This paper presents an argument around the need to rethink the issue of early school leaving from the vantage point of students and teachers, and the conditions and pathways that need to be constructed and brought into existence within schooling, if such conditions do not already exist. The attempt is to move discussions outside of the…

A prominent thesis of British philosophy of education in the 1960s was that the pursuit of different forms of knowledge is central to education. The fact that the thesis is difficult to justify philosophically raises questions about its historical provenance. The idea of such a curriculum can be traced back through the history of the middle-class…

This paper examines the legislative framework developed in New Zealand over the last 15 years to facilitate greater parental choice in education. The discussion is set within the context of changes to admission practices in a number of education systems to advance the privatisation agenda, and outlines the resurgence of interest in the development…

Inspection and performance data show that the schools identified as least effective in England (in special measures) are more likely to sustain the improvement they make after inspection than those that are relatively more effective, although still causing concern (identified as having serious weaknesses). We compare the progress of these two…

This paper is based on a talk given at the conference of the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning, September 2004. There is consistent evidence that parents' education predicts children's educational outcomes, alongside other distal family characteristics such as family income, parents' occupations and residence location. A…

Education forms a unique dimension of social status with qualities that make it especially important to health. Educational attainment marks social status at the beginning of adulthood, functioning as the main bridge between the status of one generation and the next, and also as the main avenue of upward mobility. It precedes the other achieved…

This paper reviews theory and research pertaining to the acquisition of identity capital and social capital, and applies it to the changing nature of learning in late-modern societies, where the ability to undertake individualized life courses is becoming an increasingly important divide in the fortunes of the young as they make their way to…

The paper investigates the relationship between mother's education and her parenting using data from the child supplement of the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). By considering data across generations, our dataset allows us to estimate the size of the bias in the relationship between education and parenting from failing to account for…

We use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the links between participation in adult learning and self-efficacy, particularly for the subgroup of adults who had low levels of achievement at school. We focus on self-efficacy because it translates into a range of wider benefits and because it may afford protection from depression and…

Although adult education leads to a moderation of racist or authoritarian attitudes amongst the general population, little is known concerning the impact of adult education on individuals with extremist racist-authoritarian views. In this paper we group individuals from the NCDS (National Child Development Study) into various racist-authoritarian…

In South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the promise of peer education as a means of promoting sexual health has contributed to its increasing popularity. While structural and organisational constraints can compromise the success of peer education, many of those involved in modest local programmes in South Africa are able to address the sexual…

This paper examines the role of education in (re)constructing civil society in societies emerging from conflict or violence. After examining the nature of civil society and its importance for democracy and peace, the paper looks at three areas: legal education (including human rights education); information, media and the public space; and…

The argument of the paper proposes that learning grows out of motivation which depends upon recognising and valuing the distinctive qualities of each and the cultural traditions they embody. If learning expresses a journey between worlds, the challenge for the school is to create a learning community that brings together local and cosmopolitan in…

Historically public schools and public school teachers have been obvious targets for attacks by conservative critics. However, during the post World War II red scare, the rapid emergence of anti-communist sentiment and super-patriotic zeal dramatically increased their vulnerability. In many respects the arch conservatism of the 1950s has obvious…

The purpose of this article is to outline a framework of explanation of the unique tradition of comprehensive schooling in Scandinavia. All the countries developed an all-through system of education from grade one to nine/ten with mixed ability classes for nearly all. This all-through system of education is a product of a long historical…