Bob Lingard
Tuesday 18 January 2011
12.30 to 14.00, Room 646

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of ‘policy as numbers’ in contemporary education policy and will draw on global, European, English and Australian policy examples to illustrate the argument. The political backdrop to the rise and rise of policy as numbers will be outlined, including the lack of an horizon of expectation in contemporary politics and a focus on the mundane everyday, a situation of deep ontological insecurity, the rise of neo-liberalism, the new individualism and new state policy regimes including the audit culture, and the move from government to governance. The paper will argue that data flows are central to neo-liberal governance in education and that the rescaling of political authority associated with globalization and the governance turn has ushered in policy as numbers in both the global and national education policy fields. The argument will draw on histories and politics of statistics and numbers (e.g. Hacking, Porter, Desrosieres, Rose), while rejecting simplistic critiques of quantitative approaches to data, but emphasising the political work of numbers and data in contemporary education politics.

 Professor Bob Lingard is a Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Education and Institute for Social Science Research at The University of Queensland. He was previously Andrew Bell Professor of Education at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include education policy, especially in relation to globalization, gender and education, and school reform. His most recent books include, Globalizing Education Policy (Routledge, 2010), co-authored with Fazal Rizvi, Educating Boys (Palgrave, 2009), co-authored with Wayne Martino and Martin Mills, and a forthcoming edited collection with Routledge, Changing Schools Alternative Models, edited with Pat Thomson and Terry Wrigley. Bob is also editor of the journal, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

www.llakes.org

Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby
Monday 28 February 2011,
15.00, Committee Room 1

The 2010 Conservative government is seeking to advance a radical and ambitious social programme.  This paper

   – describes the main features of the new policies;

  – considers whether they are driven by ideology or by the normal politics of gaining and retaining power; and

  – discusses how they are likely to develop during the next four years.

 It draws on ‘The Coalition Programme: a new vision for Britain or politics as usual?’, Peter Taylor-Gooby and Gerry Stoker, The Political Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 1, 2011

 Peter Taylor-Gooby’s recent publications include Reframing Social Citizenship (Oxford 2009), Risk in Social Science, (with Jens Zinn, Oxford 2006) and New Risks, New Welfare (Oxford 2004). he directed the ESRC Social Contexts and Responses to Risk and Economic Beliefs and Behaviour programmes and the EU Welfare Reform and the Management of Societal Change programme.  He chairs the Social Policy and Social Work REF Panel.

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

www.llakes.org

Ed Waite, Karen Evans & Natasha Kersh
Wednesday 23 March 2011,
15.00 to 17.00, Committee Room 1

Drawing on longitudinal data from the ‘Adult Basic Skills and Workplace Learning’ project (2003-2008), together with recent findings from LLAKES Strand 3 (Project 2), this seminar will explore the key factors that facilitate and inhibit sustainable ‘Skills for Life’ workplace provision. We draw on the metaphor of a social ecology of learning to explore the inter-relationships between individuals and groups at policy and organisational level and combine this with Michael de Certeau’s theoretical work on everyday social practices in order to cast light on the diverse ways in which ‘Skills for Life’ provision has been put to use by organisations and learners.

 The research highlights some key barriers to sustainability in terms of complex and rapidly shifting funding arrangements that place a strong emphasis on target-bearing qualifications together with challenges related to adapting provision to the workplace. The seminar will also present findings from case study research into companies and public sector organisations that have succeeded in developing provision over the long-term. Although these sites have generally succeeded in garnering broader organisational support for ‘Skills for Life’ provision – in keeping with the ‘whole organisation’ approaches that are advocated by ‘Skills for Life’ development agencies-  the ‘third-order’ priority of learning in the workplace means that it is difficult in practice to establish sustainability in most organisations.

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

 Nick Pearce

Monday 18 April 2011, 14.00 to 16.00, Room 739 

Nick Pearce is the Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), Britain’s leading think-tank. He is the author of numerous books and articles on public policy issues, ranging from education to immigration, welfare reform, the theory of social justice and South American politics. In addition to leading the No.10 Policy Unit, during his career he has worked as an adviser in the Home Office, Cabinet Office and Department for Education and Employment. He is a member of the board of the Royal Institute of British Architects Trust and the UK-India Roundtable. He joined ippr as Director in September 2010.

 All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES –  llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

Education, opportunity and social cohesion

 Tuesday 28 June, 17.00-19.00, Registration 17.00-17.30 

Room 739, Institute of Education, followed by a canapé reception
In this briefing event, Professor Andy Green and Dr Germ Janmaat will draw on recent LLAKES research to highlight current threats to social cohesion from declining job opportunities and persistent inequalities in education and incomes. The education system is a crucial arbiter of life chances. Where it is perceived to distribute opportunities equitably, it can provide legitimacy for the social and political order and thus promote social cohesion. However, in the UK educational outcomes are exceptionally unequal. Declining job opportunities, particularly for young people, coupled with high levels of inequality, threaten to weaken core beliefs in individual opportunity and just rewards and to erode the social and political trust on which social cohesion depends.

There will be a response from Dr Floyd Millen, Director of the new public affairs think tank -yesMinister.

Attendance at the event is free, but places should be booked in advance via llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk.

The briefing document is now available to download

Information about LLAKES

 LLAKES is an ESRC-funded research centre, based at the Institute of Education, University of London. LLAKES researchers are studying the bonds holding together different societies, and the role that education systems play in promoting – or undermining – social cohesion in different contexts. The research brings together the findings from different social science disciplines and uses a variety of empirical methods and data sources to explore these issues. Datasets analysed include the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA); the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS); various rounds of the World Values Survey/European Values Study (WVS/EVS), the European Social Survey (ESS), Eurobarometer and the Civic Education Study (Cived). Various analytical methods have been employed, including correlations, time series analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis, reliability analysis and multilevel analysis.

Dr Floyd Millen

Floyd is the founder and Director of the public affairs think tank, yesMinister. Floyd was the former Head of Policy and Communications at the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (CESI) and the former Chief Executive of the social policy think tank ROTA. Floyd worked as a Contracts & FAM Manager for two Training and Enterprise Councils and was Programme Director of ‘Building Futures’, a DWP and Treasury funded third sector employment initiative.

Floyd studied British Politics in Hull under the Conservative Peer, Professor the Lord Norton of Louth and has a PhD in Political Science and Criminology from Loughborough University.  Floyd was a former Adviser to the Metropolitan Police Authority and has written extensively on police authorities, social policy as it impacts on employment, citizenship, representation and democracy.

 Public Appointments

Floyd sits on the Council of the Hansard Society and on the Research Committee of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). He is also a former council member of the Deaf Blind charity Sense and is currently on the Advisory Board of South Thames/Merton College Career Academy UK.

Thursday 30 June, 3.00-4.30pm

Room 736

 This paper will examine how student financial support has changed over time and critically assess the student funding reforms to be introduced in 2012/13.

Claire Callender (BSc, PhD) is Professor of Higher Education Studies at the Institute of Education and Professor of Higher Education Policy at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research has focused on student finances in higher education and related issues. She has been commissioned to undertake research for some of the most significant committees of inquires into student funding in the UK, and gave evidence at the public hearings of the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance headed up by Lord Browne.

 Claire is currently conducting a longitudinal study on part-time students’ careers for the Higher Education Careers Services Unit and another study for the UK Commission on Employment and Skills comparing the labour market experiences of part-time and full-time graduates. She has just started another study about HE in FE for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills with colleagues at the IoE and Sheffield University.

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES –  llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place if you have yet to do so.

www.llakes.org

Thursday 7 July 2011

 Registration:13.30-14.00

 Event: 14.00-17.00

Book launch: 17.00 onwards

 Venue: Room 537, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL

The development of the European Qualifications Framework raises questions about the ease with which individuals can move between sectors and the transparency and permeability of different routes through and across national systems. These issues are being addressed in an EU Leonardo-funded project involving four countries: Germany, England, Denmark and Austria. It examines the relationship between higher education, vocational education and the labour market, with a particular focus on opportunities for transition for those with vocational qualifications.

 The research has investigated the availability and currency of ‘hybrid qualifications’ – those that are designed to provide vocational preparation for the labour market and entry to higher education. The project is nearing its conclusion and this seminar provides an opportunity to present and debate the findings from three of the countries involved, as well as a presentation by Professor David Raffe on the concept and role of hybrid qualifications in Scotland.

 The seminar will be Chaired by Professor Lorna Unwin, Deputy Director of the LLAKES Research Centre, and will consist of four papers as follows (abstracts can be read here):

The key to HE and the labour market? Challenges and opportunities for hybrid qualifications
Gayna Davey and Alison Fuller, University of Southampton

 Building pathways from vocational to higher education in a dual system: experiences from Denmark
Christian Helms Jørgensen, Roskilde Universitet, Denmark

 Hybrid qualifications in a credit-based system: Scottish Higher National Certificates and Diplomas
David Raffe, University of Edinburgh 

Hybrid Qualifications – an Austrian success story facing new opportunities and challenges in a united Europe
Josef Aff and Elisabeth Paschinger, Institute for Business Education, Vienna University of Economics and Business

 Book launch: The Learning Challenge of the Knowledge Economy by David Guile, Reader at the Institute of Education, University of London, and  a  Project Leader in the LLAKES Research Centre, published by Sense.

The event is free and open to all, but places are limited. To book a place, contact Alison Williamson – A.Williamson@soton.ac.uk by Friday 24 June. Please also state whether you will be attending the book launch.