Crisis of youth or youth in crisis? Education, employment and legitimation crisis
- Authors: Simmons, Robin , Smyth, John
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Lifelong Education Vol. 35, no. 2 (2016), p. 136-152
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- Description: This paper uses the Habermasian concept of legitimation crisis to critique the relationship between post-compulsory education and training and the chronic levels of youth unemployment and under-employment which now characterise post-industrial Western economies, such as the UK. It draws on data from an ethnographic study of the lives of young people classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training), or at risk of becoming so to challenge dominant discourses about youth unemployment and the supposed relationship between worklessness, skills deficits and young people’s lack of ‘work-readiness’. The central argument of the paper is that the labour market insecurity experienced by many young people in the UK and elsewhere derives not from some supposed crisis of youth but is symptomatic of the inherent contradictions contained within capitalist modes of production which, it is argued, are exacerbated under neo-liberal policy regimes. The paper contends that various government-led initiatives which purport to prepare young people for the workplace, create links between the individual and the labour market, or force the unemployed into the labour market are, in Habermasian terms, part of an attempt to resolve the crisis of legitimation associated with contemporary capitalist societies. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Improving schools in poor areas: It's not about the organisation, structures and privatisation, stupid!
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Improving Schools Vol. 17, no. 3 (2014), p. 231-240
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- Description: In this article, the author presents a review of his extended research engagement with disadvantaged young people and their education. He challenges the dominant neoliberal model of school reform based on business values and the ‘managerial school’ as alien to educational values. He introduces various stages of research he and his colleagues have undertaken over the past two decades, showing the importance of an authentic engagement with young people’s lives, the characteristics of schools which reach out to disadvantaged students and the importance of transformative pedagogy and community involvement.
Pushed out, shut out: Addressing unjust geographies of schooling and work
- Authors: Robinson, Janean , Down, Barry , Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal on School Disaffection Vol. 9, no. 2 (2012), p. 7-24
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
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- Description: In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of marginalised students who face fragile, uncertain and unpredictable futures. This paper draws on a number of research projects in Australia to investigate the lived reality of students who are struggling to make sense of school and their transition to 'getting a job'. The research is neither impartial nor neutral. It draws on the tradition of critical policy ethnography to identify, describe and map the kinds of conditions that both constrain and enable the aspirations, dreams and hopes of young people for productive and rewarding lives. The intent is to unsettle commonsense and deficit understandings of school life that serve to oppress and marginalise the least advantaged students.
'Coming to a place near you?' The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place-based education
- Authors: McInerney, Peter , Smyth, John , Down, Barry
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education Vol. 39, no. 1 (2011), p. 3-16
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- Description: It may seem something of a paradox that in a globalised age where notions of interdependence, interconnectedness and common destinies abound, the 'local', with its diversity of cultures, languages, histories and geographies, continues to exercise a powerful grip on the human imagination. The ties that bind us have global connections but are anchored in a strong sense of locality. This paper explores the theoretical foundations of place-based education (PBE) and considers the merits and limitations of current approaches with particular reference to Australian studies. The authors argue that there is a place for PBE in schools but contend that it must be informed by a far more critical reading of the notions of 'place', 'identity' and 'community'. The implications of pursuing a critical pedagogy of place-based education are discussed with reference to curriculum, pedagogy and teacher education.
Speaking back to educational policy: why social inclusion will not work for disadvantaged Australian schools
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Critical Studies in Education Vol. 51, no. 2 (2010), p. 113-128
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP0665569
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- Description: The Labor government in Australia has recently embarked on an extremely ambitious program of social inclusion for the most marginalized groups in society. Drawing upon the approach of "policy scholarship" this paper examines some federal government "policy texts" to describe what has occurred and asks questions about what is meant by the social inclusion policy orientation in the context of educational disadvantage. It challenges the efficacy of uncritically following the experience of New Labour in England as the basis for an Australian social inclusion agenda. The paper concludes with the need to include the voices of "policy users", who are supposed to be the beneficiaries, in the construction of more reflexive alternatives
Coming to critical engagement in disadvantaged contexts : An editorial introduction
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Critical Studies in Education Vol. 50, no. 1 (03 2009), p. 1-7
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- Description: The article discusses various papers published within the issue including one about the notion of community capacity building and another on the orthodoxy of psychological deficit notions of under-performing youth in disadvantaged contexts.
- Description: 2003007955
Critically engaged community capacity building and the 'community organizing' approach in disadvantaged contexts
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Critical Studies in Education Vol. 50, no. 1 (2009), p. 9-22
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP0665569
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- Description: This paper critiques the notion of community capacity building (CCB) and the way it is increasingly being invoked in social policy as a way of tackling disadvantage. The paper argues that CCB and a number if its derivative terms are not as straightforward as they appear. Superficially, CCB presents as a useful way of approaching school and community reform in contexts of disadvantage, but closer analysis reveals it to be pre-disposed to deployment as a cover under which to blame schools and communities, while handing over responsibility. What is posited as an alternative is a 'community organizing' approach that is more political, activist, and attuned to providing forms of analysis and leadership skills with which communities and schools can begin to tackle some of the underlying conditions producing the debilitating inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Critical Studies in Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
- Description: 2003007956
Critical ethnography for school and community renewal around social class differences affecting learning
- Authors: Smyth, John , Angus, Lawrence , Down, Barry , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Learning communities Vol. 3, no. (2006), p. 121-152
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- Description: Understanding and exploring complex and protracted social questions requires sophisticated investigative approaches. In this article we intend looking at a research approach capable of providing a better understanding of what is going on in schools, students and communities in "exceptionally challenging contexts" (Harris et al., 2006)-code for schools and communities that have as a result of wider social forces, been historically placed in situations of disadvantage.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001884
Introduction to themed issue new pedagogies for school and community 'capacity building' in disadvantaged schools and communities
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Learning communities Vol. 3, no. (2006), p. 3-6
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- Description: The educational landscape is changing dramatically and profoundly for schools and communities across Australia and other western countries. It is no longer the case that children automatically do not attend their local neighbourhood school, nor can it be assumed that within public schools that there is a heterogenous social mix. What we have is an increasingly segregated, stratified and residualised system of education in Australia as neo-liberal policies of so-called 'choice' do their pock-marking with those who can afford it 'opting out' to private education, leaving behind those without the resources to exercise choice.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001904
Schools and communities put at a disadvantage : Relational power, resistance, boundary work and capacity building in educational identity formation
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Learning communities Vol. 3, no. (2006), p. 7-39
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- Description: This paper is a modest exercise in theory building from a cultural sociological perspective, around the notion of capacity building as it relates to a group of schools and their community experiencing complex intergenerational difficulties around poverty, ill health, housing problems, student disengagement, disaffection, low levels of school completion, and high levels of withdrawal from school. Central to what I want to explore is the notion of capacity building, which is a term that has its origins in development economics, and is currently experiencing celebrity status as a kind of buzz word to refer to multi-fronted approaches to school and community improvement.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001886
Beyond the divide : Individual institutional and community capacity building in a Western Australian regional context
- Authors: Smyth, John , Down, Barry
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Education in Rural Australia Vol. 14, no. 2 (2004), p. 54-68
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- Description: C1
- Description: 2003000753
Engaging the education sector: A policy orientation to stop damaging our schools
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Learning Communities Vol. , no. 1 (2003), p. 22-40
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- Description: In this paper the author makes a passionate 'plea for discontent', arguing that there is something fundamentally wrong with the overall direction of education policy as it is being applied to schools, and that new ways of re-engaging with it must be found. The author commences by arguing for a proposition, presenting some evidence from some research, and using that as a basis for suggesting a fundamental re-think in the way educational policy operates in relation to schools. In doing this, he underscores the centrality and significance of social capital as the basis for this re-engagement. The underlying question concerns how educational policy making is to be engaged so that it is central to institutional building. With the threat of losing schools as social institutions under the current regime of educational policy, the author argues that new ways of re-engaging educational policy beyond parallel discourses are needed. The underlying proposition is that schools that succeed are ones that have trusting relationships between school systems, teachers, parents and students. Trust between those making educational policy and schools, produces better outcomes for all, and trust is given expression through meaningful partnerships, authentic accountability, and distributed (or enabling) leadership. Social capital is central to any educational policy re-engagement with schools. The underlying argument of this paper is that schools have a social responsibility as places that 'manufacture hope' often in situations of increasing 'despair' and adversity.