In the UK there have been recent policy developments in enterprise education, following the Davies Report (2002). In Scotland there has been the launch of a comprehensive enterprise education programme, the Determined to Succeed Strategy (Scottish Executive, 2003) for all schools in Scotland. This Strategy represented the Executive's response to a working party review of education and enterprise. The review, Determined to Succeed, 2002 represented a comprehensive overview of requirements in order to provide enterprise education in all schools in Scotland. The aim stated is to "take an innovative and experimental approach in developing key themes in the initiative around the professional development of teachers, the engagement of disengaged school students and the promotion of a focused and resourceintensive approach to Enterprise in Education" (Scottish Executive, 2004).
When 'New Labour' came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997, one of their first major initiatives was to establish new devolved political institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Drawing upon developments in education in Scotland and England, this article explores some aspects of 'regulation', 'autonomy' and 'control' in the post-devolution context. The purpose of the article is to assess the ways in which New Public Management have influenced education policy in the two countries. Aspects of the governance of education are examined in the two national contexts. The 'modernisation' of the teaching profession is examined as a particular case, as well as more general aspects of governance. A number of similarities and differences in the two countries are identified. The themes that best demonstrate these similarities and differences are privatisation, performativity and the policy process. The conclusion seeks to identify the extent to which developments in either or both countries can be attributed to the global neo-liberal agenda. Introduction: new public management and governance in post-devolution UK Recent changes to governance within the United Kingdom (UK) offer the opportunity to explore whether new forms of 'regulation', 'control' and 'autonomy' are evolving in education policy. Considering the ways in which 'New Public Management' (NPM) has evolved within the context of constitutional change raises the question of whether new forms of 'regulation' and 'control' are being developed and deployed. The analysis of education policy gives insight not only into the 'new' post-devolution Scotland but also helps towards our understanding of the complex relationship between local autonomy and central control. The complexity of the policy environment has produced tensions in the ways in which 'regulation', 'control' and autonomy' have been pursued in education policy throughout the UK. Schools, local government, national parliaments and the UK government operate within an increasingly complex policy environment in which both internal and external pressures influence policy making and implementation. 'Globalisation' has led to a blurring of boundaries between international and local policy agendas. However, the national context remains significant, 'as "embedded" policy mediated by local contextual factors may translate policy to reflect local priorities and meanings' (Ozga & Jones, 2006, p. 1). Within the UK, constitutional change has brought added complexity to the blurring of boundaries between local and international policy agendas (Sloat, 2002). NPM has become especially complex in that its impacts on schools come from multiple sources, namely, local,
This article reports on the emotional impact of Threshold Assessment on teachers and schools. Using data from an ESRC funded project, ‘The impact of Performance Threshold Assessment on teachers’ work' (ESRC R000239286), we seek to contribute to a growing literature on teachers' emotions by sharing some of the insights gained from 76 interviews undertaken in nine case study primary and secondary schools between 2001–2003. The research has revealed a number of (apparently) unintended consequences of Threshold Assessment as well as considerable variability of experience. We underline the significance of contextual factors in the way that the policy was handled in schools and in the degrees of vulnerability and exposure experienced by teachers as they struggled to come to terms with the demands of ‘performativity’. …social policy needs a subject in which mind and body, reason and passion, self and other, agent and object are held simultaneously in mind without splitting one from the other. (Hoggett, 2000a, p. 143)
The commitment to establishing a 'school-led' system of teacher education in England, announced by the Coalition Government in 2011 (DFE, 2011) and relentlessly pursued thereafter, represented a radical departure from previous kinds of initial teacher education partnership. While it is entirely consistent with a neo-liberal agenda, with its strong regulatory framework and appeal to market mechanisms, it is also underpinned by a particular conception of teaching as a craft-'best learnt as an apprentice observing a master craftsman or woman' (Gove, 2010). In 2014 the Government established a Review of Initial Teacher Training, led by a primary school headteacher, Sir Andrew Carter. This signalled the recognition of teacher education as a 'policy problem', adopting Cochran-Smith's term. The ensuing report, published in early 2015, was more nuanced than might have been anticipated although a number of profound tensions emerge from a closer analytical reading; four of these tensions are similar to those previously defined by Cochran-Smith and two are newly emergent. This paper identifies and discusses these tensions as they appear in the Carter Review and relates them to wider debates about the links between teaching, teacher education, evidence and research and to policy making processes in education.
This paper examines the context for education research, including teacher education research, in Scotland. Concerns about research capacity are shared with other parts of the UK, but the distinctive context for teacher development and engagement in practitioner research create fertile ground for developments in teacher education research. Schemes such as 'Research to support Schools of Ambition' provide evidence of a shared commitment to teacher research. The national project, 'Applied Education Research Scheme', funded by the Scottish government and the Scottish Funding Council, included a thematic network on learners, learning and teaching. Drawing on activities of this sort, the paper suggests that a key element of effective capacity building lies in collaborative approaches.
This paper reports on a mixed methods study carried out within the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme at the University of Oxford on the ways that the course sought to frame and address the link between poverty and poorer educational outcomes. The study was concerned with the views held by ITE students on the effects of poverty on pupils' learning, well-being, and educational achievement. The paper initially explores why these questions are important, how they are framed internationally, and how they relate to current education policy, particularly in England.Data were collected from student teacher pre-and post PGCE course questionnaires and a focus group discussion. The findings showed a tendency for student teachers to associate low achievement more strongly with family and cultural factors than with socio-economic or school factors, although there was some evidence that the thinking of some students changed during their programme. Implications for policy and practice in ITE are discussed with a view to ensuring that the social justice commitments espoused by many such courses are actually enabled more effectively to influence the learning experiences of beginning teachers.
A tradition of predominately feminist literature has revealed that there is a 'missing discourse of desire' in many sex education programmes. Building on this work, this article explores the gendered effects of this de-eroticized and clinical form of education. It is argued that young women and men's (hetero)sexual subjectivities are differentially affected by the invisibility of desire and pleasure in this curriculum. To offer young women a sense of personal empowerment and entitlement, and young men a broader range of (hetero)sexual subjectivities, it is proposed that sex education include a discourse of erotics. This would comprise more than an acknowledgement of desire and pleasure and incorporate the embodied practicalities of these experiences. As a means of developing this discourse within sexuality programmes, empirical evidence of 17-to 19-year-olds' experiences of desire and pleasure are examined.
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