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This article critically examines the Labour Party's policies for local school systems, focusing on its proposals for regional Directors of School Standards, for academies and free schools, and for local democracy, and offers an alternative approach.

The purpose of "A Better Future for our Schools" is to contribute to the debate about what a new government after 2015 should seek to achieve. It identifies 10 areas where current policies are clearly inadequate and damaging and identifies a range of actions to address each area. The manifesto is the outcome of debates organised by the Campaign for State Education and the Socialist Educational Association over the last 18 months. The authors are grateful for the contributions that have been made by many people during this process. The proposals are rooted in core values such as democracy, equality and inclusion as well as in the need to maximise the achievement of all our young people. Above all, they are designed to ensure that our schools prepare young people better for life in an increasingly complex and diverse society.

When we "learn nature," do we encounter her as 'free' in the sense of having neither cost nor price? Is she something 'given'? And is that which nature offers us 'gratis'? In the UK, many schoolchildren have been encouraged to 'give thanks' for nature's gifts. But why, if she is free, give thanks; and thanks to whom? If one learns to encounter nature as 'free', is she then really free for the taking? Walter Benjamin notably derided Joseph Dietzgen for regarding what nature supplies to humanity as 'gratis', and long argument has continued among Marxists since Benjamin's time concerning how we regard nature's 'gifts'. This paper addresses the ideological appropriation of nature, and makes this a pedagogical question best approached through readings of Benjamin and Dietzgen. It does so in a context where education policy reflects little if any concern with the acquisition of a disposition towards nature among children.

In this paper we argue that education--particularly higher education (HE)--has the potential to offer socially, economically and culturally transformative learning opportunities. Yet, for prisoners, the opportunity to engage in HE as active social citizens are often limited. Using a Freirean model of democratic, pedagogic participatory dialogue, we designed a distinctive prison-university partnership in which prison-based learners and undergraduate students studied together. The parallel small-scale ethnographic study, reported here, explored how stereotypes and "othering"--which compromise social citizenship--could be challenged through dialogue and debate. Evidence from this study revealed a positive change in "de-othering" attitudes of participants was achieved. Furthermore, participants reported growth in their sense of empowerment, agency, and autonomy--the cornerstones of social citizenship. Findings from this study contribute further evidence to the developing body of knowledge on the value of partnerships and dialogue in prison education. We conclude that policy makers, and respective institutions, need to work harder to establish prison-university partnerships, thus providing the space for dialogue--"real talk"--to take place.

Statistics is one of the important branches of mathematics taught in schools, colleges and universities. It is also an important tool in public policy discussions. This paper focuses on the use of statistics in the latter context, rather than its use in adult mathematics education research. I review the key characteristics of the statistical approach to constructing public knowledge, and give a very brief history of key points in its development. I discuss how what I call the "overt crisis of statistics," the apparent disenchantment of large sections of the public with the "expert" statistical methods, outputs and pronouncements, leads to dilemmas both for citizens and for democratic governments. Recently "Big Data" and data analytics seem to many to offer new solutions to problems resulting from the essential lack of certainty surrounding efforts to understand society, and from the need to make quick decisions in a rapidly changing world. These approaches have potential, but also limitations. This leads me to consider a second, "covert" crisis of statistics, resulting from a struggle between proponents of freely available public information and public argument, and those aiming to profit from the appropriation and sequestering of information for private ends. I finish by considering what can be done by ourselves, as citizens, as adult mathematics teachers, and as researchers.

This short paper is a response to Nel Noddings's article on schooling for democracy. Whilst agreeing with the basic premises of Noddings's argument, it questions the possibility of parity between academic and vocational tracks given the inequitable social and educational contexts the two types of learning would have to coexist within. Drawing on the educational philosophies of John Dewey and R. H. Tawney, I argue that both the United States and the United Kingdom need to create educational systems that reduce the social distance between people rather than, as the current systems do, exacerbate them. This is an issue of hearts and minds as well as policies and practices. As Dewey pointed out a hundred years ago, what is required is education that results in "mutual regard of all citizens for all other citizens," and the paper concludes that both countries are still far away from achieving this.

In this paper we set out proposals that constitute a democratic Marxist manifesto for teacher education for economic, environmental and social justice. In doing so, we of course recognise structural limitations on progressive action but also that teacher agency is shaped and not erased by these. We therefore sketch the strategic shape a transformative UK teacher education might take in resistance to attacks on workers from longstanding neoliberal hegemony and, more recently, from so-called 'austerity'.

This paper offers a critique of current definitions of active citizenship and argues that children and young people need to be seen as citizens within their school communities and not just citizens of the future. Pedagogy and school decision-making should reflect the aims of active citizenship and thus engage children and young people as active participants within their school communities. This requires a radical change to the way in which many schools are currently structured and organised. A case study of a small democratic school is used as an illustration of an exemplary model of education for active citizenship. This school does not offer citizenship as a curriculum subject nor explicitly aim for active citizenship--and yet active citizenship is integral to its ethos, values, structures, processes and pedagogy. Throughout the paper, it is suggested that democratic schooling is not just one way--but the best way--of providing education for active citizenship.

This is the second and concluding part of the interview which Melissa Benn and Jane Martin conducted with Clyde Chitty in the summer of 2017. The first part appeared in the previous issue of the journal, "FORUM," 59(3). When Clyde stepped away from regular duties with the FORUM board, Michael Armstrong dubbed him "the patron saint of the movement for comprehensive education". Clyde talked with Melissa and Jane about his working life as a teacher-researcher who notably campaigned for the universal provision of comprehensive state education. His unshakeable conviction that education has the power to enhance the lives of all is illustrated by plentiful examples from his work-life history. The interview is structured like a narrative. Phrases or sentences in brackets are interpolations for sense and by way of additional context. The section in italics comes not from the interview, but from Clyde's chapter in the book edited with Melissa Benn: A Tribute to Caroline Benn: education and democracy. As a coda, we append details of all Clyde's articles for this journal from 1981, beginning characteristically with a piece entitled "Why Comprehensive Schools?", along with details of his editorials from 1995. [To read Part I of the interview, please see EJ1161433].

This article argues that faith-based schools are a necessary feature of democratic and pluralistic societies and a legitimate expression of human rights as constituted in the European Convention in Human Rights (2000). It further argues that if the rights of parents to have a real choice for faith-based schools (regardless of ability to pay) are to be actualised, then state funding for such schools is required. The article concludes by saying that current arguments that faith-based schools are generative of social or community conflict have no basis in existing empirical research. These arguments, when examined, are not evidence based but rather based upon polemical and prejudiced assertions which give a superficial reading of the causes of community conflict, as in the case of Northern Ireland.

This article argues that comprehensive reorganisation was not a one-off policy reform but a complex, bottom-up campaign for equity and fairness in education, with varied consequences and outcomes. Recent battles over student fees, free schools and academies show that the quest for democratic education does not lead to a permanent achievement but to perpetual struggle with privileged groups who feel themselves threatened by social justice.

The Coalition Government, building on the foundations laid by its Labour predecessor, aims to dismantle the local authority system and with it what remains of the accountability of schools to local elected government. In this article, a response to Stewart Ranson's in a recent issue of "FORUM," the author examines his claims for the emergence of new forms of participative governance and suggests an alternative approach to taking forward the democratisation of governance in local school systems at neighbourhood and local authority levels in the context of conflicting class interests.

In this paper we critically review recent developments in policies, practices and philosophies pertaining to the mediation between science and the public within the EU and the UK, focusing in particular on the current paradigm of Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PEST) which seeks to depart from the science information-transmission associated with previous paradigms, and enact a deliberative democracy model. We first outline the features of the current crisis in democracy and discuss deliberative democracy as a response to this crisis. We then map out and critically review the broad outlines of recent policy developments in public-science mediation in the EU and UK contexts, focusing on the shift towards the deliberative-democratic model. We conclude with some critical thoughts on the complex interrelationships between democracy, equality, science and informal pedagogies in public-science mediations. We argue that science and democracy operate within distinct value-spheres that are not necessarily consonant with each other. We also problematize the now common dismissal of information-transmission of science as inimical to democratic engagement, and argue for a reassessment of the role and importance of informal science learning for the "lay" public, provided within the framework of a deliberative democracy that is not reducible to consensus building or the mere expression of opinions rooted in social and cultural givens. This, we argue, can be delivered by a model of PEST that is creative and experimental, with both educational and democratic functions.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOI) was used over a three-year period to investigate the curriculum of state schools and academies. The resulting data has shown that spectacular apparent school improvement, in terms of five or more A*-C GCSE /GNVQ passes has been largely brought about by the substitution of mainstream curriculum subjects by much easier vocational alternatives with disproportionate and unjustifiable equivalence to GCSE. Despite academies being exempt from FOI, and their refusal, supported by DCSF, to reveal their subject examination results, strong evidence has been found in individual cases of an extreme use of this strategy to boost headline results and league table performance. Examples are given of worryingly degraded curriculum opportunities in a number of academies for which data has been indirectly obtained, giving rise to concerns that some or even all pupils in some of these schools are being denied a right to a broad and balanced educational experience appropriate to full participatory citizenship in a modern European democracy. Private control of academies is revealed as likely to give rise to the differentiation of curriculum pathways with academic or vocational outcomes designed to meet the needs of the business interests of the sponsor. Questions are raised over the ability of academies to staff a full range of subjects at GCSE and sixth form level with serious consequences for progression to higher education especially for those pupils drafted at an early age into vocational pathways. (Contains 3 charts.)

This article explores the implications of funding increasing numbers of religious schools on the children of minority communities. It argues that handing responsibility for schooling to religious bodies undermines transparency, democracy and accountability in educational provision. Far from promoting "inclusion" as the Government claims, increasing the number of religious schools atomises and isolates communities, stifles debate and marginalises complex expressions of identity. (Contains 5 notes.)

This dialogue centers on the following questions: (1) How can schools help a society select or identify new elites who are hopefully as good as and perhaps even better than those individuals who belong to the existing elite system?, and (2) How can we create learning situations that provide the most general learner with a broad basic education? The first question is rejected as highly inadequate and unsatisfactory partly because it makes a number of mistaken assumptions about how schools can best meet the educational needs in modern countries (such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada). The second question is deemed extremely worthwhile; it should be at the heart of educational dialogues in liberal democratic societies. The discussion is mainly about the desirability of replacing the first problem (of selecting new elites) with the second problem (of a broad basic education) by the way of commentary on the development of Western educational thought from Plato to Popper and beyond. A major aim of this dialogue is to upgrade the way elites in liberal democratic societies attempt to reform and improve our educational institutions.

This article traces "race" policy and practice in Britain and flags up seminal moments from the 1960s onwards. Although settlement of Asian, Black and other minority ethnic immigrants can be traced back to 1948 with the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush from the Caribbean, it is in the 1960s that "race" became most visible in parliamentary politics. The article tackles each decade individually, highlighting events and laws that have shaped and defined macro policy and also the micro experiences of the Maisuria family. It is argued that it is of huge importance to establish a connection between macro politics and micro struggles in a liberal democracy to see how the policy of the state links with lived lives.

Distributed leadership has come to prominence in school management discourse as a means to achieve the participation and empowerment of teachers and to create democratic schools. In this paper I explore the contradictions between these claims and both the hierarchical power structure of schools and the use of distributed leadership to secure the commitment of teachers to government education agendas. I examine how the relationship between distributed leadership and managerial power is addressed in the discourse of education management theorists and the practice of head-teachers. Examples of authentically democratic schools based on collective self-management provide the basis for questioning the hegemonic hierarchical model.

In this paper, I check the ethical pulse of further education (FE) at the moment of its coming of age. Using a philosophical lens, I select and review post-2010 literature, to argue that FE colleges persist in a diminished form within a learning economy. In response to the managerial onslaught, the sector has adopted an ethics of survival, a necessary response to austerity and deregulation. Twenty-one years after incorporation, ethical fading has purged ethical desire from educational discourse, while the endless banality of college life has corroded the language with which it might be possible to speak about educational purpose, value, utopia, democracy, equity, and vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore performance management in four UK trade unions. Specifically, the extent to which managers in the four unions accept or dismiss the unitarist, disciplinary and performative values that arguably characterise performance management practices. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research design was adopted to investigate trade union managers’ interpretations of performance management. Managers were targeted because they held the power to shape performance management practices in their specific areas. The research employed qualitative semi-structured interviews. Findings – Performance management in trade unions is linked to the structure, purpose and orientation of different types of trade union. It is also linked to the wider environmental context. The trade union managers’ interpretations of performance management are linked to disciplinary and performative values. As such they are comparable to the unitarist forms of performance management described in the literature. There are moreover, similarities and differences between the approaches to performance management between trade unions and for profit or public sector organisations. Originality/value – The paper adds to the emerging literature on internal trade union management by highlighting a particular aspect of human resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is an extensive body of research demonstrating that trade and globalisation can have wide-ranging implications for health. Robust governance is key to ensuring that health, social justice and sustainability are key considerations within trade policy, and that health risks from trade are effectively mitigated and benefits are maximised. The UK's departure from the EU provides a rare opportunity to examine a context where trade governance arrangements are being created anew, and to explore the consequences of governance choices and structures for health and social justice. Despite its importance to public health, there has been no systematic analysis of the implications of UK trade policy governance. We therefore conducted an analysis of the governance of the UK's trade policy from a public health and social justice perspective.Results: Several arrangements required for good governance appear to have been implemented - information provision, public consultation, accountability to Parliament, and strengthening of civil service capacity. However, our detailed analyses of these pillars of governance identified significant weaknesses in each of these areas.Conclusion: The establishment of a new trade policy agenda calls for robust systems of governance. However, our analysis demonstrates that, despite decades of mounting evidence on the health and equity impacts of trade and the importance of strong systems of governance, the UK government has largely ignored this evidence and failed to galvanise the opportunity to include public health and equity considerations and strengthen democratic involvement in trade policy. This underscores the point that the evidence alone will not guarantee that health and justice are prioritised. Rather, we need strong systems of governance everywhere that can help seize the health benefits of international trade and minimise its detrimental impacts. A failure to strengthen governance risks poor policy design and implementation, with unintended and inequitable distribution of harms, and 'on-paper' commitments to health, social justice, and democracy unfulfilled in practice. Although the detailed findings relate to the situation in the UK, the issues raised are, we believe, of wider relevance for those with an interest of governing for health in the area of international trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: All forms of democracy, the most dominant form of government in The West, rely on the democratic principle of each citizen has the right to vote and all votes are equal. Yet not all democracies are the same. Since 2006, the Economist Intelligence Unit has been measuring the democratic status of 167 countries. The periodic Democratic Index Report relates to 60 objective indices, grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, government functioning, political participation and political culture. The resulting rating suggests the nature of democracy in each country. Once rated, the index sorts countries into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes. This paper explores the gaps that may exist between the objective rating of a country and its subjective self-perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politics in democracy and dictatorship is markedly different; democracy and dictatorship are also associated with distinct policy outcomes. Do political regimes also select different leaders, i.e., do democratic leaders have distinct personal backgrounds to those of their peers in dictatorships, do they tend to hold different prior careers and posts while climbing the "greasy pole" of politics? The aim of this paper is to introduce the new data on leaders' careers in democracy and dictatorship and compare their personal background, experience in politics, careers and significant posts prior to their tenure, and details about their time in office, inter alia. In general, democratic leaders differ from nondemocratic ones in terms of their educational, social and career background. The paper also finds significant differences among leaders in different nondemocratic regimes, and suggests possible venues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study focusses on explaining why advocates for reform to state audit in the United Kingdom (UK) in the early 1980s, focussed on improving the links between the new National Audit Office (NAO) and Parliament, rather than on traditional notions of audit independence. The study shows how this focus on the auditor's link to Parliament depends on a particular concept of liberty and relates this to the wider literature on the place of audit in democratic society. Design/methodology/approach: Understanding the issue of independence of audit in protecting the liberties and rights of citizens needs addressed. In this article, the authors investigate the creation of audit independence in the UK in the National Audit Act (1983). To do so, the authors employ a neo-Roman concept of liberty to historical archives ranging from the late 1960s to 1983. Findings: The study shows that advocates for audit reform in the UK from the 1960s to the 1980s were arguing for an extension to Parliament's power to hold the executive to account and that their focus was influential on the way that the new NAO was established. Using a neo-Roman concept of liberty, the authors show that they believed Parliamentary surveillance of the executive was necessary to secure liberty within the UK. Research limitations/implications: The neo-Roman republican concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, the preservation of liberty and democracy. Practical implications: Public sector audit can be a fundamentally democratic activity. Auditors should be alert to the constitutional importance of their work and see parliamentary accountability as a key objective. Originality/value: The neo-Roman concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, preservation of liberty and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public participation in technological decision-making is increasingly seen as de rigueur, but the limits and purpose of such participation remain open to debate. In this paper we explore the tension between different rationales for widening participation and examine their implications for its practice. Taking debates about medical genomics in the UK as an illustrative example, we argue that more heterogeneous participation and debate have the potential to improve the scrutiny and accountability of science within representative democracies. In doing so we also argue that it is necessary to replace the language of `lay expertise' with a more systematic and rigorous treatment of the expertise or its absence that characterizes different participants. Drawing on the theoretical work of Collins & Evans (2002), we distinguish between those processes where expert knowledge is required and debate is conducted within the public domain, rather than by the public itself, and those where the views of non-expert lay citizens are needed and valued. The effect of adopting this approach is to permit a more inclusive treatment of the `technical' while also providing a positive role for non-expert citizens in the democratic control and oversight of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many states use a classificatory approach to foreign policy: they put other states into particular categories and structure their engagement and relations partly as a result. There is one prominent modern international political theory – Rawls’ Law of Peoples – that seems to adopt this approach as an account of justified state behaviour. But should we expect this type of theory ultimately to prove attractive, justified and philosophically distinct compared to more instrumentalist rivals? This paper explores the challenges generic to any such account, not merely those relating to Rawls’ specific version, and surveys possible responses and their shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a wide-ranging debate about the merits and demerits of searching for, and sending messages to, extraterrestrial intelligences (SETI and METI). There is however reasonable (but not universal) consensus that replying to a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence should not be done unilaterally, without consultation with wider society and the rest of the world. But how should this consultation actually work? In this paper we discuss various ways that decision making in such a scenario could be done democratically, and gain legitimacy. In particular we consider a scientist-led response, a politician-led response, deciding a response using a referendum, and finally using citizens' assemblies. We present the results of a survey of a representative survey of 2000 people in the UK on how they thought a response should best be determined, and finally discuss parallels to how the public is responding to scientific expertise in the COVID-19 Pandemic. • Democratic accountability regarding communication with extra-terrestrials. • How to make the decision whether or not to communicate with aliens. • Democracy, SETI and METI. • SETI and METI: Who has the right to decide what messages we send to aliens. • Voting in a referendum, or electing representatives, to determine response to First Contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1867 Reform Act in Britain extended the electoral franchise to the skilled but propertyless urban working classes. Using stock market data and exploiting the fact that foreign and domestic equities traded simultaneously on the London market, this paper finds that investors in British firms reacted negatively to the passage of this Act. We suggest that this finding is consistent with investors foreseeing future alterations of property rights arising from the pressure that the large newly enfranchised group would bring to bear on government policy. We also suggest that our findings appear to be more consistent with the Tory political competition explanation for the Act rather than the Whig threat-of-revolution explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been a re-appraisal within political science of the characteristics of various kinds of public policy failure. At the same time, the political significance of education has grown in most liberal democracies. The present paper examines public policy in British education since the mid-1970s and asks: What goes wrong in policy-making and when does manageable failure slide into full-scale crisis? Various episodes of policy are explored and set against the theoretical framework developed by Mark Bovens and Paul t'Hart in an attempt to distinguish those policies in recent British education that have been controversial, those that have been manageable failures and those that turned into disabling fiascos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary. Using a novel method, the paper investigates the influence of social group identities on attitudes and on voting in a variety of political contexts. Examining the major regions of Britain, Canada and the USA, we find considerable national and regional diversity in the nature of social cleavages. For example, social class and race had widely different effects across societies, but within societies their effects on attitudes and on voting were very similar. However, despite that, age and religion had a similar effect on attitudes across societies; the effects on voting varied considerably. The significant within-country differences underline the importance of using region, rather than country, as the unit of analysis. More importantly, these results highlight the role of political context, especially competing cleavages and the structure of party competition, in the establishment of politically relevant social cleavages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the book "Trust and Governance," by Valerie A. Braithwaite and Margaret Levi. The book consists fourteen papers that explore the relationship between trust and governance. The book discusses the role of trust in Great Britain's fiscal administration from the Napoleonic Wars to World War II, the mobilization of private investment as a problem of trust in local governance structures, a rational-choice theory view of democratic trust and the roots of devolution trust and democratic governance.

The separation of powers in a state is an essential characteristic of every democratic country, a principle present in many constitutions, most notably that of the United States. The concept is imperfectly fulfilled in the United Kingdom, given that the executive (Ministers) form part of the legislature and that part of the judiciary (Law Lords) sit in the legislature. As a result, it was necessary to remove the constitutional anomaly that the highest court of appeal in the United Kingdom was situated within one of the chambers of Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is possible to gain a lot of media literacy by mere exposure to the media. In that sense, there is no need for any formal media education. That, however, is not sufficient to gain professional proficiency in this field. A lot of systematic training is required to maintain the standards expected from this fourth pillar of democracy. Presently, the existing structure of media education is at a crossroads. With the changing technology, social structure and international relations the rationale behind the media education in India is getting changed. Under these circumstances we need to form an opinion on what should be the corresponding changes in media education system in India. This paper has compared the media education system of India with some universities of United Kingdom so as to discover the most appropriate path for the future growth of media education in India [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myanmar or 'Burma' is a country which has a long history of colonialism by foreign powers. Before Myanmar achieved its independence in 1948, it was ruled by two prominent foreign powers that are Britain and Japan. Both countries had created the political scene of Myanmar. After achieving independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar became an independent country that practiced the democracy ideology under the ruled of General Aung Sann. However, its democracy system faced problems when a coup d'état happened in 1962. Since that year, the efforts to regain the democracy system in Myanmar faced a lot of obstacles. Thus, this paper will explain the process of democracy development since 1948 until the present days of Myanmar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information literacy (IL) has been considered by Library and Information Studies (LIS) research and praxis to be vital in helping citizens be 'informed', 'active' and 'engaged' within society. LIS discourse has explored different conceptions of citizenship and its relationship with IL within the paradigm of liberal democratic societies. Critical IL approaches have in turn promoted a citizenship of personal agency, empowerment, challenging the status quo and the pursuit of social justice, as well as focusing on what has been termed 'political literacy'. However, critical information literacy has also problematised some of the approaches to citizenship found in LIS discourse. Despite the complexity of the subject, empirical study into these issues is still severely lacking. This research moves to start addressing this need by investigating how IL is understood and enacted from the perspective of UK citizenship. Using a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews with five UK citizens based in Oxford, UK, in the summer of 2019, it set out to establish the relationship between IL and citizenship in a personal context. It was found to be understood and enacted through the development of socially-constructed personal citizenship information landscapes, oriented to a personal sense of citizenship, agency, motivation and empowerment. These personal landscapes challenge some of the established IL paradigms of 'informed', 'active' and 'engaged' citizens, as well as related concepts of information 'wealth' and 'poverty'. They also raise questions of the role of personal ethics in decision making as citizens and potential tensions with 'acceptable' norms. These findings help to further problematise the dynamic between IL and citizenship, and challenge LIS research and praxis not just to promote specific values and goals, but also to work towards a greater understanding of the personal contexts shaping that dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to suggest alternatives to the modes of conceptualization of education and schooling which have predominated in contemporary sociological theories of education and have influenced the Left in Great Britain. In the theoretical debate in sociology of education during the 1970s, it is clear that radical rather than Marxist theory had more appeal among those who regarded themselves as Left-radicals and Left-libertarians working in the sphere of education either as teachers or in some other related capacity. It is precisely in the area of educational policy and the means of affecting it, that a major distinction is to be found between the traditional sociology of education and its radical challenge. The work of the traditional sociologists of education, and in particular their exposition of the inequalities in educational opportunity and achievement, provided much of the argument for the reform of educational provision in the parliamentary struggle and the struggle at the level of local government. The future of democratic socialism lies not in dogma and the rhetoric of empty slogans but in informed, democratic political debate. The role of education in the struggle for democracy and democratic socialism is to contribute to the development of conditions of existence of informed, democratic political debate.

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This article is a re-edited version of the opening prelude to the author's The Museum's Borders: On the Challenge of Knowing and Remembering Well (Routledge, 2021). Based on reportage concerning the Windrush scandal, this article makes the case for the museum to be understood as an autonomous institution critical to knowledge-based democracies. The scandal, exposed in 2018, was the result of the British Government's "hostile environment," a brutal approach to immigration that ensnared historic migrants to Britain from the Caribbean. Resulting in state violence against Black British citizens, it revealed the degree to which Britain remained mired in institutional racism. Museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions played a critical role in recovering and asserting the history and legitimacy of these people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoiding the worst impacts of global warming is a matter of systemic change and political will. An easily adaptable political system would be resilient to the effects of climate change, since a government could maintain effective control by implementing incremental changes. However, except for the United Kingdom (UK), Israel and New Zealand, all other states have rigid codified constitutions. Drawing on cybernetics and variety engineering, the study of New Zealand's constitutional system presented in this article suggests that a rigid codified constitution has merits for addressing long-term problems, such as climate change and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the detrimental effects of the withdrawal of legal aid in the United Kingdom, undermining the rule of law and denying access to justice for many individuals. Topics include the historical context of legal aid, the limited access to legal assistance, the flawed means test threshold, the reduction in legal aid recipients, and the importance of preserving access to justice for all citizens.

The article discusses the relation of Brexit, the British referendum on leaving the European Union (EU), to democracy. Topics include the relation of the European Commission and the European Parliament to democracy, the role of national sovereignty in relation to democracy, and British resistance to free trade agreements.

Administrative-territorial structure of Ukraine is far from being the one that is aimed at providing even social-economic development and promoting prosperity in its regions. The system of local government doesn't meet the needs of Ukrainian society. Not only it doesn't grant getting essential public services and having equal opportunities in justice but also doesn't provide the creation and maintaining of the favorable living space for the development and self-realization of the human. After "the revolution of dignity" Ukraine embarked on public administration and local government reform. The research supports an idea that transformations in Ukraine may be achieved with local solution. Strengthening the capacity of local communities is the only way to empower people. European Union provides constant advice, expertise and financial support to Ukraine. The main aim of this article is to investigate EU policy toward promoting local democracy in Ukraine and analyze the EU activities in democracy-building as well as to present the different challenges that EU facing within implementation of the Association Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A study of involvement initiatives within secure mental health services across one UK region, where these have been organized to reflect alliances between staff and service users. There is little previous relevant international research, but constraints upon effective involvement have been noted. Objective: To explore and evaluate involvement initiatives in secure mental health settings. Design: A case study design with thematic analysis of qualitative interviews and focus groups. Setting and participants: Data collection was carried out between October 2011 and February 2012 with 139 staff and service users drawn from a variety of secure mental health settings. Findings: Our analysis offers four broad themes, titled: safety and security first?; bringing it all back home; it picks you up; it's the talk. The quality of dialogue between staff and services users was deemed of prime importance. Features of secure environments could constrain communication, and the best examples of empowerment took place in non ‐ secure settings. Discussion: Key aspects of communication and setting sustain involvement. These features are discussed with reference to Jurgen Habermas's work on communicative action and deliberative democracy. Conclusions: Involvement initiatives with service users resident in secure hospitals can be organized to good effect and the active role of commissioners is crucial. Positive outcomes are optimized when care is taken over the social space where involvement takes place and the process of involvement is appreciated by participants. Concerns over risk management are influential in staff support. This is germane to innovative thinking about practice and policy in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since attaining independence from Britain in 1970, Fiji enjoyed a period of 'multiracial peace' for 17 years under Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara and this gave the country the utopian slogan: 'Fiji-the way the world should be.' But was this really so? Beneath the notion of peace, democracy and racial unity was a racial volcano that erupted when democracy took another turn. Subsequent to the defeat of the chiefly-led Alliance Party in the 1987 election, a third-ranking military officer, Sitiveni Rabuka, staged a coup to topple a Fijian-led but Indian-dominated government. He later handed the controls back to indigenous Fijians. Since then, Fiji has never really tasted any long-lasting political peace, democracy or stability. Despite two constitutions and some five elections since the first coup, the Western concept of stable democracy has eluded Fiji. It has had four coups since 1987 and this notoriety relegated it to rogue state status with a 'coup culture', or as some academics and journalists have described it, became 'coup coup land'. This article examines some issues relating to the prevalence of the coup culture in Fiji and, views them in the light of media coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that published information giving a summary assessment about the relative overall performance of bodies responsible for public services offers a potential information cue for citizens. Increase in publicly available information about the performance of public services and about bodies providing those services is described as part of the new public management wave of reform, which has swept Great Britain. Research suggests that information are simply to be neutrally received, processed, and acted on by citizens.

The persistence of traditional monarchies in modern societies, which are otherwise characterized by democratic and egalitarian values, remains a paradox in the social sciences. In part this is attributable to the lack of psychological investigation into the relationship between subject and sovereign, and in particular the ways in which the political and social values of the citizenry shape understandings of a hereditary monarch's right to represent a national community. Adopting the qualitative analysis methods of discursive psychology and grounded theory, the current study examines vernacular accounts of nationhood and monarchy in England in both formalized conversational interviews (n = 60) and impromptu street interviews (n = 56). Focusing on accounts of Prince Charles's recent proposal to change the role of the monarch, from 'Defender of the (Christian) Faith' to 'Defender of Faiths,' those in favor treated it as a positive step towards reflecting a diverse (religious) community, bringing the monarchy into line with current concerns of pluralism and upholding values of personal choice and individual rights. Participants who rejected the proposed change in title construed it as antithetical to these values in terms of reflecting personal stake and interest, an abuse of power, or an imposition on other faiths. In all accounts, the prime concern was in safeguarding the political and social values of the citizenry. In conclusion it is argued that the study of subjects' relationship to the monarch, its function and legitimacy, can provide an opportunity to examine how values can characterize a national community and facilitate national diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cohesive government-versus-opposition voting is a robust empirical regularity in Westminster democracies. Using new data from the modern Scottish Parliament, we show that this pattern cannot be explained by similarity of preferences within or between the government and opposition ranks. We look at differences in the way that parties operate in Westminster and Holyrood, and use roll call records to show that the observed behavior is unlikely to be determined by preferences on any underlying issue dimension. Using a simple variant of the agenda-setting model—in which members of parliament can commit to their voting strategies—we show that the procedural rules for reaching collective decisions in Westminster systems can explain this phenomenon: in the equilibrium, on some bills, members of the opposition vote against the government irrespective of the proposal. Such strategic opposition can reinforce government cohesiveness and have a moderating effect on policy outcomes. We introduce new data from the House of Lords, the Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly to distinguish our claims from competing accounts of the data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]