The last government's emphasis on results statistics--implicit in its systems for holding teachers to account--as the be-all-and-end-all of a good education, reflected the largely undebated victory of one set of possible aims for schooling over another. Pragmatism beat idealism, as schools' priorities were reshaped along similarly calculating…

This article reports on current campaigning against the British government's policy of opening hundreds of Academy schools.

Background: Perceived problems around the use of physical intervention (PI) to manage challenging behaviour have led to UK initiatives to encourage policy development and accredited training. However, information on PI use and the impact of these initiatives remains limited. Method: Adult residential services within an English region were sent a…

The Coalition Government, building on the foundations laid by its Labour predecessor, aims to dismantle the local authority system and with it what remains of the accountability of schools to local elected government. In this article, a response to Stewart Ranson's in a recent issue of "FORUM," the author examines his claims for the…

Purpose: Multiculturalism and diversity are both evident and encouraged in the UK. However, this paper highlights evidence pointing towards the passive and sporadic transmission of unifying values--especially prevalent when interacting with individuals across cultures, or in culturally diverse settings. The aim is to stimulate debate surrounding…

This article argues that the individual academic is all but absent from the assumptive worlds of policymakers in UK higher education. It is taken for granted in research on academic identity that those who work in higher education as teachers and researchers refer to themselves as, and indeed are referred to by others as, "academics".…

This paper considers contemporary "moral panics" around the underachievement of boys in school examinations in the UK and America. In the UK, in particular, the underachievement of boys is central to current "crisis accounts" about falling standards and failing pupils. "Underachievement" is a familiar word to those…

This article explores the complex interplay of power between performativity and creativity agendas--a mutual tension that resides in British and Australian education. Accountability constraints and conflicting policy debates are problematised against the wider imperatives of similar government agendas. This "counterpoint" of freedom and…

This paper examines the disclosure and reporting of expenditure under the UK government's "Building Schools for the Future" programme. The study finds that there is little detailed and useful financial reporting, and the public's right to know under Freedom of Information Act 2000 is very limited. The lack of such information makes it…

The Cambridge Primary Review is a monumental achievement, a comprehensive and far-sighted review of the primary school system in England. What possible relevance could a major report on primary education hold for the post-compulsory sector? In this article, the author shares his four answers to this question. Furthermore, he describes briefly the…

This article begins with a critical consideration of five trends in social and educational research policy and environment in the UK and internationally: (1) the intensification of public criticisms of education research since the mid- and late-1990s; (2) the increasing emphasis on user involvement and focus on use; (3) the ever tighter…

The introduction of performance management in South Australian public schools raises a number of issues regarding the structure, purpose and control of the process itself and the consequences of teacher evaluation. Performance management has the potential to shape teaching and the culture of schools according to what it values and what it ignores.…

Outcomes Based Accountability (OBA) is an approach that Children's Trusts and Children's Services can use to assist with planning services and assessing their performance. The OBA approach focuses on outcomes that are desired and monitoring and evidencing progress towards those desired outcomes. OBA makes a distinction between two types of…

This article addresses the notion of "being critical" in the application of the theoretical approach of Pierre Bourdieu to educational policy research. It stems from a concern to avoid a kind of "critical ghetto", where educational research is reinterpreted in Bourdieusian terms, or metaphorised in his conceptual language,…

For the past twenty years, the training of teachers in England has consisted of little more than instruction in 'delivering' the National Curriculum. In this piece, Derek Gillard argues that there are now encouraging signs of a resurgence of interest in the history of education. He reviews the new edition of Clyde Chitty's "Education Policy…