Search Results

ENGLISH

Research And Policy In Education - Evidence, Ideology And Impact

by Geoff Whitty

27,60€ + 10% CARD

 The OECD tells us that 90 per cent of education reforms are not properly evaluated. So it seems that governments have not lived up to their own ideals of evidence-informed policymaking. Research and Policy in Education argues that education policy is as often driven by political ideologies as by solid research evidence. It explores this claim with case studies of:•the Coalition government’s reform of teacher training towards a school-led approach;•the use of evidence in international policy borrowing and the rhetoric of ‘what works’;•the deployment of policies that aim to narrow the social class achievement and participation gap.The book concludes with a plea for more discipline-based research on education, and a reassertion of the importance of the sociology of education as an essential resource for making sense of contemporary education policy.
ENGLISH

Research And Policy In Education - Evidence, Ideology And Impact

by Geoff Whitty

33,11€ + 10% CARD

 The OECD tells us that 90 per cent of education reforms are not properly evaluated. So it seems that governments have not lived up to their own ideals of evidence-informed policymaking. Research and Policy in Education argues that education policy is as often driven by political ideologies as by solid research evidence. It explores this claim with case studies of:•the Coalition government’s reform of teacher training towards a school-led approach;•the use of evidence in international policy borrowing and the rhetoric of ‘what works’;•the deployment of policies that aim to narrow the social class achievement and participation gap.The book concludes with a plea for more discipline-based research on education, and a reassertion of the importance of the sociology of education as an essential resource for making sense of contemporary education policy.
ENGLISH

Why Learn Maths?

26,49€ + 10% CARD

 Across the globe mathematics has a privileged place in the school curriculum, which we tend to take for granted. But are all the arguments that have been put forward in its defence equally sound? Do they justify its status as a compulsory subject? What priority should it have in the curriculum compared with other subjects? The contributors to this book explore these questions and their historical background. They investigate the varied aims of learning and teaching mathematics, and to what extent the discipline deserves the high curricular status it has traditionally enjoyed. The place of mathematics in the curriculum is an issue for the citizen, not only for the mathematics specialist. The contributors include leading writers in the field of mathematics education, school improvement, history of education and philosophy of education. Their views represent perspectives from outside the world of mathematics education as well as from within mathematics education itself. There is sharp disagreement among them about the future of compulsory mathematics at secondary level, with some believing it should become a voluntary activity in the early secondary years and others favouring its compulsory status until school-leaving age.
ENGLISH

Who Needs Examinations? - A Story Of Climbing Ladders And Dodging Snakes

by John White

19,86€ + 10% CARD

 School examinations do little to test deep understanding, blight the secondary curriculum, cause students great anxiety, pervert the job of teaching, and favour families who can manipulate admission arrangements. Why is it that despite these defects, we cling to an institution which may have been all the rage in the 1860s but has been under fire in every generation since?The first chapter looks at problems raised about the examination system from philosophical, curricular, psychological, pedagogical, and political points of view. The second explains why such a flawed institution not only still exists, but has become more entrenched than ever. It traces the British story back to opposition in the mid-nineteenth century to the patronage method of allocation to good jobs and its replacement by something more impartial. School examinations remained the preserve of an elite until 1944, and others were deliberately prevented from taking them. In our more democratic age we assume they are for everybody. But are they as egalitarian as they seem?Are we now heading towards the 'examination hells' of China and other East and South Asian countries, just as those countries are looking for ways to extricate themselves from this straitjacket? The final chapter of the book examines alternatives. This book is essential reading for teachers, policy-makers, and students of assessment and curriculum studies.
ENGLISH

Professional Life In Modern British Higher Education

34,44€ + 10% CARD

 This is a ‘problem-focused’ book, dealing with significantly changing aspects of higher education - including professional identities, academic values, pedagogies, and quality assurance - and exploring the effects of these changes upon professional life in universities. It offers a range of perspectives on the ways in which societal, legislative, and educational trends and ‘events’ have transformed, and are further significantly transforming, the work of the professional higher education academic. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the continuing evolution of the academic profession, and the inter-war elite image of university academics owed something to the self-constructed notion of ‘academic freedom’. But this image was persistently reconstructed after the Second World War, time and again transforming the professional identity, autonomy, duties, and expectations of academic life in higher education. The historical thread running through the book serves to remind the reader that academic life in the university has never been static, and that new times have brought forth new professional conditions, expectations, identities, and paradigms.Drawing on contributions from specialist areas of professionally oriented university work, including teacher education and clinical education, as well as ranging more broadly over professional work in higher education, Professional Life in Modern British Higher Education will appeal to and resonate with a UK and international readership of university teachers and administrators, as well as students taking courses with a focus on higher and professional education.
ENGLISH

Aims-Based Curriculum - The Significance Of Human Flourishing For Schools

by John White e Michael Reiss

19,86€ + 10% CARD

 At present a revision of the English National Curriculum is in progress. As in many other countries across the globe, it is constructed around a number of largely academic school subjects.An Aims-based Curriculum spells out a ground-breaking alternative. Its starting point is not subjects, but what schools should be for. It argues that aims are not to be seen as high-sounding principles that can be easily ignored: they are the lifeblood of everything a school does.Michael Reiss and John White show this by beginning with overarching aims that will equip each learner to lead a personally fulfilling life and help others do so too. From these, they derive more specific aims covering the personal qualities, skills, and understanding needed for a life of personal, civic, and vocational well-being.The second half of the book, on political realities of implementation, takes this process of deriving aims further. Some of its detailed aims, but by no means all, overlap with conventional curriculum objectives. It also looks at the role of the state in curriculum decisions, as well as the implications of the book’s central argument for student choice, school ethos, assessment, inspection, and teacher education.
ENGLISH

Browne And Beyond - Modernizing English Higher Education

37,09€ + 10% CARD

 Reflecting the changing ideological and economic perspectives of the government of the day, the expansion of higher education in England has prompted numerous reforms aimed at reshaping and restructuring the sector and its funding. Leading to student riots and sparking some of the sharpest controversies in British higher education, the reforms introduced in 2012/13 are by far the most radical, and those concerning higher education funding and student finances the most far-reaching. This book seeks to unpack the drivers for the reforms while locating them in a broad historical, ideological, and policy context. Informed by the vast literature and research on higher education, this book brings together recognized experts, including leading academics and policy analysts. One strand of chapters provides history and context while another examines particular issues and themes, including: historical antecedents of the reforms and tuition fee policies; the distinctive characteristics of the reforms; an economic critique of the limits to marketization and the commodification of higher education; the drivers behind social mobility and widening participation and the subsequent impact of tuition fees; the consequences of fee-setting policies among institutions; the impact on part-time students; the entrance of new providers in the higher education sector; the impact on institutional autonomy and freedom; and the policy vacuum on postgraduate education and the future of research. While the reforms have attracted significant media coverage focusing on their short-term consequences, this book goes far beyond the media headlines to identify the nature of the reforms and to understand their impact on higher education institutions, students, and society as a whole.
ENGLISH

Question Of Conscience - Higher Education And Personal Responsibility

by David Watson

33,11€ + 10% CARD

 Most of the claims about the purposes and achievements of higher education are irreducibly individualistic: it will change your life, through conversion or confirmation of faith, by improving your character, by giving you marketable ''abilities'', by making you a better member of the community, or by being simply ''capable'' of operating more effectively in the contemporary world. All of these qualities scale up, of course, but in differing ways. David Watson explores the question of what higher education sets out to do for students through a number of lenses, including the ''evolutionary'' stages of modern university history, the sense participants and observers try to make of them, and a collection of ''purposes'', or intended personal transformations. The resulting combinations are clustered, around major questions about the role of universities for their students, and in society at large. He concludes by testing claims about the role of higher education in developing varieties of personal responsibility. This book identifies and explores how varied these claims have been over the long history of the higher enterprise, but also how strong and determined they invariably are.
ENGLISH

Making Evidence Matter - A New Perspective For Evidence-Informed Policy Making In Education

by Chris Brown

33,11€ + 10% CARD

 The arguments in favour of policy makers adopting an 'evidence-informed' approach are well established. In practice, however, the routine use of evidence is yet to be incorporated into educational policy making, with research being used to inform decision making in ad hoc, sporadic, and inconsistent ways. Policy makers are also prone to carefully selecting the evidence they do use, with alternative arguments dismissed as unfashionable, un-robust, or ideologically unsound. But, the work of government affects the lives of millions. If policies fail, therefore, they are likely to do so at huge cost to the taxpayer, while also resulting in inequitable, inefficient, or undesirable outcomes for large numbers of the population. Grounded both in empirical and theoretical analysis, this book re-examines the arguments in favour of an evidence-informed approach to education policy; spotlights the factors that lead to a wide variety of evidence and perspectives being disregarded by policy makers; and sets out why a paradigm of partnership between researchers and policy makers is required in order to improve the future for policy development. It argues that policy will never be 'evidence-informed', nor will initiatives be truly successful in the long term, unless both researchers (as storytellers) and policy makers (as audiences) understand and play their part in the 'evidence-informed' process. This book is aimed at both educational researchers and policy makers interested in enhancing the use of research outputs in policy making. While the book's primary domain is education, the concept of evidence-informed policy making has salience across a number of sectors, notably health and social care.
ENGLISH

Law, Education, Politics, Fairness - England'S Extreme Legislation For Education Reform

by Dan Gibton

35,76€ + 10% CARD

 How does legislation shape education, and how is it applied as a policy tool?This book analyses how and why England has had so much law-based education reform in the last three decades, and focuses on the period from 2000 to 2011. It looks at the politics and mechanisms of education policy, the reforms that fuelled it and were fuelled by it, and the figures and organizations involved in it and who bear its impact. Based on more than a hundred in-depth face-to-face interviews with senior legislators, policymakers and educators, Dan Gibton presents many perceptions of the law, of the legislation process, and of what those involved saw as covert or overt agendas in its planning. He shows how alliances and identities shifted over the decade as governments and initiatives changed, and analyses their impact on education in England. Aimed at policymakers, academics, and students of all social-science backgrounds, this book will have a very wide appeal. While the book's primary field is education, it also comprehensively covers law and sociology. This will appeal to a broad range of higher education students, as well as those interested in a basic legal knowledge of educational reform in national and international contexts.
ENGLISH

Children Of London - Attendance And Welfare At School 1870-1990

by A. Susan Williams, Caroline Morse e Patrick Ivin

22,51€ + 10% CARD

 Lifting children out of poverty is one of the UK government's priorities. This book tells the story of efforts by London's education services to prevent truancy and to help children benefit from going to school. It charts for the first time the development of the school attendance service and the Care Committees, a system of volunteers providing poor children with school dinners, clothing and medical care. Both services relied on visits to a pupil's family, creating a bridge between home and school. In 1970, they were merged to form the Education Welfare Service. The Children of London is set against 120 years of a unified education service for the metropolis, as well as the changing reality of Britain - the needs of children, the rise of professional society, the welfare state, and new roles for women. Tackling wider issues such as the impact of schooling on poverty and social class, it explores these previously neglected services to raise important questions about future policy to help children in school.
ENGLISH

School Textbook Research - The Case Of Geography 1800-2000

by Norman Graves

33,13€ + 10% CARD

 This book is an analysis of the evolution of geography textbooks in use in the United Kingdom from 1800 to the end of the twentieth century. The author assesses the influence of geographical and scientific ideas, of pedagogical theories and practices of the cultural ethos of society and of technological change on the production and publication of textbooks. The battle of ideas is ever present: physical scientists compete with Mackinderite geographers for supremacy at the turn of the nineteenth century; conceptual revolutionaries and quantitative geographers battle with regional and humanistic specialists in the 1960s and 1970s. These intellectual skirmishes are represented in the textbooks produced. But so are the wider issues within society: imperialism, racial bias, sexism and prejudices of various kinds. The author argues that textbooks reflect society, but they tend to follow changes rather than lead them.
ENGLISH

Homework - The Evidence

by Susan Hallam

13,24€ + 10% CARD

 Homework is not new. Since the mid-nineteenth century it has been used to supplement the school curriculum, moving in and out of fashion according to the political climate. Pupils do not enjoy doing homework, but they believe that it is important in helping them do well at school. What is the evidence for the effectiveness of homework? Susan Hallam's extensive review of the literature on homework starts with a brief overview of the history, nature and purpose of homework and then reviews research on its effect on pupils' attainment. She then describes the findings of studies that compare homework with no homework or with supervised homework, and international and UK studies looking at the relationships between time spent on homework and attainment. Further chapters explore different types of homework and their effects and teachers', pupils' and parents' perspectives on homework. The final chapter considers the future of homework, including interventions to support pupils, and proposes a model providing a framework for thinking about homework. On balance it seems likely that children will still be asked to undertake homework, but schools must take the lead in redefining the homework agenda and putting student learning at its centre.
ENGLISH

Dearing Report - Ten Years On

25,16€ + 10% CARD

 This wide-ranging, research-based study examines the impact of the Dearing Report over ten years and offers an evaluation of the issues facing the higher education system in the future.
ENGLISH

Teaching In Further Education - New Perspectives For A Changing Context

by Norman Lucas

23,84€ + 10% CARD

 Norman Lucas contends that FE is fundamentally divided and that the practices of FE teachers are best understood by appreciating the diversity of needs of FE students. He shows that the tensions between the divisions, diversity and growing regulation are at the hub of the many challenges facing policy makers and FE teachers. This book opens up a debate on three fundamental issues: the FE sector is too diverse and needs to be realigned to give institutions and teachers a clearer strategic and professional focus; the present 'industrial' national occupational standards should be abandoned in favour of professional standards akin to that of schoolteachers; the diversity, variety and specializations of FE teachers and the wide ranging needs of FE learners requires the practice of FE teachers to be redefined. This book is an invaluable addition to the largely under-researched area of further education and is essential reading for teachers, policy makers and students who need a broader perspective and understanding.
ENGLISH

Public Sector Reform - Principles For Improving The Education System

by Anna Vignoles, Carol Vincent, Frank Coffield, Gemma Moss, Rebecca Allen e Richard Steer

17,21€ + 10% CARD

 For ten years the UK government sought to improve public services through a combination of increased investment and a 'tough' regime of top-down performance management. The programme was driven by national targets, regulation, standard setting, performance assessment and direct intervention where services were found to be failing. However, the government has had to admit the limitations of this approach. It has now signalled a major change of direction, introducing a new model of reform that seeks to balance top-down measures with pressures from below (greater user choice and voice) and horizontal pressures (market incentives and improving the capability and capacity of the workforce). Public Sector Reform offers a critical appraisal of this new model, which the authors argue is not well supported by research evidence. They suggest an alternative approach for education, based upon a set of principles for improving the quality of learning. They argue for a realistic programme which would balance reform and maintenance; moderate change and sustainability; central and local direction; teacher empowerment and professional accountability. In all, teaching and learning must be at the heart of the system.
ENGLISH

Post-Compulsory Education And Lifelong Learning Across The United Kingdom - Policy, Organisation And Governance

26,49€ + 10% CARD

 This book brings together the perspectives of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners from across England, Wales and Scotland. It analyses each country's approach to national policy, organisation, governance and practice.
ENGLISH

Policy-Making And Policy Learning In 14-19 Education

25,16€ + 10% CARD

 In recent years 14-19 education has been the subject of numerous reviews, innovations and policy changes. What can be learnt from this experience and do current policies incorporate this learning? In this book, leading experts on 14-19 education and training explore the concept of policy-learning and examine recent policies and policy-making in England and Scotland. They focus on three main types of policy-learning: learning from the experience of earlier policies, learning from local innovations and learning from comparisons with other countries, including 'home international' comparisons within the UK. They suggest that in order to meet current challenges in 14-19 education, it is not only the policies that need to change, but also the way in which policies are made. The book concludes by arguing that only a participative approach to policy-making, bringing together policy-makers, practitioners and researchers, can form the basis of a comprehensive strategy for improved policy learning. This book will be of interest to all those involved in, or affected by, policy-making in the increasingly high-profile and politically charged field of 14-19 education.
ENGLISH

New Designs For Teachers' Professional Learning

26,49€ + 10% CARD

 This book provides insights into the different ways in which the agenda for change in CPD plays out in different contexts.
ENGLISH

Music Psychology In Education

by Susan Hallam

23,84€ + 10% CARD

 The book will be of particular interest to those training to be instrumental and class teachers, and teachers wishing to further their understanding of teaching and learning. It addresses the psychological underpinnings of all elements of music education and provides a short introduction to the field of music psychology.
ENGLISH

Music Education In The 21st Century In The United Kingdom - Achievements, Analysis And Aspirations

31,79€ + 10% CARD

 The landscape of music education in the UK is constantly shifting and developing. This book provides a timely and unique overview of this restless sector by considering the achievements of music education, analysing its current performance and setting out aspirations for the future. Music Education in the 21st Century in the United Kingdom addresses the power of music to influence and change human behaviour, analyses current and future issues in music education and casts a spotlight on particular areas of education, including early years, the primary school, the secondary school, further education, universities and conservatoires, music services, the music studio and the role of music leaders and community musicians. Written by experts in the field of music education, the book provides an authoritative account of the current status of music education in the UK. While essential to understand the current and future context in the UK, the book will be invaluable to those involved in music education internationally, as it includes chapters on the provision of music education for all children, listening, the role of singing, playing an instrument, creativity, the role of technology, issues of performance and assessment, learning through the lifespan and the initial and ongoing education of music teachers. It also includes a range of case study examples and evaluations of practice. The book is a landmark publication in the field of music education and will be essential reading for policy-makers, practitioners, music students, trainee music teachers and those who provide music services in the UK and internationally.
ENGLISH

History, Politics And Policy-Making In Education - A Festschrift Presented To Richard Aldrich

26,50€ + 10% CARD

 Richard Aldrich, Emeritus Professor of History of Education, retired in 2003 after a 30-year career at the Institute of Education, where he continues to serve as Public Orator. In his scholarship, Aldrich has particularly emphasised the importance of historical perspectives and the relationship between the educational past, politics and policy-making. This wide-ranging volume of ten essays, by fellow historians of education who have been privileged to work closely with Aldrich, takes up the theme of history, politics and policy-making, examining such diverse themes as motherhood, gender, race, school curricula and inspection, the teaching of reading, approaches to educating gifted children, economic and historical perspectives on educational policy-making, university politics and national security. Controversies about politics and policy-making are to be found in each of these chapters, which demonstrate how an understanding of the historical past may help us to set in context current educational issues. The volume includes an introduction that pays tribute to Aldrich's leadership of the educational history field in the UK and overseas and a comprehensive listing of his major writings.
ENGLISH

From Exam Factories To Communities Of Discovery - The Democratic Route

by Bill Williamson e Frank Coffield

21,19€ + 10% CARD

 From Exam Factories to Communities of Discovery passionately calls for educators to challenge the dominant market-led model of education and instead build a more democratic one, better able to face threats such as environmental damage; intensified global competition; corrosive social inequalities in and between nations in the world; and the need for a new, just and sustainable economic model. The book documents how education policy has led to schools and universities becoming exam factories and further education colleges becoming skills factories. The authors analyse neo-conservative agendas and conclude that solutions pursued in this way will only strengthen social inequalities and corrode the security and professionalism of educators. They then set out an educational balance sheet that captures the strengths and weaknesses of the present 'system' of education, drawn from England and from education debates across the developed world. They use this evidence to propose an alternative future for education, which builds 'communities of discovery' by realising the collective creativity of students and educators through democracy. They explain how this alternative is better suited to current times and refer to organisations that have embraced this approach to solve problems such as how to re-engage disaffected youth. The authors conclude by asking 'Can we do it?' and warn us of what we may face if we don't act. This book is written as a 'call to action' for all educators working in a wide variety of settings - in schools, colleges and universities, in work-based learning and within communities - and for those interested in education policy.
ENGLISH

Exploring Professionalism

25,16€ + 10% CARD

 Exploring key issues in professional life such as how we define ourselves, how we learn as professionals, and what impact current changes and challenges are having on the nature of professional work, this book will offer a rounded selection of perspectives on professional life.
Loading results...

View more results