Search Results

This paper challenges the prevailing Westernisation proposition by asserting that several Asian nations, radiating from Japan through East Asia and Southeast Asia, have and are developing a distinctive approach to human resource development and utilisation that contrasts in important respects with the Western model. The core components of the Asian approach are identified: (1) the state coordinates education and research with a firm emphasis both on indigenous value transmission and the mastery of foreign technology; (2) high priority is placed on universal primary education while state investment at the secondary and tertiary level is limited primarily to critical areas such as engineering and the sciences; (3) individual students, their families, and the private sector are expected to provide critical backup for the education provided by the state; (4) the Asian state in seeking to coordinate not only the development but also the utilisation of human resources involves itself in manpower planning and job placement and increasingly in the coordination of science and technology. The paper outlines the sources and nature of the Asian approach and reflects on several global implications of the Asian approach. Among these, it is suggested that perceptions of the Asian model as a challenge or threat to the Western model may account for highly normatively laden critiques by certain Western observers.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

The contemporary relevance of the German philosopher of vocational education, Georg Kerschensteiner, is first indicated in general terms in relation to current debates and policies. Kerschensteiner’s main ideas are then outlined. There is a discussion of his relationship with progressivism, his ideas about learning and the importance of practical activity. His ideas about the nature of work and the relationship between work and paid unemployment are then considered. Kerschensteiner was particularly concerned with the role of work in promoting the development of character through the ‘bourgeois virtues’ concerned with the work and the ‘civic virtues’ concerned with the relationship between work and the broader society. His views on character formation are related to this discussion of civic education. Kerschensteiner’s innovations to schooling in Munich are then described in relation to his philosophical outlook and finally his views on the German tradition of liberal education or Bildung and how these relate to vocational education are outlined.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This paper examines trends in social class inequalities in young people’s educational attainment and HE [higher education] entry between the mid-1980s and the end of the 1990s in England and Scotland. Using time-series data derived from the Scottish School Leavers Surveys and the England (and Wales) Youth Cohort Study, changes in both absolute and relative social class differences within and across the two countries were analysed through the use of a series of ordered logits. The results show that Scotland has higher educational attainment rates but also higher social class inequalities than England. Moreover, while in England social class inequalities at upper-secondary and tertiary level have declined over time, in Scotland no evidence of such trend has been found. The conclusions highlight that possible explanations for these patterns reside in the different features of the two education systems and in the remarkable educational success of the Scottish middle class.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Restorative justice circles or conferences have shown considerable promise in the criminal justice system as a more decent and effective way of dealing with youthful law breaking than punishment. The social movement for restorative justice has a distinctive analysis of the crisis of community and the possibility of community in late modernity. This paper raises the question of whether this approach might fruitfully be applied to the holistic development of the learning potential of the young and the whole range of problems young people encounter - drug abuse, unemployment, homelessness, suicide, among others - in the transition from school to work.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

The Coalition Government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in office from 2010 until 2015 sharply increased the maximum tuition fees for UK and [European Union] EU undergraduates at English universities to £9,000. Although this is often portrayed as a radical change, it is argued that the reform was an evolution rather than a revolution. Common pessimistic predictions, such as the claim there would be a big fall in the number of full-time students, were wrong. However, the policymaking behind the increase in the fee cap was rushed, and this contributed to shortcomings such as a decline in part-time students. The article considers a series of political mistakes made by the Liberal Democrats, including making the abolition of tuition fees a key part of their election strategy in 2010 when the party's leaders lacked faith in the policy. The article also notes that critics of the Coalition's higher education reforms were largely ineffectual because they lacked a strong intellectual case or a clear alternative and fixated on fees to the exclusion of other important issues. The piece ends by asserting that the Coalition's plan to remove student number controls was a change of overlooked importance.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

In his empirical study of educational research, James Tooley claims to have uncovered ‘partisanship’ in the ‘focus content and argument of educational research’. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that Tooley’s study is simply one more manifestation of the failure of many educational researchers to take account of the extensive theoretical and methodological developments that have occurred over the last four decades in the political and social sciences. It is suggested that a debate about partisanship and educational research which took these developments seriously would not be a narrow debate in which researchers with right wing affinities try to score political points against researchers of the left. Instead, it would be a more intellectually rigorous and theoretically informed debate about the complex relationship between educational values and political beliefs on the one hand and research methodologies and practices on the other.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Drawing on research conducted at National University of Ireland, Galway, this paper explores how senior managers at an Irish university are seeking to measure and facilitate academic performance in the context of national and global competitiveness and a higher education landscape that appears firmly inflected by neoliberal ideas of rankings, benchmarking and productivity. [The author draws] upon Michel Foucault's writings on governmentality and biopolitics, in particular, and [the author utilises] findings from a range of in-depth interviews with central university managers, with a view to critically interrogating the envisioning of what is undoubtedly a new academic subjectivity in the Irish higher education sector - a subjectivity that is being progressively planned for and regulated.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Lifelong learning has been a key theme of New Labour’s education policy agenda since 1997, but is a broad and often amorphous concept. This article analyses New Labour’s ideological perspective in this context, outlines the main developments and difficulties, and evaluates the record over the seven years in office.

New Labour’s policy on lifelong learning can be divorced neither from its general education policy nor from its broader human capital approach to education, within an ideology of ‘marketised welfarism’. The article discusses these characteristics and notes both the continuities and differences between New Labour and traditional Labourism.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

During the reform of initial teacher training in the early years of this century, the old 19th-century model based on the pupil-teacher system was progressively modified and finally destroyed. The fundamental principle of the unreformed pupil-teacher system had been early and prolonged contact with schools and practical teaching activity. Despite the intensity of reform, this principle was so deeply rooted that it lingered on into the inter-war years, both in professional consciousness and in some residual forms of preliminary training based in schools. This account seeks to investigate the final years of the pupil-teacher system and of its short-lived successor, the student-teacher scheme, primarily through oral recollection rather than documentary analysis. In so doing, it will seek to explore contemporary trainees’ experiences of school-based training together with their assessments of its practical effectiveness and professional significance.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Policy debates on employability, lifelong learning and competence-based approaches suggest a convergence of VET approaches across European countries. Against the background of the creation of a European Qualifications Framework, this paper compares the VET systems of England, Germany and The Netherlands. The analysis reveals the distinct understandings and meanings of outwardly similar terms. These meanings are deeply rooted in the countries’ institutional structures and labour processes and still inform national debates and policies today. The paper identifies a major distinction between a ‘knowledge-based’ VET model in Germany and The Netherlands and a ‘skills-based’ model in England. There is a need to develop trans-national categories that take into account the social construction of terms such as ‘skills’ and ‘qualifications’.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less