This paper examines the continuity and changes in Clarke's ideas about the State and community in education, especially in relation to a rapidly changing political situation in England in the 1930s and 1940s. His ideas evolved in the intellectual context of British idealism. Moreover, in response to the threat to democracy arising from Fascism or…

Government policies for teachers and schools in England promote values including tolerance of faiths and beliefs alongside law keeping, democracy, and respect. Tolerance of faiths has been highlighted as a key value but complexities around tolerance make interpretations and applications of the policy difficult. Policy documents in this area are…

Fred Clarke (1880-1952), an English educationist, emerged as a leading figure with his liberal approach alongside such key figures as R. H. Tawney and Cyril Norwood in the reform leading to the 1944 Education Act. Many of his reform proposals, which were provided by the new Act, reflected his ideals of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, his…

As a postsecondary educator with most of my experience teaching in colleges, but with some also in undergraduate and postgraduate studies both in Canada and the United States, I have been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only undertaking empirical analyses of political behaviour and the…

Over the last decades, many liberal democracies have experienced a tension between the education system's expressed requirement to foster citizenship norms and the liberal (sub-)ideal of norm neutrality. This dilemma has been accentuated by, on the one hand, increased ethnical and cultural diversity and, on the other hand, liberalization of…

In this article we begin by discussing "ideology" as a theoretical construct, and the interconnections between policy and ideology in the education system in England. We analyse the main principles of education policies that can be broadly defined from Left to Right, according to the following ideologies: Marxism/Socialism/Radical…

Politicians and policy-makers in education routinely proclaim the centrality of schools and teachers in sustaining and consolidating democracy and democratic society. This article offers an account of teachers engaged in research in their schools and classrooms, with peers and students, so as to highlight the democratic potential of this…

Peter Jarvis emphasised relationships in education: people in the West assumed we were born as individuals but we are relationally embedded from the outset and learn to become social beings. This paper is concerned with how we learn democratic sensibilities with a prime focus on "liberal" workers' education in the United Kingdom and the…

This article addresses questions of workplace democracy, particularly in relation to school education. Following Luciano Canfora in treating democracy as "the rule of the many", it traces the post-1945 rise of workplace democracy, and its post-1979 decline. Analysing the constitution of contemporary schooling in England, the article…

International comparisons strongly influence national policy agendas in the early years. However, an appreciation of details and national context and differences is imperative to promote democracy. From the perspective of a Danish social pedagogue lecturing in Early Childhood Studies in England, the author presents a cross-national comparison to…

The aim of this article is to investigate why Sweden, the epitome of social democracy, has implemented education reforms leading to an extraordinary growth in Free Schools in contrast to liberal England, where Free School policy has been met with enormous resistance. Conventional wisdom would predict the contrary, but as a matter of fact Sweden…

Partnerships between schools and universities have been well developed as a means of organisations in initial teacher education (ITE) in the UK since 1994. They have, more recently, become increasingly central to the organisations of the post-compulsory education of teachers. The focus of this article is upon the development of a new partnership…

This article compares the development of citizenship education (CE) in Taiwan and England, as well as teachers' perceptions about the liberal and communitarian constructs underpinning the curriculum in both countries. Due to distinct social and political environments, the Taiwanese and English CE curricula demonstrate an interesting contrast.…

This is an argument for a new public education for England, but not for a new public school. The focus should be on aims, not structures. We should ensure that all schools (community schools, private schools, academies and religious schools) are working to realise the same nationally determined aims. The national set of aims should be determined…

This paper argues that certain taken-for-granted features commonly found in schools can create regimes that are inimical to democracy and the principles of a liberal education for all. Schools in England can be theorized as particularly oppressive institutions that create the conditions that make their children the unhappiest amongst the…