This article explores the nature, scope and form of third-sector involvement in education in New Zealand as demonstrated through a comparison of its relationship with the state in two distinct periods of state and educational development. It begins with an analysis of the period of state expansion from crown colony to centralised administration in…

This article examines the New Labour legacy in education, reviews the arguments of "The Pendulum Swings" in the light of contributions to this themed issue, examines early Coalition policymaking, and recommends four principles that should guide the search for a new approach to school improvement. Recent initiatives are found to be a parody of…

This paper investigates a suite of policies that comprise the "National Partnership Agreement" between federal, state and territory governments in Australia that are ostensibly aimed at improving the educational attainment levels of young Australians. It specifically explores the policy terrain of educational targets that have been arrived at by…

In September 1939, two days before declaring war on Germany, the British government evacuated over half a million children from London to supposedly safer areas in the country. Schoolchildren went there with their teachers and infants with their mothers. Immediately after the event (and ever since) the impact of the evacuation on the children--the…

Australian vocational education has a history dating from the late eighteenth century. As Australian colonies and, later, federated states evolved each constructed its own version of vocational education provision. Generally the systems, consisting of community-based or state-controlled colleges for the training of operatives, apprenticeships and…

In September 1931, the Communist Party Central Committee, the highest political authority in the Soviet Union, declared that "single person rule" ("edinonachalie") should prevail in the administration of schools. The history of approximately 100,000 school directors in the 1930s was shaped by a rapid expansion in numbers as well as fundamental…

Teachers in the English and Welsh State education system have experienced a changing and turbulent relationship with the State in recent decades. This article adopts a historical analysis and argues that the concept of "partnership" is key to understanding the relationship between teachers and the State in the period since the Second World War.…

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and…

For the past two decades schools and teachers in New Zealand and elsewhere have been the subject of and subjected to intense public scrutiny of their performance and professional activities. In effect, policy solutions have cast teacher and school performance as a "problem" to be solved/resolved via the intervention of the State. Consequently, the…

This paper reviews briefly the relationship between the South African government and higher education. This relationship, which has shaped the landscape of higher education, is looked at on the premise that public institutions depend to a large extent on government for funding and other resources, and as such there has been constant influence and…

On the partition of Ireland in 1921, the Northern Ireland Ministry of Education assumed control of the educational services which had been previously administered by four independent bodies in Dublin. The Education Act (Northern Ireland) 1923 created the county councils and county borough councils of the new devolved state the local education…

In 1850, in the frontier township of Brisbane, William Duncan argued articulately that National schools bestowed moral benefits to children more effectively than their denominational rivals, but the aloof and sometimes arrogant Brisbane Customs Officer lacked the skill to generate widespread support for his views. In contrast, the proprietor of…

Virtually all writings about "Methodist involvement" in state-provided English education use Wesleyan material. It is the most accessible and it is complete: every year there is a report from the Wesleyan Education Committee to the Conference. Official information on the attitudes of the other British Methodist churches to elementary education can…

Because of increased government control over schools, a two-tier school administration has developed, including a rule-making tier for finance administration and a rule-implementing tier for personnel administration. Their evaluative role pressures school administrators into politically based decisions in both tiers in order to survive. (JW)

Prior to the First World War, the public's attitude toward sex education was apathetic. With venereal disease posing a threat to America's "military efficiency" during the war, however, military programs in sex education were instituted that then gave rise to similar programs in secondary schools in the 1920s. (JBM)