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This paper draws on a comparative study of the growth of data and the changing governance of education in Europe. It looks at data and the 'making' of a European Education Policy Space, with a focus on 'policy brokers' in translating and mediating demands for data from the European Commission. It considers the ways in which such brokers use data production pressures from the Commission to justify policy directions in their national systems. The systems under consideration are Finland, Sweden, and England and Scotland. The paper focuses on the rise of Quality Assurance and Evaluation mechanisms and processes as providing the overarching rationale for data demands, both for accountability and performance improvement purposes. The theoretical resources that are drawn on to enable interpretation of the data are those that suggest a move from governing to governance and the use of comparison as a form of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes Bourdieu’s conceptual frame to examine the mediatized effects of policy processes concerned with the growth and support of knowledge industries in Australia. These policies span education, science, research and other knowledge industries (such as venture capital firms and intellectual property law). The paper argues that some policy processes are best represented as temporary social fields. The nature of these fields can be described by the kinds of cross‐field effects that they produce. A case study of an Australian knowledge economy policy, The chance to change , and associated policy processes demonstrates the broad analytic capacities of Bourdieu’s conceptual frame for policy analysis, when combined with the concepts of cross‐field effects and temporary social field developed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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]

Inclusive education is central to achieving high-quality education for all students and is a recognised commitment of the Australian government under international human rights law. However, Australia's lack of commitment to move away from segregation is reflected in its persistence in maintaining and funding segregated (special) settings. Queensland led the way with the introduction of an inclusive education policy in 2018; nonetheless, this does not go far enough, as there is no commitment to diminish segregated schooling for students with disability. This lack of action works against the effective implementation of the policy. Using the Framework of Drivers for and Barriers to the Closure of Special Schools, we conducted a thematic analysis focussing on societal, systemic, school and family drivers for and barriers to educational desegregation. Our findings indicate where and why discrimination, segregation and exclusion remain strongly embedded in our society and education system. We provide recommendations for future reforms to the Disability Standards for Education in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In various parts of the world, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are actively working towards Reconciliation. In Australia, the context in which we each undertake our work as educationalists and researchers, the Reconciliation agenda has been pushed into schools and English teachers have been called on to share responsibility for facilitating the move towards a new national order. The recently introduced Australian Curriculum mandates that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures be embedded with "a strong" but "varying presence" into each learning area (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2013). In this paper we consider the tensions between policy and practice, when discourses external to education are recontextualised into the discipline of English. We do so by applying an analytical framework based on Bernstein's (1990, 1996, 2000) sociological theories about the structure of instructional and regulative discourses. Our findings suggest that the space to exert Reconciliatory agendas in the Australian Curriculum English is ambiguous and thus holds the potential to not only marginalise Indigenous knowledges but also to create tensions between policy and practice for non-Indigenous teachers of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the inequality in a knowledge based economy. The concept of the knowledge economy has increasingly been used to underpin education policy in developed countries. In the case of Australia, it has been applied to post-compulsory education policy, with efforts to increase education retention in senior secondary education and reform of vocational education in the senior years. The article draws on two research projects with senior secondary schools. Many students and their teachers and parents perceived qualifications not so much as providing the knowledge considered necessary by government policy for the contemporary economy, but rather as a screen used by employers to sort and select. Knowledge of opportunity structures and access to resources while not only defined by social class, operated to create differential access to available choices in the educational market place. Despite ongoing inequality the article argues that the hope many students expressed in relation to education could be fulfilled in practice.