Peter Ratcliffe

Renewal, regeneration and ‘race’: Issues in urban policy

Abstract This article examines the impact of urban policy on Britains inner city areas, and specifically on the various communities living within them. It is suggested that policies need to address the issue of ‘racial’ inequality directly, rather than relying on trickle‐down effects from conventional economic regeneration models. Problems with current urban renewal service delivery policies are highlighted, and proposals are put forward for models of ‘good practice’.

New Labour ambiguity, or Neo-liberal consistency? The debate about racial inequality in employment and the use of contract compliance

Many historical studies, some of them comparative, have explored the foundations of welfare states and the birth of unemployment policies in Europe in the late nineteenth century. Nearly all have focused on political debate at national level. This paper bases its analysis on labour market reforms initiated in Strasbourg and Liverpool in the decades preceding World War I. It explores how bona fide unemployed workers, the proper clients of official help, were distinguished from the mass of the poor and indigent. The labour market had to be defined and organized before policies for the unemployed could be put in place. The object is to demonstrate not only how this was done, but also how different perceptions of social justice and economic efficiency influenced both the process and the outcomes of public interventions, in this instance undermining attempts to transfer specific policies from one country to another.

The Role of the State in School Reform: Responding to Increasing Ethnic Diversity in Britain

The British government has instituted a wide range of educational reforms to tackle ethnic inequality. This article argues that over the past half century most of these have been driven by immediate political considerations and have failed to incorporate a broader, historical perspective. This has invariably led to short-term, and short cut, solutions to long-term, deeply entrenched problems that, in reality, transcend the world of education. The article evaluates all the major reform programs, ranging from assimilationism to multicultural education to anti-racist education. It concludes with discussion of the merits/demerits of faith schools and the use of school reorganization as a means of tackling ethnic segregation.