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Since the late 1970s, Britain has moved from a Keynesian welfare state model toward a mode of governance where economic reasoning replaces politics. Education in England has not escaped this shift from government to governance described as neoliberalism. This shift toward a new governing rationality has taken shape within the English education system since the 1980s through new public management regimes and networked governance; it has accelerated with academies, or schools run outside of local authority oversight. This paper explores how Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), or chains of academies directed by a centralized Trust Board, takes neoliberalism's governing rationality further as opaque networks of power are consolidated. Through tracing the narratives of MAT CEOs, government officials and union organizers, this paper shows how network governance enables neoliberal rationalities to predominate within MAT structures where authoritarian practices become normalized. Democratic ideals become bumps in the road to market-orientated progress requiring removal from education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the experiences of staff, parents, governors and students at a secondary free school in the West Midlands of England in relation to the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN). The paper is based on a qualitative research project carried out at a school that opened in 2015, with the explicit aim of examining the extent to which it developed as an inclusive school, particularly for children with SEN. In the paper, we draw on the classic distinction between 'education' and 'schooling' to identify tensions and overlaps between process and outcome oriented practices and examine the views of different stakeholders on how such practices impact on inclusion. By focusing on the day-to-day practices of the school and linking them to broader notions of schooling and education, we provide a complementary perspective on the current research on free schools, which is overwhelmingly quantitative and focused on admissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe some of the complexities involved in the construction of a sample of 'ordinary' schools. We outline the policy context in England that produces pressures to resist 'ordinariness'. The paper then explores two theoretical tools, fabrication and rhetoric, that are deployed in an analysis of some key artefacts of fabrication from schools in England. Through an examination of artefacts such as school brochures and websites, this paper asks whether there are any 'ordinary' schools in these performative times? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South Asian diaspora and its impact on the lives of dispersed communities is a complex phenomenon finding expression in a range of issues and debates. However, the nature and scale of the challenges and issues vary in each case and context, and even over generations. These issues become more sensitive and poignant when underpinned by cultural and belief systems. This paper debates the impact of dominant discourses and values on schooling choices and the related concerns to explore issues linked to girls’ education among Pakistani diaspora in England, drawing on relevant literature and the evidence from a recent study of single-sex schooling. It argues that multiple emotional, social, cultural, historical, political, economic and other affiliations influence the patterns of behaviour and the terms of civic engagement in the adopted country leading to a struggle over meanings and competing positions over values and practices that are fluid and dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses Pierre Bourdieu's multi-faceted understanding of the higher education process by considering the evolution of this domain since the end of the 1970s both in France and England. Following a brief review of Bourdieu's main interpretations of higher education, several theoretical shifts in his thought and practice over time are identified that have sought to accommodate the rapid changes that have occurred in the higher education sector in recent years. This theoretical repositioning is used to reflect on ideas of homological reasoning advanced by Bourdieu and others, and their limitations in the cross-national comparative exercise. Using the findings of her own comparative study of the evolution of the French and English higher education sectors, the author tests some of the conceptual tools developed by Bourdieu mainly during the 1960s and 1970s, and discusses claims for their universal validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection of ethnic and racial statistics has become common in a growing number of institutional settings. Yet contemporary approaches to race and ethnicity suggest that the very process of compelling people to assign themselves to one of a small number of racial or ethnic 'boxes' is, at best, essentialist and, at worst, racist. This article will explore this problematic terrain, and venture a pathway through it, with the aid of findings from a study of ethnic minority English and Welsh student teachers' attitudes to ethnic classification. The discussion comprises three parts. The first sets out to provide a brief theoretical analysis of the genesis of ethnic monitoring within the modern state. It is concluded that ethnic monitoring may usefully be regarded as a problematic necessity, a process that itself needs constant monitoring. With this agenda in place, we move on to assess the implications of our findings on student teachers' attitudes to ethnic monitoring. Their pointers for reform are discussed in the third and final section of the paper, where the policy implications of research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an ethnographic study of vocational students in a tertiary college in England who intend entering a service industry which expanded in the 1980s and is predicted to expand into the next decade. The paper focuses on a social class and gender mixed group of mainly 17-19 year-old Business and Technology Education Council National Diploma students in the second year of their course at "Gastronomic Tertiary College" in a northern heavy-industrial city. The field-work was conducted throughout the academic year 1988-1989, the author being a participant observer with a group of about 20 students throughout their time in college. The majority were from working-class backgrounds, mostly skilled social class III, and the minority from social class II. The data are derived from recorded individual and group "conversations with a purpose" held during the college day, together with field notes. Although the concept of correspondence has been invoked, it has been argued that the dynamics of reproduction take place on contradictory cultural terrain, characterised by contestation and conflict, no matter how latent and corporate.

Addressing the 'the social class attainment gap' in education has become a government priority in England. Despite multiple initiatives, however, little has effectively addressed the underachievement of working-class pupils within the classroom. In order to develop clearer understandings of working-class underachievement at this level, this small research study focused on local social processes by exploring how secondary school teachers identified and addressed underachievement in their classrooms. Our analysis shows how teachers' identifications of underachieving pupils overlapped with, and were informed by, their tacit understanding of pupils' social class position. While many teachers resisted the influence of social class, they used stereotypes to justify their practice and expectations, positioning pupils within educational and occupational hierarchies. This, we conclude, suggests the need for more systematic attention to the micro-social processes that provide the conditions through which working-class underachievement is produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project investigated the postsecondary education aspirations of 27 secondary school-aged students living in greater London, England and greater Boston, Massachusetts, USA. An innovative research design was implemented to support a technology-facilitated international focus group allowing for exchanges between the US and English students. Using human ecology theory, the findings show that differences in students' exosystems, specifically the financial aid and loan repayment processes, influence student postsecondary education and career aspirations. US student concerns about affordability and loan repayment made aspirations lower and more localized. In contrast, English participants felt comforted by their government's deferred loan repayment process, so they did not express such strong constraints on aspirations based on financial considerations. Both English and US students were influenced similarly by the mesosystem when making decisions about which postsecondary institution to attend. In conclusion, altering exosystem policy and influencing mesosystem relationships could impact postsecondary education aspirations for low-income students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws together a comparative sociological analysis and a political theory perspective to interpret children's views on the role of school and being a pupil, and what these tell us about their conceptual representations of citizenship and belonging in France and England. The article presents research findings from a cross-national ethnographic study with children aged 10 and 11 years in two primary schools, one in France and one in England. This article shows that children's views generally reflected national value orientations around citizenship and belonging, but that these conceptions of citizenship were not always fully understood by children, and masked, in some cases, deeper mechanisms of exclusion. This raises questions about the place of citizenship in education in France and England, and calls for a deeper understanding of the ways in which conceptions of citizenship are formed through children's experience of school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Especially in research on the ‘classed practice’ of educational decision-making, it is striking how the Bourdieuian concepts of habitus and capital have dominated. With a tendency to focus on the middle-classes’ ability to accumulate and deploy cultural capital, less attention has been given to the role of the educational institution and its place in the field. This article draws from interviews and field notes taken from time spent within a fee-paying school in the south of England. I argue that the school and parents are engaged in the production, display and consumption of cultural capital. Through Bourdieu’s notion of ‘doxa’ we gain an understanding of how the school and parents negotiate a very particular classed practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The integration of care and education across pre-school sectors of several European countries is currently a key policy priority. In England this necessitates reform aimed at re-modelling a traditionally hierarchical and divided workforce. Drawing on research with early years professionals, this article explores the micro-politics of reform with a focus on the extent to which workers in pre-school settings are engaging in new collaborative ways of working. In particular, the transformative potential of the communities of practice model in shaping changes to the early years workforce is discussed. Findings reveal the intersection of social class as labour-market position with several cross-cutting issues and their importance in perpetuating continuing inequalities of process. These present a challenge to the emergence of any new form of collaborative inter-professional working arrangements within the English early years context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on further education (FE) in England and related issues such as socioeconomic factors in educational policy, the state's interest in preparing skilled employees for business needs, and social justice in the FE sector. Policy rhetoric concerning competitiveness in a global economy, the development of a vocational education and training system that is based on market demand, and the failure of a supply-led model for the development of human capital are discussed.

Over recent years the findings of a number of quantitative research studies have been published in the UK on gender and achievement. Much of this work has emanated from Stephen Gorard and his colleagues and has not only been highly critical of existing approaches to handling quantitative data but has also suggested a number of alternative and, what they claim to be, more valid ways of measuring differential patterns of achievement and underachievement between groups. This article shows how much of this work has been based upon rather under-developed measures of achievement and underachievement that tend, in turn, to generate a number of misleading findings that have questionable implications for practice. It will be argued that this body of work provides a useful case study in the problems of quantitative research that fails to engage adequately with the substantive theoretical and empirical literature and considers some of the implications of this for future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent debate over education reform, Japanese conservative politicians and intellectuals have selectively appropriated a particular crisis-and-success narrative of British education reform to de-territorialize contentious policy changes. They assert that Britain achieved successful education reform by transforming the very same teaching practices and legal framework that currently afflict Japanese education. In so doing, the Japanese conservatives have legitimized the fundamental 'reform' of post-war Japanese education through the combination of nationalistic and quasi-market interventions in education. Drawing on a wide range of literature (literature on educational borrowing, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies), this article illuminates how the Japanese conservatives have appropriated external references to 'British education reform' to reconstitute the people's common sense about the current state and the future course of Japanese education. In addition, we use this Japanese case study to advance the re-conceptualization of the politics of educational borrowing from the perspective of non-western 'others.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational learning or epistemology has emerged in order to manage the creation of knowledge and innovation within contemporary capitalism. Its insights are being applied also to the public sector. Much of the research in organizational learning has drawn upon the discipline of psychology, particularly constructivist theory. Two approaches in organizational epistemology are considered here: Nonaka's theory of knowledge creation, and Engeström's expansive learning theory. Notwithstanding the reference to 'learning', these approaches have so far had little application to schools, especially at the level of pedagogy. But there are indications that re-culturing, 'workforce re-modelling' and inter-agency working are becoming more prominent within the public services in England. In these endeavours, government may come to regard organizational epistemology as an important new procedure in the management of change. Thus far, sociology has had two kinds of 'relationship' with organizational epistemology: first, social phenomenology and ethnomethodology have been of practical use; and, second, critical theory objects to the near-absence of a consideration of power and ideology within the discourse of organizational epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data generated by a 3-year study, informed by ethnographic principles, of the interface between Gypsy culture and the educational system in the South West of England, this article focuses specifically on the experiences of young Gypsy males [1]. The manner in which they perform specific forms of masculine identity though business skills and dealing, fighting, and sex talk are considered. Tensions are highlighted regarding the ways in which these performances are valued in different communities of practice, and how this operates to maintain an atmosphere of suspicion regarding the educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of education management has grown rapidly in the past 30 years with members positioning themselves in all parts of the education system. The main claim for distinctiveness is working with and on behalf of the practitioner, and intellectual positioning is based on the nature of intervention with the practitioner such as empirical research, course provision, and consultancy. In undertaking an intellectual analysis of the field, Bourdieu's theory of practice, developed through and with Habitus and Field, is used to think with and to develop an understanding of the 'possibilities' and 'traps' for the professional practice of field members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much conventional `race-relations' research of the schooling of black youth has tended to be underpinned by models of social pathology and subjective discrimination It is argued hen that there as a need to reconceptualise black youths' schooling experience within a theoretical framework that moves beyond mono-causal explanations and examines the multifaceted dimensions of racially structured English schooling Placing students at the centre of the research enables us to see how schooling for black female and male youths is a central part of an alienating social response to them, that results in their experience of a structured `different reality `from the white population In response to this, they have, collectively and individually, creatively developed coping and survival strategies These are examined here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]