Jack Demaine

Teachers’ Work, Curriculum and the New Right

Abstract This paper examines New Right arguments on educational provision, including the establishing of a voucher scheme and the introduction of elements of a free market’ into public sector education. The paper examines the right‐wing allegation that educationalists have ‘captured’ the school curriculum and the argument on the need for ‘consumer capture’ of education. It discusses the New Right tactic of privatisation by stealth, and the argument that gradualism provides the most effective means of securing educational reform. The paper discusses arguments put forward by the Right on the idea of a General Teaching Council (GTC) and argument on the need for the development of a teacher labour market freed from national salary scales. It goes on to examine Mary Warnock ‘s proposals for a GTC and her views of teacher education. The paper examines the likely effects of the implementation of right‐wing education policy, concluding that the 1988 Education Reform Act will prepare the ground for the privatisati...

Education Policy and Contemporary Politics

On 2nd May 1997 Tony Blair, surrounded by enthusiastic supporters, walked triumphantly along Downing Street as Labour Prime Minister with the largest parliamentary majority in modern times — the beneficiary and main architect of a ‘landslide’ election victory. Eighteen years earlier, during election day in 1979, the previous Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, alone with his close aide Joe Haines, is said to have swept aside a comforting observation as to the Party’s prospects. Callaghan perceived what he referred to as a ‘sea-change’ in politics, and, indeed, the following day Mrs Margaret Thatcher stood at the front door of 10 Downing Street as Conservative Prime Minister.

Globalisation and citizenship education

This article discusses the notion of globalisation by reference to several of its proponents and critics. Issues of citizenship education in an era of global electronic communications are examined and the author argues that citizenship education that has a global dimension will necessarily be concerned with economic, social and political inequalities between citizens both within and between nation states. Global divisions involve fundamental inequalities of resources, rights to residence and much else. Since globalisation invokes differing responses from citizens around the world and within nation states it is likely that global citizenship education will have varied effects.

Race, Categorisation and Educational Achievement

Abstract This paper is concerned with the ways in which terms and categories are deployed in analyses and discussions of differences in educational achievement between social groups whose identity is usually specified in terms of ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’. The first part of the paper is didactic, and discusses problems with the use of ‘racial’ terms with respect to social, biological and legal discourse. The second part of the paper examines the consequences of categorisation for analyses of differences in educational achievement, with particular reference to a paper by Mackintosh & Mascie‐Taylor, on which the Swann Committee claims to have relied heavily.

Education and the Politics of Selection: Radical Policies for Those Set to Fail in the Twenty-First Century?.

This paper is concerned with the longstanding question of policy for those referred to nearly half a century ago by the Crowther Report as the ‘bottom half’; those mainly working class children who, in a sense, are ‘selected for failure’. The issue of selection is a matter of concern in countries around the world and has been at the centre of renewed political debate in Britain during 2005–2006. Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has been keen to advance a policy of ‘freeing‐up’ secondary schools so as to provide ‘diversity’ and ‘more choice for parents and pupils’. Critics regard such a policy as involving ‘selection by other means’. This paper discusses questions of social class and inequality that are bound‐up with the issue of selection. The paper provides an account of ‘Blairite’ New Labour policy and discusses its closeness to new right education policy. The paper concludes with a discussion of radical proposals and observations on the prospects for the future.

New Teachers and the Question of Ethnicity

During the 20 years since the publication of the Rampton Report (1981) concern has been voiced about the under representation of minority ethnic groups in teaching in England and Wales, and their relative lack of opportunities for career advancement. The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has lobbied for policy interventions to address the issue and in the mid 1980s carried out a survey of staffing in eight local authorities that had ‘higher than average’ minority populations. This revealed that less than three per cent of teachers came from minority ethnic backgrounds and also showed that such teachers were disproportionately concentrated on lower pay scales (CRE 1986, 1988). By 1992 the CRE was urging the Conservative government to take appropriate steps ‘to ensure that people from the ethnic minorities will be recruited for teacher training without unlawful discrimination’ (cited in Osier 1997, p.47). Subsequently, the Higher Education Funding Council responded by funding 17 projects to widen ethnic minority participation in initial teacher training between 1993 and 1994 (HEFC 1995).

Racism, ideology and education, the last word on the Honeyford affair?

The paper begins with a brief reference of some of the inaccuracies in accounts of the so called ‘Honeyford affair’. The main purpose of the paper, however, is not to compare differing accounts, but rather to examine aspects of Honejfords discourse in its own terms. These aspects include his notion of ‘racism’, his concern with ‘tolerance and coherence’ and his account of what he refers to as ‘the human character’.

Liberalism, neoliberalism, social democracy: thin communitarian perspectives on political philosophy and education

Taylor and Francis CBSE_A_484925.sgm 10.1080/01425692.2010.484925 British Journal of Sociology of Education 0142-5692 (pri t)/1465-3346 (online) Rev ew Symposium 2 10 & Francis 34 0 00 uly 010 JackDemaine j.demaine@lb ro.ac.uk Liberalism, neoliberalism, social democracy: thin communitarian perspectives on political philosophy and education, by Mark Olssen, London, Routledge, 2010, 280 pp., £65.00 (hardback), ISBN 0-41-595704-4

Education and Families in The Spirit of Community: questions of identity, individuality and diversity

ABSTRACT This paper [1] examines communitarian argument on schools, families and youth culture in Amitai Etzionis influential book, The Spirit of Community. The paper concludes that in lieu of detailed policy argument Etzionis readers are presented with appeals to ‘changes of heart’ and a circular (and inconclusive) account of the supposed role of various social institutions in inculcating ‘appropriate moral values’. The paper also discusses Ray Pahls critique of communitarianism and his account of identity, individuality and diversity in what he refers to as the ‘friendly society’. [1] Sections of this article will appear as part of chapter 1 in Demaine & Entwistle (1996), and some sections were included as part of a paper entitled ‘The politics of identity and the identity of sociology’ presented to the International Sociology of Education Conference on ‘Pedagogy, Identity and the Politics of Difference’ at Sheffield, United Kingdom, 3‐5 January 1996.