Ivan Reid

Jordanian and British Primary Schoolchildren's Attitudes Towards the Environment

Summary The paper explores the important but neglected field of primary schoolchildrens attitudes towards the environment using a specifically designed scale in Arabic and English. It reports attitude differences towards the environment and three domains -- pollution, waste and animals and plants -- according to nationality and gender. Overall the findings show that environmental education programmes produce only slightly positive attitudes. Consideration is given to the further research required to enhance such programmes.

Whatever Happened to the Sociology of Education in Teacher Education

Summary This paper reviews something of the circumstances and factors which have contributed to the development and present status of the sociology of education in teacher education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It reports a survey which presents, through practitioners’ eyes, the disciplines present condition and their view of its future. It contrasts the resulting picture of a demise of the discipline and the pessimism of its practitioners with the condition of the sociology of education outside teacher education. It considers some of the consequences of the decline in the discipline, brought about by a decade of dramatic changes in teacher education.

Grant‐maintained Heads’ Reflections on Opting Out

Summary This article summarises the views of 222 grant‐maintained (GM) schools head teachers’ experience of, and reasons for, their schools opting out of local authority control. The survey was conducted on the first 499 secondary schools to go GM. The article investigates issues such as admissions, finances and also the effects of GM status (GMS) on the relationships with, and roles of, local education authorities, the Department for Education, parents and governors. The article provides an overview of moves to GMS and highlights prior aims and reflections.

Accountability, Control and Freedom in Teacher Education in England: towards a panoptican

This article presents a socio-historical analysis of teacher education in Britain, tracing the changing agents and nature of control of, and consequent levels of freedom in, the enterprise from its inception to the present day. It illustrates the evolution from church, through university to state control and the limited role of the teaching and teacher education professions in each. In doing so it identifies teacher education as a disputed territory of conflicting tendencies, which currently faces unprecedented and draconian central government control and identifies the major factors related to change. It further traces how in the period since the second world war the main source of control has shifted from institution to state, and the main object of control from the student, to teacher educators, to the content and nature of teacher preparation, to the present where all these are centrally controlled, in a fashion not only foreign to British education history but also its culture.

Changing Inequalities in Education

When Halsey wrote those words in the context of Educational Priority Areas most people thought of inequality in terms of social class and/or economic differences. Since the 1970s class differences and inequalities have become less central concerns both politically and socially and within social science, perhaps because of developing interest in these features of gender and ethnicity. Yet the conventional empirical realities of class in Britain remain, as is amply illustrated in the latest survey of research in the field (Reid, 1998). There also remains the reality that there are intimate relationships between the forms of social stratification, in much the same fashion as individuals are members of each. The nature of, and change in, the manifestations of social stratification are clearly related to the social and political context in which they are situated. For a long time those interested in tackling social class inequality viewed the Labour Party in Britain as a likely ally, and some, perhaps naively, saw the election result of 1997 as heralding an era in which this and other inequality issues would be addressed. Hence the first book reviewed in this essay, while not having as its main theme this concern, provides a range of valuable insights into the relationships between contemporary politics and educational policy. The apparent intransigence of social class differences and inequalities in Britain and its education system is in considerable contrast to the situation in respect to male and

Trust chief executives' reflections on self‐governing

Abstract This article reports the views of UK Chief Executives of Self‐Goveming Trusts (SGTs) on the benefits and disadvantages of the reforms of the UK National Health Service (NHS), namely the Internal Market, which arguably originated with the 1983 Griffiths Report (Griffiths, 1983, NHS Management Inquiry) and culminated in the Government White Paper, ‘Working for Patients’ (Department of Health, 1989). The views of SGT Chief Executives on their experience of, and reasons for, their care facility opting‐out of health authority control are summarised. The July 1996 questionnaire surveyed those Trusts that had gained self‐governing status between April 1991 and April 1996. The research investigated the issues of finances, resources and the effects of SGT status on the relationships with, and roles of, district health authorities, regional health authorities, the Department of Health, staff and patients. The article provides an overview of moves to SGT status and highlights prior aims and reflections thro...