Stephen Ball's research continues to make a contribution to describing, understanding and explaining the political, social, economic and cultural context in which educational professionals locate their practices. Therefore, Ball engages with issues about school leadership, but he does not set out to present solutions for school leaders. Based…

New Labour's extended schools initiative added to existing models of community schooling. The paper identifies the key principles behind extended schooling, making comparisons with historical models and contemporary trends in community education. Part one examines New Labour's use of extended schools to deliver their social policy agenda. Part two…

Between 2008-2010 the School of Medicine at Queen's University Belfast funded and supported two unique and intensive three week interdisciplinary performance projects in which medical and drama students worked together to create an experimental dance theatre piece. One of the unique aspects of this collaboration was that the medical students who…

This reflective piece--written primarily to provoke discussion--raises some questions about and for the recent "creativity agenda" in educational policy in England, suggesting that something fundamental is missing. The author argues that "creativity" has characteristically been defined in recent policy discourse as a set of skills concerned with…

Humanities within universities faced challenges in the latter half of the twentieth century as their value in the modern world was questioned. This paper argues that there is strong potential for the humanities to thrive in the twenty-first century university sector. It outlines some of the managerial implications necessary to ensure that this…

The period since the election in May 2010 has seen a number of very far-reaching reforms enacted in the higher education system in the UK, and especially England. These have been driven in large measure by the economic situation, but also by the aim to introduce a more market-based approach into the sector. At the same time, the higher education…

This paper is written in the context of practice at Nottingham Trent University, using elements of its management as example or counterbalance to the literature. The challenge at the heart of the paper is that of practically balancing a managerial and business-focused culture and processes to support the aspirations and motivations of the…

The relationship between teaching and research is a touchstone in thinking about higher education. However, the last 40 years has seen the "dislocation" of these core academic activities as a result of policy and operational decisions to distinguish the way they are funded, managed, assessed and rewarded. The activities of "teaching" and…

The Secretary of State for Education's recent announcement of an English Baccalaureate at 16+ has opened up a debate about the nature of general education in the English upper secondary system. Drawing on evidence from national and local studies, we argue that it is important to see general education in England, not only in terms of the…

This article traces and analyses some of the key features of 14-19 education and training in England over the 30 years since such a phase was first mooted. It does this through an introductory narrative outlining the key policies and initiatives and the development of six themes drawing on analysis of a body of research and policy. The themes are:…

Here we draw on recent research and on earlier contributions on convergence and divergence across Great Britain to consider possible future trajectories for 14-19 education and training in England. We use a UK-wide lens to reflect on 14-19 strategies in England by showing how common issues can be tackled in different ways in Scotland, Wales and…

The argument of the article is that contemporary research into thesis supervision overlooks important didactical features of the supervisory dialogue because of its focus on general pedagogical categories. Entailing this argument I suggest that the personal dimension should be seen not only as a means to enhanced communication between supervisor…

This paper examines the political and historical antecedents of the absent presence of "race" in successive policies for citizenship education in contemporary Britain. It questions the possibility of embracing an emerging cosmopolitanism and politics of difference, within the limiting frame of the nation state and its overarching appeal towards…

Curriculum implementation as both an educational practice and a policy conundrum has been the focus of academic research since the 1970s. A new perspective is taken in this article by borrowing from the literature on policy implementation in multilevel systems of government. The concepts of "hard" and "soft" policy are used to show that…

What is it to learn in the modern world? We can identify four "learning epochs" through which our understanding of learning has passed: a metaphysical view; an empirical view; an experiential view; and, currently, a "learning-amid-contestation" view. In this last and current view, learning has its place in a world in which, the more one learns,…