We discuss an investigation into the understandings of trainee teachers about government policy, using, as an example, the UK government's "Every Child Matters" (ECM). We discuss the research methods used to gather and analyse data from 197 initial teacher education trainees in three institutions in England drawn from six subject areas.…

On 11 November the Government published its third skills strategy for England in six years (quite apart from Lord Leitch's "Review of Skills" commissioned by the Treasury). Entitled "Skills for Growth: the national skills strategy," this White Paper, together with a separate analytical paper and a "Skills Investment…

Basic principles and analytical methods of economics are used to conduct a preliminary study of state policies for private education in China. It is evident that if public policy is to exert a positive effect on private education, the government must formulate policies at a higher level for private education and give equal attention to choice,…

Neoliberalism is one of the most pervasive and contested concepts of our contemporary era. Thus, it is essential for students to gain an understanding of its history, meaning, assumptions, and policy prescriptions. In addition to recognizing the importance of neoliberalism in the current political discourse, I argue that the polarized responses to…

In recent years, governing through partnerships has become more and more common and is today reflected in a range of policy areas. In the following article, governing through partnerships is analysed in Swedish education policy around the turn of the millennium, where the notion of partnership has had a large impact. Using as its point of…

This article outlines some theoretical and methodological parameters of a critical practice approach to policy. The article discusses the origins of this approach, how it can be uniquely adapted to educational analysis, and why it matters--not only for scholarly interpretation but also for the democratization of policy processes as well. Key to…

The five papers in this collection consider a range of important issues in relation to the English national curriculum assessment system (NCA). In responding to these articles, Jannette Elwood considers some of the issues the authors have raised generally in relation to a revised English NCA, but also more specifically she considers them from a…

This article presents a conceptual framework derived from institutional theory in sociology that offers two competing policy contexts in which charter schools operate--a bureaucratic frame versus a decentralized frame. An analysis of evolving charter school types based on three underlying theories of action is considered. As charter school leaders…

Since the 2001-02 school year, the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have shaped much of the work of public school teachers and administrators in the United States. NCLB explicitly prohibits schools from excluding students with disabilities from the accountability system and requires not only participation of…

This article, which draws heavily on the Sutherland Inquiry report into the delivery of National Curriculum testing in 2008, outlines important aspects of the failure that year to report test-scores on time, considers the extent to which ministers might have been held more accountable and reviews the state of the long struggle to replace the…

This article examines the impact of the concept of social capital on the citizenship education initiative in England through its influence on the normative content of the policy, as embodied in the report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship (AGC)--which was one of the immediate causes of the inclusion of citizenship in the National Curriculum in…

Neoliberal precepts of the governance of academic science-deregulation; reification of markets; emphasis on competitive allocation processes have been conflated with those of performance management--if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it--into a single analytical and consequent single programmatic worldview. As applied to the United…

The article starts by illustrating how children's right to participation comes to the fore in legal documents regulating the field of early childhood education in Norway. Issues regarding the views of children, understanding of democracy and of play, which influence how this right is realised in early childhood practice, are taken as a point of…

The Bologna Process is almost at its end and European policy-makers currently reflect on appropriate objectives and policies for the next decade. Given that the Bologna Process is generally seen as an example of unprecedented change in European higher education and that the major overarching objective of the Process was to increase the…

Using the case of a secondary English department, this article demonstrates how historical barriers to effectively educating diverse students have been reinforced by the current educational climate of curriculum standardization and high stakes accountability. Data derive from in-depth interviews of English teachers and analysis of…