Eighteen years of Conservative stewardship ensured that the Labour government's education policy did not begin with a tabula rasa, for its starting point has been defined by the previous government to a greater extent than any other incoming government has found. In this book the practitioners discuss the micro effect of the policies in their schools. This book will make an important contribution to continuing debate about the best way forward for state education in England and Wales.

First published in 1989. A provocative study of the radical changes that have taken place in education since 1976. Chitty analyzes the effects of recent legislative proposals on the education system and reveals the contradictions and tensions within New Right thinking.

Understanding Schools and Schooling provides students with the knowledge about school policy and process that they need in order to address and respond to current trends and discourses in critical, well-informed ways that will enhance their teaching and job satisfaction.The book presents issues, questions and dilemmas and invites the reader to find their own answers through guided activities, discussion with colleagues and further reading. The book provides a philosophical ...

Drawing on lessons from the recent history of social work to identify how and why it has lost its privilege and influence, this book challenges social work students to understand why social work has failed to maintain its position as a driver of social reform. Bamford looks forward to a new model of practice that places a commitment to put social justice back at the heart of professional practice.The book contributes to the topical debates about social work education and the identi...

Assisting readers to understand how early years services have been transformed and to evaluate that process and to prepare for the future.

Adult social care in Britain has been at the centre of much media and public attention in recent years. Revelations of horrific abuse in learning disability settings, the collapse of major private care home providers, abject failures of inspection and regulation, and uncertainty over how long-term care of older people should be funded have all given rise to serious public concern. In this short form book, part of the Critical and Radical Debates in Social Work series, Iain Ferguson and Mic...

At a time when education is considered crucial to a country’s economic success, recent UK governments have insisted their reforms are the only way to make England’s system world class. Yet pupils are tested rather than educated, teachers bullied rather than trusted and parents cast as winners or losers in a gamble for school places.Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. In a highly accessible style, Peter Mortimore, an author with ...

How much have teachers and their pupils benefitted from the top-down Westminster-led control of policy held in place by a powerful national inspection regime?A Generation of Radical Educational Change: Stories from the Field is an exploration of the revolutionary impact of the greater and continuing involvement of central government in education policy-making which began in 1976 and was accelerated by the 1988 Education Act and subsequent legislation.In the book, a dozen di...

′A splendid read. Via interviews with several Secretaries of State for Education and a supporting analytical commentary, Education Policy provides a fascinating insight and historical appraisal of English policy rationale′-Dr David Kitchener, Reader in Education, University of Bolton′This book should be compulsory reading, not only for people interested in the history of education policy but also for policy makers, to remind them of what has gone before′

Did the Thatcher years and their aftermath constitute a revolution or a restoration in education. Do they represent a departure from, or a reinforcement of tradition? Contemporary Debates in Education is a thought-provoking volume which reviews the reforms of the eighties and early nineties, then follow this with an examination of the long-standing issues in education over the last century in order to relate current reforms and changes to their broader historical background, so th...

Education in Scotland is markedly different from what happens in the rest of the UK - with a different National Curriculum, school boards to oversee school management and a General Teaching Council which has been in existence since 1965. Whilst there are many examples of successful and innovative practice in Scotland, the system is quite often not recognised as different by writers who talk about the UK education system as if it were one smooth whole. This book describes recent development...

Community development emerged as a recognisable occupational activity in the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Since then, whilst struggling to remain true to its basic values it has often been manipulated to serve differing policy and political purposes. This unique Reader traces its changing fortunes through a selection of readings from key writers. It will be invaluable to those pursuing community development careers, for activists, and for all those teaching, training and practising communi...