In light of calls to improve the capacity for social science research within UK higher education, this article explores the possibilities for an emerging pedagogy for research methods. A lack of pedagogical culture in this field has been identified by previous studies. In response, we examine pedagogical literature surrounding approaches for…

Recent reflection on the professional knowledge of teachers has been marked by a shift away from more reductive competence and skill-focused models of teaching towards a view of teacher expertise as involving complex context-sensitive deliberation and judgement. Much of this shift has been inspired by an Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom…

This paper critically examines shifts in emphasis in Australian education from expectations and belief that teachers not only make a difference to student achievement, but they are the difference. In moving from social class relations accounts to self-managing school accounts, latest shifts (teacher effectiveness accounts) over-emphasize teacher…

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…

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…

Cosmopolitanism has become an influential theory in both political and, increasingly, educational discourse. In simple terms cosmopolitanism can be understood as a response to the globalised and diverse world in which we live. Diverse in nature, cosmopolitan ideas come in many forms. The focus here is on what have been termed "strong" ethical…

This paper traces the way discourses within early years policy and practice impose meanings onto the signifier "play". Drawing on Bernstein's conceptualisation of recontextualising strategies, we explore how these meanings regulate troubling excesses in children's "play". The analysis foregrounds an underlying question about the hold the signifier…

Evidence has emerged that the civic engagement movement in US higher education may not be fulfilling its transformative potential, having lost sight of its core democratic purposes. Civic engagement conceptualised only in terms of activity and place--programmes in communities--may be easily accommodated to prevailing technocratic practices. For…

This paper explores how civic engagement as an important dimension of public engagement in higher education has been slow to develop in the UK, despite an important history dating from the "civic universities" in the nineteenth century. I specifically consider the development of "service learning" as an important way in which the values 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 proceeds through four stages. First, it provides an account of the origins and evolution of the concept of educational theory. Second, it uses this historical narrative to show how what we now call "educational theory" is deeply rooted in the foundationalist discourse of late nineteenth and early twentieth century modernity. Third, it…

Education cannot mean that the young are the product of the activities of their teachers. At the same time, we do not speak of education if students would simply learn something irrespective of the activities of their teachers. In this paper we focus on the question: How is education possible? Our aim is to contribute to a social theory of…

Taking account of crucial differences between the social environments of universities in Newman's time and in ours, this paper considers two key concepts in "The Idea of the University", the "philosophical" and the "liberal". It argues that, despite their merits, both concepts are beset by problems. And it suggests some lines of analysis, partly…

The aim of this article is to reclaim social class as a central concern within education, not in the traditional sense as a dimension of educational stratification, but as a powerful and vital aspect of both learner and wider social identities. Drawing on historical and present evidence, a case is made that social inequalities arising from social…

Author argued that philosophers are experts, that the moral sphere is central to the concern of the philosopher of education, that in one sense evaluation is his business, and that ideally philosphers ought to issue practical directives in education. (Author/RK)