Taking Local Contexts More Seriously

Abstract

Although it is a truism that schools differ, some ways in which they do so are more prominent in academic and policy debate than others. In particular there is usually much more discussion of variation in features of schools’ internal organisation and practice (e.g. aspects of leadership, management or pedagogy) than of the diverse local social and political contexts which could partly account for them. The latter include differences in pupil intake characteristics (class, ethnicity and turnover, proportion of pupils from refugee families or with special needs) and other school and area characteristics (urban/rural location, LEA policies, market position compared to surrounding schools). We are using ‘local’ broadly here to mean nonnational: the social and political features of regions, areas, neighbourhoods and school catchments could all be relevant to our argument.