Education

Despite decades of education reform, UK children from disadvantaged backgrounds continue to fall behind their more well-off peers. This ever-widening divide remains one of the most persistent challenges in British education.

Grounded in rich empirical evidence from the National Pupil Database, alongside in-depth analysis of case studies, interviews and surveys, this book reveals what successful schools are doing to close the achievement gap. It identifies the leadership strategies, data-driven practices and targeted interventions that make a measurable difference, and offers clear recommendations for policy makers and practitioners seeking lasting solutions to educational disadvantage.

An invaluable resource for academics, policy makers and school leaders, Tackling Education Inequality demonstrates how evidence-based policy and practice can work together to build a more equitable education system.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

What happens when schools can no longer bind society together?

In an era of growing segregation, this book explores how Swedish schools and municipalities work to counteract inequality and foster civil inclusion. Through detailed case studies of school closures, mergers and new openings, the authors trace how local actors try to achieve “civil repair” – to strengthen equality and rebuild cohesion through education.

Drawing on rich ethnographic research, the book reveals the tensions between policy ideals and on-the-ground realities in a marketised school system. These findings speak not only to Sweden but to broader challenges in education systems across Europe and North America.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Since the UK’s dramatic departure from the European Union, student mobility has become a frontline issue in the reshaping of higher education.

This book investigates how cross-border movement into and out of the UK has been transformed in the wake of Brexit. Drawing on extensive empirical data, the book explores changing mobility patterns, the rise of new infrastructures and the politics surrounding schemes like Turing. It critically examines how government policies and stakeholder responses are redefining international education.

This is vital resource for researchers, policymakers and practitioners navigating the evolving landscape of global student mobility.

This book examines how global humanitarian systems shape partnerships in education in emergencies. Focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis and the education response in Lebanon, it reveals how colonial legacies, structural racism and the marketization of aid enable Global North actors to dictate policies and practices, while marginalizing local voices and knowledge. Yet in moments of crisis, community-led initiatives and smaller partnerships proved to be agile and responsive.

Rather than offering celebratory accounts of “partnership,” the book draws on rigorous research to foreground the structural inequities that constrain them—while also pointing to possibilities for more just, community driven alternatives. A vital resource for scholars, practitioners and policy makers, it offers concrete pathways for reshaping humanitarian practice to support sustainable, responsive education for refugee learners.

Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, this book examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands.

Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides'. This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery.

This book traces the process of producing testimonio with the children of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), an insurgent group during Peru’s internal war (1980–2000). It examines how the group navigates post-war struggles over memory while dealing with the ‘children of terrorists’ stigma.

Drawing on a cycles of inquiry approach, the book theorizes three movements for memory work: a realist presentation of testimonial narratives, a ‘politics of memory’ engaging with the conditions of production and a ‘poetics of memory’ that troubles memory, voice and representation for qualitative inquiry in post-war contexts.

Challenging the notion of war-torn countries as pure devastation, the author invites readers to see them as sites of knowledge and creativity, with much to offer for education, peace studies and social justice research.

What role did Winston Churchill play in excluding comprehensive schooling from the 1944 Education Act? What was the failed promise of technical education in the post-war period? Why did Margaret Thatcher manipulate government training programmes before the 1987 General Election? And what was the fallout of Tony Blair’s government over lifelong learning?

In this book, Tom Bewick examines the evolution of UK skills policy from the 1881 Royal Commission on Technical Instruction to the present day, revealing how shifting political ideologies have shaped workforce development. He applies a chronological, historical-political policy analysis framework to explain the ‘four training states’ of skills policy and workforce development between the 1940s and the 2020s:

• The interventionist state (1939–1979)

• The laissez-faire state (1980–1988)

• Localism and the devolved states (1989–2010)

• The technocratic state (2010–present)

Traversing time periods to uncover political and economic driving forces, this book challenges conventional thinking and offers insights into how future skills policies can be more effective.

What role did Winston Churchill play in excluding comprehensive schooling from the 1944 Education Act? What was the failed promise of technical education in the post-war period? Why did Margaret Thatcher manipulate government training programmes before the 1987 General Election? And what was the fallout of Tony Blair’s government over lifelong learning?

In this book, Tom Bewick examines the evolution of UK skills policy from the 1881 Royal Commission on Technical Instruction to the present day, revealing how shifting political ideologies have shaped workforce development. He applies a chronological, historical-political policy analysis framework to explain the ‘four training states’ of skills policy and workforce development between the 1940s and the 2020s:

• The interventionist state (1939–1979)

• The laissez-faire state (1980–1988)

• Localism and the devolved states (1989–2010)

• The technocratic state (2010–present)

Traversing time periods to uncover political and economic driving forces, this book challenges conventional thinking and offers insights into how future skills policies can be more effective.

Evaluation has become a central tool in the development of contemporary social policy. Its widespread popularity is based on the need to provide evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programmes. This book sees evaluation as an inherently political activity, as much about forms of governance as scientific practice. Using a wide range of examples from neighbourhood renewal, health and social care and other aspects of social policy, it relates practical issues in evaluation design to their political contexts.

With contributions from leading academics and evaluation practitioners, the book considers key issues in the politics of evaluation including: governance and evaluation; participatory evaluation; partnerships and evaluation; and learning from evaluation.

The politics of evaluation is important reading for academics, social researchers, policy makers, service providers and professionals across the public services as well as professional evaluators. It will be a valuable resource for students on a range of social science and professional courses and those concerned with recent developments in social research methodology.

Evaluation has become a central tool in the development of contemporary social policy. Its widespread popularity is based on the need to provide evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programmes. This book sees evaluation as an inherently political activity, as much about forms of governance as scientific practice. Using a wide range of examples from neighbourhood renewal, health and social care and other aspects of social policy, it relates practical issues in evaluation design to their political contexts.

With contributions from leading academics and evaluation practitioners, the book considers key issues in the politics of evaluation including: governance and evaluation; participatory evaluation; partnerships and evaluation; and learning from evaluation.

The politics of evaluation is important reading for academics, social researchers, policy makers, service providers and professionals across the public services as well as professional evaluators. It will be a valuable resource for students on a range of social science and professional courses and those concerned with recent developments in social research methodology.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about the experiences of students in institutions of higher education from 'non-traditional' backgrounds. The expansion of Higher Education world-wide shows no signs of slowing down and there is already a large literature on who has access to higher education and to qualifications that offer higher life-time incomes and status. However to date there has been minimal focus on what happens to the students once they are in the institutions and the inequalities that they face. This book aims to fill this gap in the literature.

The chapters demonstrate that the students and their families are finding ways of acquiring forms of capital that encourage and sustain their participation in higher education. Contributions from the UK, the USA and Australia reveal that the issues surrounding the inclusion of 'non-traditional' students are broadly similar in different countries. It should be read by all those leading, managing, or teaching in, institutions of higher education and all students or intending students whatever their background.

This report argues for a fundamental reassessment of the significance of informal learning. Formal education and training represent only a small part of all the learning done in schools, colleges, at work, at home and in the community. Yet it is formal learning which is at the heart of the government's unshakeable determination to drive up standards by means of qualifications, national targets and league tables.

A hierarchy of different types of learning has emerged with 'learning for earning' at the top and informal learning at the bottom. This report concludes, however, that an unjustifiable reliance on certification may serve to alienate informal learners. These 'learning entrepreneurs' argue that the formal training they receive is often dispensable, whereas their own informal learning is necessary and is very much part of who they are and how they interact with the world. A love of informal learning which is not linked to certification or to work appears to be a key characteristic of lifelong learners.

The five projects from the ESRC's The Learning Society Programme represented in this report do not claim to be the first (but just the latest) to have 'discovered' the importance of informal learning. There is a long-standing tradition in the UK whereby policy makers, researchers and practitioners readily admit the significance of informal learning and then proceed to develop policy, theory and practice without further reference to it. We need to break this sequence by acknowledging that informal learning is not an inferior form of learning whose main purpose is to act as the precursor of the main business of formal learning. It is fundamental, necessary and valuable in its own right, at times directly relevant to employment and at other times not relevant at all. The potential of informal learning will, however, only be realised if government, companies and educational institutions reassess its central role in the lives of all learners. The case for informal learning has still to be won; indeed, it has scarcely begun to be heard.

The necessity of informal learning is essential reading for all politicians, policy makers, employers, trade unionists and educationalists keen to create a culture of lifelong learning within the UK.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about the experiences of students in institutions of higher education from 'non-traditional' backgrounds. The expansion of Higher Education world-wide shows no signs of slowing down and there is already a large literature on who has access to higher education and to qualifications that offer higher life-time incomes and status. However to date there has been minimal focus on what happens to the students once they are in the institutions and the inequalities that they face. This book aims to fill this gap in the literature.

The chapters demonstrate that the students and their families are finding ways of acquiring forms of capital that encourage and sustain their participation in higher education. Contributions from the UK, the USA and Australia reveal that the issues surrounding the inclusion of 'non-traditional' students are broadly similar in different countries. It should be read by all those leading, managing, or teaching in, institutions of higher education and all students or intending students whatever their background.

This first report in the ESRC Learning Society series examines the key processes of learning, as embedded in particular workplaces, in organisational structures and in specific social practices.

Why is learning suddenly so important?

How can the quality of learning at work be improved?

Instead of extolling the 'joys' of learning, the authors explore the conflicts and barriers which organisations run into (or create for themselves), even when they are trying to promote greater learning among staff. Its strong comparative dimension is illustrated in the discussion of, for example, the construction industry in Wales which is compared with its counterpart in Germany.

The importance of this edited collection is that it will help to transform fashionable phrases such as 'the learning organisation' or 'lifelong learning' into practical ideas and methods which could enhance the quality of learning in British firms.

Learning at work is important reading for managers in Industry and Commerce, for TECs/LECs, Trade Unions and Chambers of Commerce, for policy makers in the Department for Education and Employment, for politicians, voluntary organisations and academics specialising in the interactions between employment, training and education, and for all those practitioners in firms, Colleges of Further Education and training providers who are promoting lifelong learning.

The public sector is going through a period of fundamental change. Service delivery, policy making and policy processes are being carried out by new actors and organisations with new interests, methods and discourses, related to the emergence of new forms of governance.

This timely book from bestselling author Stephen Ball and Carolina Junemann uses network analysis and interviews with key actors to address these changes, with a particular focus on education and the increasingly important role of new philanthropy. Critically engaging with the burgeoning literature on new governance, they present a new method for researching governance - network ethnography- which allows identification of the increasing influence of finance capital and education businesses in policy and public service delivery.

In a highly original and very topical analysis of the practical workings of the Third Way and the Big Society, the book will be useful to practicing social and education policy analysts and theorists and ideal supplementary reading for students and researchers of social and education policy.

The public sector is going through a period of fundamental change. Service delivery, policy making and policy processes are being carried out by new actors and organisations with new interests, methods and discourses, related to the emergence of new forms of governance.

This timely book from bestselling author Stephen Ball and Carolina Junemann uses network analysis and interviews with key actors to address these changes, with a particular focus on education and the increasingly important role of new philanthropy. Critically engaging with the burgeoning literature on new governance, they present a new method for researching governance - network ethnography- which allows identification of the increasing influence of finance capital and education businesses in policy and public service delivery.

In a highly original and very topical analysis of the practical workings of the Third Way and the Big Society, the book will be useful to practicing social and education policy analysts and theorists and ideal supplementary reading for students and researchers of social and education policy.

The ongoing economic crisis raises fundamental questions about the political and social goals of the European Union, particularly the feasibility of harmonising social and education policy across member states. The forward momentum of the European project is clearly faltering, raising the possibility that the high water mark of European integration has been achieved, with implications for many aspects of education and social policy, including lifelong learning.

This timely book makes a major and original contribution to the development of knowledge and understanding of lifelong learning in an expanded Europe. Its wide range of contributors look at the contribution of lifelong learning to economic growth and social cohesion across Europe, focusing its challenge to social exclusion. It draws on comparative data from the EU Sixth Framework Project Lifelong Learning Policy and Practice in Europe (LLL2010), which ran from 2005 - 2011 and involved twelve European countries and Russia. Very little research has been conducted to date on the nature of lifelong learning in post-Soviet countries, and this book provides important insights into their evolving education and lifelong learning systems.

The book will be of interest to researchers and academics in the UK and Europe, especially those from social policy, adult and comparative education, equality studies and practice of lifelong learning.

The processes for allocating places at secondary schools in England are perennially controversial. Providing integrated coverage of the policy, practice and outcomes from 1944 to 2012, this book addresses the issues relevant to school admissions arising from three different approaches adopted in this period: planning via local authorities, quasi-market mechanisms, and random allocation. Each approach is assessed on its own terms, but constitutional and legal analysis is also utilised to reflect on the extent to which each meets expectations and values associated with schooling, especially democratic expectations associated with citizenship.

Repeated failure to identify and pursue specific values for schooling, and hence admissions, can be found to underlie questions regarding the ‘fairness’ of the process, while also limiting the potential utility of judicial responses to legal actions relating to school admissions. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach which makes it relevant and accessible to a wide readership in education, social policy and socio-legal studies.

In many countries the school curriculum oscillates between focusing on traditional subjects and focusing on skills that are linked to the needs of the 21st-century digital age.

Rosamund Sutherland argues against such a skills-based curriculum, maintaining that, from a social justice perspective, the priority of schools should be to give young people access to the knowledge that they are not likely to learn outside school. She draws on the work of Michael Young, Lev Vygotsky, Amartya Sen and David Olson to develop new theoretical and practical insights that offer ways of changing policy and practice to improve equality and life chances for young people, while acknowledging the potential transformative role of digital technologies.

This timely book will be invaluable to teachers, academics, students and policy makers interested in the ways in which the digital landscape transforms the nature of the debate about equity and social justice in education.

In many countries the school curriculum oscillates between focusing on traditional subjects and focusing on skills that are linked to the needs of the 21st-century digital age.

Rosamund Sutherland argues against such a skills-based curriculum, maintaining that, from a social justice perspective, the priority of schools should be to give young people access to the knowledge that they are not likely to learn outside school. She draws on the work of Michael Young, Lev Vygotsky, Amartya Sen and David Olson to develop new theoretical and practical insights that offer ways of changing policy and practice to improve equality and life chances for young people, while acknowledging the potential transformative role of digital technologies.

This timely book will be invaluable to teachers, academics, students and policy makers interested in the ways in which the digital landscape transforms the nature of the debate about equity and social justice in education.

The processes for allocating places at secondary schools in England are perennially controversial. Providing integrated coverage of the policy, practice and outcomes from 1944 to 2012, this book addresses the issues relevant to school admissions arising from three different approaches adopted in this period: planning via local authorities, quasi-market mechanisms, and random allocation. Each approach is assessed on its own terms, but constitutional and legal analysis is also utilised to reflect on the extent to which each meets expectations and values associated with schooling, especially democratic expectations associated with citizenship.

Repeated failure to identify and pursue specific values for schooling, and hence admissions, can be found to underlie questions regarding the ‘fairness’ of the process, while also limiting the potential utility of judicial responses to legal actions relating to school admissions. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach which makes it relevant and accessible to a wide readership in education, social policy and socio-legal studies.

At a time when education and school choices are under increasing scrutiny, this topical book considers education more broadly than ever before. The author, an experienced teacher and researcher, highlights what happens when parents discover that an alternative to school education exists and is legal. This under-researched topic highlights the lack of governmental interest in alternative education and also considers the human rights issues, conflation with safeguarding, the relationship of the state to education and parental education choice.

Focusing on the discovery of elective home education (EHE) in England as a case study for new and necessary arguments, the ideas discussed are also relevant internationally. The book considers the global fact of education as not just mainstream schooling, but how the dominance of schooling has affected our ability to conceive of education as diverse and different. This thought-provoking book will appeal to academic, teaching and policy-making audiences.

There is a growing concern about the social exclusion of a range of minority groups, including people with learning difficulties. Lifelong learning is seen as one of the central means of challenging the exclusion of this group, but also of enhancing their economic status. This book demonstrates that policy based on human capital premises has produced forms of lifelong learning which exacerbate the marginalisation of people with learning difficulties.

The Learning Society and people with learning difficulties:

reviews the range of policy fields which increasingly intervene in the lifelong learning arena;

maps the agencies involved in service delivery and describes their (sometimes conflicting) ethos;

provides in-depth accounts of the lived experiences of individuals with learning difficulties as they navigate lifelong learning options.

Its exploration of the links between community care, education, training, employment, housing and benefits policies in the context of lifelong learning is unique.

This book makes a significant contribution to debates about how people with learning difficulties may achieve social inclusion, and the part which lifelong learning may play in this. It is therefore invaluable reading for policy makers, practitioners and academics interested in these issues.

This is the first book to draw together the evidence on the 'case' for skills and to examine the policies appropriate to achieving 'skills for all'.

Learn to succeed:

argues that raising skill levels is crucial to both economic success and social inclusion;

demonstrates the benefits of higher skill levels to people, to companies and to communities;

synthesises a wide range of materials in one convenient volume, providing a reference source on the issues;

deals with the issues at both national and local levels;

sets out a clear agenda for action.

Learn to succeed is essential reading for policy makers and practitioners in national, regional and local government departments and agencies, and is also recommended for students and academics on courses at undergraduate and graduate level in applied economics, education or public policy.

This book focuses on the changing terrain of ethnic disadvantage in Britain, drawing on up-to-date sources. It goes further than texts that merely describe ethnic inequalities to explore and explain their dynamic nature. It suggests that the increasing diversity of experience among different ethnic groups is a key to understanding continuing and emerging tensions and conflicts.

Explaining ethnic differences:

provides up to date data and analysis of ethnic diversity and changing patterns of disadvantage in Britain;

·  

covers key areas of social life, including demographic trends, education, employment, housing, health, gender, and policing and community disorder;

·  

is written by leading experts in the field;

· 

addresses issues of urgent public importance in the context of recent community disorder and the resurgence of the far right.

·  

The book is essential reading for policy makers in central and local government; academics, postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates in the social sciences; social work, health, education and housing professionals; and criminal justice personnel.

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes.

Active social policies in the EU makes an important contribution to the debates in this area by:

reporting on original international comparative research;

reflecting on and critically assessing current activating policies;

evaluating the consequences of these policies, as well as challenging the premises they are based on;

including the perspectives of service users in its analyses;

offering recommendations for the future design of activating policies.

The book will be invaluable for students, lecturers and researchers of social and labour market policies and policy makers. It is essential reading for those interested in issues of inclusion, activation and the role of types of work in promoting inclusion.

Lifelong learning is a key government strategy - both in the UK and internationally - to promote economic growth and combat social exclusion. This book presents a highly innovative study of participation in lifelong learning and the problems which need to be overcome if lifelong learning policies are to be successful. It:

provides a systematic analysis, based on innovative empirical research, of the social and economic realities which actually determine patterns of participation in lifelong learning;

shows what the factors are that shape people's participation, or their decision not to participate;

offers new insights into the processes of lifelong learning, which have important implications for the development of more effective policies.

By tracking a group of qualified but socio-economically disadvantaged young people, this study identifies the factors which impact upon their HE careers. It examines factors that govern levels of success as well as those that impede the progress of academically able but disadvantaged young people.

The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to follow the progress of 395 young people from schools located in disadvantaged areas. It identifies factors that hinder their progress as well as the ways in which they overcome barriers.

While there has been much recent debate on the obstacles to widening HE participation, this is the first study to follow a group of disadvantaged students through HE.

Widening access to HE remains high on the political agenda with universities attempting to respond to the government's commitment to providing places for 50% of young people.

The report is aimed at academics and policy makers. It will be of particular interest to people within schools and universities who are attempting to implement a wider access agenda and wish to learn more about the nature of the barriers faced by disadvantaged students.

This collection of papers takes a new, critical line on lifelong learning. Over the last few decades in the English-speaking world, a powerful consensus has developed about the need for nothing less than a revolution in education and training to maintain economic competitiveness. Politicians of the left, middle and right, trade union and business leaders have repeatedly promoted this rhetoric, choosing lifelong learning as the solution to a wide range of economic, social and political problems.

This report draws on empirical research which challenges this consensus in Germany, France and Spain, as well as in the UK. It suggests that instead lifelong learning may be better viewed as contested terrain between employers, unions and the state. It argues that lifelong learning is being turned into a moral obligation and a form of social control, and that the demands on employees to become and remain everlastingly employable are escalating.

The report raises many critical and controversial issues in examining the concepts of 'The Learning Society', 'The Learning Organisation' and 'Lifelong Learning' as they are being translated into practice in the UK with similar projects in a number of European countries. It also compares British initiatives. For example, footloose employers claim to be developing 'learning organisations' to which employees are expected to be totally committed, while being treated as totally expendable. The equation does not add up.

The report is essential reading for all politicians, policy makers, employers, trade unionists and educationalists keen to develop a Learning Society within the UK.

Recent criticisms of research on education have largely missed the point. By focusing on schools, they have failed to take note of the enormous range of research on teaching and learning in education defined more broadly.

This highly topical report looks across the traditional education system and wherever else teaching and learning takes place. It looks at schools, colleges and universities on the one hand, and industrial training, nurse and student mentoring, professional development and lifelong learning/learning society on the other.

This report brings research on schools, further and higher education into the necessary relationship with the wider educational scenario that the government has sought to promote. It illuminates the current intensive debates at government, quasi-government and research community levels about the nature and status of research in 'education'. Conceived from a refreshingly wide angle, Researching education is an interesting review of the field of educational research.

Researching education calls for a wider understanding of education by policy makers and research funders, and an understanding that research on the formal education system is only one part of the greater pattern of individual and social learning. This report is therefore important reading for all education policy makers, education researchers and research students.

Important reforms are taking place in children's services in the UK, with a move towards greater integration. In England, Scotland and Sweden, early childhood education and care, childcare for older children, and schools are now the responsibility of education departments. This book is the first to examine, cross-nationally, this major shift in policy.

With case studies and practical examples to illustrate how changes have been implemented, this book is essential reading for practitioners, managers, politicians, trainers and researchers in children's services, including schools, early years, school-age childcare, leisure and recreation, child welfare and health.

The relationship between research and policy has recently become turbulent and contentious. Into this charged atmosphere, five of the projects form the ESRC's Learning Society Programme present the implications of their findings for policy, and constitute a powerful critique of current policy on lifelong learning in this collection.

For the first time, findings are presented from a major new survey, commissioned by the Programme, which examined the skills of a representative sample of British workers and found, for example, an 'alarmingly high' mismatch between the demand and supply of qualifications.

Other chapters heal with the fragmentation of provision for adult guidance, the financial and psychological casts of lifelong learning for learners with children, and the failure of the market principle in education to create a national culture of learning. The report also contains many practical recommendations.

The new Labour government is committed to introducing evidence-based policy and practice, and so the present roles of researchers, policy makers and practitioners will be subjected to intensifying pressure to change in the next few years. These issues are debated in the first two chapters and concerns are expressed about how easy it will be in future to speak truth to power.

The report is essential reading for all politicians, policy makers, employers, trade unionists and educationalists keen to create a culture of lifelong learning within the UK.

Social capital and lifelong learning are central to current policy concerns both in the UK and internationally. This book confirms the significance of social capital as an analytical tool, while challenging the basis on which current policy is being developed. It:

· offers a wealth of evidence on a topic that has become central to contemporary government;

· provides a detailed empirical investigation of the relationship between social capital, knowledge creation and lifelong learning;

· relates the findings to wider policy debates;

· questions the dominant theoretical models of social capital; and

· confronts the assumption of many policy makers that the obvious solution to social problems is to 'invest in social capital'.

Lifelong learning has been an evidence-free zone for too long. It has been under-researched and under-theorised. This volume, the first of two, is the culmination of years of empirical work undertaken for the ESRC's Learning Society Programme, a major investment in lifelong learning research. It explores the ways lifelong learning can contribute to the development of knowledge and skills for employment, and other areas of adult life.

In this first volume, the contributors address the challenges to social science researchers to study issues that are central and directly relevant to the political and policy debate, and to take into account the reality of people's lives. Each chapter gives an overview of one project, describing its objectives, methods, main findings and policy implications. Some of the main themes explored include the education market post-16, key skills in Higher Education, adult guidance services, and how knowledge can be developed at work. In the introduction, these topics are placed by the editor within the broad context of research and policy on different types of learning societies and lifelong learning.

The evidence provided shows what policies are or are not working and provides the basis for structural reform. Some of the conclusions arrived at by the projects challenge fundamental assumptions of current policy. The contributions demonstrate the value of independent, critical research in an area which is awash with unsubstantiated generalities, armchair musings and banalities without bite. Differing visions of a Learning Society contributes to the public debate on lifelong learning, and is essential reading for politicians, policy makers, practitioners, academics and researchers concerned in any way with lifelong learning.

Is lifelong learning the big idea which will deliver economic prosperity and social justice? Or will it prove to be another transient phenomenon? Picture lifelong learning, the editor suggests, as making its way through three overlapping stages - romance, evidence and implementation. Lifelong learning is tentatively entering the second stage, where research evidence is beginning to challenge the vacuous rhetoric of the stage of romance. 

The findings from the Economic and Social Research Council's programme of research into the Learning Society are presented in two volumes, of which this is the second. The editor, Frank Coffield, begins by surveying as a whole the findings of the 14 projects, and summarises them in a number of recurrent themes and policy recommendations. The chapters which follow present the aims, methods, findings and policy implications of six projects. Volume 1 contains similar chapters on the other projects. Taken together, the conclusions suggest very different ways of thinking about a Learning Society and very different policies from those in operation at present. The two volumes demonstrate from empirical evidence the continuing weaknesses of current policies and make proposals, based on hard evidence, for more effective structural changes.

This second volume presents findings from a national survey of the skills of British workers, and it discusses both the meaning of the Learning Society for adults with learning difficulties, and the use of social capital to explain patterns of lifelong learning. Other chapters present for the first time five different 'trajectories' of lifelong learning, explore the determinants of participation and non-participation in learning, and examine innovation in Higher Education. 

Finally, two differing visions of a Learning Society are contrasted. The first extrapolates existing policies and practices into the next 5-10 years and finds them seriously wanting. The second option calls for more democracy rather than technocracy and develops a kaleidoscopic array of possible futures which find their source in the empirical work of the 14 projects. These volumes are essential reading for politicians, policy makers, practitioners, employers, and all teachers with responsibility for lifelong learning.

Working within the spirit of David Blunkett's visionary foreword to The learning age: A new renaissance for Britain, David H. Hargreaves' radical analysis challenges the myth that lifelong learning can or should be separated - in any sense - from school education. It asks the critical question: what changes in thinking, policy and practice are needed for the culture and process of lifelong learning, as visualised by David Blunkett, to become a reality?

Starting with a clear, unequivocal statement that "whether people are motivated to learn beyond the end of compulsory education, and have the capacity to do so, depends very much on what happens to them during the school years", the author explores ways in which policy and practice at school level will need to change in order to meet the crucial challenge of sparking and sustaining a person's motivation and capacity to learn throughout life.

At a time when education is considered crucial to a country’s economic success, recent UK governments have insisted their reforms are the only way to make England’s system world class. Yet pupils are tested rather than educated, teachers bullied rather than trusted and parents cast as winners or losers in a gamble for school places.

Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. In a highly accessible style, Peter Mortimore, an author with wide experience of the education sector, both in the UK and abroad, identifies the current system’s strengths and weaknesses. He concludes that England has some of the best teachers in the world but one of the most muddled systems.

Challenging the government’s view that there is no alternative, he proposes radical changes to help all schools become good schools. They include a system of schools receiving a fair balance of pupils who learn easily and those who do not, ensuring a more even spread of effective teachers, as well as banning league tables, outlawing selection, opening up faith schools and integrating private schools into the state system. In the final chapter, he asks readers who share his concerns to demand that the politicians alter course. The book will appeal to parents, education students and teachers, as well as everyone interested in the future education of our children.

Cross-border education is a fast growing and diverse global market, but little is known about how international students actually live. Using international and cross-country comparative analysis, this book explores how governments influence international student welfare, and how students shape their own opportunities.

As well as formal regulation by government, ‘informal regulation’ through students’ family, friendship and co-student networks proves vital to the overseas experience. Two case study countries - Australia and New Zealand - are presented and compared in detail. These are placed in the global regulatory and market contexts, with lessons for similar exporter countries drawn.

Regulating international students’ wellbeing will be of interest to international students, student representative bodies, education policy makers and administrators, as well as civil servants and policy makers in international organisations. Students and researchers of international and comparative social policy will be drawn into its focus on a little understood but vulnerable global population.

At a time when education is considered crucial to a country’s economic success, recent UK governments have insisted their reforms are the only way to make England’s system world class. Yet pupils are tested rather than educated, teachers bullied rather than trusted and parents cast as winners or losers in a gamble for school places.

Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. In a highly accessible style, Peter Mortimore, an author with wide experience of the education sector, both in the UK and abroad, identifies the current system’s strengths and weaknesses. He concludes that England has some of the best teachers in the world but one of the most muddled systems.

Challenging the government’s view that there is no alternative, he proposes radical changes to help all schools become good schools. They include a system of schools receiving a fair balance of pupils who learn easily and those who do not, ensuring a more even spread of effective teachers, as well as banning league tables, outlawing selection, opening up faith schools and integrating private schools into the state system. In the final chapter, he asks readers who share his concerns to demand that the politicians alter course. The book will appeal to parents, education students and teachers, as well as everyone interested in the future education of our children.

Just what is the role and impact of corporate elites in contemporary reforms of public sector universities and schools?

Providing fresh perspectives on matters of governance and vibrant case studies on the particular types of provision including curriculum, teaching and professional practices, Gunter, Hall and Apple bring together contributions from Argentina, Australia, England, Indonesia, Singapore and US to reveal how corporate elites are increasingly influencing public education policy, provision and service delivery locally, nationally and across the world.

Leading scholars, including Patricia Burch, Tanya Fitzgerald, Ken Saltman, and John Smyth scrutinise the impact elites are having on opportunity, access and outcomes through political and professional networks and organisations.

While debates rage about educational inequality and the best way to tackle attainment gaps, a pervasive form of in-school segregation is going largely unremarked upon. Internal behaviour support units have become common fixtures in British schools. Young people may be removed from mainstream classrooms for weeks, months or even years to undergo rehabilitative programmes that incur little monitoring or oversight.

This original book is the first to provide a detailed insight into the politics and practices of internal school exclusion, highlighted through the experiences of the young people attending the units. Ambitious in its scope, it draws on intensive ethnographic research with pupils, their teachers and parents to address broad questions around social justice, equal opportunities and institutional racism. It will appeal to students, researchers and practitioners in education, social policy, sociology and beyond.

Universities are increasingly being asked to take an active role as research collaborators with citizens, public bodies, and community organisations, which, it is claimed, makes them more accountable, creates better research outcomes, and enhances the knowledge base. Yet many of these research collaborators, as well as their funders and institutions, have not yet developed the methods to ‘account for’ collaborative research, or to help collaborators in challenging their assumptions about the quality of this work.

This book, part of the Connected Communities series, highlights the benefits of universities collaborating with outside bodies on research and addresses the key challenge of articulating the value of collaborative research in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Edited by two well respected academics, it includes voices and perspectives from researchers and practitioners in a wide range of disciplines.

Together, they explore tensions in the evaluation and assessment of research in general, and the debates generated by collaborative research between universities and communities to enable greater understanding of collaborative research, and to provide a much-needed account of key theorists in the field of interdisciplinary collaborative research.

In the greatest social change of the last twenty years about half of Europe’s young people now attend university. Their lived experiences are however largely undocumented.

Antonucci travelled across six cities and three European countries – England, Italy and Sweden – to provide the first ever comparison of the lives of university students across countries and socio-economic backgrounds. Contrasting students’ resources and backgrounds, this original work exposes the profound social effects of austerity and the financial crisis on young people.

Questionnaires and first person interviews reveal that, in contrast with what assumed by HE policies, participating in university exacerbates inequalities among young people. This work is a wake-up call for re-thinking the role of higher education in relation to social justice in European societies.

While debates rage about educational inequality and the best way to tackle attainment gaps, a pervasive form of in-school segregation is going largely unremarked upon. Internal behaviour support units have become common fixtures in British schools. Young people may be removed from mainstream classrooms for weeks, months or even years to undergo rehabilitative programmes that incur little monitoring or oversight.

This original book is the first to provide a detailed insight into the politics and practices of internal school exclusion, highlighted through the experiences of the young people attending the units. Ambitious in its scope, it draws on intensive ethnographic research with pupils, their teachers and parents to address broad questions around social justice, equal opportunities and institutional racism. It will appeal to students, researchers and practitioners in education, social policy, sociology and beyond.

The empirical focus of this book is on the twenty year struggle by parents and members of the Black community in Toronto to introduce an Africentric Alternative School (AAS) with Black-focused curricula.

It brings together a seemingly disparate series of events that emerged from equity and multicultural narratives about the establishment of the school – violence, anti-racism and race-based statistics, policy entrepreneurs, and the re-birth of alternative schools in Toronto - to illustrate how these events ostensibly functioned through neoliberal choice mechanisms and practices.

Gulson and Webb show how school choice can represent and manifest the hopes and fears, contestations and settlements of contemporary racial biopolitics of education in multicultural cities.

In the greatest social change of the last twenty years about half of Europe’s young people now attend university. Their lived experiences are however largely undocumented.

Antonucci travelled across six cities and three European countries – England, Italy and Sweden – to provide the first ever comparison of the lives of university students across countries and socio-economic backgrounds. Contrasting students’ resources and backgrounds, this original work exposes the profound social effects of austerity and the financial crisis on young people.

Questionnaires and first person interviews reveal that, in contrast with what assumed by HE policies, participating in university exacerbates inequalities among young people. This work is a wake-up call for re-thinking the role of higher education in relation to social justice in European societies.

Universities are increasingly being asked to take an active role as research collaborators with citizens, public bodies, and community organisations, which, it is claimed, makes them more accountable, creates better research outcomes, and enhances the knowledge base. Yet many of these research collaborators, as well as their funders and institutions, have not yet developed the methods to ‘account for’ collaborative research, or to help collaborators in challenging their assumptions about the quality of this work.

This book, part of the Connected Communities series, highlights the benefits of universities collaborating with outside bodies on research and addresses the key challenge of articulating the value of collaborative research in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Edited by two well respected academics, it includes voices and perspectives from researchers and practitioners in a wide range of disciplines.

Together, they explore tensions in the evaluation and assessment of research in general, and the debates generated by collaborative research between universities and communities to enable greater understanding of collaborative research, and to provide a much-needed account of key theorists in the field of interdisciplinary collaborative research.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. How do education systems shape educational inequalities and differences in educational outcomes? And how do advantages and disadvantages in educational attainment translate into privileges and shortcomings in labour market and general life chances? Education systems and inequalities compares different education systems and their impact on creating and sustaining social inequalities.

The book considers key questions such as how education systems impact educational inequalities along such variables as social origin, gender, ethnicity, migration background or ability and what social mechanisms are behind the links between education system and educational inequalities and provides vital evidence to inform debates in policy and reform.

What impact have the unprecedented and rapid changes to the structure of education in England had on school governors and policy makers? And what effect has the intensifying media and regulatory focus had on the volunteers who take on the job?

Jacqueline Baxter takes the 2014 ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal, in which it was alleged that governors at 25 Birmingham schools were involved in the “Islamisation” of secular state schools, as a focus point to examine the pressures and challenges in the current system. Informed by her twenty years’ experience as a school governor, she considers both media analysis and policy as well as the implications for the future of a democratic system of education in England.

Education has betrayed its promises to deliver upward social mobility and a brighter future.

Young people study harder but learn less, running up a down-escalator of devalued qualifications to become overqualified but underemployed, unable to move forward with their lives.

From primary to post-graduate schools – funny phonics through endless testing to phoney apprenticeships and the world’s most costly university fees – Patrick Ainley explains how English education is now driven by the economy and politics, ‘dumbing down’ rather than ‘wising up’.

Addressed to teachers and students at all levels of learning, it concludes by suggesting how schools, colleges and universities can begin to contribute towards a more meaningful and productive society.

Thousands of children from minority and disadvantaged groups will never cross the threshold of a classroom. What can human rights contribute to the struggle to ensure that every learner is able to access high quality education?

This brilliant interdisciplinary collection explores how a human rights perspective offers new insights and tools into the current obstacles to education. It examines the role of private actors, the need to hold states to account for the quality of education, how to strike a balance between religion, culture and education, the innovative responses needed to guarantee girls’ right to education and the role of courts.

This unique book draws together contributors who have been deeply involved in this field from both developing and developed countries which enriches the understanding and remedial approaches to tackle current obstacles to universal education.

Education policy in England is constantly evolving and becoming increasingly incoherent and it is therefore becoming harder to keep up with, and make sense of, all the changes. This bestselling book looks at the role of the UK as a social laboratory for global education policy. Covering key concepts, it then examines new areas, including:

• Global education policy mobility

• Edu-business and philanthropy as policy actors

• Marketisation of education

• Increase in performance gap

• Poverty and austerity

• Impact of COVID-19 on schools and in education policy

• New forms of governance

This extensively updated fourth edition by the key author in the field will maintain its place as the most important text on education policy and makes essential reading for all students and anyone interested in education policy more generally.

Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals.

Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative examples that show how neoliberalism in education can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational levels in order to foster a more democratic culture.

At a time when public education and reform agendas are changing the way we approach education, this book critically examines the key issues facing the public with implications for education policy makers, professionals and researchers.

Drawing on empirical evidence gathered over 20 years, Helen Gunter confronts current issues about social justice and segregation. She uses Arendtian ideas to help the reader to ‘think politically’ about education and how and why public services education can be reimagined for the future.

In 2014 an investigation into an alleged plot to ‘Islamify’ several state schools in Birmingham began. Known as the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, this caused a previously highly successful school to be vilified.

Holmwood, an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers, and O’Toole, who researches the government’s counter-extremism agenda, challenge the accepted narrative and draw on the potential parallel with the Hillsborough disaster to suggest a similar false narrative has taken hold of public debate.

This important book highlights the major injustice inflicted on the teachers and shows how this affair was used to criticise multiculturalism, and justify the expansion of a broad and intrusive counter extremism agenda.

What has been done to achieve fairer and more efficient education systems, and what more can be done in the future?

Stephen Gorard provides a comprehensive examination of crucial policy areas for education, such as differential outcomes, the poverty gradient, and the allocation of resources to education, to identify likely causes of educational disadvantage among students and lifelong learners. This analysis is supported by 20 years of extensive research, based in the home countries of the UK and on work in all EU28 countries, USA, Pakistan and Japan.

This approachable, rich text brings invaluable insights into the underlying problems within education policy, and proposes practical solutions for a brighter future.

Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals.

Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative examples that show how neoliberalism in education can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational levels in order to foster a more democratic culture.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of lifelong learning (LLL) policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy.

Examining specific yet diverse regional and local contexts across Europe, this book uses original research to evaluate differences in scope, approach, orientation, and objectives. It examines the embedding of LLL policies into the regional economy, the labour market, education and training systems and the individual life projects of young people, with a focus on those in situations of near social exclusion.

What is the role of a university in society? In this innovative book, Chris Brink offers the timely reminder that it should have social purpose, as well as achieve academic excellence.

The current obsession with rankings and league tables has perpetuated inequality and is preventing social mobility.

This book shows how universities can – and should - respond to societal challenges and promote positive social change.

The university system is no longer fit for purpose. UK higher education was designed for much smaller numbers of students and a very different labour market. Students display worrying levels of mental health issues, exacerbated by unprecedented levels of debt, and the dubious privilege of competing for poorly-paid graduate internships. Meanwhile who goes to university is still too often determined by place of birth, gender, class or ethnicity.

Who are universities for? argues for a large-scale shake up of how we organise higher education, how we combine it with work, and how it fits into our lives. It includes radical proposals for reform of the curriculum and how we admit students to higher education, with part-time study (currently in crisis in England) becoming the norm.

A short, polemical but also deeply practical book, Who are universities for? offers concrete solutions to the problems facing UK higher education and a way forward for universities to become more inclusive and more responsive to local and global challenges.

What has been done to achieve fairer and more efficient education systems, and what more can be done in the future?

Stephen Gorard provides a comprehensive examination of crucial policy areas for education, such as differential outcomes, the poverty gradient, and the allocation of resources to education, to identify likely causes of educational disadvantage among students and lifelong learners. This analysis is supported by 20 years of extensive research, based in the home countries of the UK and on work in all EU28 countries, USA, Pakistan and Japan.

This approachable, rich text brings invaluable insights into the underlying problems within education policy, and proposes practical solutions for a brighter future.

Measuring research impact and engagement is a much debated topic in the UK and internationally. This book is the first to provide a critical review of the research impact agenda, situating it within international efforts to improve research utilisation. Using empirical data, it discusses research impact tools and processes for key groups such as academics, research funders, ‘knowledge brokers’ and research users, and considers the challenges and consequences of incentivising and rewarding particular articulations of research impact.

It draws on wide ranging qualitative data, combined with theories about the science-policy interplay and audit regimes to suggest ways to improve research impact.

With almost daily reports of failings in school management, what can be done to improve educational outcomes for everyone?

Pat Thomson takes on England’s muddled education system, highlighting failings caused by the actions of ministers in successive governments. While corrupt actions are taken by some, it is predominantly the corruption of the system that is at fault. She exposes fraudulent and unethical practices, including the skewing of the curriculum and manipulation of results, and argues for an urgent review, leading to a revitalised education system that has the public good at its heart.

Measuring research impact and engagement is a much debated topic in the UK and internationally. This book is the first to provide a critical review of the research impact agenda, situating it within international efforts to improve research utilisation. Using empirical data, it discusses research impact tools and processes for key groups such as academics, research funders, ‘knowledge brokers’ and research users, and considers the challenges and consequences of incentivising and rewarding particular articulations of research impact.

It draws on wide ranging qualitative data, combined with theories about the science-policy interplay and audit regimes to suggest ways to improve research impact.

Nuanced interconnections of poverty and educational attainment around the UK are surveyed in this unique analysis.

Across the four jurisdictions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, experts consider the impact of curriculum reforms and devolved policy making on the lives of children and young people in poverty. They investigate differences in educational ideologies and structures, and question whether they help or hinder schools seeking to support disadvantaged and marginalised groups.

For academics and students engaged in education and social justice, this is a vital exploration of poverty’s profound effects on inequalities in educational attainment and the opportunities to improve school responses.

Nuanced interconnections of poverty and educational attainment around the UK are surveyed in this unique analysis.

Across the four jurisdictions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, experts consider the impact of curriculum reforms and devolved policy making on the lives of children and young people in poverty. They investigate differences in educational ideologies and structures, and question whether they help or hinder schools seeking to support disadvantaged and marginalised groups.

For academics and students engaged in education and social justice, this is a vital exploration of poverty’s profound effects on inequalities in educational attainment and the opportunities to improve school responses.

The rise of Far Right populism poses major challenges for communities, exacerbating divisions, hate speech and hate crime. This book shows how communities and social justice movements can effectively tackle these issues, working together to mitigate their underlying causes and more immediate manifestations.

Showing that community-based learning is integral to the development of strategies to promote more hopeful rather than more hateful futures, Mayo demonstrates how, through popular education and participatory action research, communities can develop their own understandings of their problems. Using case studies that illustrate education approaches in practice, she shows how communities can engineer democratic forms of social change.

Co-authored by an international team of experts across disciplines, this important book is one of the first to demonstrate the enormous benefit creative methods offer for education research.

You do not have to be an artist to be creative, and the book encourages students, researchers and practitioners to discover and consider new ways to explore the field of education. It illustrates how using creative methods, such as poetic inquiry, comics, theatre and animation, can support learning and illuminate participation and engagement. Bridging academia and practice, the book offers:

• practical advice and tips on how to use creative methods in education research;

• numerous case studies from around the world providing real-life examples of creative research methods in education practice;

• reflective discussion questions to support learning.

Demands for excellence and efficiency have created an ableist culture in academia. What impact do these expectations have on disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent colleagues?

This important and eye-opening collection explores ableism in academia from the viewpoint of academics' personal and professional experiences and scholarship. Through the theoretical lenses of autobiography, autoethnography, embodiment, body work and emotional labour, contributors from the UK, Canada and the US present insightful, critical, analytical and rigorous explorations of being ‘othered’ in academia.

Deeply embedded in personal experiences, this perceptive book provides examples for universities to develop inclusive practices, accessible working and learning conditions and a less ableist environment.

The rise of Far Right populism poses major challenges for communities, exacerbating divisions, hate speech and hate crime. This book shows how communities and social justice movements can effectively tackle these issues, working together to mitigate their underlying causes and more immediate manifestations.

Showing that community-based learning is integral to the development of strategies to promote more hopeful rather than more hateful futures, Mayo demonstrates how, through popular education and participatory action research, communities can develop their own understandings of their problems. Using case studies that illustrate education approaches in practice, she shows how communities can engineer democratic forms of social change.

Viv Ellis, Lauren Gatti and Warwick Mansell present a unique and international analysis of teacher education policy.

Adopting a political economy perspective, this distinctive text provides a comparative analysis of three contrasting welfare state models – the US, England and Norway – following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Arguing that a new political economy of teacher education began to emerge in the decade following the GFC, the authors explore key concepts in education privatisation and examine the increasingly important role of shadow state enterprises in some jurisdictions.

This topical text demonstrates the potential of a political economy approach when analysing education policies regarding pre-service teacher education and continuing professional development.

Co-authored by an international team of experts across disciplines, this important book is one of the first to demonstrate the enormous benefit creative methods offer for education research.

You do not have to be an artist to be creative, and the book encourages students, researchers and practitioners to discover and consider new ways to explore the field of education. It illustrates how using creative methods, such as poetic inquiry, comics, theatre and animation, can support learning and illuminate participation and engagement. Bridging academia and practice, the book offers:

• practical advice and tips on how to use creative methods in education research;

• numerous case studies from around the world providing real-life examples of creative research methods in education practice;

• reflective discussion questions to support learning.

How and why are arts and cultural practices meaningful to communities?

Highlighting examples from Lebanon, Latin America, China, Ireland, India, Sri Lanka and beyond, this exciting book explores the relationship between the arts, culture and community development.

Academics and practitioners from six continents discuss how diverse communities understand, re-imagine or seek to change personal, cultural, social, economic or political conditions while using the arts as their means and spaces of engagement.

Investigating the theory and practice of ‘cultural democracy’, this book explores a range of aesthetic forms including song, music, muralism, theatre, dance, and circus arts.

Education policies should drive success and equity but in many countries they are failing to do so. Situating the cases of England and Australia within broader global policy trends, this book critically analyses what has gone wrong.

The authors draw on extensive research in education to review the impact of multiple policies on students, teachers and schools, with a focus on communities where children and young people need education most. They issue a fundamental challenge to the policy orthodoxies of recent decades and set out a blueprint for making education both better and fairer.

The COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, but this hiatus provided an opportunity to rethink the fundamental principles of our education system.

In this thought-provoking book, Alice Bradbury discusses how, before the pandemic, the education system assumed ability to be measurable and innate, and how this meritocracy myth reinforced educational inequalities – a central issue during the crisis.

Drawing on a project dealing with ability-grouping practices, Bradbury analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience have revised these ideas about how we classify and label children, and how we can rethink the idea of innate intelligence as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.

The COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, but this hiatus provided an opportunity to rethink the fundamental principles of our education system.

In this thought-provoking book, Alice Bradbury discusses how, before the pandemic, the education system assumed ability to be measurable and innate, and how this meritocracy myth reinforced educational inequalities – a central issue during the crisis.

Drawing on a project dealing with ability-grouping practices, Bradbury analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience have revised these ideas about how we classify and label children, and how we can rethink the idea of innate intelligence as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.

How and why are arts and cultural practices meaningful to communities?

Highlighting examples from Lebanon, Latin America, China, Ireland, India, Sri Lanka and beyond, this exciting book explores the relationship between the arts, culture and community development.

Academics and practitioners from six continents discuss how diverse communities understand, re-imagine or seek to change personal, cultural, social, economic or political conditions while using the arts as their means and spaces of engagement.

Investigating the theory and practice of ‘cultural democracy’, this book explores a range of aesthetic forms including song, music, muralism, theatre, dance, and circus arts.

How can higher education contribute to tackling today’s complex challenges?

In this wide-ranging book, Anke Schwittay argues that, in order to inspire and equip students to generate better responses to global challenges, we need a pedagogy that develops their imagination, creativity, emotional sensibilities and practical capabilities.

Schwittay proposes a critical-creative pedagogy that incorporates design-based activities, experiential teaching, serious play and future-oriented practices. Crucially, she demonstrates the importance of moving beyond analysing limitations to working towards alternatives for more equitable, just and sustainable futures.

Presenting concrete ideas for the reimagination of higher education, this book is an essential read for both educators and students in any field studying global challenges.

How can higher education contribute to tackling today’s complex challenges?

In this wide-ranging book, Anke Schwittay argues that, in order to inspire and equip students to generate better responses to global challenges, we need a pedagogy that develops their imagination, creativity, emotional sensibilities and practical capabilities.

Schwittay proposes a critical-creative pedagogy that incorporates design-based activities, experiential teaching, serious play and future-oriented practices. Crucially, she demonstrates the importance of moving beyond analysing limitations to working towards alternatives for more equitable, just and sustainable futures.

Presenting concrete ideas for the reimagination of higher education, this book is an essential read for both educators and students in any field studying global challenges.

In the global emergencies our world faces, the strengths approach is needed now more than ever. Commonly misunderstood, its true power as a whole systems approach to release the potential of individuals, communities and their environments has been neglected. For those brave enough to embrace it, this book offers theoretical and practical encouragement.

The authors use a case study of their work with a unique non-governmental organisation in the United Kingdom that combines student placements with support for refugees. They illustrate what it really means to adopt a strengths approach in practice. Chapters include the strengths approach to funding, organisational development, management and governance as well as immigration law, student learning and research.

This book will give readers grounds for optimism as well as transferable practices for challenging social injustice.

How can we support children’s and young people’s mental wellbeing in a digital age?

Through a series of informative and thought-provoking case studies, this book explores how to enable children and young people to stay safe, happy and mentally healthy at a time when so much of their lives are spent online. Featuring contributions from across research and practice, with the voice of the child at its heart, the book offers simple, practical guidance for improving wellbeing based on real-world evidence. It will be essential reading for parents, carers and professionals working with children across a range of school and community settings.

Are you a college or university graduate?

Do you support students looking ahead to life after graduation?

Are you curious about how your alumni network can benefit your life?

Does the alumni strategy in your organization need inspiration?

This enlightening, original book reimagines graduates’ alumni status as a gateway to immense opportunities through professional and personal networks. To discover this alumni potential, Maria L. Gallo guides you through the four key traits of the 'Alumni Way’: reflection, curiosity, passion and generosity.

With a sound academic foundation, combined with practical activities and checklists, 'The Alumni Way' is the ultimate resource for inspiring savvy, active alumni citizens of the world.

The Alumni Way Workbook is also available.

Visit www.thealumniway.com.

Although higher education in the UK has expanded opportunities for much of the population, in many ways it remains stubbornly elitist.

In order to address this crisis in education, Peter Scott, a leading expert and unique voice, examines the development of mass higher education and proposes a ‘radical escape-forward’. He calls for more robust action to secure fair access at all levels and changes in the governance and management at both system and institutional levels to ensure more democratic accountability.

Setting out a clear and radical programme for reform, this book makes an important contribution to current debates in education in the context of the evolution of the UK economy and wider society.

Although higher education in the UK has expanded opportunities for much of the population, in many ways it remains stubbornly elitist.

In order to address this crisis in education, Peter Scott, a leading expert and unique voice, examines the development of mass higher education and proposes a ‘radical escape-forward’. He calls for more robust action to secure fair access at all levels and changes in the governance and management at both system and institutional levels to ensure more democratic accountability.

Setting out a clear and radical programme for reform, this book makes an important contribution to current debates in education in the context of the evolution of the UK economy and wider society.

Over recent decades, national Higher Education sectors across the world have experienced a gradual process of marketisation.

This book offers a new interpretation on why and how marketisation has taken place within England. It explores distinct assumptions on the nature of graduate work and how the graduate labour market drives the argumentation for more market and choice. Demonstrating the flaws in these assumptions – which are based on an idealised relationship between Higher Education and high-skilled work – this book fills an important need by questioning the current rationale for further marketisation.

Increasingly, it is not just the state that determines the content, delivery, and governance of education. The influence of external actors has been growing, but the boundaries between internal and external have become blurred and their partnerships have become more complex.

This book considers how schooling systems are being influenced by the rise of external actors, including private companies, non-governmental organisations, parent organisations, philanthropies, and international assessment frameworks. It explores how the public, private, and third sectors are becoming increasingly intertwined. Introducing new theoretical frameworks, it examines diverse sites – including Cambodia, Israel, Poland, Chile, Australia, Brazil, and the United States – to study the role of policies, institutions, and contextual factors shaping the changing relationships between those seeking to influence schooling.

Education in India concentrates on exam performance and consequently the teacher in India often acts as a disseminator of textbook material, as well as maintaining class discipline and respect. This book explores low-income female teachers' speech and syntax as a crucial resource in which agency, freedom and empowerment is enacted within a strong oral tradition in India.

The book demonstrates how this socially and economically marginalised group overcome prejudices to develop relational agency and embed their authority. It shows how they establish their values and why their beliefs shape attitudes to aspiration, achievement and freedom of choice. It concludes with recommendations for policy and improvements to reflective practice in teaching.