This paper draws on recent re-conceptualisations of the notions of "care" and "caring" (Noddings, 1992; Tronto, 1993) to explore data from semi-structured interviews with the parents and key workers for about twenty children under three who were attending two London children's centres. Located in an environment of frequent new policy initiatives,…

There has been a focus on policies relating to early years education and care across the developed world and particularly in Europe. In the UK, there has been a raft of policy changes alongside increased investment. However, this paper argues that these changes may not be sufficient to meet EU objectives in terms of quality or the government's…

Early childhood education and care settings in England and the people who work in them constitute an important sphere of influence, shaping young children's characters and values. But the values and dispositions expected of the early years workforce are missing from statutory policy documentation despite its clear requirement that practitioners…

In this paper I develop an alternative to prevailing moral development assumptions in early childhood education. Drawing on a Bakhtinian theoretical framework, theories of identity formation, and examples from my longitudinal research study of child-adult play, I reframe development as a lifelong process of coauthoring ethical identities that may…

The paper examines variations in the extent of special education needs (SEN) in different socio-economic contexts, drawing on data from 46 English primary schools. It examines the implications of variations in SEN for individual pupils and for school organisation and processes. It reviews funding allocations for SEN and what they mean for the…

It is argued here that understanding John Dewey's thought as that of a prodigal liberal or a fellow traveller does not capture the complexity of his work. It is also important to recognise the portion of his work that is "historie morale." In the very best sense it is epic, encapsulating the hopes and dreams of a history of the American people in…

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…

English education policy has increasingly focused on the need to intervene in an intergenerational cycle of poverty and low attainment. The accompanying policy discourse has tended to emphasise the impact of family background on educational outcomes. However, as the capacity of parents to secure positive educational outcomes for their children is…

Was there ever a golden age of academe: a time when academics were able to pursue their own interests, had relatively light and undemanding teaching responsibilities, and enjoyed widespread respect from both the general public and policy makers? This article explores that question, primarily in the context of the United Kingdom, but with some…

This paper argues that race and class inequalities cannot be fully understood in isolation: their intersectional quality is explored through an analysis of how the White working class were portrayed in popular and political discourse during late 2008 (the timing is highly significant). While global capitalism reeled on the edge of financial…

In this paper I reflect on the findings of a number of loosely related research projects undertaken with colleagues over the last ten years. Their common theme is equity, in formal education and beyond, in wider family and social settings, and with inequity expressed as the stratification of a variety of educational outcomes. The projects are…

This paper outlines and reviews three forms and associated discourses of the "knowledge economy": the "learning economy", based on the work of Bengt-Ake Lundvall; the "creative economy" based on the work of Charles Landry, John Howkins and Richard Florida; and the "open knowledge economy" based on the work of Yochai Benkler and others. Arguably,…

In the contemporary literature of educational philosophy and theory, it is almost routinely assumed or claimed that "education" is a "contested" concept: that is, it is held that education is invested--as it were, "all the way down"--with socially constructed interests and values that are liable to diverge in different contexts to the point of…

We analyse two foundational social problems regarding early childhood education. The first, in the late nineteenth century, is infant mortality, a social problem that constituted the historical legitimation for the first creches. The second, the prevention of school failure, is very topical today. By analysing these examples in their historicity,…

TLRP's generic phase (1999-2009) is believed to have been the largest ever UK investment in educational research. This paper describes the critique from which TLRP emerged, its strategic positioning and the roles of successive directors and their teams in its development. The paper offers an early stock take of TLRP's achievements from the…