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As we have argued earlier, education is one among a number of features of a social formation that can contribute to human development. The UNDP articulates the latter in terms of creating 'an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives', widening'~ people's choices and increasing the level of their achieved well-being. Together with health care, political freedom, guaranteed human rights and self-respect, education figures highly as a contributing element to the fulfillment of these aspirations. The UNDP significantly distances itself from other approaches that purport to explain the linkage between education and human development. The most notable of these approaches is the human capital theory, which was pioneered in the post-war period by a number of economists such as Nobel prize-winner TW Schultz, Peter Drucker and BA Weisbrod. For a long period of time, this approach was promoted by such development agencies as the World Bank. Human capital theory, or theories of human resource development as it is now increasingly referred to, tends to look at people as a means to an end, that is in terms of their capacity to increase production. It treats education as an industry which generates the desired amounts of functional manpower. Consequently, the development of educated and skilled people, their number, quality and utilisation, is considered to be the most significant index of the wealth-production capacity of a country. The implications of this is that education will produce individuals with an increased general and job-specific knowledge which they subsequently can apply in an expanding economy, both to better utilise new technical developments and to generate innovations. The result is a marked pay-off in terms of increased production, yielding greater national wealth, corporate profits and individual wages. For the purpose of this report it is crucial to understand the distinction between views of education and development promoted by the United Nations Development Programme on the one hand, and those of the World Bank (to mention only one of the more important agencies) on the other. This understanding is particularly important given the fact that, irrespective of the differing political views of various governments, human capital theory approaches have been very influential in Malta from the post-war period to the present day. This is evident in the various development plans that closely link education with economic progress. The change in name from Ministry of Education, Culture and Environment to Ministry of Education and Human Resources after the 1992 General Elections merely serves to highlight and make more explicit the assumed link between education and the economy, where the former is considered to be a key partner in sustaining, even leading the latter by the best development of human potential. The change in nomenclature for the portfolio represents a formal marriage between education and development, a union which had in fact been consummated much earlier as Malta strove to become not only politically, but also economically self-reliant. The influence of Thomas Balogh in the promotion of human capital theory in Malta and other British colonies and several nations on the African continent needs to be underlined in this context. The different approach to education and development promoted by the UNDP is useful because it helps one distinguish between quantitative and qualitative issues in educational provision. It leads the basic question as to the manner in which educational expansion increased the well-being of citizens. Of course, the quantitative dimension of the question is rather more easily addressed, given that 'all' it requires is a set of numeric parameters to measure the trends and direction in the delivery of the service. The qualitative dimension, indexed by the woolly phrase 'well-being of people', is much more subjective and less amenable to measurement. This does not make it in any way less important. Indeed, the treatment of people as 'human capital', as units that contribute to production, obfuscates and mystifies the relationship that exists between education and production on the one hand, and domination and exploitation on the other. Indeed, research has tended to show that rather than leading to human well-being, education systems are directly involved in selecting and stratifying people - often on criteria that have more to do with class, race, and gender than 'objective' intellectual ability - and then channeling particular categories of students towards specific locations in a segmented labour market. While some of these segments are characterised by work conditions and remuneration that lead to healthy, creative life-styles, others are not. Schools are, thus, directly involved in the 'cooling out' of groups of students who are thus channeled towards the less lucrative and fulfilling sectors in the economy. There are those who claim that education systems are predicated on a logic of success for some, and failure for others. For, if an educator's dream that all students successfully complete a course of study were to come true, how would society be able to select, park and store all these students in the job hierarchy? This explains why a number of Maltese educational sociologists in the post-war period have consistently argued that education systems should be considered systems of violence rather more than of development. This report gives an overview of both the quantitative and qualitative growth in education provision, raises issues and draw conclusions related to the problematic relationship between both. This is particularly important not only in terms of the exercise of providing the education component of the human development index, but also because current official discourse in the field of educational development and policy making is steeped in quantitative rather than qualitative considerations, a point that has been made by the Minister of Education and Human Resources Consultative Body's report Tomorrow's Schools: Developing Effective Learning Cultures., peer-reviewed

Liv Mjelde is well known in the field of vocational education for her defence of applied pedagogies such as apprenticeship and other workshop learning modes. In a number of important articles (Mjelde 1984, 1987, 1994) and in a fulllength book (Mjelde, 1993) she has contested the pervasiveness and hegemonic quality of what she refers to as the 'academic pedagogic tradition' which became entrenched in Western educational systems with the introduction of comprehensive schooling. Mjelde has argued - and has consistently built on empirical bases, often with reference to the Norwegian and Scandinavian contexts - that that form of learning which involves moving from the practical to the abstract holds great promise as a pedagogic alternative to other, more common, forms of representation of knowledge. Accepting the Marxian critique regarding the destructive nature of the division of labour, Mjelde has argued for a 'polytechnic' education where the three elements of workshop learning, vocational/technical trainil1g and general education come together in order to facilitate the development of an all-rounded, fully developed human being. \;Ve can distinguish various elements in this discourse of hope that Mjelde weaves. In the first instance, workshop learning, or learning by doing, resonates with the cognitive and cultural needs and styles of that group of students who are most often disillusioned bv traditional schoolino J 0' namely the working class. While the academic learning tradition excludes these pupils and proceeds to label them as 'unmotivated' or 'nonachieving', the learning by doing approach builds on the interests and experiences of the same students and succeeds in reigniting curiosity and the will to learn. This, in turn, holds out other promises which Mjelde articulates with reference to a variety of educational discourses. We can distinguish the discourse of utilitarianism or economic efficiency, since the presumed ability of workshop learning to reintegrate potential drop-outs into the education and training enterprise has important consequences for the development of a country's human resources. But there is another strand of educational discourse which emerges even more powerfully in Mjelde's writing, one linked much more closely to the emancipatory dynamic in leftwing, progressive social thought. For Mjelde believes that a true education does not distinguish between hand and mind, and her conception of vocational education as an alternative pedagogic mode strives to bridge the gap that is so endemic, and so functional, to the division of labour in capitalist economies. One could point out that Mjelde's position is not particularly novel. Indeed, various governments, from the right and the left political spectrum, have, from the nineteenth century onwards, looked towards vocational forms of education in order to meet the challenges identified by Mjelde and, therefore, to satisfy economic, e(~uc8.tional and ideological goals. Mjelde herself conjures up the ghosts of Krupskaya, Dewey, Freinet and Kerschensteiner in order to draw connections between her project and theirs. But I would argue that what Mjelde is making a case for has increasing relevance in a world where there is widespread consensus that general education is the best form of vocational education (see Sultana, 1992), and where there is, therefore, a tendency for the academic pedagogic tradition to prevail. Mjelde's position also serves to resurrect normative issues - such as those dealing with equity and social justice - in a sphere of educational discourse which has often been constructed in 'purely' technocratic terms. Her work therefore has the virtue of connecting with current European and worldwide preoccupations regarding vocational training and retraining, while at the same time reconstructing the agenda in more than economistic terms. In other words, Mjelde's work carries that most enticing promise of making morality pragmatic. Even the industrial agenda, so often opposed to the democratic imperative by educational writers ranging from Dewey (1915) to Carnoy and Levin (1985), is reconciled with progressive thought given the requirements of a post-Fordist economy for an educated, skilled and flexible workforce where the many faceted human being has an opportunity to develop to the full. Indeed, a post-Fordist economy represents a challenge to traditional pedagogies and, according to Mjelde, is a justification for her strongest claim: that the workshop model becomes the foundation for all learning. Mjelde is here in tune with other educational theorists, such as Brown and Lauder (1991) and Young (1993), who see post-Fordism as an economic context whose implications for educational systems include the transcendence of the traditional dichotomy between education and work, between academic and vocational pedagogic traditions. Her distinctive position lies in the fact that she locates this resolution of opposing traditions in the camp of vocational education., peer-reviewed

Kieku wiehed kellu jqabbel it-tarzna ta' Malta ma' dawk tal pajjizi ohra, isib xebh interessanti rigward diversi aspetti, li w'hud minnholn jaghtuna hjiel 'l ghala lkoll huma lok ideali ghal edukazzjoni formali u informali ta' l-adulti. Dan ghal ragunijiet industrijali, ekonomici, geografici u socjologici. Li se naghmel f'dan l-artiklu hu li nhares lejn it-tarzna ta' Malta mil-lenti ta' edukatur biex ngharbel ftit kif dawn l-erba' fatturi wasslu sabiex jitwettqu f'dan l-ambjent uhud mill-aktar zviluppi importanti fil-kamp ta' l-edukazzjoni ta' l-adulti f'pajjizna., peer-reviewed

This special issue of Egypte/Monde Arabe provides us with a fascinating insight into some aspects of the historical development of education in Egypt, outlining issues and challenges that have had to be tackled in the past, and which still confront the contemporary educational policy-maker. The collection of articles (all in French) - where the guest editor Iman Farag, who is a member of the editorial team of the Egyptian-based journal, is present not only as an author, but also as a translator (from Arabic) of several of the pieces published does not claim to be comprehensive. It does, however, successfully show the interdisciplinary nature of the study of education, to the extent that a reflection on Egypt's educational system is, in fact, a reflection on Egyptian society as a whole. The articles are also organically linked in the sense that they are all an answer to the question: "Which debates and struggles have marked the history of education in Egypt?", and all are interpretive pieces which attempt to make connections between different historical and social processes., N/A

When teachers approach their first experience of classroom interaction, they often tend to focus on curricula , syllabi , schemes of work, educational technology, and the various challenges that have to be faced in teaching a group of around thirty different students who, though having the same age , are characterised by distinct personalities, abilities, aptitudes, interests and levels of motivation. The pedagogical encounter in this sense is very challenging indeed: decisions have to be made regarding what to teach, when to teach, how to teach and to whom. As teachers, we have to decide about the pace of the delivery of the lesson, how and when to involve students in participatory interactions, when to use small and large group teaching and so on. There are issues of discipline and order in the classroom, as there are ethical dilemmas that need to be resolved, related to all the aspects of the teaching-learning encounters mentioned above. There are also issues concerning not only relationships with students, but also relationships with policy-makers, colleagues, parents, and the wider community. All this takes place in a context of uncertainty, to the extent that no recipe answers exist to that perennial question: how does a good teacher teach? Individuals and human, interactive contexts are far too complex, and it is therefore difficult if not impossible to predict responses and reactions in any communicative situation. Indeed, it is this very complexity that legitimizes teachers' claim that their work constitutes a 'profession', given the inadequacy' of fixed responses to pedagogical challenges. Teachers can only be good workers by reflecting carefully on their own experience, and by drawing on their baggage of theoretical understandings so that they can improve as they go about their task. But among this uncertainty of shifting foundations for human interaction, there is one context which is crucial and which is perhaps slightly more predictable and rather more subject to direct manipulation , and that is school and classroom architecture. The physical or material context in which teaching takes place is the most obvious, and unfortunately the least referred to - at least in local educational research - among the variables that have an influence on the pedagogical encounter. The fact that parents are so sensitive to the state of repair of school buildings does indicate, however, the extent to which there is a popular understanding of the link between teaching, and the context in which it is carried out. Let me explain what I am referring to by 'material context' before I proceed to examine what I am here calling 'the architecture of pedagogical encounters'., N/A

As a teacher educator and a sociologist of education, I have been struggling for some years now to bring the insights developed by the latter field to bear on my work within universities and on that of my students, teachers-to-be. This has not been an easy task for a number of inter-related reasons. In the first place, the brand of sociology and educational theory which inspires much of my work, namely critical theory, is notorious for the level of abstraction at which it works, and the often convoluted and obscure language in which it is expressed. Student-teachers trying to make connections between theory and practice find many of the readings available on the subject hard to understand, let alone to apply to the challenging situations they encounter in the classrooms. In the second place, critical theory and education often address a metaphysical level in their insistence on the emancipatory potential of engaging with the world as it is, in order to imagine and bring about a world as it could and should be. The normative dimension to the task of teaching is of course crucial if one is to challenge the increasingly technocratic view that is being promoted for schooling world-wide. It does, however, raise important questions such as 'Are schools the best places to promote emancipatory rationality?' and, even more centrally in terms of the concerns of this book, 'Can teachers be expected to participate in this emancipatory venture, given their social class location and the constraints of the cultural terrain in which they must carry out their work?' In other words, how can a teacher-educator ask student-teachers to consider schools as sites for liberation, when changes in the social and bureaucratic status quo may ultimately work against the interests of this particular group of professionals? In the third place, much that has emerged from the critical theory tradition has appealed to the individual level of consciousness-raising, and hence depends on the notion of 'conversion' to points of views which, while leading to a disposition to act truly and rightly (phronesis), nevertheless are short on a consideration of strategies for the mobilization of resources and people so that the desired state of affairs does in fact come about. Quite a number of students following my courses on critical education are seduced by the invitation to become reflective practitioners with a commitment to promoting justice and equality, but even the most dedicated among them are culturally, if not ideologically, incorporated in the centralized, exam-oriented bureaucratic school system that is to be found in Malta as in many other countries. The heightened consciousness that critical teachers have of their role in the perpetration of symbolic violence in schools can in fact lead to an even deeper sense of frustration and despair, rather than to the transformation of people, situations and structures. This paper will give a brief overview of the curricular, theoretical and political ways in which I have attempted to tackle the three challenges posed by critical theory to teacher educators as outlined above. In other words, the question this article will address -:- though, of course, not fully answer - is the following: How can critical education be taught in such a way that it is understandable, theoretically and practically appealing, and politically effective?, peer-reviewed

The issue of underachievement in education has preoccupied educators over the past century at least. And yet, there has been little progress made in addressing the problem, to the extent that large groups of students fail to flourish intellectual in a school by environment. Moreover, whether we are looking, at the United States, Europe, or Asia the groups of students who underachieve and who drop out of the educational enterprise have a similar identify. They generally share one or more of the following aspirations: namely, they have what can be broadly called a working class background, are migrants or children of migrants, and/or come from an ethnic "minority" background. The report I will be critically engaging with in this paper, namely To Learn More than I have: The Educational Aspirations and Experiences of the Maltese in Melbourne (Terry, Borland & Adams, 1993) looks squarely in the face of these facts. reflecting on the issue as it applies to one particular group of students who underinvest in education, namely chil- dren of Maltese migrants. What I will attempt to do in this paper is to weave a narrative, drawing on the Terry et al. study as well as on my own research and experiences in education, to make sense of the lived realities of this group of people. Needless to say, this is in my ways my story, my interpretation, informed as it might be by many interaction with people and ideas. I cannot claim to represent the voices of the subjects we are considering, namely Maltese background children in Melbourne. That would not only be pretentious, but undignified. All that I can offer are some critical reflections which could be of some use to the Maltese community in Victoria as they seek to empower themselves and their children., peer-reviewed

Malta's economy is characterised by a very active 'underground' sector that produces between ten to twenty per cent of the country's GDP (Delia, 1987). This article reports on an aspect which has received little attention from researchers or from policy makers: the activity of under-age ('child') workers who labour in what Finn (1984) has called the 'twilight economy'. In order to draw up any statistics regarding the extent which child labour is present in a country, one must first def the words 'child' and 'labour'. According to Convention No. 138 the International Labour Organisation, 'child' refers to person below fifteen years of age. The same convention (Article 2) a states that the basic minimum age for employment or work sb not be less than the age of completion of compulsory school: and in any case not less than 15 years. It is important to note that Reconlmendation No. 146 7) states that the objective of ILO Members should be to raise this minimum age to 15 The same Convention attaches great importance to the term 'employment or work'. Swepston (1982) notes that this definition of labour ensures that all economic activity done by children taken into consideration, regardless of their formal employment status. He notes that in many countries many young persons who do not work under a contract of employment simply are not covered by the legislation. They therefore have no protection in regard to the minimum wage a which they may work, nor in such basic matters as wages, hours of work and social security benefits (Swepston, 1982). This is further complicated by the fact that measuring the productivity of children's economic activities is very difficult, since their contribution is so often indirect, and their activity may not be considered as work (Schildkrout, 1980). It is important to point out that the ILO Convention does not impose a blanket prohibition on 'child labour'. What it does set out to do is to regulate the conditions under which these young people may be allowed to work. It prohibits the imposition children of labour which calls for greater physical and mental resources than they normally possess or which interferes with their education and development. If we take into consideration the above clarification regarding the meaning of 'child labour', and if we look at the results of statistical surveys carried out by a number of international organisations, it becomes immediately clear that the incidence of children's involvement in industrial and non-industrial work is very high indeed. ILO statistics (Swepston, 1982, p.591) estimate the number of working children under 15 to be 55 million for the world as a whole. However, as Schildkrout (1980, p.379) points out, such figures are often based on census reports which take only the formal wage sector into account. In fact, a United Nations study (Economic and Social Council, 1981) considers that the figure of 145 million children is much closer to the mark. While the problem is clearly more prevalent in developing countries such as India, Colombia and a number of African nations, it is also present in economically developed countries such as the United Kingdom (MacLennan, 1980), New Zealand (Sultana, 1990), and the United States (Bingham, 1990), to mention only three., peer-reviewed

This is an important contribution to an under-researched but topical field of inquiry, whose value is accentuated by the fact that it reports on work carried out in Norway, with reference to theoretical perspectives prevailing in Scandinavian countries. Such theoretical and empirical data are not often accessible to researchers in Englishspeaking countries, and hence the book will be of great interest to those looking for fresh insights as well as for comparative material. Mjelde, who has been investigating vocational education over the past twenty five years, has come up with a sustained sociological account relating to different aspects of vocational training and apprenticeship - or 'workshop learning', as she calls it. She draws on a number of research projects with an extensive quantitative and qualitative data base, generating important insights through interviews, questionnaires, participant observation, and analysis of educational policy texts., N/A

Fil-pajjizi mernbri ta' I-Unjoni jidher Ii I-kuncett ta' kunsilli ta' I-iskejjel dahal fis-sebghinijiet, I-aktar wara I-movimenti favur il-partecipazzjoni li xterdu minlhabba il-protesti ta' I-istudenti fi Franza f'Mejju ta' 1-1968. Minn dak iz-zmien l' hawn, il-kunsilli hadu forom istituzzjonali differenti, imma jekk niggeneralizzaw nistghu nghidu illi karaterristici generali ghall-kunsilli kollha huma dawn: li mxew l' hinn minn semplici bord Ii jaghti pariri u wens lill-kap ta' l-iskola, Ii saru kumitati b'aktar sahha li jiehdu deciijonijiet importanti f'dak Ii ghandu x'jaqsam mat-triq fl-edukazzjoni li tiehu l-iskola, u Ii l-genituri ghandhom, aktar ma jmur, aktar influwenza, u n-natura ta' din l-influwenza qed tinbidel., peer-reviewed

The issue of under achievement in schooling has been a major concern for educators in recent decades. Yet, despite the work that has been done on this issue, there has been little progress made in addressing the problem, to the extent that significant groups of students still fail to flourish intellectually in school environments. Moreover, whether we are looking at the United States, Europe, or Australia, working class students, students of ethnic minority background and girls, are still over represented in the figures on early school leavers. Of course, we need to be careful about treating these groups as simple and homogenised categories. In looking at the issue of schooling, we also need to recognise the complex and dynamic relationships between class, gender and ethnicity and how these factors combine to determine life chances., N/A

A review of the book "Rethinking Work Experience.", by Andrew Miller, A.G. Watts and Ian Jamieson., N/A

The promise that education holds out for many parents is that through a sustained effort and investment in school work on the part of their children, these can hope for a better quality of life than they themselves had. One of the predominant concerns of educational theory and research in the last four decades has been that schooling, rather than bringing about social equality and equity, serves to reproduce privilege from one generation to the next. This problem was also brought up at a political level when in the 1950s and 1960s in such countries as the USA, the UK, Sweden and Australia the prevalent belief was that schools and education could bring about an open society where effort and ability rather than accidents of birth would determine one's occupational future. Citizens would therefore move upwards or downwards socially according to their success at school rather than because of inherited privilege. It was for this reason that in those countries by the 1960s - and in Malta in the 1970s - schools were restructured through the introduction of comprehensivization and the removal of streaming and tracking to enhance an 'open' school system., peer-reviewed

A review of the book "Louts and legends : male youth culture in an inner-city school", by J.C. Walker., N/A

There exist a variety of approaches to defining "class" but, as Joppke (1986, p. 55) points out, none of these approaches can avoid addressing, in a sympathetic or critical manner, "the two main sociological traditions which - more or less in mutual rivalry - have shaped the discussion on class up to the present" These are the Marxist and Weberian analyses of class, and it is this classical sociological tradition that needs to be briefly addressed first before we consider the structure of power relations in Malta., peer-reviewed

This collection of readings is the result of a collaborative effort on the part of staff lecturing in different disciplines in the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. The impetus behind the book was the need, felt by students and Faculty staff alike, to develop readings that could be used in a professional teacher-training course and which, while referring to key issues and themes in the theory and practice of education, were situated in a Maltese context, reflected Maltese data, and confronted Maltese concerns. The papers are therefore meant to help readers, be these students or seasoned teachers, to reflect critically on their experience in schools and to move from 'common-sense' attitudes and judgments to 'good sense'. Unexamined biases and prejudices, classroom behaviour and repertoires of actions and reactions that have fossilized and which with time have clouded the vision of possible alternatives, are challenged by the arguments as well as empirical evidence presented in this book., peer-reviewed

Is-sistema edukattiva formali Ii, tista' tghid, hi ilum imxerrda mad-dinja kollha, taf il-bidu taghha fis-seklu tmintax wara r-RivoIuzzjoni Franciza. Qabel daz-zmien, persentagg zghir hafna tac-cittadini f'kwalunkwe pajjiz kienu jattendu xi kwalita ta' skola formali, u dawn "I-iskejjeI" kienu ta' spiss jixbhu dawk li konna nsibu fiz-zmien tal-Grecja u Ruma klassika fejn grupp ckejken nafna ta' studenti kienu jiltaqghu rna' I-ghalliema biex jitghallmu filosofija, xjenza, mctafizika, kif ukoll l-arti militari. Insibu wkoll forom ta' edukazzjoni organizzati mill-knejjes, u l-aktar minn komunitajiet monastici fl-Ewropa., N/A

Li thares Iejn il-futur jitlob ezercizzju ta' natura soggettiva u spekulattiva. Min-naha I-wahda jehtieg Ii ninterpreta dak Ii qed jigri f'Malta u naghmel sens mill-bizibilju ta' attivitajiet fuq iI-livelli diversi ta' ekonomija, politika u kultura, u min-naha I-ohra jehtieg Ii nipprogetta l' quddiem, lejn fejn dawn il-movimenti kollha se johduna. Irrid ghalhekk nistqarr mill-ewwel iI-limitazzjoni principali ta' dak Ii se nikteb: kull interpretazzjoni, sahansitra deskrizzjoni, hija soggettiva. Fi kliem iehor dak kollu Ii se nargumenta hu influwenzat mill-iskala ta' valuri tieghi u mill-ideologija politika tieghi. IlIum fix-xjenzi socjali tista' tghid kulhadd mar l' hemm millfantasija pozittivista ta' l- "oggettiviffi" u naccettaw Ii hadd rna jista' fil-fatt iwarrab in-nuccali Ii I-ilwien tieghu se jinfluwenzaw mhux biss iI-mod kif naraw imma sahansitra dak Ii naraw. L-aktar haga sinciera Ii wiehed jista' jaghmel hi Ii jistqarr mill-bidu l-orizzonti tal-pregudizzju tieghu biex, kif jargumenta Gadamer, nikkonfrontaw IiI xulxin b'mod Ii kemm intom bhala qarrejja kif ukoll jien inwessghu I-ftehim tas-suggett quddiemna., N/A

The problem with reproduction theories was that they over-emphasized the success of capital in determining the character and direction of social institutions and in fulfilling its needs. Human being seemed to have no other alternative in front of them than to accept these dictates and to enter into dehumanizing and damaging relationships in a variety of social sites and with reference to Iife-chances generally (Wright, 1978). Much more fruitful was the exploration of I he ways individual and groups resisted this imposition, and acted in such ways as to win spaces for themselves within large, impersonal and undemocratic structures., N/A

The major question this paper addresses is the extent to which formal education can be effective in the bringing about of a more equitable and just social order. A variety of sociological theories have strongly suggested that educational systems function to reproduce the status quo rather than to transform it. In this article, a brief review of these theories is first given; this serves as a suitable context for the exploration of current perspectives on transformative education ., N/A

This paper describes one aspect of a study carried out by the author in three secondary schools in New Zealand, where the overall goal was to critically analyse the message about work and non-work given overtly and covertly by teachers in various areas of the curriculum. The article focuses principally on one of these schools, and on the messages given within this school regarding the choice of subjects and occupations. 'All Girls' High' was found to function as a political site involved in the construction and control of feminist discourse, meaning and subjectivities. This discovery is linked to the transformative and reproductive debate within the 'new' sociology of education, and specifically placed in a context which evaluates the effectiveness of liberal feminist discourse., peer-reviewed

The kinds of messages teachers give students regarding the value of credentials in the job-getting package during a period of high youth unemployment are explored. The response made by students to the credentialling ideology promoted in schools, and their construction of the job-getting formula, are also described. The validity of the two versions of job-getting strategies is considered in the light of evidence provided by a number of empirical research projects. The superiority of student knowledge in this area is used to present a case for a critical and democratic education which appropriates and legitimises the student voice., peer-reviewed