Pamela Munn

Building research capacity collaboratively: can we take ownership of our future?

This presidential address argues that there is a pressing need in the UK to build educational research capacity at system level and to do so collaboratively. It advances three main arguments for doing so. These are (i) the increasing concentration of research resources; (ii) the dangers of increasing separation of research and initial teacher education; and (iii) the complexity of the links between research, policy and practice. Drawing on evidence about research quality and on demographic trends of academic staff in education departments, it illustrates one approach to collaborative capacity building in Scotland, the Applied Educational Research Scheme. It concludes by drawing attention to the nascent Strategic Forum for Research in Education as an important forum for monitoring the health of educational research. †. Presidential address at BERA Annual Conference, 5–8 September 2007, University of London, London.

Schools for the 21st century: The national debate on education in Scotland

In 2002, the Scottish Executive Education Department launched a national debate on schools for the 21st century. The debate elicited over 1500 responses and it is estimated that 20,000 people took part. This paper describes the main themes arising from the debate, highlighting the support for comprehensive education and the high level of trust in the quality and professionalism of teachers. The agenda for change was in terms of greater flexibility and choice in the school curriculum and of the need for well‐built and well‐resourced schools. The paper discusses this approach to policy formulation in the context of voter disengagement from politics and suggests that the Scottish Executive should attempt to sustain civic participation in education policy‐making as a way of developing a new politics in Scotland.

Take More time to Actually Listen: Students' Reflections on Participation and Negotiation in School.

Behaviour in schools is an emotive topic and one of enduring political interest and sensitivity. The media often portrays schools as violent and dangerous places and young people as ever more unruly. This paper explores findings from a recent large-scale national study on behaviour and focuses on the data from primary and secondary school students within this study. The comments and suggestions offered by students move beyond a discussion of behaviour to focus on the broader questions of participation, engagement and meanings of active citizenship in school.

‘School violence’ as a social problem: charting the rise of the problem and the emerging specialist field

In the past 10 years, violence taking place in schools has entered both popular and academic discourse. Frequently, the term ‘school violence’ is used as a catch‐all concept to refer to disorder and disruption in schools, as well as the unruliness of contemporary youth. This is apparent not only in the North American context, but in highly politicised debates regarding standards of pupil behaviour in countries across Europe. A related and significant development is the emergence of the study of violence in schools as a specialist area of enquiry. Drawing on sociological theories of the emergence of social problems, and social constructionist approaches in particular, this paper addresses the rising concern with ‘school violence’ as a social phenomenon. First it addresses the rise of the problem, emphasising connections with wider agendas, particularly anxieties about dangerous youth. The role of the media and academics is also considered. Moreover, this paper explores the emergence of the specialist field and related debates about meaning. It is argued that the present disquiet about ‘school violence’ requires to be understood in the context of modernity and accompanying concerns about social cohesion.

Parental influence on school policy: some evidence from research

Parental involvement in school policy has been a major theme of both Conservative and Labour governments. This paper reports findings from two research projects: one is a small‐scale comparative study of the operation of school boards and governing bodies in Scotland and England; the second is a study of a small number of local and national parental groups in Scotland. Parental influence is analysed at the level of the individual school, education authority and at national level. The paper disentangles policy rhetoric from the reality of parental involvement and raises questions about the extent to which parents have been ‘captured’ by teachers and others in determining policy matters.

Exclusion from school : a view from scotland of policy and practice

This paper reports research on the nature and extent of exclusion from school in Scotland 1994-6. The research involved: documentary analysis of local authority policies on exclusion, supplemented by telephone interviews with officials responsible for the operation of policy; a survey of 176 headteachers; an analysis of information about 2,710 excluded pupils; and case studies of eight secondary and four primary schools. A wide variation in local authority policy was found although most authorities emphasized exclusion as a last resort. Most exclusions were short term with pupils returning to their original school but a significant number of pupils lost more that a weeks schooling and about 30 per cent had been excluded more than once. Schools with similar characteristics varied markedly in their exclusion rates and this could largely be explained by their different ethos. Key elements in understanding differences in ethos were beliefs about the purpose of schools, the curriculum on offer, school relations with the outside world and decision making about exclusion. These findings are placed in the context both of research on exclusions in England and of current policy concerns with social exclusion.

Pupils' Perceptions of ‘Effective Disciplinarians’

This paper reports the perceptions of 543 pupils about the strategies used by their teachers which get the class to work well. The pupils were in four secondary schools and aged between 12 and 16. Twenty‐one categories of effective strategies were derived from pupil comments. However, no single category dominated the data. Examining what we have called ‘pupils’ constructs of effective strategies’ revealed that a wide range of strategies were perceived as effective. Not only was a variety of strategies seen as effective, pupils in each school identified over 75% of the staff as being best at getting the class to work well.

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.

A comparison of staff perceptions of behaviour in Scottish schools in 2009 and 2006

Behaviour in schools is an enduring public policy concern not only within the UK, but internationally also. Current concern should come as no surprise as behaviour is intimately connected with policy priorities for schools, namely raising standards of attainment and promoting social cohesion. Clearly, standards are threatened where disruptive behaviour takes place and teacher time is spent on maintaining an orderly classroom rather than on the formal curriculum. This article reports findings from two major surveys of perceptions of behaviour commissioned by the Scottish Government. It locates the work in the Scottish policy context and describes the contextual framework used to guide the collection and analysis of data. It highlights a positive move in perceptions particularly amongst secondary school teachers and suggests why this may be so.

Representing self-in-society: education for citizenship and the social-subjects curriculum in Scotland

The documented social‐subjects curricula for Scottish 5–16 year olds are analysed for representations of ‘self‐in‐society’. Such representations are important in Scotland because it is expected that the new Education‐for‐Citizenship framework will in part be delivered through the social subjects. However, citizenship education is also relevant throughout the UK and beyond and our analysis of the social subjects has wider relevance. An ideal‐type analysis was used on documents including national guidelines, examination syllabuses, examination papers, and assessor instructions. Our analysis suggests that in these documents: the self is seen as an abstract; people are understood by category; society is the sum of discrete institutions; self‐in‐society is fully defined; and this representation of society is not contested. This representation becomes increasingly exclusive with age/ability and may be linked to assumed modes of curricular division, teaching and assessment. We discuss how this overall picture might affect students’ sense of ‘agency’ in the light of citizenship education. We conclude that the social‐subjects’ curricular representation of self‐in‐society may not fully support the Scottish Education‐for‐Citizenship framework.