This paper explores the complex ways in which the marketisation of education and the associated publication of performance data have contributed to the emergence of a new politics of recognition which has paradoxically served further to naturalise educational inequalities. Of all the reforms associated with subjecting education to market forces,…

The term 'spin' is conventionally used to refer to the process and products of purposively managing information in order to present institutions, individuals, policies, practices and/or ideas in a favourable light and thereby mobilize support for them. Attempts to manage news and political communications are not new. However, the New Labour…

Explores the conceptualization of social justice embedded in the education-action-zones policy recently implemented in England. Although zone populations suffer three types of social injustice, the initiative recognizes economic disadvantage, but inadequately acknowledges cultural and associational injustices. Cultural remedies cannot be imposed…

Drawing on Giddens' outline of first-, second-, and third-way politics, examines a range of New Labour's education policies, questioning whether they embody a distinctively different approach. The British government's strategies are largely extensions of second-way "neoliberalism." Education action zones may represent a third (feasible) way.…

During the 1980s, policies were introduced to reform the British education system along market principles. A heightened sociological interest in educational policy has generated several empirical investigations and critical analyses of these policies' effects at ground level. These analyses contain difficulties and inconsistencies that must be…