Geoff Whitty

Marketization and privatization in mass education systems

Abstract Recent education reform in many countries has sought to dismantle centralized educational bureaucracies to create systems that emphasize parental choice and competition between schools, thereby creating quasi-markets in educational services. In addition to this widespread marketization of public education systems, publicly financed and provided education services have been privatized. In this paper, marketization and privatization policies are compared, and initial research evidence on the impact of marketization and privatization in England, the USA, Australia and New Zealand is examined in the light of the claims about diversity of provision, efficiency, effectiveness and equity. Also considered in the significance of attempts currently underway in the UK and elsewhere to temper the emphasis on consumer rights within policies of marketization and privatization with a renewed concern for the citizen rights traditionally associated with social-democratic approaches to education policy.

Education, social class and social exclusion

This paper begins by noting the centrality of the issue of working-class school failure within the sociology of education in Britain. It argues that recent government policies have taken insufficient account of sociological work on the impact of social class on educational success and failure. It also suggests that sociologists should pay more attention to middle-class education. The importance of this is illustrated through reference to research on the trajectories of pupils receiving different forms of secondary education. The paper then argues that social inclusion policies need to address a variety of forms of middle-class self-exclusion from mainstream public provision as well as working-class social exclusion. It concludes that education policy needs to be located within a broader social policy framework.

The New Right and the national curriculum: State control or market forces? 1

This paper takes as its starting point an apparent tension within the Education Reform Act between its imposition of a national curriculum and its stress elsewhere on parental choice and market forces in determining the shape of the school system. The paper then explores differences within the New Right over the issue of the school curriculum, but also points to ways in which neo‐liberal and neo‐conservative positions may ultimately be reconcilable. However, it also suggests that neither position may prove entirely attractive to the governments industrial sponsors who wish the curriculum to be more responsive to the needs of industry. The paper then draws on the findings of a recent research project on school choice to consider some possible consequences of allowing market forces to determine the nature of the curriculum. In conclusion, it stresses the importance of seeing the national curriculum within its broader structural context and notes that there are important lessons to be drawn from the approac...

Teacher professionalism in new times

Abstract This article, originally presented as a paper to a conference on teacher professionalism and the state in the twenty-first century, begins by discussing some key ideas in sociological literature relevant to that theme. It then considers how far such ideas can be used to help understand recent developments in teacher education. It concludes by speculating on possible futures for teacher professionalism

School choice policies in England and the United States: an exploration of their origins and significance

This paper notes some similarities between school choice policies in England and the US and considers how far any convergences can be explained, on the one hand, by broader social changes and, on the other, by evidence of policy exchange. In the first case, it discusses the usefulness of concepts such as post-Fordism and post-modernity and indicates their limitations. In the second case, it identifies relevant neoliberal policy networks within and between the two countries but finds more evidence of the use of overseas examples to legitimate policies at home than it does of direct policy borrowing. Reflecting upon both sets of explanations, it argues for a clearer conceptualisation of the relationship between accounts of the micro-politics of policy making and macro-level theories of change.

Whose voice? An exploration of the current policy interest in pupil involvement in school decision‐making

This paper discusses the sociological issues raised by a recent study on school councils in England. This study revealed a lack of clarity among policy‐makers and schools regarding the purpose of provision for pupil voice. The paper argues that this allows important questions about the functions of pupil voice to be avoided. While suggesting ways in which schools could refine their provision, the paper asks whether more effective pupil voice would make the concept less attractive to policy‐makers and schools in the first place. It goes on to highlight more fundamental questions raised by critiques of notions of ‘voice’. Connected to this, the paper outlines the potential for pupil voice to support neo‐liberal as well as progressive ends. It concludes by arguing that teachers must grasp the opportunities provided by pupil voice to ensure that it serves ‘collaborative’ rather than ‘managerial’ professionalism.

Initial Teacher Education in England and Wales: A Topography.

Abstract This paper is based upon a survey of initial teacher education courses conducted in 1990‐91 as part of the Modes of Teacher Education (MOTE) research project, funded by the ESRC (Grant No. R000232810). It presents data on the nature of 270 (85 per cent) of the courses in operation in that year, focusing on course philosophy and pedagogy, course structure, the nature of partnership between higher education and schools, and modes of student assessment. The survey found that 81 per cent of courses were based upon an agreed model of the teacher, although this was less likely to be the case in universities than in polytechnics or colleges. Of those courses with an agreed model of the teacher, three‐quarters adopted the model of the ‘reflective practitioner’. Three quarters of courses also adopted a whole course policy on teaching and learning. Despite the frequent criticism of initial teacher training (ITT) courses being dominated by ‘theory’ unrelated to school practice, students were found to be spe...

Discourse in Cross‐curricular Contexts: limits to empowerment

ABSTRACT Although the 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a National Curriculum for England and Wales defined in subject terms, the National Curriculum Council suggested that schools should also concern themselves with five cross‐curricular themes related to the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. This paper reports on a study of the implementation of these cross‐curricular themes in secondary schools. It draws upon a postal survey of 1 in 4 of these schools and intensive fieldwork in a subsample of eight schools. Using concepts drawn from the sociology of Basil Bernstein, the paper explores some of the tensions between the cross‐curricular themes and the subject‐based culture of English secondary education. It points to particular difficulties in developing an empowering form of social education through a permeation approach to the teaching of the themes, but also explores the alternative disadvantages associated with provision via a separate programme of personal and soci...

Subjects and themes in the secondary‐school curriculum

Abstract Although the 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a National Curriculum for England and Wales defined in subject terms, the National Curriculum Council suggested that schools should also concern themselves with a number of cross‐curricular elements. It offered non‐statutory guidance on the implementation of five cross‐curricular themes ‐‐ economic and industrial understanding, careers education and guidance, health education, citizenship (community understanding in Wales) and environmental education. In Northern Ireland, six similar educational themes were specified in the 1989 Education Reform Order. This paper reports on a study of the implementation of these cross‐curricular themes in secondary schools in England and Wales and in post‐primary schools in Northern Ireland. It draws upon a postal survey of these schools and intensive fieldwork in a subsample of ten schools. It identifies differences in the ways in which the various themes have been implemented and suggests that those themes t...

Managing the State and the Market: 'New' Education Management in Five Countries

Within the field of education management studies, recent reforms promoting devolution and choice are often seen to provide exciting new opportunities. It is claimed that the ‘new’education management, with its emphasis on site-based decision-making and consumer accountability, will enable headteachers and principals to ‘take control’ of their schools and make them more productive environments in which to work and study. However, our review of research findings from five different countries that are putting in place devolution and choice policies suggests that these new opportunities are more illusory than real. Positioned between the competing demands of the state and the market, school managers are becoming increasingly isolated from colleagues and classrooms — leading to a growing divergence between the managers and the managed. The paper considers the implication of recent developments for managers in general and for women managers in particular and concludes by discussing the relationship between the ...