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Teachers in South Africa are under great pressure from the state to improve their qualifications, one of the state`s strategies for improving education standards The pressure u felt more acutely by black teachers who were previously allowed to teach with lower qualifications than their white counterparts In-service teachers, irrespective of their age or length of experience, are required to obtain the school leavers' certificate post hoc to earn a salary commensurate with their duties Their duties are heavy the pupil-teacher ratio is about 451, and teachers teach between 42 and 50 periods a week, without many basic facilities Consequently, many teachers are neglecting their pupils to concentrate on their studies The call for qualifications can be viewed as a component of the South African state`a reform initiative, and, as such, is yet another cosmetic amelioration of black people`s status because it does not address their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to that of Moore and Muller 'The Discourse of Voice and the Problem of Knowledge and Identity in the Sociology of Education', which appeared in Volume 20 of this journal. It starts by summarising and endorsing their criticisms of 'voice discourses' but argues that their case is weakened by their failure to distinguish clearly between the 'debunking of knowledge' associated with the postmodernist theories that underpin 'voice discourses' and the general propositions of a social theory of knowledge. The idea that knowledge has a social as well as an epistemological basis is now widely accepted in philosophy as well as sociology. The paper draws on a paper by Stephen Toulmin and makes a distinction between anthropological and sociological approaches to the idea of knowledge having a social basis. It goes on to use some ideas from the author's recent work on the issue of knowledge specialisation to suggest the kind of contribution that a sociological approach to knowledge can make to current curriculum issues as well as to educational policy more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines New Right argument on educational provision, including the establishing of a voucher scheme and the introduction of elements of a 'free market' into public sector education. The paper examines the right-wing allegation that educationalists have 'captured' the school curriculum and the argument on the need for 'consumer capture' of education. It discusses the New right tactic of privatization by stealth, and the argument that gradualism provides the most effective means of securing educational reform. The paper discusses arguments put forward by the right on the idea of a General Teaching Council (GTC) and argument on the need for the development of a teacher labour market freed from national salary scales. It goes on to examine Mary Warnock's proposals for a GTC and her views of teacher education. The paper examines the likely effects of the implementation of right-wings education policy, concluding that the 1988 Education Reform Act will prepare the ground for the privatization of education and the development of a teacher labour market of the kind proposed by the New Right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the apparent internal coherence of a programme of agrarian development in India and the distortions and contradictions arising out of its practical implementation. Our object is to examine official policy with regard to tribal residential schools in India, known as ashram shalas. These schools represent an innovation and are different from the general type of day primary schools seen in rural India. In ashram schools, tribal pupils are provided free boarding facilities, together with free school uniforms, text books and other learning materials. These schools are expected to impart elementary education in areas which are remote and sparsely populated and where, on account of the geographic spread of the numerous hamlets, single teacher schools cannot be established. Our study is aimed at understanding official policy in the context of ashram schools, and at providing an arena for bringing to the surface the fundamental contradictions played out in areas of the school situation, specifically relating to: (a) the school organizational structure; (b) the teaching practice; (c) dropout; (d) school-community relations; and (e) area development. The paper is presented in two major parts: (a) the first section will try to relate the functioning of the ashram schools to how the state plans and administers schools with respect to access to them; (b) the second section examines the ashram school as a locus of a wider and general social problem of relating education to social economic and developmental purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores recent changes in tertiary education policy in New Zealand, which are designed to address legitimation deficits. By offering an analysis of the making, and the subsequent unmaking, of quasi-markets in tertiary education, this paper attempts to describe how the state dealt with legitimation deficits resulting from providers' of tertiary education use of the adult and community education funding category to increase their revenues. In providing this description, the paper helps to provide a way of understanding how the state in New Zealand has responded to legitimation deficits by introducing a new regime of governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, in terms of its treatment of category 5.1 funding, this regime is supportive of neo-conservative goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a ‘panacea’ to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once the initiative is fully integrated at the classroom level. Drawing initially on the work of Foucault, and then Poster’s more recent conception of the electronic ‘SuperPanopticon’, this paper re-examines the basis of the NGfL and its role in extending and reinforcing existing power configurations in education. The paper concludes by considering directions for future research into the NGfL, and educational use of the Internet in the light of this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the internal degeneration of the Marxist educational theory flowing from Bowks & Gintis (1976) and Willis (1977) It explores five interlinked 'debilitating problematics'-the base/superstructure metaphor Left funnctionalism, relative autonomy, resistance theory and the education for autonomy/revolution dilemma-winch have simulianeously formed the backbone of Marxist educational theory and constituted the roots of its theoretical weaknesses The general argument is that these weaknesses are so deep-seated that Marxists interested in theorising capitalist schooling need to start afresh The paper points towards some possible starting points fir new Marxist thinking on capitalist schooling, the preferred option being an analysis of labour-pourer One consequence of taking labour-power as the starting point for a Marxist analysis of education is that it entails the dissolution of 'Marxist educational theory' Instead educational theory and politics become subordinated to a concern with the social production of labour-power in capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the interrelationship between sociology of education, state schooling and social class It is suggested that we need to move beyond critiques of the New Right hegemony and begin critically to explore social democratic alternatives In the paper there is an examination of the 'old sociology of education' and inequality and its take-up by policy-makers Social class was of central explanatory value in these early social democratic accounts of state schooling This is followed by an exploration of the erasure of social class, that has emanated from such diverse sources as the rise of the New Right, the emergence of new social movements, and more recently, the ascendancy of the school effectiveness/school improvement literatures Of key significance here is to argue fir the need to develop reconceptualised frameworks and empirical studies of class analysis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses sociologically the current form of school-based secondary assessment, in Queensland which is criterion-referenced to Year 10 and a hybrid criterion/norm referenced form at the end of Year 12. Habermas' arguments are used to suggest that this. assessment pattern will give the state potentially greater 'steering capacity' over education by 'rationalising' it-the 'scientisation of schooling'. This form of assessment fits within the accountability discourse of the economically parsimonious 1980 while meeting selection demands. However, the approach does meet some educational demands. The paper also reflects upon the role of the state and expert knowledge in policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it will be argued that we are entering a 'third wave' in the socio-historical development of British education and that similar trends are also evident in the USA, Australia and, New Zealand. The 'first wave' can be characterised by the rise of mass schooling for the working classes in the late nineteenth century. The 'second wave' involved a shift from the provision of education based upon what Dewey called the "feudal dogma of social predestination" to one organised on the basis of individual merit and achievement. What is distinct about the 'third wave' is the move towards a system whereby the education a child receives must conform to the wealth and wishes of parents rather than the abilities and efforts of pupils. In other words, we have witnessed a shift away from the 'ideology of meritocracy' to what I will call the 'ideology of parentocracy'. This paper will consider the evidence to support this conclusion and examine its sociological significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper represents an attempt to develop current understanding of reproduction in education. Commenting on current neo-Marxist models of analysis, we argue that more attention needs to be given to the universalizing practices of schools if reproduction is to be fully understood. Drawing on evidence taken from a national study of Irish [1] schools, we show how the state's intervention in schooling can have universalizing effects. However, we argue that the state has only intervened in the realm of educational provision, not in the realm of consumption, hence inequalities persist. The second part of the paper tries to explain why state intervention in education is largely limited to provision. In effect, this means examining the processes of universalism and particularism within the context of the capitalist state. Here we argue that actions by state managers (particularly in response to resistances developing in schools) are restricted by an array of vested interest groups within the educational site. While contradictions lead to resistances in schools, these resistances generate counter-resistances from those class and/or status groups, which have their own agenda within the educational system. The managers' need to reproduce both the skills and attitudes necessary for the capital accumulation which funds the state machinery is, of course, another powerful controlling force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that in making sense of events leading up to and following the Taylor Report which recommended changes in school management in England and Wales, a number of principles should be borne in mind First, that instances of policy-change such as this can not be fully understood except in the context of contemporary economic events and social circumstances. Secondly, that it is useful to view policy-change as the outcome of ideological struggle entered into by classes and class fractions in relative accord with one another Thirdly, that the effects of changes in education policy are not pre-given, but depend upon the intentions and practices of those associated with their implementation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In western nations, the social and economic changes of the past 30 years have facilitated a reorientation of the focus of educational institutions. Global capitalism has placed education at the forefront of national competitiveness, and governments have responded with education policies primarily designed to serve the needs of the market. Such neo-liberal economic imperatives have been supported by a variety of neoconservative social forces calling for schools to become sites of cultural and moral restoration. This paper draws upon current theoretical debates about the consequences of such changes and employs ethnographic data from a small qualitative study of Australian youth to argue the case for a more democratic and student-centred approach to educational reform. It contends that in the interests of all young people, it is time for schools to resist systemic impulses to make them producers of human capital and claim their role as transformative institutions of human possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The student population across world is increasingly reflective of diverse cultures, religions and ethnicities. This rich diversity may become a challenge for educational leaders, teachers, and policy-makers in the absence of an understanding of diverse sources of knowledge people draw on for directing their beliefs and daily practices. This paper explores the multi-ethnic context in Britain with a focus on Muslim students in English secondary schools, and argues for drawing on diverse ethnic knowledge sources to inform and enrich approaches towards managing diversity. It discusses the concept of Adab derived from Muslim ethics and philosophy, and debates possible contributions of such conceptual adaptations towards improving educational engagement and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw on concepts from policy sociology to analyse the new equity deal for schools in Queensland, Australia. We examine this 'new deal' through an analysis of the language of 'inclusion' and 'educational risk' in key policy documents associated with a major reform of public education in Queensland. In addition, we analyse the interview talk of key policy actors involved in policy framing, carriage and monitoring. We note that globalism has increased rather than reduced social inequity. At the same time, good quality accessible education can play a crucial role in challenging the inequalities produced by global informationalism. In Queensland, Australia, equity is still on the agenda, but in radically new neo-liberal economic ways. The focus is individualistic - each individual needs to be tracked because they are potentially 'at-risk' of 'school failure'. Identification of 'at-risk' students has been devolved to the level of the school and district, and intervention strategies have to be devised at the local level. Stories of success are then to be shared/networked with other schools. We suggest that while 'target group equity' strategies were limited in terms of addressing issues of social exclusion and inequity, the new deal on equity, a market-individualistic approach is an inadequate alternative. In tough times you stick together. ... This was Labor's 'inclusive' society: a social democracy sustained by the wealth-generating power of free markets and economic integration with the world economy, and made strong by a practical ethic of social cooperation and fair distribution. (Watson, 2002, p. 316) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Australian federal Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys’ Education, Boys: Getting it Right, which is shown to be an exemplary instance of recuperative masculinity politics. The paper demonstrates how, through a variety of rhetorical strategies, its anti‐feminist politics are masked and how the report works with essentialised differences between boys and girls. The argument is demonstrated through a focus on a number of the report’s recommendations, including the call for a recasting of current gender policy, the need for creating so‐called ‘boy‐friendly’ curricula, assessment and pedagogical practices, and for employment of more male teachers. The report draws on populist literature and submissions from the boys’ lobby, as well as practice‐oriented submissions to the neglect of theoretically oriented and (pro‐)feminist work. As such, the significance of the construction of masculinities to boys’ attachment to and performances in school is totally neglected, limiting the value of the report’s recommendations for improving schooling for both boys and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of globalisation and hegemonic neoliberalism, the state's ability to legitimate the economic system and its own policies cannot be assumed as a positive automatic effect. The economic and political conditions that once framed state action have changed, and it is reasonable to think that the emergence of a new accumulation regime implies also a shift in the traditional strategies used by the nation-state to legitimate its policy-making. This paper reviews how the neoliberal educational agenda develops a new political rationality that changes the traditional forms in which the state has managed its legitimation crisis. In addition, the paper argues that context-based factors, nationally specific, show that this political rationality may not be uniformly applied among different nation-states. The case of semiperipheral countries provides some evidence on the necessary combination of old and new strategies developed by the state to legitimate a neoliberal agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal access to the 'new capital' of information and knowledge via Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has become a central goal of education reform under the New Labour Government. Public policy and media discourses, however, currently construct young children in a paradoxical relationship with new technologies, as both at the vanguard of the digital revolution 'effortlessly grasping the tools' of the new technologies, and at the rear, requiring educational policy interventions to ensure their acquisition of 'key skills' in ICT. While this meta-level discourse in policy statements, television coverage and advertising permeates reporting of young people's use of computers, however, both children and their parents are negotiating competing definitions of the function and uses of these new technologies in the home. Drawing on data gathered from 16 case-study families over a 12-month period, this paper therefore explores the subject positions constructed for young people by these discourses, the ways in which educational policy-makers are beginning to appeal to young people as consumers of digital technologies, and the responses of young people and their parents to these often conflicting images of 'the child computer user'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate surrounding educational research in the UK has been fuelled by four recent government-funded publications that have thrown doubt on the validity, relevance and applicability of educational research. In this paper, the author offers a critique of these publications and questions their privileged role in informing government policy. She challenges the current trend towards instrumentalism in funded educational research, and explores the ways in which theories, rather than evidence, provide an essential infrastructure to teachers' day-to-day thinking and practice. Finally, she compares the restrictive effect of a narrow focus on 'what works' with the opportunities offered by postmodernism for broadening the scope, purpose and interpretation of the research of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to encourage sociologists of the curriculum to contribute more both to curriculum policy advocacy and the curriculum development process. It concludes by suggesting four areas of curriculum policy research around which both sociologists of education and curriculum studies 'specialists' could unite and which would go some way towards meeting the demands of the National Curriculum at the level of policy analysis and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against C Fritzell`s claim that relative autonomy theory "has substantial potential within the sociology of education" It is argued that the inconsistencies in both conception and application of this approach have led to the virtual omission of the sphere of the state the neo-Marxist sociology of education This omission seriously limits research into the politics of education and leads to analyses that are over-generalised or reductionist, and which tend to make untestable assertions about the relationship between state structures and state agents The notions of `limits' and `capacity' are examined as being possible analytic tools to promote more adequate reconceptualisations of the state in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about middle schools and the effects of recent policies on the curricula organisation of six of them. We begin by establishing some general links between middle school origins, brief history and development, and wider economic and political forces for change Drawing on four years of research with a group of schools in one local authority, we describe some of the directions of change which followed the Great Debate. We highlight recent changes as these schools came under increasing bureaucratic control, with the emphasis on the organisation of pupil selection and changes from mixed ability grouping, to setting, and back to mixed ability groups. We conclude with some theoretical discussion related to the work of Habermas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parent engagement in schooling has long been held as a vital component of the successful navigation of the schooling process and, consequently, governments often invite such engagement via policy implementation. However, at times, contestation arises about parent engagement, with some parents seemingly 'crossing the line' when attempting to be involved in their children's schooling. This paper investigates the possibility of parent engagement in schooling in Queensland, Australia, conceptualising it as a game of social and systemic practice. The author examines this notion using an example of contestation between parents at a regional government school and the education authority. Policy directives about parent engagement are explored, with the rhetoric of such policy applied to the example in question. The work of Bourdieu and Foucault is used to argue that the invitation to parents to engage is framed and thus often misrecognised, resulting in unintended conflictual relationships between parents and governing authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of teachers' agency as multifarious change, embedded in educational reform in the global era, stands largely unexamined in educational policy. Although the concept of teachers as agents has political implications, beyond this, examining teachers' agency offers ways of describing and reviewing changes to teachers' work and relations within evolving education systems. Local systems draw from globally orientated education policies, which continue to influence to the way that local systems redesign education. In the global context, education systems are complex interactions between structure and agency, evidenced as 'multiplicity undergoing change'. In other words, there is dynamic and dialectic interplay between structure and agency. Teachers' agency, germane to dynamic interplay, means that teachers are not only engaging in the reproduction of structural change aligning globalization-driven reforms to their work and practice, but also, in adapting and reacting to new structural conditions, they are transformed through their actions. In this paper, the focus becomes teachers' agency as a framework for understanding how teachers are redesigned and reassembled to do things differently within restructured education systems. Finally, the discussion considers the possible consequences of teachers work and practice, given teachers' agency relative to the macro policy of superfigures and the transitional national/global structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the experiences of British parents who have children identified with ‘special education needs’ within mainstream education. Expectations of mainstream education can have a negative affect on parents when a child is unable to maintain his or her education within a mainstream school. In England and Wales, ‘inclusion’ within mainstream schools is implemented by the current government and promoted as anti‐exclusionary. However, current research indicates that actual ‘inclusion’ (the child experiencing inclusion as well as being placed in a mainstream environment) is not necessarily occurring in practice. As it stands, the conflict is between desires to embrace difference based on a philosophy of ‘equal rights’ (‘inclusive’ education) and prioritising educational performance, structuring it in such a way that it leaves little room for difference and creativity due to the highly structured testing and examination culture. Qualitative analysis of parents who have children identified with special educational needs indicate that they have hopes and expectations for their children. These hopes and expectations are challenged recurrently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines recent empirical work on the lived experience of learners in post‐compulsory education. The starting point is a brief examination of the socio‐economic context of the sector. Despite the sophistication of analyses of learning cultures, a more radical approach is needed. Failure to do so renders these analyses amenable to appropriation by ‘new labour’ modernisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the way social partnerships tend to be represented as either horizontal localised networks or neo-liberal policy instruments. Building on two empirical studies of partnerships, we argue that partnerships cannot be understood in either/or ways but are negotiated at the interface between central agencies and local networks. They are mediated by networks operating through the partnership and through government and community, and by the different organisational logics of agencies. These complexities challenge our ways of analysing and representing partnerships, and justify further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines notions of 'educational time' with particular reference to the work of Basil Bernstein. It focuses closely on the 1967 Plowden report as a particularly appropriate policy case study to demonstrate how different constructions of time can exist within the same document. It then develops educational models originally mapped out by Bernstein, arguing that a full understanding of the areas of consensus and conflict among these models is vital if we are to understand how teaching professionals think about the future. The paper addresses the following questions: How does time affects education? What influence does this have on educational outcomes? How does this relate to public policy initiatives? Assuming a tacit, collective understanding of time and the future can undermine the very policy intentions a government might be seeking to promulgate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequent calls for more male teachers are being made in English-speaking countries. Many of these calls are based upon the fact that the teaching profession has become (even more) 'feminized' and the presumption that this has had negative effects for the education of boys. The employment of more male teachers is sometimes suggested as a way to re-masculinize schools so they become more 'boy-friendly' and thus contribute to improving boys' school performance. The focus of this paper is on an Australian education policy document in the state of Queensland that is concerned with the attraction, recruitment and retention of male teachers in the government education system. It considers the failure of this document, as with many of the calls for more male teachers, to take into account complex matters of gender raised by feminism and the sociology of masculinities. The paper then critiques the primary argument given for the need for more male teachers: that is, that male teachers provide boys with much needed role models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pervasive educational issues confronting Australia, and other countries, at the moment is the declining completion rates in high schools. While a period of success was experienced after the Second World War, there is now a pressing need to reform high schools in the ways they connect with young lives. In this paper, we present a 'sociology of the high school' as a way of encapsulating the high school as an institution that: is still largely stuck in a 'continuity of practice' (Elmore, 1987); has an 'attachment to familiar pedagogical routines' (Eisner, 1992); fails to listen to students; is hierarchically structured; treats students in immature ways; is hung up with passing on content; and seems more concerned with insulating itself from, rather connecting with or appropriating, young lives into the curriculum. As an alternative, we examine the notion of middle schooling that requires a version of whole school reform that engages with structures, cultures and changing pedagogy in ways more resonant with, and respectful of, young lives. We examine the tensions and dilemmas experienced at Investigator [1] High School in Australia, and conclude that the centerpiece has to be breaking the mold of the 'scripted' teacher and its replacement by the 'teacher-as-improviser'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the recent history of the sociology of education and draws lessons about the future from that review. Beginning with a consideration of the reorientation of sociology of education in a hostile political context, it analyses recent official attacks on sociologically-informed research in education. This paper locates this reorientation in the changing relationship between sociologists of education and policy-makers since the 1960s. In so doing, it documents briefly the shift towards neo-Marxist critiques of education as a vehicle for maintaining and sustaining inequality, and the subsequent dismissal of sociology of education by policy-makers. The ways in which theoretical debates within the main discipline have affected the direction of work in the sub-discipline are also considered. Finally, we explore the possibilities for sustaining and supporting sociology of education as a key arena for the maintenance of a narrative of modernity while accommodating more recent movement towards a recognition of complexity, contingency and subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education policies introduced in the past two decades necessitated the adoption of a managerialist discourse in the restructuring, running and inspection of schools. In this paper, we critically review the nature of such discourse and outline the historical conditions that contributed to the establishment of OFSTED. Having set the scene, we report on the experiential impact of managerialist discourse on the lives of primary school teachers in the period running up to, including, and in the year following OFSTED inspections. Exploring the accounts of teachers, we draw attention to the effects of intensified control on the overall well being of teachers and, by implication, the quality of classroom experience for children. Foucault's notions of the 'disciplinary regime' and 'normalizing judgement' prove useful in framing teachers' descriptions of themselves feeling professionally compromised, intimidated and stressed by the inspection process. Despite the evident intensity of the OFSTED experience, teachers in our study uniformly indicate that, 1 year after inspection, it has had no lasting impact on what they do in the classroom. If OFSTED has questionable direct influence on teaching practice outside nominal compliance with its formal procedures in the run-up to and during the inspection visit, we are left to question what purpose it actually serves. Our conclusion is that, just as teachers 'stage manage' a performance for the visiting inspectorate, the whole OFSTED apparatus itself is little more than a grand political cipher created and maintained to satisfy the imagined scrutinising gaze of a wider public. In short, OFSTED is stage-managed public 'accountability'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning is high on the political agenda for post-compulsory education and training in England. Official discourses about learning assume a predominantly individualist stance, despite the development of theoretical models that stress the contextual and situated nature of learning. In a study following 50 young people through further education over 4 years, it became apparent that the institutional culture of the colleges had a significant impact upon students’ dispositions towards their learning. In this paper, we explore the nature and significance of this impact in a case-study sixth form college: an under-researched sector of educational provision. This is followed by a brief discussion of the implications of our analysis for issues of access, widening participation and inequality in relation to current proposals to reform age 16–19 educational provision in England. We conclude by identifying some of the questions about the fine-grained nature of that college culture that our data does not permit us to address directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that theorizations of the state which are sensitive to both its durability and its permeability, and theorizations which can account for the massive interconnections between local and global forces as well as different material and discursive sites are missing from contemporary work in the sociology of education. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’ as a key resource for addressing this impasse, the authors highlight the constant fabrication of racial identity through the production of the pure space of racial origins or ‘resentment’—the process of defining one’s identity through the negation of the other. This dynamic, the article maintains, now informs key discourses both in popular culture and education. The authors conclude that these processes operate in tandem in the prosecution of the politics of racial exclusion in our times, informing key policy debates, including those around affirmative action and bilingual education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the erosion of educational autonomy in Britain in recent years. Employing an analytical framework derived mainly from the recent work of Basil Bernstein, it examines ways in which weakened boundaries between the educational and the economic/political spheres may be linked to attempts by government in Britain to take over, to an unprecedented degree, domains where educators and producers of knowledge have in the past enjoyed significant, although by no means unqualified, autonomy. Implications for changing educational identities are highlighted, as is Bernstein's central contention that we may be witnessing not merely presentational changes, but rather a fundamental redefinition of the relationship between knowledge and the knower. Certain aspects of the political and educational agenda of the present New Labour government are seen as continuing many of the directions of policy set by previous New Right administrations. It is suggested that such continuities at the level of politics and policy indicate the potency of neo-liberal forms of governmentality and the extent to which they have become entrenched. Postmodernist and modernist interpretations of these developments are briefly considered. Obstacles to effective contestation of the new modalities of control are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from sociologies of disablement this discussion affirms the importance of such theorising for identifying the epistemological basis, and therefore the implications for policy and practice, of special education The discussion is both timely and necessary as professional resilience reinvents special education as consistent with inclusive education This has been achieved through linguistic adjustments which eschew challenges to underlying assumptions about difference and schooling Unless a sociological analysis is applied to educational practices to frame inclusive education as a project in cultural politics, special educational theory will reduce inclusive education to the functionalist endeavour of assimilation. This paper extends the discussion with Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore (1995) to suggest that applying sociology to special educational needs is not an importation of theory to force intellectual closure by reducing educational complexities. Rather, sociologies of disability expose exclusions as mediated through curriculum, pedagogy and organisational practices to extend the possibilities for generating inclusive educational cultures [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretically informed by the sociological work of Pierre Bourdieu, this analysis represents an initial attempt to examine what it would mean to analyse educational policy as a social field. By employing such a frame, two main claims are addressed: (1) that the sociological perspective of Bourdieu offers valuable potential for understanding both educational policy, per se, and what it means to analyse educational policy; and (2) that there is good reason to question claims about shifts in power relations in US educational policy. Where other contemporary analyses of educational policy draw on some of Bourdieu's conceptual framework, in this paper I hope to more systematically elaborate methodological concerns raised when applying a Bourdieuian framework to educational policy. Further, I argue the perspective developed here suggests that in the 1980s US educational policy reforms reveal the historical maturation of a social field which has developed its own autonomy and its own rewards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contextual effect of the social class mix of a school's intake has been identified in several recent studies as having an important influence on individual academic performance, particularly for working class students. However the effect, if genuine, is poorly understood. This paper reviews the history of research into this concept since the sixties, examining how political, ideological and methodological considerations have influenced research to create our current ignorance of the effects of school mix. On the basis of this review, it is argued that (i), there is at least a prima-facie case for the existence of a significant school mix effect: and (ii), that given the limitations of past approaches, the most rewarding direction for future research would be to explore likely causal mechanisms through micro-level analysis. Some ways in which causal mechanisms relating to student subcultures might begin to be theorised are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically assesses Chris Shilling's claims that structuration theory provides a new and important direction for sociology of education. That assessment is conducted with particular reference to the long-standing research programme in the sociology of education, known as the differentiation-polarisation theory (d-p). The plausibility of the claim that d-p is positivist is examined, and the extent to which d-p meets the supposed inadequacies of sociology of education allegedly exposed by structuration theory is investigated. It is concluded that the novelty and importance of structuration theory for sociology of education and a fortiori education policy remains unproven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the significance for citizenship education of claims that Western society is undergoing a major cultural reorientation, known by its protagonists as postmodernism, which is said to have wide-ranging implications for knowledge, morality, politics and individual identities In particular, the posited changes raise doubts about the future of citizenship, and the discussion reviews two responses to these questions Heater's optimistic proposal for a return to the classical ideal, and Wexler's pessimistic assessment of the prospects for citizenship in a society dominated by television and the consumption of images A third perspective is suggested, based on the expansion of the idea of citizenship from civil, political and welfare entitlements to greater participation in the cultural and economic dimensions of everyday life It is argued that such a concept can reform a comprehensive and coherent approach to citizenship, and a successful curriculum in citizenship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the Conservative 'educational reforms' in the 1980s, which purported to give parents more democratic rights as consumers and participants in education, and changes in family life in Britain. It focuses on those demographic, familial changes, in particular in gender relationships, towards mothers having more public and private responsibilities for children and their education. It looks at whether these changes in family life have, in fact, been taken account of in 'educational reforms'. It asks the question about whether 'education reforms' which give more democratic rights to parents in general allow for more democratic rights for women as mothers, in the contexts of lone motherhood, maternal participation in paid employment and adult/higher education. On the other hand, are the implications of such education changes to increase the private responsibilities, rather than democratic rights, of motherhood? Although family is on the education policy agenda, it is not clear that gender is on the agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 25 years, the study of disaffected pupils has been a central topic in the sociology of education. Yet despite its popularity in academic circles the impact of the sociological perspective on policy has been negligible; today the individualised, psychologically orientated approach stills holds sway in most parts of the educational profession. This paper suggests that part of this failure at least is attributable to theoretical inadequacies in the sociological research that has been carried out to date, much of which is based on a one-dimensional notion of social structure and an overrationalistic view of individual psychology. Three key "educational structures' are introduced (the production of ability, the production of values, the production of occupational identity) and a more appropriate model of human personality is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper queries the appropriateness of notions of 'relative autonomy' It argues that rather than autonomy, historical analyses show considerable coherence in both the qualitative character and rhythm of development of different facets of social life. The argument is developed through an examination of the relationship of schooling, state and society. A theoretical framework for conceptualizing the relationship of schooling, state and society is outlined. This framework, and the argument for coherence, is then illustrated through an examination of the restructuring of the Australian State and New South Wales schooling at the turn of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how a group of 83 young, white, working class women became involved in the state's most recent attempt at restructuring social relations through vocational initiative. Using ethnographic research conducted in a caring course department of a northern further education college, it examines how the students everyday practical experiences of the vocational caring curriculum involves them in the construction of subjectivity and gender and class reproduction. The central argument is that caring courses are little more than domestic apprenticeships which anticipate both the family household structure and the labour market. The students implicate themselves in this process, through their attempts to gain autonomy and self-esteem, by constructing 'ideal' caring standards, which come to prioritise exclusive, familial forms of care over and above occupational roes. Thus, they socialize themselves out of the labour market and establish familial responsibilities, which can be drawn upon by the state to maintain unpaid welfare provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of an international controversy which erupted in 1982 over state authortsed changes to Japanese history textbooks. The dispute is analysed in terms off our convergent political, economic and social dynamics. These are the crucial nature of the Japanese state and its educational arm in Japan, the roots and focuses of post-1945 political struggle, the pattern of Japanese postwar development, and the impact of recession and second cold war. The changes to history textbooks are considered to be a state response to promote domestic stability and to legitimise Japan's remilitarisation. The case study highlights the relationship between the state and the educational sphere. It emphasises the political nature of curriculum and curriculum content and challenges the ideology of a 'non-political' educational sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper overviews part of a wider study of femmist teachers, born and educated in New Zealand in the years immediately following World War Two The method used is life history analysis, which explores 'biography, history and social structure.' The first part discusses the post-war educational context through analysing contradictions in curriculum policies and expectations for girls' education and exploring the relevance of these to the resurgence of feminism as a mass social movement amongst 'educated' women of the time. The second part presents two case studies of the school experiences of two New Zealand women who have, as adults, become educators and come to identify themselves as feminists. The focus of the case studies is on the strategtes those women developed to deal with the contradictions in their lives and to trace the beginnings of their political radicalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a historical analysis of the relationship between teachers arid the state. The historical analysis demonstrates the ways in which strategies of teacher management shifted according to circumstances in the first period, the 1920s, restrictions on teacher autonomy were removed, and 'indirect rule' used as a means of moving teachers away from the labour movement. In the second period, after the 1944 Act, a restricted 'professional' autonomy was encouraged In both periods equality of status for teachers as 'partners' in the educational enterprise was offered in return for teachers' acceptance of a limited or licensed professionalism. Current developments in the management of the teaching force suggest that the abandonment of indirect strategies of management may result in a return by teachers to less restricted 'professional' behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper emphasizes on the school as an organization in a sense to understand and explain how the school changes in terms of the conflict of ideologies amongst staff and the process of formulation of school policy. The study is set within the context of previous case studies of educational innovation as an attempt to analyze the forces behind organizational change and persistence in a school pledged by its official description to an innovative program aiming at the ideals of openness. The case study upon which this thesis is based was carried out in 1973-4, the first year that this upper school for 14-18 year olds had a fully compulsory and comprehensive intake in both fourth and fifth years. The school had previously been partly voluntary in the sense that students could opt not to join the upper school for two years but to remain in their high school for a further one year only. The effects of the raising of the school leaving age to sixteen served as a challenge to the prevailing liberal ethos of the school and the series of Innovations it inspired. The data, in the form of information from interviews, questionnaires and field notes, were collected by means of a year of participant observation This thesis gives an account of problems and conflicts experienced in this year and shows how the changes in the policy of the school can be seen as the outcome of a process of ideological conflict and political negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper moves beyond a conceptualization of globalization as a top-down imposition of policy directions 'from above' to focus on the active two-way dynamics between global, national and local levels of policy processes. Arguably, the particular 'case' examined here of 'quality' policy is especially appropriate as quality policy and golbalization rose to prominence in educational discourses at roughly the same time during the 1990s, suggesting that the two may be intimately interconnected. An analysis of new quality policy in Australian higher education for the 2000s is used as a vehicle to explore the dynamic reciprocity of global-national-local interactions in policy processes as revealed through empirical evidence collected during interviews with members of the national Australian Universities' Quality Agency. The concluding discussion highlights a key meta-level theme of education policy transfer between countries and the potential for global policy convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the authors' reply to Liz Gordon's review of their book Governing Education. We can quite see that our personal identities will have shaped the questions we asked and our ability to elicit evidence from our interviews and other sources but not that our identities determine the validity of our case. She contends that there is no space in this research for Marxist interpretations of history. Gordon claims that we ignore the concepts of hegemony and ideology and that we privilege the dominant account of the education system. Nor would it be right to claim that we are concerned here merely with minor differences of opinion among policy-makers. For example, we discuss the resistance to dominant beliefs on the part of schools and pupils. The destabilising effects of an expansion that the dominant ideology could not channel or contain is a theses that permeates the book. In relation to teacher unrest, on the other hand, the evidence does point towards the importance of teacher resistance and ideological breakdown. The rejection by many teachers of the dominant ideology of Scottish schooling had a similar significance, putting them beyond the moral pale of the Scottish policy community.