Legislative changes in Great Britain in the 1980s introduced a competitive, quasi-market in education (Woods, Bagley and Glatter, 1998) in which parents are able to exercise choice about the school they wish their child to attend. Parents specify (and sometimes rank) their preferred schools and places are allocated on the basis of those preferences, if school capacity permits (Woods et al, 1998). In order to thrive in this educational market, schools must appeal to parents and will use a variety of means to make a positive impression. This study asks three questions about school choice. 1. To what extent do parents and school staff agree which are the most important factors parents consider when choosing a school for their child? 2. To what extent do parents and school staff have a shared understanding of the concept of ‘school reputation,’ and what is the relative importance both place on it as a factor when choosing a school? 3. What are the implications for schools? The study is based in an all-through (educates children aged 4-18) Academy Trust of three schools (two primary and one secondary) in a socially and economically diverse town in the East of England. The inquiry paradigm adopted is one of pragmatism with the utilization of two data collection methods within a case study methodology. Quantitative data were collected from parents and school staff using a ‘card sort’ of eighteen choice criteria that were placed in order of relative importance. The card sort task was taken home by pupils for completion and returned for collation and analysis using a predesigned ‘Data Analysis Plan’. Fifty-two cards sorts were completed by staff groups and thirty-nine card sorts were returned by parents / families. Of the eighteen criteria for school choice, twelve indicate an extremely significant or very significant difference between what parents say they rank most highly, and what school staff think parents rate most highly. School staff believe parents place greater emphasis on school reputation than parents say they do Qualitative data was collected from ten semi-structured interviews (six parents and four staff) and thematically analysed to elicit a deeper understanding of parental choice in this community. The meaning of ‘school reputation’ is understood in different ways between, and within, groups of parents and school staff. Three implications for practice in the Trust schools arise from the study: 1. School leaders need to understand the social makeup and therefore the likely motivations of the people in the locality from which the intake is drawn. 2. School leaders must recognize the importance of academic achievement in school choice. 3. School reputation can be managed by improving the quality of teaching and learning. I expect my ‘particularized’ study to be of tangible use to the Academy Trust in which it is based, but as this is an issue of contemporary strategic relevance to all school leaders, the findings are likely to be transferable to other settings.

The marketisation of the educational sector continues to shape educational provision, policy and practice on a worldwide scale (Apple, 2001; Ball, 2008; Giroux, 2004), ostensibly providing ‘freedom’ through the conflation of consumer ‘choice’ and ‘equality of opportunity’ via the invisible hand of the market. The assumption that competitive markets will produce better schools and outcomes for their students veils the extent to which a large proportion of the world’s population are positioned as marginal actors, unable to ‘compete’ or ‘choose’ as equals, as they engage on a significantly uneven playing field (Mills & McGregor, 2014; Reay, 2012). Historical and global (cf. Fielding & Moss, 2011; Neill, 1990; Wrigley et al., 2012) examples of democratic alternatives to the traditional institution of ‘the school’ have provided rich evidence of the radical possibilities for social change in the form of case studies and academic critique. However, the absence of a cohesive platform which allows a multiplicity of voices and diverse contexts to collaborate together and develop a more effective voice, risks positioning these more radical models at the fringe of educational reform. This represents a significant challenge for extending democracy within educational contexts. The co-operative movement represents a possible solution to this, especially in terms of developing its capacity to create a powerful alliance of partners which can reorient the means and ends of public education towards social justice. Indeed, in just six years co-operative schools have come to represent the third largest grouping within the English public education system (Munn, 2013) and in January 2014, there were just over 700 schools in the UK which have committed to adopting co-operative values (self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, solidarity, openness and honesty, social responsibility and caring for others) within the very heart of their school’s ethos (Shaw, forthcoming, 2015). Although the first English co-operative trust school opened in 2008, sustained analysis of this model has not been undertaken to date. Therefore, this research project attempts to offer the beginnings of a critical conversation that considers the possibilities and challenges that such a model of schooling might have to offer by undertaking a systematic examination of the recent emergence of a ‘co-operative’ model of public schooling from within the socio-historical context of decades of neoliberal educational ‘reforms’. This piece of research maps out how this model is variously conceived as a more ethical brand by some, and as a radical project which creates the necessary conditions for democracy and social justice to flourish by others. This research therefore, seeks to understand how tropes of “getting it” both constitute and confuse readings of freedom and equality in education as nascent understandings of co-operative school membership become slippery subjects of cooperative school discourse. By undertaking a critical discursive analysis of claims that co-operative school governance structures allow everyone to ‘have a say’, this thesis develops a theoretical engagement and provocation of ‘voice’ in education as it becomes increasingly troubled with and by attempts to answer the question, ‘what is a co-operative school?’ and ‘what can it do?’ In order to answer these questions, data drawn from critical ethnographic fieldwork undertaken at three co-operative trust and academy schools during 2012-13 was considered alongside discourse analysis of an emerging body of ‘texts’ that sought to inform and promote ‘co-operation’ in school. As a result of exploring the accounts of Others who offered a range of narratives that reflect the ‘making up’ (Hacking, 1990) of the co-operative subject, these different versions of events brought into view both the challenges and the possibilities that ‘cooperative’ schools and their members face; as the values and principles of cooperation are also shaped (but not necessarily determined) by claims made for equality which reflect the messiness of everyday school life. Furthermore, this piece of research highlighted the extent to which students’ experiences of “getting it” (cooperative schooling) troubled corresponding rights to be included in decision-making processes as the conditions of co-operative school membership are intersected by multiple axes of difference and inequality, both within educational discourse and in wider society. This research suggests that despite the promising emergence of a model of schooling that places a collective approach to civil society at its core, historical asymmetries of power and entrenched marketisation of educational provision and practice tended to prevail. This severely limited the extent to which schools were able to create the conditions of possibility for everyone to “get it” and ‘have a say’. I thus argue that, in order for co-operative schools to resist the neo-liberal appropriation of freedom through the lens of the ‘rational’ individual consumer of education, significant restructuring of governance arrangements is required alongside considerable advocacy work that addresses students’ rights to be included and protected as full members of the school community. This thesis closes with a number of observations and recommendations that contribute to reinvigorating the debate about what cooperative schooling can do, in addition to highlighting how this research project offers further insight about the conceptual and methodological dilemmas that work to shape the construction of children’s agency and subjectivities as students are variously positioned as heterogeneous subjects of co-operative education and educational research.

Prior to 1999, higher education in Libya was monopolized by the public sector and there was considerable public resistance to the establishment of private universities. The impetus for the private higher education policy was created by a number of pressures on public policy for higher education, which had been adopted by Gaddafi’s government for two decades. This study explores the efforts of Gaddafi’s regime to cope with this issue. It reviews the financing policy for higher education and the phenomenon of the growth of private higher education in Libya and describes the strategy of the Gaddafi government for reforming the higher education system with a view to encouraging privatization. The thesis also analyses the case of a particular private university with the aim of providing insights into the managing and financing of a private higher education institution from which to make informed appraisals and assessments of the practice of private higher education in the country. In addition, it analyses the effects of the new financing policy for higher education in the Gaddafi period for the main stakeholders, namely students, academics and institutions themselves. The research contends that the policy shift had had a significant effect on quality just as it has introduced universities to risks through engagement with academic capitalism with its emphasis on marketization of university programmes and services. The thesis concludes with suggestions for some policy options that could help to mitigate the negative consequences of Gaddafi’s policy, taking in to account some developments since the February 2011 revolution which overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The 1999 Private Higher Educational Institutions Act opened the possibility of private universities being founded to increase the supply of quality graduates to increase the advantage of competitiveness. As with many countries, Libya is a very recent arrival to the world scene of rapidly growing private higher education. Reform in higher education financing in Libya has been occasioned by both endogenous and exogenous variables. Internal pressures of a declining economy, rapid demographic growth and increased interand intra-sectoral competition for scare financial resources, coupled with external neoliberal doctrines championed by global donors like the World Bank, resulted in a new market-competitive policy of financing higher education. In Libya the policy was to facilitate educational reform to produce quality graduates that could help transform Libya from a development economy to an industrialized and knowledge based economy for the primary purpose of enhancing the competitiveness of the Libyan economy. However, the policy of Gaddafi’s government to privatize higher education was ad hoc; it was carried out in a deteriorating environment and in response to the political desires of dictatorship rule. The thesis demonstrates how important the particular circumstances of any single country like Libya are in helping us to understand the development of private higher education. It shows how the previous government policy to reform financing higher education cannot relieve fiscal stress. Attention is drawn to the expansion in the number of private higher education institutions, the dramatic increase of enrolments in social science fields, and the many difficulties institutions had in coping with the circumstances in Libya during the phase of Gaddafi’s rule. Comprehensive reform of the role of the state in the financing and governance of higher education was proposed. The government's reform strategy involved accreditation bodies that were established later. These centres were questionable in terms of skills of staff members, administrative structure and their attestation and accreditation procedures. The implementation of the new policy was poor. Private universities offer a limited number of courses and the fees from students continue to be their major source of income. They are profit makers in a country that had been wedded to a culture of socialism for more than forty years. A number of college and university students in Libya attend private institutions, for several reasons, one of which is that private universities are seen as easier than public universities. The number of students in private universities does not account for a significant proportion of university enrolments for there are more students in public than in private universities. Even so, private higher education plays an important role in the higher education sector. Private institutions do not provide professional training in fields relevant to employment opportunities but instead offer an education with its emphasis on the human sciences, qualification in which are unlikely to enable a graduate to obtain employment. Private higher education is expensive and costly to attend. Many private institutions are caught in a dilemma. They cannot achieve significant efficiency by reducing instructional costs without damage to the quality of their programmes, and they are reluctant to raise tuition fees and other charges because of the damaging effects on student recruitment. As long as public higher education is provided at low or no cost to the student and private higher education continues to be entirely self-supporting, the private sector will have a peripheral role to play in higher education in Libya. This research was undertaken during the period when the Gaddafi regime was overthrown in a bloody revolution in 2011. The thesis concentrates on the policy developments and problems during the Gaddafi years, but brief reference is made to relevant subsequent developments.

No description available.

No description available.

The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) holds a government remit to inspect all schools in England under the 2005 Education Act. Ofsted is required to inspect schools on a regular cycle, with the aim of providing information to parents as well as the Secretary of State for Education, to promote school improvement and to hold schools to account for educational provision and standards. Ofsted’s strapline is ‘Raising Standards, Improving Lives’ and its goal is to ‘achieve excellence in education and skills for learners of all ages’ (Ofsted). Drawing on existing literature the thesis explains the underlying reasons for the introduction of a single national school inspection system in post-war England. The thesis also explores the literature on values, the nature of values in relation to organisations and individuals with particular reference to Ofsted. Empirical research was conducted in the form of questionnaires and interviews into the perceptions of active and retired inspectors about how they carried out their work. The study explored the relationship between inspectors’ values and those of Ofsted, examining the extent to which inspectors’ values influenced their conduct during inspections and in particular how they mediated their work in schools. The degree to which inspectors mediate their work has implications for the perceived objectivity of Ofsted inspections. The results indicate that the majority of inspectors’ values were in alignment with those of Ofsted. However, a small minority group also existed whose values were not always in agreement with those of Ofsted and there also appeared to be a further sub-set of the minority group whose members were trying to change Ofsted from within. This is the first time research has been carried out into the work of Ofsted inspectors and their perceptions of what they do. It concludes that this area is worthy of a further, larger scale study.

Giving parents a choice regarding which schools educate their children has been central to the discourse of school choice in England for many years. This choice and the capacity to make it has implications for all concerned. However, little research has been done on the impact this choice, and the transition has on the way that women perform motherhood during this time. This study aimed to investigate and understand the effect of the school choice process on the mothers of children undergoing this transition and the ways they perform motherhood. Carried out in a small, rural area in East Anglia, this case study used a narrative approach to interview 15 mothers who had been through or were going through the process. The results of the research show that the transition to secondary school was a critical site of performativity and a catalyst for the women’s exploration of how they performed motherhood. Also, the research showed that the mothers all placed an importance on the local community as part of their performance of motherhood, linking the physical with the performative arenas. Contrary to previous research, the engagement with the process and the experiences of the mothers were not shared and were carried out on a private basis. This research leads to a greater understanding of the impact of the school choice process on mothers and their performance of motherhood and expands upon the decisions made and the way the educational market operates.

This thesis seeks to contribute to the knowledge of the economics of education in post-conflict, by proposing an economic analysis of such a setting as a hybrid socio-economic environment, where conflict, despite having ended, has still an impact. It uses an applied economics approach to analyse demand for primary and secondary education and one of the main economic drivers of their demand, returns to education. The focus of study is the post-conflict country of Timor-Leste. In this analysis it proposes and tests economic mechanisms through which conflict may have impacted the returns to education observed in post-conflict Timor-Leste, finding evidence of two significant channels: reduction of productivity and scarcity of qualified human resources. In support of this analysis, it builds a dataset with a novel indicator of political control during conflict that applies in the empirical analysis of returns to education. In the next chapter it seeks to establish evidence of medium-run impacts of conflict on the demand for primary education in Timor-Leste, proposing and testing an empirical methodology to do so. Finally, it proposes and analyses an empirical model of the demand for secondary education in Timor-Leste that integrates the hypothesis of medium-run impacts of conflict. In the process it finds evidence suggesting that, while some of the channels negatively impacted by conflict significantly affect demand for education, a medium-run positive effect might exist, particularly in the form of higher preferences for secondary education among those that experienced more violence during the conflict. Less robust findings of equally positive medium-run effects of conflict are found in the demand for primary education.

This thesis examines higher education reforms in Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2016, and uses the policy transfer framework to analyse the case of the Bologna Process in this developing post-communist country. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly independent Kazakhstan aimed to shift from a resource-based economy to an industrial innovation-based economy. Modeled on Western countries’ training to develop its professionals and competitive experts, Kazakhstan aimed to reform its education system to increase the quality and competitiveness of its higher education, and to enhance the recognition of local research and faculties. In order to integrate into the international educational space, and to connect with the education systems of the USA and Europe, Kazakhstan initiated its entrance into the Bologna Process which is an intergovernmental policy for the development of higher education in Europe. Policy transfer is used as an explanatory theory. It is a useful theoretical approach to understand post-communist countries in transition because it provides a critical analytical tool with which to understand significant changes of direction. The policy transfer was used to explain why Kazakhstan signed the Bologna Process. This research used 41 semi-structured interviews with international and national actors engaged in the Bologna Process to understand the relationship between European, national and institutional levels. The broad notion of policy transfer accommodates various tools for conducting empirical research, including the policy cycle, multi-level, ideational and process-centred approaches. By applying a theoretical framework that was so far predominantly used in Western countries, this thesis contributed to the academic literature on post-communist countries. This thesis considered four different, but connected concepts: policy learning, international policy transfer, lesson-drawing and path dependency. This research argues that the policy transfer process in higher education mainly occurs through learning. Not only reforms or policy were transferred, but policy ideas and knowledge were transferred too. Lesson-drawing and lesson learning occurred in the example of countries where higher education and science are advanced and well-developed, such as the USA and some European countries. In changing its education system and becoming integrated into the European Higher Education Area, Kazakhstan used lesson-drawing, policy learning and international policy processes. International policy transfer provides a model which is applicable to post-communist countries with different political, ideological, economic, social and cultural backgrounds. Many transfers involve a combination of voluntary and coercive elements. Policy makers sought ‘new’ knowledge and policy ideas from other systems that were compatible with their ideological and cultural perspectives. In Kazakhstan, the transfer was voluntary, and could be characterised as lesson-drawing. At the same time, the country faced a need to change its social and economic situation due to the collapse of the country. All of these changes drove policy makers to engage in policy transfer in order to cope with external pressures such as globalisation and international integration. Bottom-up initiatives were launched where universities persuaded the Ministry of Education to adopt decisions at the national level. This thesis argues that national and institutional levels were equally involved in the process of decision-making in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan inherited the Soviet system of higher education. Historically and culturally, the country is not associated with Western Europe, and both history and culture have to be taken into account in the process of policy transfer. This research argues that path dependency is one of the dimensions of policy transfer, and that historical paths of a country should be considered before transferring policy from abroad. Understanding of path dependency should guide evaluation of all possible constraints that might limit the policy transfer process from the West to developing countries This thesis developed the concept of policy transfer by considering path dependency as a key factor in explaining policy reform, making an original and distinctive contribution to the knowledge of policy making and, more broadly, academic literature, in Kazakhstan and internationally.

The project outlined in this thesis examines the ways in which headteachers position themselves as professionals following the shift from communism to neo-liberal markets and the decentralisation of the public education system in post-communist Romania. Following this shift, Romanian headteachers faced new accountability frameworks and witnessed a reconceptualisation of their professional responsibilities. The methodology adopted is policy scholarship because, by looking at decentralisation through a historical-cultural lens, i.e. Romania’s recent history of communism and transition to a more democratic state, it best addresses the three key-research questions. The methods used are official policy documents and interviews with different stakeholders located at three different levels in the Romanian education system. These were: secondary heads and county school inspectors. Four key national policy-makers were also interviewed. In the thesis, the Romanian situation is presented (as captured) in the period 2009-2011. The decentralisation of Romanian education is dichotomous. It is a hybrid between neo-liberalism and communist throwbacks that I call politicised decentralisation. On the one hand, decentralisation and quasi-markets are being introduced into public education at the recommendation of international donors (the World Bank, the European Union). On the other hand, the endurance of communist practices makes it difficult for professionals to adapt to new professional responsibilities and accountability frameworks. A new conceptual framework emerged from the international literature, national policy documents and empirical study and was used to explore the findings. This examines the components, levels and dimensions of decentralisation in education in Romania. The key-findings show the complexities of decentralisation in headteachers’ professional activity. Importantly, the politicisation of the education system is the biggest challenge faced by the interviewees. For example, in 2012 alone there have been three different cabinets and seven ministers of education in the last five years. This has resulted in instability in post at all three levels, not least because with each change in minister both county school inspectors and headteachers are usually replaced. The findings show that new accountability frameworks emerged and impacted upon headteachers’ relationships with different stakeholders such as inspectors, local authorities, as well as parents and students as consumers of education. This thesis is important in showing how policy implementation and enactment differs depending on the socio-economic, political and cultural context. The conceptual framework developed in the thesis and the findings have relatability for educationalists, policy-makers, practitioners and researchers, both nationally and internationally, especially since the existing empirical base predominantly refers to liberal democracies.