Agenda In England Research Articles

A reflection on the teacher education curriculum and the decolonizing agenda in England

ABSTRACT This paper is a reflective piece on the thought processes individuals and teams have when engaging in decoloniality work in Teacher Training/Education. We argue that until the self is decolonized, the process of decolonialization becomes rhetoric. We also question how much we can decolonize whilst working in the academy whose very culture, symbols and practices are borne out of colonialism and the period of enlightenment; whose very raison d’être is to elevate some knowledge over others and to claim cultural and academic superiority. The current political landscape in England approaches anti-racism as a political ideology that must be avoided in schools and education and this ideological battlefield is evident in teacher education. We aim to recognize the tensions and resistance to decolonialize, which demonstrates the messy and contingent process of moving between shifting positions and subjectivities. It confronts the challenge of the teacher–practitioner who must balance their own moral and philosophical grounding whilst attending the political imperatives of the work. This can take the form of according with the policies and procedures of the institutions in which they are situated which can often be balkanizing and debilitating.

‘I feel like the Wicked Witch’: Identifying tensions between school readiness policy and teacher beliefs, knowledge and practice in Early Childhood Education

AbstractThis paper critically examines the tensions arising between Reception teachers' professional beliefs and knowledge, and the school readiness agenda in England. It scrutinises how the increasing academic expectations placed on children to ensure they are ‘ready for school’ may conflict with teachers' understanding of how young children learn, their pedagogical philosophies and classroom practices. In this paper, cultural‐historical activity theory (CHAT) is utilised as a methodological and analytical framework, specifically harnessing Engeström and Sannino's work on ‘manifestations of contradictions’. This theoretical lens is applied to elucidate the specific contradictions that surface at the policy–practice interface and to explore how teachers navigate these conflicts and tensions. Data were gathered through interviews with two Reception teachers and analysed to identify four distinct contradiction categories: dilemmas, double binds, critical conflicts and conflicts. The findings make a critical contribution to ongoing debates about the implications of the school readiness agenda on teacher beliefs, professional knowledge and the impact on children. Furthermore, this paper extends an original contribution to the practical application of CHAT in Early Childhood Education (ECE) research and emphasises the utility of identifying linguistic cues as an effective strategy to reveal contradictions in textual data, thereby furthering understanding of policy–practice tensions in ECE.

Policy ‘R&D’, capacity and advocacy in English Combined Authorities

City regions and Mayoral Combined Authorities are at the heart of the devolution policy agenda in England. This article assesses and compares the policy and research capabilities of Combined Authorities in England, drawing on elite interviews with officials in four diverse Combined Authorities and their wider sub-regional policy and research communities. There are significant inequalities between the policy and research capabilities of the Combined Authorities reflecting institutional histories, as well as differences in size and functional responsibilities. Those with already greater capabilities and infrastructure appear likely to continue to benefit from greater opportunities in the future, widening existing inequalities.

Freedom From Symbolic Violence? Facilitators and Barriers to Participatory Practices in Youth Justice

The Child First Participation agenda in England marks a paradigm shift in youth justice. This solidifies a commitment to democratising decision-making processes with children. Drawing on interviews with children and professionals, this article explores the enablers and constraints to Child First participation in youth justice services, including how risk-oriented practices, managerialism and neo-liberal mechanisms constrain positive relationships with children. In this article, Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ is used to explore systemic problems when engaging children in co-producing youth justice interventions. The article suggests how participatory practices can provide freedom from symbolic violence for both children and practitioners.

VULNERABLE LEADERS AND TEACHERS IN ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP OF WELLBEING, RETENTION AND EQUITY

This paper explores the wellbeing of school leaders and teachers in England who assessed a specific health risk during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It explores how this cohort, guided to physically shield, was affected in attitudes towards work and the extent to which leadership behaviours supported a positive and perhaps ‘thriving’ physical return in a post-Covid-19 environment for effective schools and staff retention.Educational systems worldwide have become a high-stakes accountability landscape, with leaders questioning how they can lead with integrity. Staff wellbeing has moved up the agenda in England, forming part of England’s inspection framework, with one criterion being that staff consistently report high levels of support for wellbeing issues (Ofsted, 2019).Insufficient numbers of teachers, with an early exit of novices, is a particularly negative structural feature of the English school system (OECD 2017). A large scale quantitative study indicates that teacher retention is crucial to meet rising pupil numbers (Worth and van den Brande 2020). In the same study, unmanageable workloads and low job satisfaction are cited as significant factors determining teachers’ retention decisions and where teacher autonomy is strongly related to the extent to which teachers regard their workload as manageable (ibid).The study is as concerned with leadership capability as the wellbeing and retention of staff and decision-making driving processes. It is in the development of leaders faced with extraordinary stresses that researchers can understand where gaps lie in leadership development and organisational structure and culture and how these gaps might be strategically addressed. The empirical research on which the paper is based explores some facets for leading effectively in extraordinary circumstances. The paper presents findings on how external structural government directives have challenged schools in carrying out their instructions, amplifying inequality.

Recent History Education Agenda in England: In the Scope of “Teaching History” Journal

İngiltere’de 1969 yılından bu yana yayımlanmakta olan Tarih Öğretmek dergisi İngiliz Tarih Derneği’nin düzenli yayınlarından biridir. Ortaöğretim düzeyindeki tarih öğretmenleri için basılan dergi ulusal ve uluslararası anlamda önemli bir okuyucu kitlesine sahiptir. Tarih Öğretmek dergisi ülkede ortaöğretim tarih öğretimi alanında teorik ve pratik anlamda yaşanan değişim, dönüşüm ve yeniliklerin yanı sıra aksaklıkları ve bunların çözümüne yönelik önerileri yansıtan zengin bir yayın içeriğini barındırmaktadır. Bu araştırma Tarih Öğretmek dergisinin 2000 yılından bugüne kadar ki sayılarının incelenmesini amaçlamaktadır. Böylelikle tarih eğitimi alanında saygın ve önemli bir dergi örneğinde, akademik araştırmalardaki eğilimlerin ortaya konulması, belirtilen süreçte ülkede tarih eğitimi alanında gündem olan konulara ve alanın gelişimine ışık tutulması hedeflenmektedir. Nitel araştırma yaklaşımına dayanan çalışmanın deseni durum çalışmasıdır. Belgesel tarama yöntemiyle veri toplanan araştırmada elde edilen veriler içerik analizi yöntemine dayalı olarak analiz edilmiştir. Yapılan analiz doğrultusunda; derginin 2000 yılından bu yana yayımlanan sayılarında en çok ele alınan ana temanın tarihsel düşünme ve anlayış gelişimi olduğu görülmüştür. Derginin tarih öğretimi ile ilgili çeşitli sorunların çözümüne odaklanan ve başarılı uygulamaların tanıtılarak iyi fikirlerin paylaşıldığı bölümlerinde ise tarihsel konu ya da dönemlerin çok yönlü öğretimi, tarihsel sorgulama ve tarihsel anlayış geliştirme konularına sıkça değinildiği görülmüştür. Derginin yeni tarih öğretmenlerinin gelişimini amaçlayan ve bu konuda karşılaşılan sorunların ve çözüm önerilerinin işlendiği bölümlerinde ise alan eğitimi, kişisel/mesleki tutum ve gelişim, öğrenci gereksinimlerine uygun öğretim yapma konularında yaşanan sorunların sıklıkla ele alındığı görülmüştür. Bu bağlamda öğretmenlerin güncel ve etkili tarih öğretim yöntemlerini kullanma konusunda karşılaştıkları sorunlara da sıkça değinildiği görülmüştür.

Accelerating sustainability transitions: the case of the hydrogen agenda in the North West region of England

Low-carbon hydrogen can assist in addressing the global crisis of climate change by significantly decarbonizing a range of heavy-emitting sectors. In the United Kingdom, hydrogen technologies are at the forefront of the net zero-emission roadmaps of many industrial clusters. However, with impending timeframes linked to emission targets and other decarbonization objectives, it is increasingly important to understand how to accelerate such transitions to hydrogen. There is, to date, a notable gap in the academic literature concerning the acceleration of sustainability transitions. Using the case of the hydrogen agenda in England’s North West region, we explore how the transition to hydrogen can be accelerated and thus begin to contribute toward filling this omission. In doing so, we use data collected through semi-structured interviews and from the public domain to unpack and develop upon an existing framework that emerged from the European Commission funded-project Accelerating and Rescaling Transitions to Sustainability (ARTS). The framework comprises five acceleration mechanisms which local sustainability transition initiatives have adopted. This analysis generates novel findings in relation to why actors in the region have faced difficulties in instrumentalizing as well as the mechanism’s overall importance in acceleration. We use these challenges to inform several recommendations which policy makers could adopt to accelerate the North West’s, and wider UK’s, transition to hydrogen.

‘What works’ and for whom? Bold Beginnings and the construction of the school ready child

School readiness is a dominant discourse in current policy agendas in UK and international contexts, fulfilling a range of goals such as providing children with the ‘best start in life’ by breaking the cycle of poverty, and preparing children for formal learning in compulsory education. Focussing on the school readiness agenda in England, this paper interrogates how the local touchdown of international policy formulations influences policy at country-level. It is argued that the emphasis on teaching Mathematics, Reading and Writing as a way of readying children for school raises concerns over the formalisation of pedagogy and curriculum in the Reception year (aged 4–5), in preparation for the transition to Year One of the National Curriculum. Using Hyatt’s Critical Discourse Policy Analysis Frame (CPDAF) this paper examines how the Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED) report ‘Bold Beginnings’ further strengthens the policy discourse that establishes Reception as a site for school readiness through a discursively constructed narrative of ‘what works’. Based on the analysis, the paper then questions whether the ‘what works’ OfSTED agenda works for teachers and children.

Putting Home Adaptations on the Policy Agenda in England

Countries with aging populations require people to remain independent for as long as possible to reduce pressures on health and care services. England has an old housing stock, low replacement rates and little specialized housing for older people. There is grant assistance to adapt homes, but resources are restricted and service pathways complex. This article charts the findings of change management projects and national reviews that show that reform is hampered by a lack of robust data about the financial benefits of adaptations. Better evidence is needed to give housing issues greater prominence in health and care planning.

Too many cooks or cannot follow the recipe? A critical consideration of conceptualising the professional leadership of social work in England as a collective endeavour

In 2018, the official requirement for social workers in England to demonstrate ‘professional leadership’ was refreshed and extended to now include needing to be part of the ‘collective leadership’ of the profession. This development raises several issues, not the least of which is whether there is a clearly identifiable ‘collective leadership’ in English social work to be a part of. The article discusses how professional leadership has come to be placed on the social work agenda in England. It then examines various definitional and practical issues associated with putting collective models of leadership into practice, noting that collective leadership is made more challenging in hierarchical organisations and where there is the lack of a shared vision. A survey of sources of social work leadership in England reveals a picture that is crowded and fragmented, and where leadership is as likely to come from private accountancy firms as it is from social work professionals. The discussion concludes with suggestions for making progress if the idea of collective leadership is to be a realistic aim. This includes building leadership capacity at all levels of the profession, starting at the qualification stage.

‘Measuring a plant doesn’t help it to grow’: teacher’s perspectives on the standards agenda in England

ABSTRACT This paper reflects on the findings of two studies focused on teachers’ perspectives on the standards agenda. The original study was carried out in 2010–2011 and published in 2015 in Education 3–13 [Brown, Z., and K. Manktelow. 2015. “‘Perspectives on the Standards Agenda: Exploring the Agenda’s Impact on Primary Teachers’ Professional Identities.” Education 3-13 44 (1): 1–13]. The study was replicated in 2019 using the same methods to see if perspectives had changed almost a decade later. Q-methodology was used with UK primary school teachers to find commonalities of perspectives across the sample that may not have been apparent had more traditional data collection methods been used. The findings show that there remains a variation in perspectives on whether the standards outcomes provide constraint or flexibility. Teachers continue to hold negative positions and are frustrated by the importance placed on Statutory Assessment Tests (SATs). There was more resistance in the 2019 study to how the standards agenda has been translated into policy and the impact the tests have on children, especially those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. The paper concludes by critiquing the enduring use of SATs and suggests that the standards outcomes need to be rebalanced by focusing first and foremost on the wellbeing of all children.

Smoke Free? Public Health Policy, Coercive Paternalism, and the Ethics of Long‐Game Regulation

AbstractContemporary public health advocacy promotes a ‘fifth wave of public health’: a ‘cultural’ shift wherein the public's health becomes recognized as a common good, to be realized through concerted developments in the institutional, social, and physical environments. With reference to examples from anti‐tobacco policy, in this article I critically examine the fifth‐wave agenda in England. I explore it as an approach that, in the face of liberal individualism, works through a ‘long‐game’ method of progressive social change. Given the political context, and a predominant concern with narrow understandings of legal coercion, I explain how efforts are made to apply what are presented as less ethically contentious framings of regulatory methods, such as are provided by ‘libertarian paternalism’ (‘nudge theory’). I argue that these fail as measures of legitimacy for long‐game regulation: the philosophical foundations of public health laws require a greater – and more obviously contestable, but also more ambitious – critical depth.

‘Our Waste, our Resources; A Strategy for England’– Switching to a circular economy through the use of extended producer responsibility

High landfill rates compared with flatlining rates of recycling have ensured that waste disposal is once again on the legislative agenda in England. In 2018, the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs published ‘Our Waste, Our Resources: A Strategy for England’ which is the first major policy publication on waste since 2013. Encouraged by the release of this Strategy, this article examines the potential use of extended producer responsibility and the ‘polluter pays’ principle to fuel the transition to a circular economy.

Move over Nelly: lessons from 30 years of employment-based initial teacher education in England

ABSTRACT Recruiting, preparing and retaining high-quality teachers are recurrent themes of local, national and international education agendas. Traditional university-led forms of teacher education continue to be challenged, and defended, as nations strive to secure a teaching force equipped to achieve high-quality learning outcomes for all students. One commonly adopted policy solution has been the diversification of teacher preparation routes: the alternative certification agenda. In this article, we examine the entire history of one alternative route in place in England from 1997 to 2012, the Graduate Teacher Programme. Using one example of an employment-based programme, we argue that opportunities to engineer innovative and creative spaces in the face of the current teacher preparation reform agenda need to be seized. This case study, which is contextualised in both the international debates about alternative teacher certification routes and the current policy agenda in England, demonstrates the extent to which successive administrations have failed to learn from the lessons of the past in the rush to recycle policies and claim them as their own.

Public Sector ‘Modernisation’: Examining the Impact of a Change Agenda on Local Government Employees in England

AbstractCan public sector reform change service performance for the better? This is a hotly contested debate that carries significant theoretical and practical importance. In England, as in many countries, modernisation was at the heart of local government reform and represented an interpretation of New Public Management into a policy framework. This paper examines the role of the modernisation change agenda in England and what this has subsequently meant for ‘service improvement’. Drawing on both document analyses and qualitative interviews with local government employees, we find that while modernisation sought to establish continuous improvement, unintended consequences of modernisation have led to Staff Reductions, Skill Deficiencies, and Loss of a Competent Middle Core in local government, as well as performance outcomes creating an environment for Commissioning, Service Reduction, and Self‐Policing. Implications for the lasting roles and behaviours of public managers affected by this national change agenda are discussed, and conclusions for theory and practice are drawn.

Women offenders: Promoting a holistic approach and continuity of care across criminal justice and health interventions

Analysis of data in this article focuses on the self-reported situations of 21 female respondents who were part of a large-scale study of offenders’ health needs. The findings show an extensive range of physical and psychological problems, often intertwined with substance misuse and other issues, including offending behaviour. Four components of an existing model of ‘continuity of care’ are reviewed to explore the difficulties, but also the potential, for collaborative and co-ordinated interventions with regard to working with women offenders. Concern is expressed about the changes and fragmentation in provision for women brought about by the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda in England and Wales. It is advocated here that policy and practice should be developed across health and criminal justice agencies to provide holistic and integrated approaches which could support women offenders in their attempts to stabilize their lives and to find pathways out of crime.

Planning working futures: precarious work through carceral space

Geographies of precarious work are advanced through an eight month qualitative study of prisoners nearing release from HMP Brixton in London, providing a spatial rendering of working uncertainty. This builds on geographical scholarship highlighting the porosity of prison walls such that carceral space is understood as non-totalising yet extensive. Release on Temporary License (ROTL) is examined as a mechanism of such porosity, allowing offenders to undertake work outside prison. Within the context of the rehabilitation agenda in England and Wales that emphasises the generative function of prison time, we frame the ROTL as a flow mechanism that anticipates both the end of the custodial sentence and precarious work. Experiences of such precariousness emerge through prisoners’ processes of planning for future work through states of suspension, compulsion and experimentation. The focus on planning work contributes to understandings firstly of the porosity of carceral space and secondly of labour precarity. Firstly, it highlights the frictions in the flow mechanism of the ROTL, such that the porosity of carceral space cannot be understood as seamless mobility. Secondly, these frictions indicate how the structural condition of labour precarity can be lived through forms of mundane stability that might be generative as well as exhausting.

Language-Games and Quality Improvement in Healthcare in England

Background: Quality in healthcare is high on the political agenda in England. This paper examines the model of inspection used by the Care Quality Commission to inspect healthcare provison in England. Methods: The paper comprises a critical review of the literature to examine the model of judgement used by the Care Quality Commission in their inspection framework. Results: It is argued that the model of judgement used makes various assumptions which throw into doubt the notion that such inspections provide an objective picture of quality in healthcare. However, the contrary view, that such inspections are highly subjective, is rejected in favour of developing a perspective informed by the later philosophy of Wittgenstein; one which recognises the importance of social agreement and understanding in developing meaning. Conclusion: This perspective highlights the importance of the different social groups that work in healthcare, and those who are treated in the healthcare system, for developing shared understandings and meanings of terms such as ‘quality’.

Exploring the role of ‘RE’ in early childhood education and care as a response to the PREVENT agenda in England

ABSTRACTBy the time children are 8 years of age, their attitudes, values, identities and beliefs are shaped and becoming solidly formed. Early childhood educators are uniquely positioned in children’s lives to promote positive values and beliefs and to foster authentic appreciation of difference. This important work is challenged by a discourse in wider society, based on fears of certain groups of people linked to extremism and terrorism. Recent policy and law changes in England require teachers to be gatekeepers and report concerns to authorities. Contextual discourse analysis was used as the methodology to identify themes within the policy and curriculum documents reviewed in paper. This paper presents a case for early childhood academics and educators to consider a rationale for how they can promote values of tolerance and compassion and highlight and celebrate a range of religious and cultural traditions, and in order to promote a deeper respect and understanding.

Using ecological modernisation theory to account for the evolution of the zero-carbon homes agenda in England

ABSTRACTDespite early successes, the ‘zero-carbon homes’ agenda in England is being wound down. Ecological modernisation theory, which focuses on the way in which political, economic, and social forces interact with one other in the provision of environmental goods and services, is used to explain this. Existing literature on zero-carbon homes is fragmented, with scholars focusing on a range of social, economic, or political explanations. Ecological modernisation theory reconciles these various strands to produce a nuanced explanation for this agenda’s evolution. An ambitious but poorly defined legislative approach placed a burden on house-builders to meet compliance costs associated with zero-carbon, but framing sustainability economistically also led to considerable uncertainty. The 2008 financial crisis, the politicisation of housing, and the election of a government with a deregulatory mandate influenced the resilience of the policy agenda as private-sector actors exploited the uncertainty and political will in order to evade their policy burdens.