The focus of this paper is the coalition United Kingdom government policy on university funding in England as a political economy. It depicts higher education as a public and private good in the context of international trends in "cost sharing" and it addresses the centrality of economic drivers for the profile and orientation of higher…

Early years education in England has undergone a number of radical changes in the last decade. More recently, a change in government after the 2010 UK general election has meant that early years practitioners have experienced a period of uncertainty and change in policy in line with the ambitions and philosophy of the new Conservative/Liberal…

In the ten years following 9/11 there was unprecedented interest in, and commitment to, religious education in the school curriculum in England. Politicians, academics, and professionals all argued that learning about religion could foster "social cohesion" and even prevent terrorism. Accordingly there were a number of national and…

The concept of risk has found increasing prominence in social policy, human services management and front-line practice in recent years. This is particularly the case in relation to children and young people, who, in the UK, have been subject to a range of interventions based on the identification of population-based risk factors. Through the…

Global concerns about what constitutes an appropriate curriculum and pedagogy for young children inevitably raises questions for teacher educators and the content of teacher education programmes. These concerns have been particularly visible in England following recent policy initiatives and the resultant "academic shovedown" and…

This article focuses on some of the issues that shape understandings of professional practice in the rapidly expanding context of children's centres in England. Drawing on data from an ESRC-funded project exploring practitioners' understandings of quality and success, the perspectives of 115 practitioners working in 11 Sure Start Children's…

This article considers the impact of recent political decisions on the provision of teacher education and the continuing development of teachers in England. It tracks how successive governments have changed the requirements necessary to become a teacher as circumstances have changed in the country and considers the impact of these changes on…

This paper examines regulating discourses "spoken" within the complex multi-sector network of educational policy and provision that has grown from a recent introduction of choice advisers in England. Choice advice documentation from across the network is examined and four discursive themes are identified: equity; parental responsibility;…

The paper analyses and compares developments in history teaching in Germany, England, and the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th centuries. The development of history teaching in the three countries shows striking similarities. National politics have always used history education for purposes which did not necessarily tally with distanced critical…

The year 2007 saw a discrete yet significant development in the sphere of "international education" in England: a doubling in number of state-funded schools offering the International Primary Curriculum. This curriculum had been developed in 2000 for the Shell Company Group of Schools. It first emerged in England in 2003; two years later…

In this article I examine New Labour's approach to the transformation of education by focusing on Michael Barber's account of policy delivery, and I show that while historical analysis is relevant to policy processes it is absent in the reality of design. I provide a critical evaluation of knowledge claims underpinning policy in England before I…

Since 1992, the assessment of the quality of the teaching and learning process in the United Kingdom has generated considerable political controversy. This article traces the evolution of the quality regime to the present day, which appears to signify that the contemporary arrangements are underwritten by a measure of political consensus and an…

When "New Labour" came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997, one of their first major initiatives was to establish new devolved political institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Drawing upon developments in education in Scotland and England, this article explores some aspects of "regulation",…

The introduction to this article will seek to present a distillation of Sally Lubeck's achievements in order to provide a benchmark of existing knowledge in the field of early childhood care and education from her perspective and an indication of its likely future. Her work, it is suggested, provides an exemplification of the new sociology of…

The teaching-research nexus has been studied by many researchers, mainly looking at pedagogic links and direct benefits arising from the interaction of both activities. The paper takes a comparative approach, looking at the relationship between teaching and research in four universities from two different countries. This paper argues that…