This article examines ethnic segregation in schools as a field where policy inaction, or non-decision making, is rife. A theoretical framework rooted in historical institutionalism and combining critical junctures with path dependencies enables the study of non-decision making and policy inaction. Moving from non-decision making as a general…

We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given…

Many countries are struggling to reconcile greater flexibility in school choice with the need to ensure quality, equity and coherence in their school systems. This report provides an international perspective on issues related to school choice, especially how certain aspects of school-choice policies may be associated with sorting students into…

This article explores policy and practice in relation to support for speakers of community languages in Northern Ireland primary schools against the backdrop of the broader UK context, with reference also to the Republic of Ireland and wider European and international experiences. After an initial discussion of the educational, social and…

If the recent revival in academic interest in Lenin's theory has overlooked his few writings on education, this may be because they appear to offer so little. This paper seeks to rectify this oversight. Whilst acknowledging that Lenin's educational offerings are thin, it is proposed that those on the left in the Twenty-First Century might…

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international achievement measure that assesses 15-year-old student performance in the areas of reading, mathematics, and science literacy in over 70 countries and economies triennially. By presenting an in-depth examination of PISA's role in education governance and policy discourses,…

Black Radicalism believes in the centrality of racism to Western imperialism and a Diasporic commitment to the liberation of Africa; existing in distinction to Black Nationalism, Marxism and Critical Race Theory. A Black radical critique of schooling is presented and the mischaracterizations of Black Radicalism as segregationist and separatist are…

"Education Policy and Equal Education Opportunities," published by the Open Society Education Support Program, examines the role of public education in addressing a wide variety of unequal educational opportunities found across the world. The publication brings together analyses from countries in Europe and Asia (Albania, Bulgaria, Czech…

This article tracks recent developments in the debate about secondary school size. It looks at the growth of the small schools movement in the United States and at initiatives currently underway in the United Kingdom. The article explores various strategies for reconfiguring secondary schools into smaller learning communities or "schools…

The author argues that faith schools serve to exacerbate existing divisions in society and are therefore a threat to social cohesion. In many parts of Britain where segregation is already a reality, "faith" has now become another word for "race". Ethnic groups are not evenly spread between the religions, creating a situation…

New evidence is provided about the degree of social segregation in England's secondary schools, employing a cross-national perspective. Analysis is based on data for 27 industrialised countries from the 2000 and 2003 rounds of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). We allow for sampling variation in the estimates. England is…

This article explores the theme of the "two faces of education" by reviewing new policy directives in the United Kingdom to strengthen community cohesion in schools and their communities. These directives have resulted from growing disaffection with the aims and outcomes of multiculturalism. This article will investigate the ways in…

This study examined the reasons behind exclusion from school, emphasizing the exclusion of students with special needs, ethnic minority children, and children looked after by local authorities. Data collection included interviews with local education authority (LEA) officers; interviews with teachers and administrators; and documents from the…

From 1997 the New Labour government was eager to affirm a commitment to social justice and racial equality, and initially there were moves to address some long-standing educational grievances. But a continuation of Conservative market policies of choice and diversity in schooling and a targeting of 'failing' schools exacerbated school segregation…

With diminishing returns to the peer group, it is optimal social policy to mix children in schools. We consider what happens when, contrary to the outcome being determined by a social planner, schools and children are free to seek each other out: with some caveats, this leads to perfect segregation by child quality. It is shown that this is the…