence is presented which suggests that the key informants invested emotional, physical and intellectual capital into the perpetual readiness incumbent in high-stakes inspection process-an investment which was anything other than putting on a show. The paper proposes that, in the cases in point, the changing nature of school inspections led to 'post-fabrication', that is, inspection readiness was omnipresent to such an extent that it was not a fabricated version of events. The findings presented here have implications for teachers, school leadership teams, policy makers and all those interested in inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In little over a decade since their introduction, global rankings are perceived as having significant and problematic effects. The dominant 'normative' research orientation applied to the research domain of rankings is identified as a contributory factor to the sustained interest in rankings. The paper argues for a 'close-up' research orientation at this juncture to open up the debate and draw attention to alternative narratives of excellence in higher education through a discourse-analytic approach. The paper draws on an analysis of the use of global rankings by higher education sector 'mission groups' to influence national policy in the United Kingdom, with particular focus on lobbying texts produced by these groups in the period surrounding the United Kingdom general election. The analysis demonstrates the strategic struggle for positioning in relation to higher education policy and reflects the different narratives of self-identification of the mission groups. The study draws attention to ways global university rankings mediate discourse and activity and illuminates alternative discourses that respond to rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the growing importance of interdisciplinary research at the intersection between higher education, creative industries and growth of regional creative economies. The paper not only focuses specifically on the UK context but also encompasses issues of further international interest and debate. It undertakes a review of existing literature on the cultural role of higher education institutions (HEIs) and points to recent research on HEIs' increasing importance for embedding creative graduates into a region. We not only illustrate how this area of research aligns with the concepts of the 'creative city' and the 'creative class' but also consider how talent attraction and retention processes include HEIs and art schools as part of a richer understanding of the creative economy as a contextualised production system. Furthermore, we investigate the role of HEIs as so-called 'third spaces' for creative knowledge transfer, which in recent years has become a popular cultural and higher education strategy to address the difficulties of feeding creative and cultural knowledge into the wider economy. The paper concludes by highlighting future avenues for cross-disciplinary research in three areas: communities of practice, local stakeholder management and a shared community agenda, to inform further policy and development in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion that future performance can be affected by information about previous performance is often expressed in terms of ‘closing the gap’. Feedback has long been recognised as a mechanism through which teaching and learning may be influenced. The current wave of support in the United Kingdom for assessmentforlearning echoes these sentiments. This paper examines the feedback strategies employed by two experienced literacy practitioners in England. Using data gathered from field observations, interviews and documentary sources, the paper presents evidence of espoused practice associated with feedback, demonstrating that whilst teachers may claim that they make effective use of some feedback strategies to support pupils’ learning and motivation, that this is not supported by empirical data. The paper also identifies that whilst some teachers aim to mark every piece of pupils’ written work for perceived motivational benefits; such a strategy can undermine pupils’ intrinsic motivation and lead to a culture of over-dependency, whereby the locus of control with regard to feedback lies solely with the teacher. The paper concludes by exploring some possible implications for practice with regard to the provision of written feedback in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is set against a backdrop of contemporary concerns about Britishness. It explores the dominant view that unprecedented levels of cultural diversity within western contexts such as the UK are undermining social cohesion and are attributable to minority groups' failure to connect or assimilate with mainstream 'British' (read White Anglo) culture. The paper focuses on how these issues play out for several of the key teachers at 'Hamilton Court', a large English comprehensive multicultural school. Despite the school being a socially cohesive space, these teachers were concerned with students' lack of affiliation with 'British' culture. The paper examines these concerns through critical lenses that problematise reductionist and racialised understandings of Britishness and assumptions that associate an affiliation with Britishness with generating social cohesion. Against this backdrop, the paper provides further warrant for continued critical discussion about issues of Britishness, multiculturalism and schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper commences with a theoretical exposition of the current UK government's policy commitment to the idealised notion of the Big Society and the social capital currency underpinning its formation. The paper positions this debate in relation to the rural and adopts an ethnographically-informed methodological approach to provide an in-depth look at two contrasting English rural primary schools and their relationship with their village communities. The empirical investigation seeks to explore the extent to which the potential for building social capital is evidenced in current rural school-community relations within these two locales. The findings reveal a highly differentiated countryside in which any attempt to essentialise the abilities of rural schools to generate social capital in order to build the Big Society should be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a decade ago the UK government launched its gifted and talented education policy in England, yet there has been very little published research which considers how schools and teachers are interpreting and implementing the policy. By seeking the views of the gifted and talented co-ordinators (For ease of reference, the term gifted and talented (G&T) co-ordinator is used throughout the paper as a generic shorthand for the research participants who were either designated school gifted and talented co-ordinators or teachers or head teachers with responsibility for policy implementation) with responsibility for addressing the requirements of the policy, the study reported in this paper explored how primary schools in England responded to the policy. Drawing on data gathered using questionnaires with a national sample of primary schools as well as follow-up in-depth interviews with a sample of G&T co-ordinators, the authors report their findings. The study found that there was considerable unease about the concept of identifying and 'labelling' a group of pupils as 'gifted and talented'. G&T co-ordinators found it difficult to interpret the policy requirements and were responding pragmatically to what they considered to be required by the government. Curriculum provision for the selected group of gifted and talented pupils was patchy. The paper concludes by identifying a need for further professional development for teachers and by challenging the policy's over-emphasis on identifying and labelling gifted and talented pupils. We posit whether the gifted and talented education policy would have been better introduced and enjoyed greater success by leaving the identification of pupils to one side and by placing greater emphasis on developing effective learning and teaching strategies instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The General Certificate of Education (GCE) A* grade was first awarded to students in 2010. It was introduced to assist higher education institutions in differentiating between the highest performing students and to promote and reward greater stretch and challenge. This paper, based on a synthesis of key policy documents, an analysis of quantitative data and a review of existing research, provides an analysis of the GCE A* grade. The paper begins by introducing the historical and political context that led to the introduction of the A* grade, drawing together policy documents and research carried out by the awarding bodies. The paper then presents an analysis of 2011 A-level data, considering the characteristics of students who achieve the grade and addressing concerns around equality and fairness. A further line of evidence concerns public confidence in the new grade, especially in relation to whether it is fulfilling its purposes. The paper concludes by identifying a number of policy lessons for the future of the GCE A* grade. Forthcoming reforms to the A-level will necessitate a reappraisal of the way A* is calculated: this paper will be a useful source of evidence with which to consider the issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children with special educational needs ( SEN) are known to experience lower average educational attainment than other children during their school years. But we have less insight into how far their poorer educational outcomes stem from their original starting points or from failure to progress during school. The extent to which early identification with SEN delivers support that enables children who are struggling academically to make appropriate progress is subject to debate. This is complicated by the fact that children with SEN are more likely to be growing up in disadvantaged families and face greater levels of behavioural and peer problems, factors which themselves impact attainment and progress through school. In this paper, we evaluate the academic progress of children with SEN in England, drawing on a large-scale nationally representative longitudinal UK study, the Millennium Cohort Study, linked to administrative records of pupil attainment. Controlling for key child, family and environmental factors, and using the SEN categories employed at the time of data collection, we first establish that children identified with SEN in 2008, when they were age 7, had been assessed with lower academic competence when they started school. We evaluate their progress between ages 5-7 and 7-11. We found that children identified with SEN at age 7 tended to be those who had made less progress between ages 5 and 7 than their comparable peers. However, children with SEN continued to make less progress than their similarly able peers between ages 7 and 11. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue for the development of geographies of 'alternative' education. In light of growing geographical interest in education, I argue for a focus on sites that explicitly offer non-mainstream, non-state-sanctioned forms of learning in contexts where it is assumed that children will go to school. I exemplify my discussion through interviews with 30 UK-based homeschooling families. In seeking to advance geographical research on education, I make three key contributions. First, I exemplify how focusing on learning itself - and not just spatial contexts for learning - uncovers how spatial experiences and discourses are key to the constitution of alternative educational practices like homeschooling. Second, I consider the multiple and contradictory ways in which homeschooling constituted an 'alternative' educational space, discuss whether and how geographers should seek to affirm (all) such spaces and attend to some of the potential political/moral dilemmas that are provoked by the place of emotion in homeschoolers' accounts. Third, I outline briefly some implications of this paper for further research on geographies of education, and family/inter-generational relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dynamic to education system reform in England, highlighting the challenges the range of policy tools in use have created for policymakers, practitioners and researchers alike. Taking literacy policy in England as a 'telling case', I will argue that far from holding the answer to successful system reform, high-stakes testing and the migration of system-level data into the public domain create a series of challenges for politicians that they cannot satisfactorily solve. In turn, policymakers' attempts to manage the problems away are further compounding the difficulties teachers face. As policymakers' commitments to bringing about well-motivated change waver, research and practitioner communities need to work more closely together to successfully reimagine a purposeful and engaged literacy curriculum for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses a nationwide school-building programme in England: Building Schools for the Future (BSF). It is argued that, between 2003 and 2010, the UK Government's policy guidance for BSF represented a (re)turn to utopian discourse in governmental policy-making, mobilised in order to justify a massive programme of new school building in the UK. In doing so, BSF connected with the promise of three further discourses: school(-children), community and architectural practice. It anticipated that new school buildings would instil transformative change-modernising English schooling, combating social exclusion and leaving an architectural 'legacy'. However, it is argued that BSF constituted an allegorical utopia: whilst suggesting a 'radical' vision for schooling and society, its ultimate effect was to preserve a conventional (neo-liberal) model of schooling. The paper highlights the critical role that notions of utopia might have in negotiating-and challenging-promise-laden mega-building policies like BSF. In doing so, it develops recent geographical research on utopia, education and architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the impact agenda in the UK to realign debate about the relationship between schools, universities and (human) geography. It positions this debate in systemic tendencies within UK higher education. It argues that, whilst impact can be seen as a further instance of neoliberalism, emphasising the gap between accountability and accounting allows an identification with communicative and reflexive knowledge and, more broadly, critical praxis. The paper draws on a year-long research-based collaboration with school teachers and their students involving performance work and the development of decision-making curriculum materials. It argues that working in these ways with schools can provide the basis for public engagement partnerships between schools and universities and a means to constitute diverse research publics. In these ways, it is argued, a wider sense of impact can be reappropriated, to reclaim the critical subject and to constitute academic value [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant volume of research demonstrates that out-of-school learning activities enhance student development in terms of cognitive, affective and social outcomes. However, there is also evidence that the opportunity to engage in these activities has been severely reduced in recent years. This paper explores the extent to which the provision of such opportunities is unevenly distributed-spatially and institutionally. The paper draws on research from two recently completed projects: one charting the distribution, attributes and vulnerability of local authority outdoor education centres across England and the other exploring variations in provision and participation in out-of-school learning within secondary schools throughout the UK. The paper highlights the uneven, precarious and uncertain nature of such activities and demonstrates that important regional and structural variations in the support and provision of opportunities for such activities by local authorities appear to have an important role in determining the provision of activities at the level of the schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the influences on children's eating habits in both school and home spaces in the UK. Since 2002 the UK government has been committed to halting the increase in child obesity rates, and has sanctioned particular parental and school based practices as more “healthy” than others. This study examines this through critically questioning, in particular, the classed discourses written into health education advice and advocates a new way of thinking about health education messages. Based on qualitative research with children from one secondary school and with eight families in the North of England the paper reveals that while parents and children make decisions about their lives with reference to dominant discourses about ideal “healthy” family eating practices, their ability to realise these practices is limited in numerous ways. Moreover, the influences on children's eating habits in both home and school spaces are intricately interrelated and children's practices are clearly influenced by the spaces they inhabit. Their decisions involve balancing health education knowledge with a range of other knowledges that are bound up in the socio-spatial relations of their everyday lives. A holistic approach to understanding children's eating habits therefore requires a critical understanding of class background, parental influences and contemporary parenting practices as well as the microgeographical relations found in the school dining room. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that: (1) the demise of 'occupational' and 'internal' and the spread of 'external' labour markets in growth areas of UK economy such as the creative and cultural sector, coupled with the massification of higher education which has created a new type of post-degree 'vocational need', means that the transition from education to work should be re-thought as the development of vocational practice rather than the acquisition of qualifications; and (2) in order to re-think transition as the development of vocational practice it is necessary to eviscerate the legacy of the 'traditional' conception of practice in UK educational policy. The paper reviews a number of alternative social scientific conceptions of practice, formulates more multi-faceted conceptions of vocational practice, and discusses their implications for UK and EU educational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Fresh Start, a New Labour flagship initiative to raise education 'standards' in a radical and innovative way. Drawing on a qualitative study of a comprehensive school in England, I argue that the initiative added to the problems faced by the 'failing school' and promoted rather traditional ways of raising 'standards' due to the close surveillance that Fresh Start schools were subjected to. In the case studied, the needs of the pupils that the initiative was meant to address were being sacrificed in the school's construction of a 'successful' identity. While the initiative has now lost momentum, some lessons can still be learnt. This paper illustrates the complexity of creating a new school, as well as the need to attend to the specificities of the local context and experiences in raising 'standards for all' pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of geodemographic classifications to investigate the social, economic and spatial dimensions of participation in Higher Education (HE). Education is a public service that confers very significant and tangible benefits upon receiving individuals: as such, we argue that understanding the geodemography of educational opportunity requires an application-specific classification that exploits under-used educational data sources. We develop a classification for the UK higher education sector, and apply it to the Gospel Oak area of London. We discuss the wider merits of sector specific applications of geodemographics and enumerate the advantages of bespoke classifications for applications in public service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is one of a pair that re-examines the evidence from a national initiative to train all teachers in England to bring them up to the level of newly qualified teachers, who are required to know when to use and when not to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in their professional practice. Reanalysis of data gathered for the 2004 evaluation uncovers the complexity of such professional development. The effectiveness of contrasting approaches to ICT-related teacher training was analysed using the national survey of 496 trainees and experts’ reports on 11 of the 47 training providers. multilevel evaluation of professional development was shown to be robust for ICT teacher training, including a significant correlation between the views of experts and those of teachers. The presence of the middle level of ‘organisational support and change’ emerged as a particularly discriminating factor, indicating that higher-quality teacher training supports change in the classroom and in the school. Therefore, we recommend that all five of Guskey's levels be consistently adopted for the evaluation of ICT teacher training, and that research should also adopt a multilevel model. A second paper delves deeper to describe and contrast the highest and lowest-rated approaches to ICT teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the potentially inclusionary and exclusionary implications of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for children through an examination of ICT policies and practices within UK schools. We begin by outlining the rhetoric of inclusion evident in UK government policy and by reflecting on how these discourses are mobilised in three case-study schools. We go on to consider issues of social exclusion, demonstrating that both material and social factors can prevent access to appropriate computer technology. In particular, we emphasise the importance of the way that children negotiate the meanings and use of computers through their everyday practices within the classroom. The paper concludes by arguing that only when we recognise that children’s use of computers is about not only the broad-scale distribution of resources but also children’s everyday social relations can we hope to institute policies that promote an inclusive ‘information society’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current health care policy and practice contexts in the UK point to the importance of nurses' ability to make an effective contribution to educating patients about medication, as part of their role in health education and health promotion. Nurses' potential contribution to this important activity will inevitably be dependent on knowledge and skills acquired during preregistration and postregistration programmes of education. Against this backdrop, changes in pre and postregistration nurse education in the UK in the past decade highlight the importance and timeliness of evaluating the adequacy of educational preparation for a medication role. This paper reports on the findings from an evaluation of UK educational preparation for a medication education role in practice. A case study design was used to investigate current educational preparation at three education institutions. Multiple methods of data collection at each site involved focus group discussions with lecturers and practitioners, individual interviews with key personnel, nonparticipant observation of teaching sessions, postobservation interviews with students and curriculum analysis. Findings highlighted the importance of a number of dimensions of preparation for practice of such a role: the need for sufficient taught pharmacology; opportunities for application and integration of prerequisite knowledge and skills; the importance of practice-based learning; the need for an evidence-based curriculum, and the importance of clarifying outcomes and competencies required for a medication education role within pre and postregistration curricula. The paper concludes with a discussion and implications of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1990s, the economic return to Advanced level (A-level) mathematics was examined. The analysis was based upon a series of log-linear models of earnings in the 1958 National Child Development Survey (NCDS) and the National Survey of 1980 Graduates and Diplomates. The core finding was that A-level mathematics had a unique earnings premium of 7-10% at age 33. In recent years, this finding has contributed to the government's agenda of increasing participation in post-16 study of advanced mathematics in England. Given that the 1958 NCDS participants are now 57 years old, this paper repeats this important work using the 1970 British Cohort Study ( BCS). Updated models are used to investigate whether the A-level mathematics premium also existed at age 34 for the 1970 BCS participants. There does appear to be a return of approximately 11% when replicating the original model closely but the robustness of this result depends on the model specification, sample size and the handling of missing data. We consider theoretical explanations of these findings and their implications for policy and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the current context for uses of technology in education, including the nature of work, the capabilities required by employees, and developments in the technology itself. A vision for education is needed: how might students be learning in the future and what role might technology play in this? By making students' learning needs the focus we can identify the support technology can offer. The issue of student access is discussed--both physical access to technology and the psychological confidence to use it. One major government initiative--the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme--shows the limits of what has been achieved to date. The paper ends by suggesting how changes necessary within the education sector might be better managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article (written before the publication of the recent Green Paper) by Hugh Williams and Sheelagh Maloney, Senior Educational Psychologists: Birmingham Education Department, is timely as it provides practical solutions to the problems of 'Statementing'. Their suggestions are not only within the spirit of the Paper, but go even further in suggesting practical solutions to the ending of 'Statementing'. The approach proposed is based on extending the ideas behind the SEN Code of Practice, and they describe how children's and parent's rights, and their involvement, could be advanced through a fluent process: reduced bureaucracy; shorter time-scales; and the greater involvement of schools in ensuring appropriate resources. Further, the proposed system would enhance the prospects of encouraging increasingly inclusive practices, and would remove a major conceptual barrier to all children being educated in mainstream schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a national study conducted over a 3-year period (1991-94) which examined the changing role of the nurse teacher. The study used multiple methods to collect data from a wide variety of respondents (nurse teachers, midwife teachers, clinical nurses, health service managers and higher education lecturers). This paper presents the findings relating to the development of the nurse teacher's academic role following the introduction of Project 2000. The issues presented and discussed include specialization within the nurse teacher's role, the nature of this specialization and the development of academic credibility and scholarship. The implications of these changes in terms of the development of nursing as an academic subject area and the opportunity to contribute to the establishment of research based practice are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy-makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Increasing post-compulsory participation in science and science-related subjects is seen as a key education policy priority in England and more widely. This paper uses descriptive analysis of national data to investigate the effects of science attainment at 16, gender, socio-economic status, and school science pathway on progression into post-16 traditional and vocational science courses in state-funded schools in England. Comparisons are also made with progression into non-science subjects (history, mathematics and psychology). Multi-level statistical modelling is employed to provide independent estimates for all these effects, whilst also taking into account mathematics attainment at 16, and whether or not the 14-16 school also teaches to 18. The key findings of the descriptive analysis are that progression rates vary widely across post-16 sciences in terms of both gender and socio-economic status, but that other subjects too vary in these regards. Once prior attainment is accounted for, the gender differences across science and some other subjects largely remain but those due to socio-economic status are to some extent ameliorated. In terms of school science pathways, those students doing 'more' science at 14-16 are found to be more likely to progress to traditional science post-16. The statistical modelling further quantifies the relative importance of each of these effects in determining progression and shows how, in comparison to other courses, there is more variation at the school level in progression to vocational sciences. Further, the determinants of participation in these vocational sciences courses are of a different character to the non-vocational sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2012, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond announced a radical measure that would see every Scottish school student study a Scottish text from a prescribed list. In 2010, Michael Gove announced that ‘Our literature is the best in the world’ and that every pupil should study particular authors. The ‘cultural heritage’ model of English is increasingly dismissed by teachers and students However, it is this ‘cultural heritage’ model which is preserved in the discourse of politicians. This paper explores the role that literary heritage texts play in the discourse of education policy in the context of devolution in twenty-first century Britain and considers the drivers and differences which can be seen in England and Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a critical perspective on the attempts to promote the use of information and communication technology ( ICT) in teaching and learning in England. It describes the rationale given for the introduction of ICT in terms of its potential to impact on educational standards to contribute to developing a curriculum which has more vocational/social significance and, more generally, to provide a catalyst for curriculum reform. The introduction of ICT is underpinned by the argument that schools should show a higher degree of correspondence with a wider world where the use of technology is pervasive. However, the claims made for ICT display excessive optimism and a sense of 'inevitability.' ICT has had only a modest impact on schools, though impact has to be considered in the context of what can realistically be expected: the contribution of ICT has not been negligible. Future development in the use of ICT should be more measured and adaptive, taking account of the multidimensional nature of technology. [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]

We live in difficult times—socially, economically and politically—and it is right that learned societies, such as the British Educational Research Association, reflect on their purpose and direction. We cannot take for granted the social contract that supports the funding of social science and educational research. This paper reflects on enduring themes and new pressures and argues for special attention to: collaboration within and beyond the community of university‐based educational researchers; support for, and recognition of, the importance of reviews of research; the development of accessible forms of communication of findings and their implications, to guide sound decision making; more direct engagement with practitioners, policy makers and the public. It argues that it is time for communities of educational researchers to have confidence to become outward looking and strengthen alliances with other groups of researchers at home and abroad, across disciplines, with different types of research institutions and also with practitioners and policy makers. What drives this should be our principal aim to pursue educational research and its application for the improvement of education and the public benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the under-researched area of extracurricular activity undertaken by students through the lens of the possible selves literature, which has largely been developed in the North American context. In the UK the employability agenda assumes an orientation towards the future and employers are increasingly expecting students to display capacities beyond those of simply achieving a degree. Extracurricular activity is one site where students might be able to develop these additional capacities towards their future imagined selves. Our case study, based on in-depth interviews with 61 students, found different orientations towards the future, with only some displaying future selves attuned to employability. Other students were more firmly orientated to the present and developing student identities or unable to elaborate or act on imaged futures because of the contingencies of the present. We conclude that paying attention to differing temporalities and to the insights derived from the possible selves literature are likely to be fruitful for further research on extracurricular activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the claim that the shift from a selective to a comprehensive school system had a deleterious effect on social mobility in Great Britain. Using data from the National Child Development Study, we compare the chances, for both class and income mobility, of those who attended different kinds of school. Where media attention focuses exclusively on the chances for upward mobility of those children from lowly origins who were (or would have been) judged worthy of selection into a grammar school, we offer more rounded analyses. We match respondents in a way that helps us to distinguish those inequalities in mobility chances that are due to differences between children from those due to differences between the schools they attended; we look at the effects of the school system on the mobility chances of all children, not merely those from less advantaged origins; and we compare comprehensive- and selective-system schools, not merely comprehensive and grammar schools. After matching, we find, first, that going to a grammar school rather than a comprehensive does not make low-origin children more likely to be upwardly mobile but it helps them move further if they are; second, that grammar schools do not benefit working-class children, in terms of class mobility, more than they benefit service-class children, but, in terms of income mobility, such schools benefit low-income children somewhat more than they benefit higher-income children - that benefit relating only to rather modest and limited movements within the income distribution. Finally, however, the selective system as a whole yields no mobility advantage of any kind to children from any particular origins: any assistance to low-origin children provided by grammar schools is cancelled out by the hindrance suffered by those who attended secondary moderns. Overall, our findings suggest that comprehensive schools were as good for mobility as the selective schools they replaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Background. In the context of the British Government's policy directed on improving standards in schools, this paper presents research on the effects of a programme intended to promote the cognitive development of children in the first 2 years of primary school (Y1 & 2, aged 5-7 years). The programme is based on earlier work dealing with classroom-based interventions with older children at both primary and secondary levels of schooling. Aim. The hypothesis tested is that it is possible to increase the cognitive ability of children by assisting teachers towards that aim in the context of mathematics. A corollary hypothesis is that such an increase would result in an increase in long-term school achievement. Sample. The participants were 8 teachers in one local education authority (LEA) and 10 teachers in another. Data were analysed on 275 children present at Year I pre-test in 2002 and at long-term Key Stage 2 post-test in 2008. Method. Two intervention methods were employed: a Y1 set of interactive activities designed around Piagetian concrete operational schemata, and mathematics lessons in both Y1 and Y2 designed from a theory-base derived from both Piaget and Vygotsky. Results. At post-test in 2004, the mean effect sizes for cognitive development of the children - assessed by the Piagetian test Spatial Relations - were 0.71 SD in one LEA and 0.60 SD in the other. Five classes achieved a median increase of 1.3 SD. The mean gains over pre-test in 2002 for all children in Key Stage 1 English in 2004 were 0.51 SD, and at Key Stage 2 English in 2008 -the long-term effect - were 0.36 SD, an improvement of 14 percentile points. Conclusions. The main hypothesis was supported by the data on cognitive development. The corollary hypothesis is supported by the gains in English. The implications of this study are that relative intelligence can be increased and is not fixed, and that children can be led into collaborating with each other to the benefit of their own thinking, and that there does exist a theory-based methodology for the improvement of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Both ability (measured by power tests) and non-ability (measured by preference tests) individual difference measures predict academic school outcomes. These include fluid as well as crystalized intelligence, personality traits, and learning styles. This paper examines the incremental validity of five psychometric tests and the sex and age of pupils to predict their General Certificate in Secondary Education (GCSE) test results. Aims. The aim was to determine how much variance ability and non-ability tests can account for in predicting specific GCSE exam scores. Sample. The sample comprised 212 British schoolchildren, Of these, 123 were females. Their mean age was 15.8 years (SD 0.98 years). Method. Pupils completed three self-report tests: the Neuroticism-Extroversion-Openness-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) which measures the 'Big Five' personality traits, (Costa & McCrae, 1992); the Typical Intellectual Engagement Scale (Goff & Ackerman, 1992) and a measure of learning style, the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ; Biggs, 1987). They also completed two ability tests: the Wonderlic Personnel Test (Wonderlic, 1992) a short measure of general intelligence and the General Knowledge Test (Irving, Cammock, & Lynn, 2001) a measure of crystallized intelligence. Six months later they took their (10th grade) GCSE exams comprising four 'core' compulsory exams as well as a number of specific elective subjects. Results. Correlational analysis suggested that intelligence was the best predictors of school results. Preference test measures accounted for relatively little variance. Regressions indicated that over 50% of the variance in school exams for English (Literature and Language) and Maths and Science combined could be accounted for by these individual difference factors. Conclusions. Data from less than an hour's worth of testing pupils could predict school exam results 6 months later. These tests could, therefore, be used to reliably inform important decisions about how pupils are taught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choice, diversity and personalisation have been key to the New Labour project in public services. With the emergence of a reinvigorated Conservative party as a credible electoral threat, and the end of the Blair era, it seems appropriate to consider the continuing viability and longevity of the New Labour public service project. In this article, I approach the issue of choice in public services through an examination of the long-running controversy over choice in the English secondary school system. I argue that the opponents of choice have been reluctant to engage with the notion of choice in public services due to concerns over the supposed negative effect that consumer choice has on the equity and quality of service provision. This paper aims to challenge the claim that any element of choice in education necessarily has deleterious effects on social justice. I argue that the case against school choice has not been decisively made and that school choice can, in principle, form part of a socially progressive educational project by redistributing power to service users and helping to maintain popular support for public provision of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of departments has been largely neglected in previous studies of subject choice in secondary schools. This is a significant omission because analysis at departmental level enables a fuller assessment of the effects of competition and specialisation on pupil performance. This paper examines relationships between both absolute and value-added measures of departmental performance and the likelihood of students being entered for examination in a subject. It examines these relationships with reference to four option subjects: French, German, Geography and History. It utilises data from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study which examined trends and patterns in departmental effectiveness using a sample of 664 schools which participated in the Yellis monitoring system for a minimum of five years during the period 1995-2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data on the patent portfolios of UK universities, the paper compares the levels of patenting activity (filings), success (grants) and quality (patents with commercial co-assignees and patent citations) at Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish institutions. Patent activity, per researcher, in Wales is on a par with that in Scotland and about twice the rate in Northern Ireland, but the numbers of researchers relative to population in Wales and Northern Ireland are around half of the number in Scotland. Patent quality indicators are less favourable to Wales, while both activity levels and conversion of applications into grants are poor in Northern Ireland. It is suggested that greater cross-university collaboration in Wales and Northern Ireland would help improve performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates and compares the utilization of online resources to support teaching and learning in two different educational sectors with overlapping student groups in Scotland: secondary schools and further education (FE) colleges. The online ‘Core Skills’ materials included Numeracy, Communication, Information Technology (IT), Problem Solving and Working With Others. The research involved two large-scale national surveys with representative samples of staff drawn from secondary schools and FE colleges, and four qualitative case studies purposively selected to represent a range of geographic locations. The most popular resources were for Numeracy. In the majority of colleges, respondents' attitudes to the materials were positive and the e-resources were used in conjunction with other teaching approaches. The evidence suggested that less motivated learners benefited from the materials when they were contextualized. Among secondary teacher respondents, however, the resources were virtually unknown. The majority of secondary teachers reported that they needed time to evaluate the materials and that they would benefit from specific training related to curriculum-linked e-resources. In conclusion, as the Numeracy materials have been found useful, e-learning in mathematics warrants further investigation among less motivated students who are currently not achieving their potential in secondary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates classroom interventions using a particular form of multimedia information and communication technology (ICT), and looks to study gains in pupil learning that accrue from its use. The research takes place in eight UK schools with 219, 11-year-old children (eight Year 6 classes). Work within the Literacy Hour is detailed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a multimedia broadband educational communications system. The Literacy Hour is part of the UK Government's National Literacy Strategy: guideline requirements of schools to spend an hour a day on literacy to meet centrally established and monitored targets. The research data include pre- and post-test assessments, along with 48 interviews with classroom teachers and pupils. The children are presented with a series of journalistic tasks and classroom activities that they resolve through the use of a compact and coordinated information system. The outcomes demonstrate that children can become self-directive and very active – exploratory – learners in a very short period of time. They quickly enjoy the freedom and control that the system permits and through which they can be shown to enhance particular literacy skills. The lessons to be learned relate to the management and organisation of classroom teaching in the face of systems that promote rapid devolution of learning to the learner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much discussion recently about school diversity and modernising the ‘comprehensive principle’. The 2001 White Paper Schools achieving success (DfES) proposed the expansion of the specialist schools programme, city academies and faith schools. In addition, interested parties — community groups, faith groups, LEAs, other public, private or voluntary bodies — were to be invited to publish proposals where an LEA identified a need for a new maintained school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper arises from survey work in 32 primary schools during the academic year 1999-2000. The first part celebrates good practice, whose roots it finds in effective whole-school strategies for literacy, and in confident approaches to the NLS. The second part features schools where achievements in literacy, and particularly in writing, are less secure. It suggests that these schools often share a conscientious, but anxious and closely literal interpretation of the NLS framework, and that this hinders the progress of their pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the criticisms made in the press of the National Literacy Strategy prior to its implementation and compares these to comments made by teachers in a questionnaire distributed in the summer term of 1998. These showed that teachers had both positive and negative views about the NLS, that these views were, on the whole, more positive than we had expected and did not necessarily reflect views as put forward in the press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]