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This research focuses on a historical review of British Government Policy funding for race equality in education, from the 1994 Education Act to the present day. The research identifies the major factors affecting policies on funding for race equality at three levels. First, central Government, including general political and education decision making departments secondly, actions pursued by local education authorities and thirdly, policies pursued by unions, national organisations, schools and local communities. The research investigates policy papers, national and local guidelines and perceptions of, and by, the key stakeholders in the provision of resources and delivery of services. Structured interviews with key stakeholders provide insights into the development, or lack of development, in providing racial equality within British society. A specific focus within this overview is the impact of Section Eleven of the Local Government Act of 1966. A multi-method approach is adopted for the research, including a scrutiny of all relevant policy documentation and a focus on one particular education authority (viz. Old Shire LEA, which then split into New Shires LEA and New Unitary LEA). Data is both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data collection is through structures interviews with stakeholders across Government, local education authority, unions and national organisation representatives, schools personnel, including parents, and the wider local community to gain an analysis of the perception of Section Eleven in the area of race equality. The quantitative data focuses on the LEA survey on Section Eleven issues conducted in 1995-96 as a base for analysis. Select follow up interviews in 1996 and 1999 offer insights into the governmental policy move from Section 11 to EMAG (The Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant). The study concludes by offering recommendations for future developments and incorporates the key perceptions from all stakeholders.

This thesis includes three chapters that explore contemporary topics within the area of education in the UK. The initial empirical chapter examines whether living in a deprived neighbourhood impacts upon the probability of obtaining the benchmark GCSE outcomes, when adopting a propensity score matching methodology. The chapter also examines whether there is a differential impact of neighbourhood deprivation upon children with educated parents, relative to those with uneducated parents. The results show that living in a deprived neighbourhood negatively influences the probability of gaining the observed GCSE outcomes; individuals with educated parents lose out to a greater extent by living in a deprived neighbourhood, relative to individuals with uneducated parents. The subsequent chapter examines whether setting, which involves separating children into classes based on ability, influences the attitudes and behaviours of primary school children. A fixed effects methodology is initially adopted to identify the impact of being set in maths; the results signal that the behaviour of girls may be improved by setting. The chapter also investigates whether the level of the maths set in which the child is sorted influences behaviour by adopting an instrumental variables approach to overcome the likely endogeneity issue surrounding the set placement. The results indicate that whilst internalising behaviour was improved for girls placed in the lowest set, this set placement was detrimental to the internalising behaviour of boys. The final chapter analyses the impact of post-2010 primary converter academies on pupil progress. Adopting a difference-in-difference methodology, individuals who experience academy conversion are compared with those whose school converted after leaving from the same school year cohort. The results indicate that converter academies had a positive impact upon pupil progress. When examining the effect by neighbourhood deprivation, the positive impact of converter academies is more consistent for schools in the least deprived neighbourhoods.

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During a period of unprecedented rapid urbanisation and social transformation in China, this thesis considers the children of internal rural migrants and their access to compulsory education in the regions where they settle. There are currently 38 million such children. Institutional and systemic challenges often bar them from receiving an education of adequate quality, equal to that of their peers. The thesis reviews the legal and regulatory framework covering childrens’ right to education at both international and national domestic levels. It then describes the actual experience of internal migrant children attempting to access schools, and analyses the main factors barring them from the education they are entitled to. These barriers are categorised in a ‘4-A’ conceptual framework – Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, Adaptability. The research draws on a range of secondary data, supplemented by interviews conducted with personnel engaged in education in Beijing. The main findings are that, though the legal framework of rights is generally sufficient, inadequate institutional and normative arrangements and lack of government accountability (at all levels) work together to hinder proper implementation of relevant laws and regulations. The problem is exacerbated by the institutional barrier of hukou-based enrolment and registration, and deepened even further by the current cadre and local governance arrangements, with the information asymmetry they engender. The thesis concludes that, at central, provincial and municipal levels, adequate funding for the education of migrant children must be assured, especially in the dense receiving regions. A new enrolment system is required based on a child’s current place of residence. Finally, a reform of the current civil service and cadre management systems is needed, with a move away from current growth-oriented development strategies that impose policy burdens and subordinate the children’s good to the pursuit of economic targets.

An experiment was designed to test the effects of certain factors on the discrimination learning and shift performance of young children. Subjects were selected between the ages since it has been observed that at about that age, reversal and non-reversal shifts in discrimination are executed equally readily. Five dichotomous variables were controlled: intelligence, sex, social group, type of shift, and reward condition. Subjects were assigned on their performance of the childrens' Progressive Matrices, to high or normal IQ groups. Males and females were separately grouped. Social group was determined by school attendance: tv/o schools in middle class residential districts, and two in working class areas were visited. Children were allocated at random to shift and reward conditions. After initial training, half the children were rewarded for performing a reversal or intradimensional shift, the other half, a non-reversal or extradimentional shift. Half of the subjects received material incentives: sweets or trinkets for correct responses, and half, nonmaterial rewards: bell tinkles or light flashes. The performance of 128 children was examined by five way analyses of variance. The variables' effects were minimal during initial training, but in the discrimination3shifts, interesting effects emerged. The group as a whole performed both shifts with relative ease, but middle class children performed reversal shifts better than non-reversal ones while working class children performed non-reversal shifts best. Reward effects interacted with intelligence: high IQ subjects performed best for material incentives. Girls generally performed better than boys, although the effects of sex interacted with both IQ and social group membership. A strong relation appeared between verbal facility as measured by the WISC Vocabulary and shift performance. A covariance analysis, by equalizing the impact of fluency, reduced the variability within groups, and accentuated the previously observed effects. A reward choice technique produced evidence of a developing preference for larger, delayed over smaller, immediate rewards in middle class children. The results of this study indicate that the factors selected for study here do affect the discrimination learning of six year olds.

This research explores the concept of race in the construction and penetration of educational arrangements for Afro-Caribbean children. Existing research during the 1960s and 1970s on multiculturalism fails to acknowledge the educationai mandate offered by the coercive power of race in the construction of Afro-Caribbean children's identity ln schools. In this thesis, the concepts of disconnection, reconstitution, affirmation and contested legitimacy provide a theoretical framework for understanding the educational marginalisatlon of Afro- Caribbean pupils. Part I establishes the context of marginalisation through competing conceptions of race. The concept of disconnection Is applied to review formulations of race which endow it with an all-embracing power so that it neutralises all other ideological forces. Part I provides the framework for examining the scope of race in defining the educational agenda and the mechanisms for disseminating racial forms of education. Part II and Part III trace the mechanisms which promote the objectification of race in education. It examines the early context of the racial objectification in education policy for children of New Commonwealth origin drawing upon the literature on race and official government reports to assess the impact of the politicization of race in education. The concept of reconstitution is used to analyse the dominant cultural deficit models which serve as an explanation of the position of Afro-Caribbean pupils in the education system. Reconstitution refers to the process by which race is converted into culture and the stigmatisation of culture is used to explain the under achievement of Afro-Caribbean children in school. In Part III the concept of affirmation is also developed in an empirical analysis of LEA policy documents in the early 1980's, which aim to institutionalise particular racial forms of education. Part IV addresses the nature of the consensus, contestation and legitimation of racial forms of education. The politics of LEAs are examined in terms of their attempts to structure new modes of consensus through multiculturalism and anti-racism. The debate between multicultural and anti-racist education and the challenge of the New Right are analysed using the concept of contested legitimacy.

This thesis will explore the concept of social equality in education in relation to France and England within their historical contexts from 1789 to 1939. It will compare and contrast how both countries have gone about reducing social inequality in education. The thesis will emphasise the importance of the ideological legacy at the heart of both systems for understanding this i.e. Republicanism in France and Liberalism in England. French education emphasises equality and secularism. This is a legacy from the French Revolution, which brought the state centre stage in education. It also emphasises unity since Napoleon imposed a unified framework for its administration. In France these characteristics of centralism, unity and secularism have been perceived as offering the best possibility of providing equality of opportunity for all pupils regardless of social background, religion, ethnicity or geographical location. Equality was not a founding principle of English education, as it was in France; the concept evolved more pragmatically as a way of dealing with the more unfair aspects of the system. Liberalism with its values of freedom and diversity and the political and economic doctrine of laissez-faire have had the most enduring influence on English education The method of enquiry undertaken in this thesis will be drawn from comparative historical sociology. It uses comparative historical analysis to understand the variation in how both countries have gone about reducing educational inequality and why a discourse of egalitarianism is stronger in French than in English education. Three factors: persistence of ideology, social-class alliances and the nature of the state are put forward to explain the variation between both countries in relation to social equality in education. The final section of the thesis reflects on how the histories of both countries have impacted on their current education systems.

British Muslim (BM) teenagers negotiate British and ethnic identities (EIs) against a back drop of discrimination, negative media portrayal and government policies aimed at reducing radicalisation and increasing social cohesion. In addition, expectations from the family are overriding influences for these teenagers and may conflict with the expectations of school. Exploring the experiences of BM teenagers in school is under researched. In particular, there is no research exploring the influence of school for BMs managing dual identities in the UK. The current research aims to address this gap. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was employed to explore the lived experiences of BMs attending predominantly white schools. Five themes emerged from the data: experience of negotiating dual identities, psychological adaptation, value of religious identity, the influence of others and school supporting negotiation of dual identity. Teenagers were found to have integrated identities with religion being at the core of their identity. The nature of identity differed for some pupils between home and school. It is argued therefore, that the acculturation strategies adopted are attempts at matching the expectations of the contexts. The implications for educational psychology are also discussed.

This thesis investigates the nature and intersection of gender and racial inequality within a South African University culture during a period of transition in the higher education system in South Africa. The research draws on Alvesson’s (2002) emancipatory approach to culture and on Acker’s (2006) inequality regimes framework to explore the ways in which gender, class and race operate as organising principles of work and within organisations. This study explore in particular, the role and impact of social and historic inequalities embedded within South Africa’s national culture, a legacy of the previous “apartheid” era, on the nature of gender and race relations within a University setting. It also examines the ways in which gender and race form the bases of inequality through a range of gender and race relations- that being the division of labour, symbols, social relations and self-identities and examines the visibility, legitimacy, control and compliance of inequalities including how the processes and practices of the University produce an ideal worker norm. The findings suggest that the University’s structures, processes and practices reflect nationally embedded divisions and have reinforced and strengthened the pre-existing patriarchal and racialised University culture. Through the adoption of Acker’s inequality regimes framework and intersectionality approach (Crenshaw 1991; Acker 2006b; Knudsen 2006) to the analysis of University cultures, this research has enabled participants to have a voice concerning the shape and degree of inequalities in the workplace. In doing so, the research makes an important contribution to academic knowledge and understanding of the gendered and racialised nature of the University culture and the constitution of individual subjectivities, as well as in the wider context, the gendered and racialised nature of the organisations and organisational theory.