This article gives an account of the use of knowledges from emerging scientific fields in education and youth policy making under the Coalition government (2010-15) in the UK. We identify a common process of "translation" and offer three illustrations of policy-making in the UK that utilise diverse knowledges produced in academic fields…

The introduction of widespread school Internet access in industrialised countries has been accompanied by the materialisation of what can be labelled as a national school e-safety agenda. Drawing upon Foucault's notions of discourse and governmentality, this paper explores how e-safety policy documents serve to constrain the conceptual…

Within the emergent international policy arena of "food security", the imperative to double global food production by 2050 has become ubiquitous. This statistic, as well as a revised figure of a 70% increase by 2050, have been widely used by key individuals in the food policy arena and have come to play a significant role in framing…

This paper provides a critical interpretation of food security politics in the UK. It applies the notion of food security collective action frames to assess how specific action frames are maintained and contested. The interdependency between scale and framing in food security discourse is also scrutinised. It does this through an examination of…

The spectre of a food security crisis has raised important questions about future directions for agriculture and given fresh impetus to a long-standing debate about the potential contribution of agricultural biotechnology to food security. This paper considers the discursive foundations for promotion of agricultural biotechnology, arguing that…

Provoked by concerns about climate change, resource depletion and economic recession, the concept of food security has experienced a renaissance in international policy and research agendas. Despite this interest, the problem of food insecurity in wealthy countries has still not received enough attention. We argue that it is worthy of research and…

Human Capital Theory has been an increasingly important phenomenon in economic thought over the last 50 years. The central role it affords to education has become even more marked in recent years as the concept of the "knowledge economy" has become a global concern. In this paper, the prevalence of Human Capital Theory within European…

The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The "state" itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people--bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader--and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students…

The seventies and eighties saw the adult education movement renew and reexamine its commitment to opening up learning opportunities to "disadvantaged" groups. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) was now part of the mainstream of public policy making in lifelong learning and had a significant role in delivering…

In recent years there has been an overall lack of a clear and cohesive research funding policy for higher education which poses real risks in Australia's ability to sustain research excellence and is likely to lead to a decline in Australia's research performance at the international level. This could well lead to a decline in the reputation of…

This paper examines "Fresh Start," a New Labour flagship initiative to raise education "standards" in a radical and innovative way. Drawing on a qualitative study of a comprehensive school in England, I argue that the initiative added to the problems faced by the "failing school" and promoted rather traditional ways…

This article introduces the notion of the "educational franchise" of Australia's public universities established in the mid-nineteenth century. In his recently published study of the public university and social access in the United States, John Aubrey Douglass suggests that from the mid-nineteenth century a social contract was formed…

In Britain, and Wales particularly, inclusion and equal opportunities for all became key principles guiding the work of the many partnerships that were established at the beginning of this century. A primary objective of this paper is to develop a greater understanding of the politics and processes within "partnership" as a widely used…

The linkage between the impact of assessment and compliance with children's rights is a connection, which although seemingly obvious, is nonetheless rarely made, particularly by governments, which, as signatories to the relevant human rights treaties, have the primary responsibility for ensuring that educational practice is compatible with…

This article explores issues of persistent poverty and income inequality. The major focus is that of the alleviation of poverty. Is there a framework that delineates the roles for government, market forces and self-reliance that can effect a reduction in the level of poverty? The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act…