This paper analyses emergent issues from four conceptualisers of FEResearchmeet. FEResearchmeet claims to be a free and democratic model for building and supporting engagement with research, led by practitioners. The narratives presented seek to document and analyse FEResearchmeet as a movement across the first three years since its inception…

This article examines the potential of history as a subject to contribute to a "knowledge economy". Global trends in curricula reforms have often emphasised generic competences and development of students' critical thinking to benefit the future economic position of citizens and nations. However, viewing knowledge in these terms presents…

This article explores the powerful yet contradictory role of neoliberalism, its competitive mechanisms and emotional logics. Theoretically, it reviews the shifting state-higher education-market nexus through the lens of a critical cultural political economy paradigm. Conceptually, it closely examines Davies' work on the 'logic of competition'…

The article considers current teachers' participation in educational research in England and whether Stenhouse's perception that such involvement was necessary to stall the political undermining of democratic teacher professionalism has been addressed. Stenhouse instigated the emergence of the teacher-as-researcher movement, whereby teachers…

Innovation occupies a pivotal place in our understanding of knowledge-based economies, and this is raising questions about sources of innovation, how it originates, and the role played by employees, work practices and learning. This paper explores these issues through case study research into a new approach to providing healthcare for homeless…

In this article, we address the questions: How is the purpose of higher education constructed within policy texts from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), England and Sweden? How does this position students in making the transition from Bachelor to Masters? We do this through analysis of two recent policy documents from each of the EHEA,…

This article examines how the value of higher education (HE) is currently being (re)framed in two European countries: England and Portugal. HE has been central to a global discourse on the future of knowledge economy, whilst also being subject to the policy framework of New Public Management. Being so, the changing value of HE is related to the…

In Britain and New Zealand the neoliberal assault on universities has shifted from new public management and funding models to the special status of the public university. The project aims to complete neoliberal business initiated 25 years ago by more fully marketising and financialising universities, starting with 'unbundling' and outsourcing and…

This paper considers recent developments in English education policy as, confirming promises made in the 2016 White Paper, 'Educational Excellence Everywhere," schools are now to concentrate on the realisation of a knowledge-based curriculum, one that allows all students to 'acquire' cultural capital. First, the remodelling of Bourdieu's…

This paper is situated in relation to a critical mass of largely censorious commentary around global policy trends purportedly undermining, or even realigning, universities' 'traditional' ethos, but where the student perspective on this appears to have been largely ignored. Drawing on interviews with German and English undergraduates, it applies…

RPA (Raising of Participation Age) legislation re-positioned all youth in England to participate in post-16 education and training, the ultimate aim to develop 'human capital'. However, how does RPA play out in practice with previously NEET (not in education, employment or training) and so-called disengaged youth engaged on a Level 1…

In the late 1990s, the economic return to Advanced level (A-level) mathematics was examined. The analysis was based upon a series of log-linear models of earnings in the 1958 National Child Development Survey (NCDS) and the National Survey of 1980 Graduates and Diplomates. The core finding was that A-level mathematics had a unique earnings premium…

In these early stages of implementation of the English computing curriculum policy reforms, there are uncertainties with regards to the intentions of computing to young people. To date, research regarding the English computing curriculum has been mostly concerned with the content of the curriculum, its delivery and surrounding pedagogy. In…

This chapter discusses the relationship between the labour market and vocational education and training in England. For decades British governments have emphasised the need for more people to stay longer in the formal education system and at the same time have attempted to improve work-based training. They have also emphasised the centrality of…

This article examines the conditions for the growth and expansion of research-engaged schools in England. The current policy climate is seeing a rapid growth of autonomous schools coupled with the continuing tendency to hold schools to account for overall student educational attainment indicators. Within this context, the article begins by…