Margaret Arnott

Education and nationalism: the discourse of education policy in Scotland

The paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine and discuss some of the key developments in the governing of education in Scotland since the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in May 2007. It analyses these developments, drawing on a study of key policy texts and suggests that discourse analysis has much to contribute to the understanding of the governing strategy of the minority SNP administration as reflected in its education policy. We suggest that there is a self-conscious strategy of ‘crafting the narrative’ of government that seeks to discursively re-position ‘smarter Scotland’ alongside small, social democratic states within the wider context of transnational pressures for conformity with global policy agendas. Thus the paper connects to current debates on the relationship between an emergent global education policy ‘field’ and the capacity of ‘local’ contexts to develop and sustain particular, embedded assumptions and practices.

The same but different? Post-devolution regulation and control in education in Scotland and England

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’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘control’ in the post-devolution context. The purpose of the article is to assess the ways in which New Public Management have influenced education policy in the two countries. Aspects of the governance of education are examined in the two national contexts. The ‘modernisation’ of the teaching profession is examined as a particular case, as well as more general aspects of governance. A number of similarities and differences in the two countries are identified. The themes that best demonstrate these similarities and differences are privatisation, performativity and the policy process. The conclusion seeks to identify the extent to which developments in either or both countries can be attributed to the global neo-liberal agenda.

The participation of volunteer citizens in school governance

This study of school governors across the UK has suggested that while school governors and school boards had adopted (modernizing) perspectives of monitoring schools to improve performance they have nevertheless developed conceptions of governance which are independent of ‘the state’ and reflect local cultural traditions of governing education. In this sense governors have become active citizens. Our concluding analysis, however, proposes that school governance in many respects remains significantly unrepresentative of some of its significant parent constituencies. As such citizen participation in school governance has yet to be realized in many communities. The cultural traditions of education across the UK have all tended to reproduce the tradition of the school as a space of professional regulation. This study of school governance and school boards concludes that although participation has developed to strengthen institutions in the official world of the public sphere, it remains incomplete. Arguably, schools will not become effective learning communities until they become truly cosmopolitan learning communities, and they will only realize that vision when democratic governance is strengthened at the level of school and community as well as the local authority.

Nationalism, governance and policymaking in Scotland: The Scottish National Party (SNP) in power

This article explores policy development under the Scottish National Party (SNP) government, focusing on education policy. As a minority government the SNP needs to govern on the basis of co-operation and consensus. It has presented itself as a party with capacity for government but limited by the restricted autonomy of devolution. The ability to pass large amounts of legislation is more challenging for a minority government. Building new relationships with partners has been a key part of the SNPs approach to governing. This marks a shift in governing style in Scotland highlighting the importance of ‘discourse’ where texts (including speech) are used to promote policy aims and agendas.

Citizenship in Scottish schools: the evolution of education for citizenship from the late twentieth century to the present

This article explores the purposes of citizenship education and the forms it has taken in Scotland in the closing decades of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty‐first. Education has played a key role in defining Scottish identity. It is argued that there was, and continues to be in Scotland, a ‘Scottish myth’ about the purpose of education. The politics surrounding education reform in Scotland shaped the forms and approaches to citizenship education. The important role played by the schooling system in maintaining Scotland’s political, cultural and social distinctiveness has shaped the forms of citizenship education and also how it has been implemented. Education for citizenship was seen as a key overarching purpose of the curriculum. Greater professional input into the development of citizenship education, including teachers being able to adopt a flexible approach in interpreting the policy, has resulted in distinctive policy developments in Scotland.

‘The more things change…?’: the Thatcher years and educational reform in Scotland

The period of the Thatcher Government continues to have special significance for politics and governance in Scotland. In the 11 years of the Thatcher Government, landmark legislation and reforms affected key areas of the Scottish society and economy. Education featured prominently in the Thatcherite agenda in Scotland. In Scotland, the education system’s association with national identity had particular implications for educational policy making and implementation in Scotland under the Thatcher Government. The distinctiveness of the Scottish education system presented particular problems for a government intent on challenging the social democratic consensus. Opposition to the Thatcher Government, especially its perceived attack on the social democratic underpinnings of the welfare state which included the state schooling system, re‐ignited the home rule campaign in Scotland in the late 1980s. The article examines both key legislation, namely the Education (Scotland) Act 1981, the School Board (Scotland) Act 1988 and the Self‐Governing Schools etc. (Scotland) Act 1989, and also key non‐legislative reforms to curriculum and assessment under the Thatcher Government in the area of public (state) schooling. The article argues that these reforms continue to influence the educational policy debates in Scotland today.

The Coalition’s Impact on Scotland

This chapter explores how the shifting constitutional and political landscape influenced the governing approaches of the UK Cameron—Clegg Coalition government towards the future position of Scotland in the UK. On entering government in May 2010 David Cameron was aware that past approaches of Conservative governments in the 1980s and 1990s to the governance of Scotland would not suffice. Cameron signalled that the devolved nations would have an ongoing relationship with the Coalition government based on dialogue and ‘respect’ (Randall and Seawright, 2012). However, as Aughey has stated (2013: 171–2), for Cameron, principles of (Westminster) parliamentary sovereignty were significant in the post-devolution UK political settlement. In Scotland this would raise tensions between a Scottish National Party (SNP) devolved administration which had stressed popular sovereignty over the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament.

Education and nationalism in Scotland: governing a ‘learning nation’

Abstract Nationalism is a key resource for the political work of governing Scotland, and education offers the Scottish National Party (SNP) government a policy space in which political nationalism (self determination) along with social and cultural forms of civic nationalism can be formed and propagated, through referencing ‘inwards’ to established myths and traditions that stress the ‘public’ nature of schooling/education/universities and their role in construction of ‘community’; and referencing ‘outwards’, especially to selected Nordic comparators, but also to major transnational actors such as OECD, to education’s role in economic recovery and progress. The SNP government has been very active in the education policy field, and a significant element of its activity lies in promoting a discourse of collective learning in which a ‘learning government’ is enabled to lead a ‘learning nation’ towards the goal of independence. This paper draws on recent research to explore recent and current developments in SNP government education policy, drawing on discourse analysis to highlight the political work that such policy developments seek to do, against the backdrop of continuing constitutional tensions across the UK.

Westminster no more?: governance, devolution and delegation in Scotland

Abstract Politicians have returned frequently to the need to reform schools to achieve wider objectives of social reform and economic prosperity. Within the UK education systems, however, there have been differing experiences and approaches at both national (Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish) and local levels towards school governance reform. School governance in Scotland remains distinct compared to the rest of the UK, both in terms of the pace of reform and the content. The pace of reform in Scotland has been slower and the content has been shaped to a greater extent by political and professional modes of accountability. This article argues that a new phase in school governance reform is likely to follow the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) majority government in May 2011. A number of factors both external (international comparison of the school performance; the post 2008 politics of austerity) and internal (changes led by the SNP government to the policy-making process, namely outcomes-based policy-making) have placed debates about school autonomy and school governance on the political agenda.

The Pendulum Swings: Transforming School Reform

narrative style of the author is closely linked to the political events of the time and, at the same time, describes the consequences that these events had for those individually effected. The book is, thus, both historically informative and emotionally touching. A timetable, a glossary and a comprehensive annotated bibliography round off the book. What scientific benefit can be gained from this book? I would like to stress two aspects. First, the book makes a contribution to research regarding the continuation of German education in exile, a subject that has aroused a certain amount of interest not only in the historiography of German education. A model for the school in Stoatley Rough was the German so-called ‘Landerziehungsheime’ or countryside educational homes, which were beacons of progressive education. Many details point to this fact. At Stoatley Rough formal instruction was linked to numerous outdoor activities. The pupils ran a small farm and raised their own vegetables. Great importance was attached to social learning, and to the help and support the children could give to each other. Punishment was avoided. Coeducation was practised. (The difficulties that arose from this when dealing with young adolescents are described very vividly and humorously in one section of the book.) A liberal style of education predominated. The teaching staff were influenced by the thinking of German progressive education; this was clearly mentioned by the school directors who stated that they had been impressed by the German educators Hermann Lietz and Georg Kerschensteiner. Thus, Stoatley Rough, at that time, significantly distinguished itself from other English boarding schools and clearly identified itself with the international progressive educational movement. Second, the book contributes to research into those institutions that were created to provide help and support to Jews persecuted in Europe between 1933 and 1945. If one only considers the educational institutions that German emigrants established in Great Britain, the following immediately come to mind: Kurt Hahn’s foundation of Gordonstoun in Scotland, Anna Essinger’s Bunce Court School in Kent, and Minna Specht’s Butcome Court School in Wales. Other, smaller institutions are hardly known today. Thanks to Barbara Wolfenden’s book, Stoatley Rough will not be forgotten.