The Coalition government’s programme for education is a fundamental challenge to the idea of social justice. It has provoked widespread opposition. A wave of student militancy has swept through the universities. Local campaigns against Academies and free schools have mobilised parents and teachers.
This is the emerging and contested terrain which this book explores. It situates it in a longer timespan - the New Labour period as well as that of the Cameron government.
The book brings together leading critics of neoliberal education policy. Nico Hirtt outlines the European Union’s policy for the school system. Richard Hatcher examines the Coalition’s policy of increasing supply-side autonomy in the school system through Academies and free schools. Lisbeth Lundahl outlines the characteristics and consequences of independent ‘free schools in Sweden. Stephen Ball and Carolina Junemann uncover the role of corporate philanthropy in the reform of state education. Pat Mahony and Ian Hextall report on their research in progress into Labour’s ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme. Pat Thomson explores the dimension of the local, contrasting Labour’s rhetoric of local empowerment with the reality of centralised governance and the threat to the existence of local authorities posed by the Coalition. Alasdair Smith provides an account of the anti-academies movement. Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley focus on upper secondary schooling and the collapsing youth labour market. Jacky Brine analyses the role of the EU in the construction of a welfare to work discourse, adopted by Labour and extended by the Coalition. Kevin Courtney reflects on the torrent of policy innovation which teachers have experienced for more than 20 years, and the place that they might occupy within a broad trade union opposition. Joyce Canaan explores the possibilities of the English student movement. Ken Jones poses the question that will dominate the remainder of the Coalition government’s period of office: will the experience of unprecedented cuts in public services give rise to effective opposition and resistance?
Competencies, polarisation, flexibility: the European education policy in the era of economic crisis
Nico Hirtt
Liberating the supply-side, managing the market
Richard Hatcher
The emergence of a Swedish school market
Lisbeth Lundahl
Network governance and Coalition education policy
Stephen J. Ball and Carolina Junemann
'Building Schools for the Future': progressive intervention or neo-liberal trade-off?
Pat Mahony and Ian Hextall
'The local' and its authority: the Coalition, governance and democracy
Pat Thomson
The anti-academies movement
Alasdair Smith
Can the 'Lost Generation' find its way? Young people, education and society
Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley
Disciplining the undeserving: education and training in welfare-to-work policy
Jacky Brine
Interview with Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers
Ken Jones and Richard Hatcher
Is this 'just the beginning'? Exploring the possibilities of the 2010 English student movement
Joyce E Canaan
Justification, contestation
Ken Jones
Continuity, difference and crisis
Ken Jones
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