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Child poverty is a global issue that affects around half the children in the world; it is inextricably bound to the poverty experienced by their parents and families and has been identified by the United Nations as a human rights issue. Child poverty can be a barrier to children and young people accessing school education or achieving any form of success through participating in school education. This article examines some of the main issues surrounding child poverty and school education and a number of government interventions designed to enhance the education of disadvantaged children (exemplified in the United Kingdom). The article will argue that some of these interventions have had some success, although they need to be contextualized in the wider educational and political context. The article offers an alternative vision of intervention in schools drawn from research from the United Kingdom, America and Australia.

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Faith schools and divisiveness is one of the key issues in the faith school debates in both England and Wales and Scotland. In Scotland the faith school debate is focused on Catholic schools. This paper, based on a review of relevant literature and the findings of a series of expert interviews, argues that the complexity of this issue of the divisiveness of faith schools in Scotland can be best understood through the adoption of six categories of divisiveness. These six categories illuminate the debate and raise important questions about the nature and position of Catholic schools in contemporary Scottish society. IntroductionThis paper examines the issue of Catholic schools in Scotland and divisiveness -in what ways can they be perceived to be divisive? It begins by contextualising the discussion within the, arguably, more sophisticated contemporary debate on faith schooling in England and Wales. I propose that this debate can be distilled into a number of key issues, one of which is faith schools and divisiveness. The article proceeds by adopting and exploring the threefold categorisation of this divisiveness suggested by Halstead and McLaughlin. Next the article applies the key issues to the unique faith school debate in Scotland and reconfigures the key issues, but still inclusive of faith schools and divisiveness. The article briefly discusses the conceptual landscape of the debate in the Scottish context before outlining aspects of the methodology for the research. The findings presented in this article confirm the applicability of the threefold categorisation of Halstead and McLaughlin to the Scottish scene, but add a further three categories that emerged from the research. The article concludes with a brief discussion of these six categories and suggests that the three further categories can also be applied to the faith school debate in England and Wales.

Pupil participation in Scottish schools: how far have we come? AbstractThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), which applies to all children under the age of 18, established the overarching principles guiding pupil participation. In most European states, signatories to the Convention have enacted policies to promote the voice of the child or young person in decisions that affect them. In education systems strategies to enhance the pupil participation are an increasing feature of deliberation on education for citizenship, curriculum flexibility, pedagogical approaches and assessment for learning. Despite the positive policy context and professional commitment to principles of inclusion, translating policy intentions so that the spirit of the legislation is played out in the day-to-day experiences of pupils is a constant challenge. This article reports on research that examines how pupil participation is understood and enacted in Scottish schools. It considers how the over-laying of diverse policies presents mixed messages to practitioners.