Donaldson Report Research Articles

Successful futures? New economy business logics, child rights, and Welsh educational reform

The well-documented global economic disinvestment in schooling necessitates critical examination of policy discourses that influence educational systems and student learning. Situated within the critical policy studies tradition, the present study conducted a critical discourse analysis of the Donaldson Report (2015), a proposed comprehensive Welsh learning and accountability system. We begin with a brief discussion of research focused on global accountability reform within the new economy. To situate the Donaldson Report within this research, we review literature on reforms within the United Kingdom, with special attention to the Welsh educational policy context, which also includes incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into national policy. Findings highlight a limited Report focus on core educational rights embodied within the UNCRC and recommendations for a new system that leans toward a more technocratic and performance orientation. We conclude with implications for the exercise of children’s rights within Welsh schooling.

Initial teacher education in the university ‘My little ship, how ill-laden you are’

Initial teacher education programmes in universities must meet the needs of varying constituencies. Politicians, school leaders and academics, for example, understandably seek to influence how these programmes should look. Given the importance of well-qualified teachers for the building of effective schools, it is right that a range of stakeholders should have their say. The Donaldson Report on teacher education in Scotland (2011) has much to say regarding the academic content of teacher education programmes. It offers food for thought for those wedded to the ‘craft’ model of teacher education. Academic rigour and breadth of experience cannot be seen as inimical to the need to ensure that newly qualified teachers are, indeed, ready to teach. The rediscovery of liberal approaches to education studies and the value of the liberal arts can be key components of a reimagined teacher education process.

Rethinking professional standards to promote professional learning

This article explores some of the key issues that emerged in the revision of the professional standards in Scottish education. The revision of the professional standards was part of a wider project to build teacher professional learning in ways that had an impact on practice and on pupil learning. The article begins by examining the international literature to consider the two critical aspects of the design and the use of professional standards. The article then explores issues raised in the work to take forward the two recommendations from the Donaldson report related to, firstly, the professional standards providing a coherent framework and, secondly, the development of a ‘standard for active registration’. The article then considers the tensions posed by the dual purposes ascribed to standards, those of regulation and development. The focus then turns to an alternative way of constructing a professional standard in order to foster authentic forms of professional learning. The article concludes by exploring the issues that need to be addressed to facilitate the productive use of professional standards in the career-long professional learning of teachers.

Educating child practitioners: a (re)turn to the university disciplines

This paper analyses a specific disjunctive policy space in Scotland involving the current key children's social and educational policy agenda, Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), and a recent national report on teacher education, the ‘Donaldson Report’. In four main parts, the paper first introduces and applies in policy review and analysis a capitals frame to identify the policy–practice discontinuities currently inherent in the ‘GIRFEC-child practitioner education’ policy space, exemplified by the Donaldson Report. Then, the same capitals frame is applied to examine the capitals resources demanded in the particular ‘child–child practitioner education’ policy space previously delineated. Next, examples of policy disconnects amongst current child practice and practitioner education policy production and implementation, which warrant a concerted integrative cross-sector project to ensure coherent social and intellectual capital relations at all levels, are discussed. Finally, the paper calls for the governing professional registration bodies and universities involved in the education of child-sector practitioners to engage in the redesign of university programmes underpinned by principles of transdisciplinarity and transprofessionalism. The methodology is policy sociology and policy text analysis.

Professionalism and partnership: panaceas for teacher education in Scotland?

A critical reading of the Donaldson Report on teacher education in Scotland reveals what might be termed a ‘panacea approach’ to addressing perceived current problems in relation to the quality of teacher education. In particular, the essence of the Donaldson Report is that teachers need to embrace ‘twenty-first century professionalism’ through a partnership approach to teacher education. However, neither ‘professionalism’, nor ‘partnership’ are defined or justified explicitly. Through critical discourse analysis, we offer possible interpretations of professionalism and partnership within the context of the Donaldson Report. These interpretations include accepting the use of such terms as simple unconscious and uncritical adherence to a dominant discourse, and the idea that the wholesale embracing of partnership is a much more insidious attempt by the state to promote network governance, thereby limiting potential dominance of any one particular stakeholder group. Through systematic consideration of the immediate textual context of phrases relating to professionalism and partnership, and through a more holistic analysis of the wider policy agenda, we offer a critical reading of the Report. We conclude with a plea that as the rush to attend to the more tangible, operational aspects of the proposed reform gather momentum, such a panacea approach to solving perceived problems needs to be critiqued openly.

Teacher education reform in Scotland: national and global influences

This article provides an overview of the background and recent developments leading to the current reshaping of teacher education in Scotland, starting with the developments emanating in the past decade from the McCrone Report and finishing with the recent Donaldson Report, Teaching Scotland’s Future. It documents the key features of the report and the impact that this will have on current teacher education provision in Scotland.

CPD: Support strategies for professional learning, national initiatives and major curriculum reform

This article outlines developments in continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers, within the Scottish context. It discusses some examples of both bottom-up and top-down structures, approaches to, and opportunities for CPD within Scotland, contextualizing the importance of professional learning within global issues of educational effectiveness and the improvement of student learning outcomes. The article focuses on two major national initiatives, Assessment is for Learning (AifL) and a Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), comparing and contrasting their relative successes in terms of strategic planning, leadership and support, effective roll-out, implementation, impact and stakeholder buy-in. It highlights that well targeted CPD activity and partnership work offer real opportunities for teachers to develop professional learning and their capacity for leadership. The article concludes with the discussion of current issues and opportunities related to CPD, including some of those raised in the recent Donaldson Report on Teacher Education in Scotland (2011).

“A Healthy Black Identity” Transracial Adoption, Middle-Class Families, and Racial Socialization

In May of 2008 the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute issued a report that questioned whether or not transracial adoption is truly in the best interest of the child, thus newly igniting the controversy over transracial adoption. While the research on this controversial topic is substantial, most studies (including those cited in the Donaldson Report) are limited in their scope. Drawing from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with middle-class young black adults, this study offers a broader perspective on transracial adoption by focusing on a range of parent/child race relationships in a class context. The impact of racialized family structure on black identity development is examined by comparing the experiences of young black adults raised in families with two black parents (monoracial), one white and one black parent (biracial), and two white parents (transracial). This article also addresses a void in the literature by focusing on the impact socioeconomic class has on identity formation, particularly middle-class black identity. Results indicate that the formative experiences of young black adults who differ in terms of racialized family structure but share a classstatusarelargely similar. These similarities challenge a number of assumptions that have been made in prior transracial adoption research.

Concerns about revalidation

This week brings an end to the consultation period on Liam Donaldson's report on professional regulation in the United Kingdom. There's been no shortage of comments on the report (this week's BMJ carries some more on p 965), with emotions running high on many issues. How should Donaldson respond? On the face of it his recommendations represent a huge challenge to the profession—an end to professional self regulation with loss of elected representation, removal of the General Medical Council's control of undergraduate education (which effectively excludes it from setting standards at entry to the profession), and the setting …

Good Doctors, Safer Patients: a chance to move on

Sir Liam Donaldson's report, Good Doctors, Safer Patients, was published on 14 July 2006 and makes 44 recommendations (Department of Health, 2006a). The government is consulting on the report (and on a parallel report on the regulation of other health-care professionals) (Department of Health, 2006b). The statement from the General Medical Council (GMC) marking the publication of the report underlined that the starting point for the GMC in developing its response to the report is its statutory purpose – to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine ( www.gmc-uk.org ). The GMC expressed support for some of the proposals, said that others would need careful consideration, but warned that the proposals in relation to medical education, which would take away from the GMC's responsibility for undergraduate medical education, would not be in patients' best interests.

An inquiry into the causes of shipwrecks: Its implications for the prevention of pollution

Lord Donaldson's is the latest in a long line of reports that have dealt with the operation of ships and the prevention of casualties. A classic example is the 1836 report of the select committee that inquired into the Causes of Shipwrecks. Despite its brevity, this Report managed to encapsulate many of the issues which still concern us today. The symptoms of current shipping ills are considered at great length in the Donaldson Report. However, in this paper, it is argued that the underlying causes remain much as they have ever been.

Navigation management: post-Donaldson

This paper examines the Donaldson Report on the inquiry into prevention of pollution from merchant shipping, with respect to its findings on marine navigation management in Chapters 13–16 of the Report. The paper supports Donaldson in advocating the mandatory use of radio transponders to identify ships and to monitor their navigation, but is highly critical of Donaldson's reasoning for rejecting a ‘blanket ban’ safety margin around the UK coastline with respect to ships having significantly large quantities of pollutants onboard, and for rejecting wider active Marine Traffic Control or Management (MTC) for reducing both strandings and collisions.

A European lawyer's view of the Government response to the Donaldson Report

The Report of Lord Donaldson's Inquiry into the Prevention of Pollution from Merchant Shipping, of May 1994, discussed here, is a document of the first rank of importance for all those interested in shipping safety and the prevention of ship-source pollution. The UK Government is called upon to take a lead internationally, regionally and nationally in these interrelated fields, and its first published response, issued in February 1995, and many of its initiatives, examined here, suggest that it has, for once, heeded the cries of a major inquiry. In doing so, however, as is explained, it must constantly take into account major developments in the European Community. While finally, many new ideas and approaches are embraced or are being further considered by the Government, it is argued here that the whole process, by keeping strictly within the bounds of existing international law and by emphasising voluntarism (indeed, restricting strict enforcement actions to mere measures of last resort), it is somewhat behind international trends, manifested in the acceptance of the principle of mandatory ships' routeing and ship reporting systems and in the current debate on development of the Particularly Sensitive Sea Area concept.

THE BRAER OIL SPILL

ABSTRACT The Braer oil spill caused little lasting damage to the environment. The reasons for this were the dispersability of the oil and the severe weather at the time of the spill. The bird population was relatively unscathed, and the principal economic effect was on the salmon farms in the affected area. Dispersants were used. This decision was a correct one, for, although the oil dispersed naturally, this was not known at the time. Lord Donaldson's report supported their use as the first line of defense in the UK. The command arrangements worked well, with good cooperation among all the agencies involved. Although media pressure was intense, it was generally handled very well.

Applying cost—benefit analysis to marine safety measures

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) provides a framework for consistent and rational decision-making. It can greatly assist the appraisal of marine safety and environmental measures, such as those recommended by the Donaldson Report. Combined with other techniques e.g. risk assessment, and noting the particular features of the maritime context, CBA is a valuable aid to thinking. The Department of Transport's emergency towing study is using it to weigh up the pros and cons of deploying tugs to protect the U.K. coast from oil and chemical pollution.

OPA 90

The Donaldson Report has been published and we are entitled to ask ‘where do we go from here?’ The majority of the shipping world, recognizing the international nature of the business moves by consensus such that rules applicable in Europe are also applicable in, say, Asia or South America. By its very nature this method takes time to bring rules into effect. By contrast the United Stated of America takes the unilateral approach to transport regulations and because it is such an important trading nation, particularly with regard to shipping, those wishing to participate in the trade must comply with the U.S. rules. One such example is the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) passed just four year ago. The shipping industry in general and the tanker industry in particular has had to adapt if it wishes to trade within the United States' navigable waters, adjoining shorelines, or the exclusive economic zone (200 miles). This paper looks at those sections of the Act that, from the standpoint of the tanker industry, have had the biggest impact when trading to the United States. We therefore look at how OPA 90 addresses the issues of prevention, clean up and who will pay?