The aim of this study is to compare critically the development, operation and impact of school inspection in two historical periods. The first period 1850 to 1870, following the introduction of formal state inspection of schools is contrasted with the introduction and operation of the Office for Standards in education (Ofsted) in the years 1992 to 2000. The study examines the introduction, processes and effects of inspection in a group of Church of England infant and primary schools in Canterbury and east Kent. Its wider context is the development and implementation of school inspection policy in two eras, separated by over 150 years, and its effects on teacher professionalism. Although a gulf of time stands between the two periods, it is believed that such a comparative perspective is both valid and meaningful for a number of reasons. Inspection is a dimension of effective government and public accountability. In both eras the involvement ofthe state and its role in securing improvements in the provision of publicly funded education has been linked to the national, economic and social well being of the state. The study has involved extensive archival and empirical research, including interviews with headteachers in east Kent to learn from their experience ofthe inspection process both before and after the introduction of Ofsted. Finally, the study has set out to show that the past is clearly relevant to today. It raises the question of whether educational change is cyclical, and not a process of permanent progress. Just as the Revised Code, introduced in 1862 was to last until 1895, and then in hindsight be widely regarded as 'unenlightened', is it today possible to predict a cyclical term for the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s? Will they too have a finite span?

Accepting that "good" leadership is critical for a school to flourish, in a democratic society such leadership should be informed by democratic values. I develop this argument with particular reference to maintained schools in England. These are designated places that prepare the next generation for future lives as citizens, but their leadership practices promote an autocratic model of leadership centred on the agency of an individual, the headteacher. I consider the influence of past practice on this hierarchical tradition of school leadership and criticise its continuing presence in current policy and practice. I offer an alternative conception of good school leadership, based on democratic principles of political liberty and equality. I show, with reference to empirical research by other scholars, how this might be applied to future policy and practice. My argument applies theory to a significant problem in educational practice, working across the foundational disciplines in the study of education. While my critique of current arrangements is interdisciplinary, it leans most towards a philosophical approach. I draw on earlier work within that discipline which establishes what a characteristically democratic approach to school leadership must logically entail. I argue that existing school leadership practices may be democratic when undertaken in the right spirit by people morally committed to those values and skilled at translating them into daily life. I conclude that schools should determine freely for themselves how they wish to be led, within limits identified by a new national framework for school leadership; this should replace the current system, focussed on "standards". Schools should ensure that strategic decisions concerning their future direction are shaped by directly interested parties. This alternative conception of good school leadership will require existing professional development programmes to be revised, because learning for and from leadership start at school, both "taught" and "caught" from experience.

This is a case study about the values of male and female head teachers in Icelandic schools in the context of an era of educational change. The study's methodology is located within the interpretive framework and informed by the perspectives of social constructivisin and feminism. In addition, the theoretical framework is based on theories related to values in leadership, which, in combination with research on leadership and gender, provide the focus for this study. Data collection mainly involved interviews but also documentary analysis. The purpose of the study was to shed light on the interplay between values, gender, and leadership behaviour. This was done by seeking answers to questions about the impact of headteachers' values on their actions, in particular when facing value related dilemmas. Further questions were asked about the influence of gender on headteachers' values and actions. The study provides information about the impact of recent changes in the envirom-nent of Icelandic schools, on the role of headteachers. It moreover highlights the gendered nature of these changes and how they may impact differently upon men and women head teachers. The study shows that despite similar values, the position of men and women headteachers is unequal. Several influencing factors were found to contribute to this unequal positioning of men and women, including different careers, discriminatory behaviour towards women, and new competencies, such as computer literacy where more men than women are proficient. The thesis makes a theoretical contribution through conceptualizing and developing a framework for examining the interplay between the concepts of leadership, values and gender and by showing how values, gender and gendered educational discourses, may impact upon leadership actions. It is moreoever a contribution to the existing research on education in general and on leadership, values and gender, specifically.

No description available.

This study is predominantly concerned with two African states, The Gambia on the West Coast and Malawi in the East Central Region. Both had been dependencies within the British Empire and while they shared a common colonial heritage, the overall experience was not identical and their respective educational administrative structures mirrored the dissimilarities. Commencing with the Colonial Office in London, aspects that are relevant to the British Colonial Administrative System are examined: in particular, the basic philosophy and personnel of the Home Civil Service; the fundamental economic thought underlying administration of the Empire; and the unique, if somewhat eccentric recruitment apparatus for coloniel service administrators and technical staff, as developed by Major _Purse. In the field, decision-making in educational matters was influenced,often indirectly but nonetheless profoundly, by individual Africans and people of African descent, and examples from both parts of the continent andelsewhere receive consideration; sometimes within the context of the contemporary social environment. In the account of the establishment of the Education Departments in The Gambia and Malawi reasons, motives and difficulties are described and certain basic differences between the two systems receive comment. The conceptual framework within which, and the theoretical foundations upon which, educational administration in general and decisionmaking in particular operate receive close attention with special reference to modern theories germane to the hypothesis. From non-governmental and governmental archives the decision-making process, with the inter-play of individual factors and mild intrigue, is developed and analysed. The gulf between theory and practice, as revealed in the material, reinforces the contention of the hypothesis. The structured investigation of the theme terminates about 1945 but in the conclusions certain later events and developments are outlined by way of indicating the dynamic nature of the topic and its interrelationship with non-predictable outcomes.

In England, schools with self-management responsibility compete to be chosen by parents, for whom information on exam/test results is available, and student numbers as a result of parental choice decide the allocation of school budgets. This quasi-market system, introduced by the Education Reform Act 1988, has survived the changes of government and premiership. There has also been a continuing controversy between the advocates and critics of the quasimarket. Strangely, both the advocates and critics agree on a paradoxical view that the traditional academic model with rigorous teaching prevails in the quasi-market even though parental choice is complex and diverse. The schooling model is influenced by parental choice only indirectly through the schools' strategies. Based on Basil Bernstein's theory, this thesis proposes a hypothesis that school managers in the quasi-market tend to introduce more visible strategies oriented towards explicit rules in pedagogy and management, or towards 'conservative' pedagogy and 'managerial' management, than invisible strategies oriented towards implicit rules, or towards 'progressive' pedagogy and 'collegial' management. To examine the hypothesis, as a multiple-case study targeting six secondary schools in a London borough, semi-structured interviews with headteachers were carried out between 1994 and 1995, when the quasi-market system was 'purer' than the current one that contains more interventionist mechanisms added by the Labour government. The results of the study show that in five of the six schools, the headteachers were adopting more visible strategies than invisible ones and therefore, lend support to the hypothesis and its theoretical framework. Thus the framework can be a solid basis for the systematic analyses of the effects of the quasi-market forces on school strategies. In discussing the implications of the findings for Labour's policies, research on quasi-markets, and Bernstein's theory, reviews of recent literature demonstrate the sustained relevance of this research to the education system at the time of writing the thesis.

No description available.

The starting-point of this thesis is a wide spectrum of concerns relating to the detrimental effects which 'new public management' (NPM) and the managerialism it creates have had on education, its organization, its conduct and its content. Pursuing these concerns, Part I of the thesis aims: (i) to establish the ideological and coercive nature of managerialism. Drawing on neo-liberalism in order to articulate its own rhetoric, managerialism has emerged as an ideology in its own right, requiring all who work in the public sector to conform to its own 'managerial' ends; (ii) to demonstrate the philosophical unpersuasiveness of the idea that explicitness-transmitted through a rhetoric of 'transparency'-is the sine qua non for public accountability. Part II explores why the ideology of managerialism is inimical to moral agency. A neo-Aristotelian model of practical rationality is introduced to show how an agent's decision-making, if it is to aim at virtuous ends in the public interest, depends on (i) a structure of reasoning analogous to that which phronesis suggests and on (ii) the practical, personal and implicit knowledge drawn from the agent's 'formation' (ethismos, Bildung). The Aristotelian perspective provides insights for policy-makers concerned with educational accountability: a public rationality that offers a more robust concept of professional and civic responsibility-responsibLeness-than any that managerialism promotes. Part III attends to the objection that no intrinsic value attaches to the idea of implicit ('tacit') knowledge: far better to codify it. An argument, resonating with this idea, to show that practical knowledge-'know-how’ can be reduced without residue to explicit propositional knowledge is rejected. The thesis draws to its conclusion by arguing that managerialism, with its emphasis on explicit, pre-specified objectives designed to gauge agent accountability, undermines (paradoxically) the pre-conditions under which trustworthiness and public spirit may play their part in organizational life.

This is the first attempt to estimate social returns, by which is meant pre-tax wage gains, to education in the Republic of Mauritius. Social returns are estimated for both sexes, by gender, by private and public sectors, and by rural and urban areas. This study uses cross sectional data from a sample of the 2000 Population Census. Although Psacharopoulos along with other researchers have estimated returns to education for many countries, the Republic of Mauritius had not so far been included due to lack of data prior to 2000. The Mincerian approach is used to estimate social returns for the Republic of Mauritius, using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method. All wage equations are adjusted for selectivity bias. Findings are similar to those reported in the literature. First, there is evidence of diminishing marginal returns to education when the social return to a year of education is estimated. Second, when highest academic qualifications are considered, tertiary education yields the highest social return relative to no schooling at all or to primary schooling only. Third, social returns to academic and vocational qualifications are higher for women than for men, a finding consistent with those reported for other countries and attributed to women's lower foregone earnings. Fourth, social returns to high level academic qualifications (' A' level and above) and vocational qualifications are higher in the private sector than in the public sector. Fifth, social returns are higher for those who reside in urban areas. Sixth, selectivity bias is minimal in most cases. This study also uses the instrumental variable (IV) approach to deal with the omitted variable bias, endogeneity of schooling and measurement error. The 1976 free secondary education law is used as an instrument. This instrument only predicts the schooling of women for the Republic of Mauritius. IV estimates are consistently higher than OLS estimates. Implications of these results are discussed.

Absent from critical education policy analysis is a discussion of the ethical beliefs of those actors who mediate the effects of policy in schools and colleges. The assumed homology between businesses and schools, which underlies 'managerialism', generates ethical values that are often contradictory for those who are managed. The ethical aporias that emerge from managing schools as if they were a business forms the substance of this thesis. Also absent from the literature that discusses the ethics of schools, teaching and educational administration is sufficient attention to the context and mechanisms of policy that shape the outcome of teachers' ethical beliefs and conduct. How policy may enable or constrain ethical beliefs is brought into consideration. A critical realist methodology is developed to explore the emergent ethical beliefs of teachers, that is the managed as opposed to the management. Using ethnographic tools informed by critical realism, a sample of teachers from a secondary school and Further Education college were interviewed. This involved a'discussion of a set of eight vignettes constructed-on the basis of ethical problems that derive from the acceptance that an isomorphism exists between schools and business. Teachers were asked to discuss what aspects of managerial policies make their'moral compass spin'. The three - data analysis chapters make a substantive contribution to understanding the ethical regime of schools as businesses, from the 2 perspective of 'the managed', and they also take critical policy analysis into the realm of ethics. The thesis is also an attempt to demonstrate and explore the possibilities of using and applying dialectical critical realist concepts creatively to an empirical problem. This involves testing the suitability of critical realist analytical strategies and techniques and is intended to address the present lack of guidance in conducting a critical realist qualitative data analysis in educational research. I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own.