This paper discusses the sociological issues raised by a recent study on school councils in England. This study revealed a lack of clarity among policy-makers and schools regarding the purpose of provision for pupil voice. The paper argues that this allows important questions about the functions of pupil voice to be avoided. While suggesting ways…

Given the ecumenical pleas and legislative imperatives for more inclusive educational policy and practice, Cyprus has been steadfastly heading towards the realignment of its educational legislation towards a more inclusive discourse. This has been especially true after the implacable criticisms that the UNESCO report cast on the Cyprus educational…

Dominant conceptions of the world infuse educational experiences for young people in implicit rather than explicit ways--through becoming, as Stuart Hall argues, "the horizon of the taken-for-granted". In this article we explore these horizons as experienced by New Zealand's neo-liberal generation, currently "in transition" from high school to…

Here we examine New Labour's education policy concerning social justice and the organisation of educational provision with reference to social capital as policy vocabulary. The central focus is on policy discourses and practices in relation to networking between schools and other partners. We identify three policy phases for reducing inequalities…

This paper is based on a preliminary exploration of the in-depth interviews and focus groups that are part of a more extensive research project on the education of children of immigrants in Spain. In the process of migration, families undergo profound transformations that are often complicated by extended periods of separation--not only from…

Considerable problems have arisen in New Zealand universities as a consequence of the conflict between the statutory role of the university as the "critic and conscience of society" and the dominant intellectual orthodoxy of cultural essentialism. A number of examples are used to show the extent to which culturalist ideological conformity…

Policy-makers in the UK and Europe have become concerned with the successful management of transitions in learning as a means of increasing the competitiveness of their economies. Transitions relating to informal as well as formal learning have also been an important focus for the sociology of education. In this paper, I review alternative ways in…

The paper addresses a number of issues concerning policy and curriculum in post-compulsory education and training (PCET). Firstly, it seeks to locate PCET within its socio-economic context as it is this that frames curricula within the learning and skills sector and serves to legitimate its particular form. Secondly, the paper addresses the manner…

For more than ten years, academics of public universities in Mexico have endured modernization programs that promote individual productivity and operate as a mechanism of selection and assessment. The implementation of the programs has exposed a tension between the values implicit in the programs and the values of the academic teachers. There is a…

Research conducted by Patrick Clancy and by Fitzpatrick Associates and Philip O'Connell on the level of representation of socio-economic groups amongst higher education entrants has been a key element in the development of access policy and practice in Ireland. This article reviews the context for the development of access and explores the…

The fifty-year retrospective has led to recent media interest in the comprehensive school. Bristol, located in the south-west of England, is frequently portrayed as an early provider. This article draws on documentary evidence and life-history interviews with ex-pupils to explore this claim. It finds that they were not comprehensive schools, but…

This article focuses on the construction of dyslexia in higher education and explores the nature of negotiations between students, lecturers and academic institutions over diagnosis, support and assessment. Disabled students are now entitled, under the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), to reasonable adjustments in assessment.…

This paper adopts a social constructionist position on assessment, specifically that it can never be free of the social conditions in which it is practiced. As such, we explore two aspects of classroom interactions which contribute to and shape the learning environments in which assessment takes place. By drawing on interviews carried out with 51…

This article examines the introduction of the final examination as an external national system of assessment of students in the transition from secondary school to university education. Since 1991 Slovenia has followed foreign models, the British one in particular; however, it has also considered its own traditional system of education. Students…

The latent power of social work's position at the centre of welfare services and as a coordinator and definer of social realities can be argued to have led social work to become "the assessment profession". Building upon a critique of the key distinction between "description and prescription", we argue that the conceptualization of assessment…