Sheila Macrae

Collaborative solutions or new policy problems: exploring multi-agency partnerships in education and health work

Since coming to power in 1997, two successive Labour Governments in the UK have actively attempted to tackle the problem of what they have called ‘social exclusion’. Their argument has been that social problems, which are overlapping and inter-related, need ‘joined-up’ policy solutions. For example, poor housing and low income can contribute towards and exacerbate lack of success in schooling and need to be tackled simultaneously. The Labour Government has argued that what is needed is a multi-agency partnership response which harnesses the strengths and expertise of a variety of welfare perspectives. This ‘partnership’ approach currently, characterizes social welfare policy-making in the UK. This paper critically explores the perceptions and experiences of those involved in one such multi-agency partnership which has been established to challenge an aspect of social exclusion: the exclusion of children from primary schools. At the same time, the paper examines the ways in which policy is constructed and enacted by those charged with its implementation. Initially, current policies are considered in respect of social exclusion focusing on some problems and dilemmas of multi-agency partnerships, as highlighted in other research. Drawing on data from one study, this paper goes on to examine partnership in one specific context, which combines health, education and social work in an inner-city primary school setting. Finally, it is argued that, if multi-agency partnerships are to achieve their potential, greater understanding of the difficulties involved in implementing new policies in such contexts needs to be considered at the outset.

Young lives, diverse choices and imagined futures in an education and training market

In the UK, policy developments in vocational and further education have created a market in post-16 education and training. This paper reports on an Economic and Social Research Council study and one small cohort of young people entering and moving through one such urban market. They enter with very different learning identities, aspirations and motivations, and their ‘educational inheritances’ prepare them differently for participation. Some young people simply want ajob and awage and ‘nomore learning’, others come with alongterm commitment to gaining higher qualifications. The authors both describe and explore a number of ways of conceptualizing these differences. Both despite and because of the changes in the local labour market ‘deep sub-structures of inequality’ re-emerge. The differentiation of routes and ‘spaces’ of opportunity confronting these young people are reproductive of social class divisions.

Whose ‘learning’ society? A tentative deconstruction

In this paper we want to examine the construct of the Learning Society in its economic and social context in the UK. We will argue that the policy rhetoric which makes up the current discourse of the ‘learning’ society is both powerfully normative and unhelpfully reductionist and that it displaces and masks issues of inequality. The discourse of the Learning Society has conflated the achievement of increased levels of participation for 16‐ to 19‐year‐olds with the insertion of market mechanisms and relations and the assertion of self‐interest. This has meant that issues of exclusion, polarization and social justice have been systematically neglected. The Learning Society provides, we suggest, for a redrawing and relegitimation of patterns of exclusion. In particular, in a time of social crisis, middle‐class retrenchment (masked as familial duty) has re‐asserted itself, in part, through a specific, particular engagement with the Learning Society in order to ensure advantage and distinction. As Connell (199...

Social exclusion: exclusion from school

This paper explores recent policy approaches aimed at addressing school exclusions. It begins by exploring some of the ways in which social exclusion is interpreted. The limitations of ‘weak’ versions that work indirectly to ‘blame’ the excluded and work ‘on’ this constituency rather than taking a broader view which encompasses those who exclude are critically evaluated. This is done through locating the debate in two UK settings: the context of exclusions from school and the policy context of multi-agency interventions that have been set up to redress this form of exclusion. The paper argues for a stronger version of exclusion that incorporates a challenge to those who exclude. The paper is divided into three sections: a discussion of what is meant by social exclusion, an account of exclusion from schools in the UK and an exploration of the potential for change which resides in multi-agency or ‘joined-up’ policy work.

‘Race’, Space and the Further Education Market Place

Abstract This article is about the spacialisation of ‘race’ and the racialisation of space. It is based upon the analysis of provider and ‘consumer’ strategies in one post‐16 education and training market. The ‘race thinking’ of colleges in their attempts to recruit ‘particular kinds of students’ is set over and against the ‘race thinking’ of students in their choice of college. The recruitment of minority ethnic students is constructed by some providers as a ‘problem’ and by others as an ‘opportunity’. This is part of a more general ‘economy of student worth’. A spacial drift of choices away from ‘inner‐city’ institutions is identified. It is argued that choice is both enabled and constrained by the complex interplay of material spatial practices (e.g. housing patterns, transport, social networks) and the perceptions and imaginings of space (e.g. mental maps, the ‘friction of distance’, familiarity and fear). While the specific market under examination has particular spatial characteristics, the sort of ...

Early Interventions: preventing school exclusions in the primary setting

Abstract This article considers the work of one project which is working to support children who are ‘at risk’ of being excluded. Including Primary School Children (IPSC) has been working in high excluding primary schools in one inner‐London local education authority (LEA), promoting strategies for inclusion. Formally excluding children from their primary schools is a serious step. While some schools may feel they have no alternative but to exclude, a ‘solution’ for the school may add to the problems experienced by excluded children and their families. What is needed is early intervention, where schools can target ‘at risk’ children and, even more positively, prevent the damage of exclusion through promoting mental, emotional and social health for all children.