This paper considers the "policy work" of teacher actors in schools. It focuses on the "problem of meaning" and offers a typology of roles and positions through which teachers engage with policy and with which policies get "enacted". It argues that "policy work" is made up of a set of complex and…

Do private and philanthropic solutions to the problems of education signal the end of state education in its "welfare" form? Education policy is being reformed and re-worked on a global scale. Policies are flowing and converging to produce a singular vision of "best practice" based on the methods and tenets of the "neo-liberal imaginary".…

Over the last 20 years, international attempts to raise educational standards and improve opportunities for all children have accelerated and proliferated. This has generated a state of constant change and an unrelenting flood of initiatives, changes and reforms that need to be "implemented" by schools. In response to this, a great deal…

This paper explores two different ontological positions from which policy in schools and teachers can be viewed. On the one hand, it explores the ways in which policies make up and make possible particular sorts of teacher subjects--as producers and consumers of policy, as readers and writers of policy. On the other, it begins to conceptualise the…

The proliferation of policy think tanks and more broadly the rise of "policy networks" can be viewed as indicative of important global transformations in the nature of the state. That is, the emergence of new state modalities, with a shift away from government towards forms of polycentric governance, where policy is produced through…

The English Academies programme has become one of the most controversial aspects of the New Labour strategy for education and public sector reform. And in many ways, given the significance of the programme, that controversy is understandable and appropriate. This is particularly so because, as the author argues here, Academies are indicative of…

This paper explores some particular aspects of the privatisation of public sector education, mapping and analysing the participation of education businesses in a whole range of public sector education services both in the UK and overseas. It addresses some of the types of privatisation(s) which are taking place "of", "in" and…

This article explores the ways in which the neo-liberal impetus toward the privatization of state schooling signalled in the Education Reform Act 1988 (ERA) has become embedded in the English school system. Four main points are made. First, that ERA itself was of huge strategic rather than substantive importance as far as privatization is…

This article discusses Michael Apple's contribution to the sociology of education and education policy analysis and the politics of education. It focuses on ways of "reading" Apple as an intellectual and an activist and looks at the trajectory of his work over a long and illustrious career.

This paper, based on 14 case studies of schools situated in six local urban spaces (within the urban agglomerations of Budapest, Charleroi, Lille, Lisbon, London and the Creteil/Paris region), will analyse the internal logics of action of these schools and show that they are conditioned by the interaction between internal (school narrative…

Argues that performativity is a new mode of state regulation that makes it possible to govern in an "advanced liberal" way. For example, it requires individual practitioners to organize themselves as a response to targets, indicators, and evaluations. For some, this is an opportunity to achieve success, while for others it portends inner…

One of the tricky things we have to wrestle at present is whether or not we should believe what often sounds like good policy, policy that trumpets the involvement of those who are to be affected by it. Is "engaging with the local" to be taken seriously or not? Is the language of participation a linguistic sleight of hand or an indicator of a…

Undertakes two exercises: (1) argues that the public sector has been transformed from a Keynsian Welfare State to a Schumpeterian Workfare State, and (2) examines educational researchers' conception of and engagement with social policy. Observes a tension in education policy research between commitments to pursue efficiency and social justice.…

Explores some theoretical issues raised in Hatcher and Troyna's critical discussion (in this issue of "Journal of Education Policy") of author's work on educational policy. Many of their criticisms are misplaced and rest upon flaws and limitations in their own theoretical work. Their discussion employs a set of unhelpful conceptual…

Suggests that the formation and implementation of the National Curriculum for England and Wales has been a dialectical process involving legislators, administrators, and teachers. Using case studies, discusses some problems with the curriculum and schools' responses that may work against a truly national curriculum. Criticizes reduced local…