Michael Young's work is central to debates about knowledge and the school curriculum. In recent years he has renounced his early argument that school subjects represent the "knowledge of the powerful", arguing instead that access and equality for all students are dependent on ensuring that all get access to "powerful…

The focus of this paper is how changes in school governance in one state primary school in a city in central Greece have resulted in a significant degree of inclusion for Roma children. This inclusivity runs counter to the disturbing occurrence of the social and ethnic segregation of a group of locally resident Roma children within schools. This…

This paper uses Basil Bernstein's work on pedagogic discourses to examine a largely neglected facet of the history of vocational education--the liberal studies movement in English further education colleges. Initially, the paper discusses some of the competing conceptions of education, work and society which underpinned the rise and fall of…

R. Freeman Butts was an American historian and philosopher of education who died in March 2010. This paper will investigate Butts' various roles and writings and ask the question: why is Butts important to the contemporary generation of teacher educators and teachers? This paper will argue that the breadth of Butts' work builds…

The number of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools has increased rapidly in China in recent years. However, access to schools offering the IBDP remains restricted to a relatively elite minority of China's population due to enrolment barriers for Chinese nationals and relatively high school fees. An implication is that…

This paper contributes to the discussion about the marketisation of universities by providing a historical perspective. Going back to the time when the market for academic knowledge emerged, I argue that it was created through incorporating a number of inherent tensions that have been, and still are, shaping its development. I show how these…

Initiatives to cultivate character and virtue in moral education at school continue to provoke sceptical responses. Most of those echo familiar misgivings about the notions of character, virtue and education in virtue -- as unclear, redundant, old-fashioned, religious, paternalistic, anti-democratic, conservative, individualistic, relative and…

Inclusion is generally recognised as an ongoing, active process which reflects shifts in policies, practice and values as well as political choices made over long periods of time. Drawing upon research visits set 10 years apart, this study aims to examine how two schools with clear inclusive aspirations and intentions have weathered the last…

This paper examines the continuity and changes in Clarke's ideas about the State and community in education, especially in relation to a rapidly changing political situation in England in the 1930s and 1940s. His ideas evolved in the intellectual context of British idealism. Moreover, in response to the threat to democracy arising from…

This paper seeks to examine the influence of Fabian Socialist thinking as the primary force in the development of critical theory as applied to higher education in Britain. The paper covers the impact of scientific Fabian Socialism and the establishment of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Frankfurt School and the rise of…

Based on over twenty years of empirical and intellectual work about knowledge production in the field of educational administration, I examine the origins and development of the canon, methodologies and knowledge workers in England. I focus on the field as being primarily concerned with professional activity and how and why this was established…

This paper assesses the origins, character and legacy of the Standing Conference on Studies in Education (SCSE), established in 1951. In the historical and theoretical context of British educational studies, the SCSE, despite its outward appearance as an elite and conservative body, represented a progressive and even radical movement, and played a…

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…