I became interested in inequality in education and academic achievement from my youth, after I attended the first year of my secondary school in a rural college. However, I was also privileged to attend an elite college from year 2 of my secondary schooling, having changed from the rural college to a city college in the 70s. I realized, from these…

This research looks at the factors motivating Gambian-British and Nigerian-British parents to send their children "back" to West Africa and what this means for parents, children and families on both continents.

Complementary schools in the United Kingdom (UK) are community organised schools with the general aim of teaching younger generations their "native" languages and cultures. However, the aims and practices of these schools are predominantly dependent on changes in the social and political contexts both in the host country (in this case…

This paper addresses the broad question of whether or not the UK SEN system works from the perspective of the parent and the child, at the moment when a need first becomes apparent. The sparse literature on this topic suggests parental experiences may differ substantially, but there is growing evidence from small-scale studies that parents are…

The following article reports on a small-scale, exploratory study of aggressive and "problem" behaviour in pre-school children. This project was conceived in the wider context of anxieties about childhood and New Labour's policy focus on "anti-social" behaviour in children. Based on interviews with nursery staff and parents in…

The Cynon Valley Project in Wales, United Kingdom, used funding from the Save the Children Fund and the Bernard van Leer Foundation to address consequences of economic decline in the two communities of Fernhill and Perthcelyn. The project's focus was on early childhood education and community development. Though starting at about the same time and…