Understanding Schools and Schooling provides students with the knowledge about school policy and process that they need in order to address and respond to current trends and discourses in critical, well-informed ways that will enhance their teaching and job satisfaction.The book presents issues, questions and dilemmas and invites the reader to find their own answers through guided activities, discussion with colleagues and further reading. The book provides a philosophical ...

Eighteen years of Conservative stewardship ensured that the Labour government's education policy did not begin with a tabula rasa, for its starting point has been defined by the previous government to a greater extent than any other incoming government has found. In this book the practitioners discuss the micro effect of the policies in their schools. This book will make an important contribution to continuing debate about the best way forward for state education in England and Wales.

The best jobs in Britain today are overwhelmingly done by the children of the wealthy. Meanwhile, it is increasingly difficult for bright but poor kids to transcend their circumstances. This state of affairs should not only worry the less well-off. It hurts the middle classes too, who are increasingly locked out of the top professions by those from affluent backgrounds.Hitherto, Labour and Conservative politicians alike have sought to deal with the problem by promoting the idea of ...

With social and community services coming under increasing pressure as austerity continues, Unfinished Business examines how social policy has operated in Ireland and how it has been affected by consistent government cutbacks. It examines a wide range of issues important to social care students, such as poverty, homelessness, disability, immigrants, mental health and many other issues pertinent to Irish society today. This book: Is the first Irish social po...

A contemporary snapshot of Irish education, this book positions 21st-century Irish education at the centre of the creation of the knowledge economy and outlines the challenges and changes presented as a result of a changing education system and society. Part 1: The Changing System charts selected changes that have taken place in Irish education in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and considers educations's role in building a knowledge economy and social cohesion Part 2: Diversity and Incl...

Based on interviews with key actors in the policy-making process, this book maps the changes in education policy and policy making in the Thatcherite decade. The focus of the book is the 1988 Education Reform Act, its origins, purposes and effects, and it looks behind the scenes at the priorities of the politicians, civil servants and government advisers who were influential in making changes. Using direct quotations from senior civil servants and former secretaries of state it provides a ...

Community development emerged as a recognisable occupational activity in the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Since then, whilst struggling to remain true to its basic values it has often been manipulated to serve differing policy and political purposes. This unique Reader traces its changing fortunes through a selection of readings from key writers. It will be invaluable to those pursuing community development careers, for activists, and for all those teaching, training and practising communi...

The Third Edition of this widely adopted textbook has been thoroughly revised and offers an authoritative and up-to-date coverage of the key theories, concepts and issues in social policy. The lively and readable text has been designed to provide students with the essential tools to gain a clear understanding of the theoretical debates surrounding the discipline.The book is organized into three parts:• Part One offers a detailed but accessible critique of m...

At a time when education is considered crucial to a country’s economic success, recent UK governments have insisted their reforms are the only way to make England’s system world class. Yet pupils are tested rather than educated, teachers bullied rather than trusted and parents cast as winners or losers in a gamble for school places.Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. In a highly accessible style, Peter Mortimore, an author with ...

How much have teachers and their pupils benefitted from the top-down Westminster-led control of policy held in place by a powerful national inspection regime?A Generation of Radical Educational Change: Stories from the Field is an exploration of the revolutionary impact of the greater and continuing involvement of central government in education policy-making which began in 1976 and was accelerated by the 1988 Education Act and subsequent legislation.In the book, a dozen di...

The UK welfare state is under sustained ideological and political attack. It has also been undermined by accusations of paternalism and past failures to engage with the very people it is intended to help.This unique book is the first to critique the past, present and future welfare state from a participatory perspective. Peter Beresford, champion of user involvement, draws on pioneering theories and practice of welfare service user movements to offer a blueprint for a new participa...

All phases of education from pre-school to post-compulsory, in virtually all parts of the world, have experienced unprecedented reform and restructuring in recent years. Restructuring has largely been driven by a global agenda that has promoted the development of human capital as the key to economic competitiveness in the global market.This book adopts an inter-disciplinary approach drawing not only on education research but also from the fields of industrial sociology, management ...