One figure who was transitional between educational philosophy and philosophy of education, and who by his industry and prominence laid the foundation for the London school of analytical philosophers of education, was Louis Arnaud Reid who was appointed at the London Institute of Education to the first UK professorship in the philosophy of…

In this article, the author reflects on key events and issues with which he has been involved for 50 years. First, he gives a brief account of the Schools Council--what it meant in terms of the limited role of government in governing education, and in terms of the role of teachers as curriculum thinkers, not deliverers. Its demise in the 1980s…

Research into Vocational Education and Training (VET) has undergone major developments in the last 60 years. This is particularly true of the last 30 years. The rising political, social and economic priority of VET has been principally responsible for this development. However, it is also true to say that some of the disciplines of education have…

From the "sexual behaviour of young people" in the 1960s to "youth and the great recession" in the 2000s a steady current running through the author's educational research career has been "youth". Although the early stages of his career supplied the foundations for the topic of this paper--starting in 1962 with a research assistant job with the…

In this article, the author talks about a life with the sociology of education. He begins by describing the "old" and "new" sociologies of education. Then, he discusses the sociology of education policy and the relevance of Basil Bernstein, who remained the dominant presence within the sociology of education in the UK until his death in 2000 and…

Professor Roy Harris (2009) criticises me for ignoring freedom of speech in order to focus on "soft" issues, such as game theory, decision theory and chaos theory. In this response, I accept most of his arguments relating to freedom of speech, but argue that, in order to develop better systems of education, we need to pay more attention to the…

This paper critiques what it sees as a tendency on the part of certain social researchers to engage in moralistic critiques of middle-class parents, especially in relation to the choices and actions of such parents within educational quasi-markets. It proceeds to a linked critique of the influence within education of certain aspects of the work of…

David Carr argues that the intelligibility of spiritual development as an educational activity is dependent upon there being a framework of propositions that relates to spiritual experience and that there is a methodology for establishing their truth. These propositions and the accompanying methodology need to be constructed along the lines of a…

This article explores the "second chance" myth that surrounds the role of adult education in society. This myth apparently offers all citizens an equal chance to access educational opportunities to improve their life chances. I argue that recent developments in educational policy-making are increasingly shaped by neoliberal discourses that adapt…

This paper considers a distinction between two types of politics developed by Michael Oakeshott in his book "The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism" (1996) and argues that the theoretical framework proposed supplies an illuminating and productive perspective for examining the notion of political extremism. These positions are linked…

This paper argues for an action-oriented conception of learning in higher education: one which marries higher order learning (coming to understand) with apprenticeship in knowledge work. It introduces epistemic tasks, forms and fluency as constructs that are useful in giving a more precise meaning to ideas about collaboration in knowledge…

In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills in England published its Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners (DfES, 2004). It was preceded by Excellence and Enjoyment: a strategy for primary schools (DfES, 003). "Excellence and enjoyment" seems to constitute an ambiguity, even a contradiction. The government's view is otherwise. It…

This paper focuses on school choice and the extent to which admissions to publicly-funded secondary schools in England address issues of equity and social justice. It argues that schools with responsibility for their own admissions are more likely than others to act in their own self interest by "selecting in" or "creaming" particular pupils and…

In 1999 Stephen Gorard published an article in this journal in which he provided a trenchant critique of what he termed the "politician's error" in analysing differences in educational attainment. The main consequence of this error, he argued, has been the production of misleading findings in relation to trends in educational performance over time…

The subject of geography is declining in popularity at secondary school level and recent developments following the "cultural turn" in Higher Education have had little impact in revitalising it. In this paper I explore the question: is there a problem with the school geography curriculum policy? After briefly sketching the history of the Geography…