Using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this paper compares the earnings premium and employment share of jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across 11 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results reveal that the STEM wage premium…

Using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this paper compares the earnings premium and employment share of jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across 11 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results reveal that the STEM wage premium…

The last twenty-five years have seen an erosion of the public sector with whole industries being sold off and made into private companies. Even those roles that have remained in the public sector have undergone enormous change, with the importation of ideas and practices formally associated with businesses. Reforms have led to cost-cutting and an…

The public sector apprenticeship target was introduced in 2017. Under this, public sector bodies with 250 or more staff in England have a target to employ an average of at least 2.3% of their staff as new apprentice starts over the period of 1st April 2017 to 31st March 2021. Public sector bodies are required to submit data annually on the number…

How have public sector austerity and the outsourcing of school provision under the Academies programme affected the state school workforce in England? Existing research claims that teachers are being substituted by cheaper support staff and that schools are becoming increasingly dominated by managers. However, these claims focus on the period…

This paper draws on recent research in Europe and England to discuss the politics of accountability. It is suggested that, as policies in education are increasingly focused on delivering technical-managerial accountability, that is accountability understood as evidenced in international, national, institutional and individual comparative measures…

Background: In the UK managers from multiple organisations are commonly tasked with collectively devising and implementing local health and wellbeing policies as a way of addressing increasing demand for healthcare. This requires them to create knowledge together but relatively little is known about how this occurs. This paper reports the results…

This paper addresses a particular gap in the further education (FE) literature offering an analysis of Incorporation within a theory of social change developed by Fligstein and McAdam, in their work "A Theory of Fields". The authors argue that FE was subjected to the introduction of a quasi-market in advance of wider neoliberal reforms…

This article analyses the expansion of higher education offered by technical and further education institutes in Australia and it compares this provision with the expansion of higher education in further education colleges in England, and baccalaureate degrees in community colleges in the United States. It argues that this provision can open new…

Since devolution in the late 1990s, education policy in England has diverged further from that in Scotland and also from policy in Wales and Northern Ireland. In this paper we review the roots and trajectory of the English education reforms over the past two decades. Our focus is the schools sector, though we also touch on adjoining reforms to…

In recent decades, many OECD countries have adopted the notion of "social investment" to reframe traditional approaches to social welfare. Social investment strategies and policies focus on employment rather than welfare and promote public expenditure on skills and education throughout the life course, starting with early childhood…

The apprenticeship movement is reshaping skills, policies, and programs in the United States at a critical moment in our country's history. This reader offers a chorus of voices emanating from different countries and populations, echoing commitment to bright, sustainable workforce futures through a well-crafted approach to this talent development…

This paper traces developments across Stephen J. Ball's policy sociology in education "oeuvre" and considers their implications for doing research on education policy today. It begins with an account of his policy sociology trilogy from the 1990s, which outlined his conception of the policy cycle consisting of the contexts of influence,…

Our aim here is to investigate the multilingual "super-diverse" environment of Southampton City's work places, in public and private sector sites, and to observe how speakers interact and use their linguistic competences; whether this facilitates communication and social/professional integration, or whether this produces obstacles and…

This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England. It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation. It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative…