'Give me air not shelter': critical tales of a policy case of student re-engagement from beyond school
- Authors: Smyth, John , Robinson, Janean
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Education Policy Vol. 30, no. 2 (2015), p. 220-236
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democracies and the disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; it finds a significant mismatch between the policy intent of re-engagement programmes, and the experiences of young people themselves. It seems that this is an instance of what might be termed policy deafness, a situation that will likely produce devastating consequences unless corrected.
- Description: This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democracies – the disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; it finds a significant mismatch between the policy intent of re-engagement programmes, and the experiences of young people themselves. It seems that this is an instance of what might be termed policy deafness, a situation that will likely produce devastating consequences unless corrected.
'Ordinary kids' navigating geographies of educational opportunity in the context of an Australian 'place-based intervention'
- Authors: Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Education Policy Vol. 29, no. 3 (May 2014), p. 285-301
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP110102619
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper addresses the vexed educational policy aspects of area-based interventions (ABIs) in neighbourhoods designated as 'disadvantaged' in an Australian context. We find that the way in which the policy of ABIs is supposed to operate and impact education is highly problematic. What we present instead in this paper is a much more complex process by which aspirations are formed, sustained, contested and maintained by young people who regard themselves as 'ordinary' and as being engaged instead in a process of navigating educational opportunities on the basis of resources available to them.
The Iraq war, 'sound science,' and 'evidence-based' educational reform : How the Bush Administration uses deception, manipulation, and subterfuge to advance its chosen ideology
- Authors: Gordon, Stephen , Smyth, John , Diehl, Julie
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies Vol. 6, no. 2 (2008), p.
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: In this article we describe how the Bush administration has used deceptive techniques and subterfuge to force its ideology upon the American people. We provide examples of similar techniques used to manipulate public opinion and national policy in three broad areas: national defense, science, and education. Our example from national defense policy, as one might guess, relates to the centerpiece of the Bush Administration, the Iraq War, and in particular the gathering and presenting of 'evidence' on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in order to gather public support for the war. The build up to the war provides examples of fabricated evidence, dire warnings, and manipulation of U. S. intelligence agencies, all orchestrated by the White House. The breadth of deception and manipulation of science by the Bush Administration is quite amazing, cutting across policy on endangered species, climate change, reproductive health, stem cell research, dietary science, and environmental pollution. This is a story of suppressing and tampering with scientific findings, intimidating scientists, manipulating the membership of scientific committees, and allowing representatives of industry and social conservative groups to write Administration policies or legislative proposals. We go on to show how many of the same techniques used by the Bush Administration in the build up to the Iraq War and in science have been adapted to control education in the U. S. under the guise of "evidencebased educational reform." We document Administration efforts to "scrub" educational documents to delete content that does not agree with the "Administration"s ideology, promote private management and private schools at the expense of public schools, andforce schools to adopt commercial curricula favored by the Administration. Bush's attempts to control public education are explained by his allegiance to two major constituencies, social conservatives and the corporate sector, and his commitment to what we refer to as neoconservative federalism. We show how these three factors merge as the underlying basis of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and an array of other Administration efforts to control education.
- Description: 2003006323
Unmasking teachers' subjectivities in local school management
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Education Policy Vol. 17, no. 4 (2002), p. 463-482
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Relatively little is known about how teachers are affected by reforms that have moved schools increasingly in the direction of becoming self-managing schools. While there has been much hype about the alleged benefits that flow from more flexible decision making processes shifted closer to the point of learning, the cutting of bureaucratic red tape, and the notion that schools are made more accountable to parents and students - relatively little is known about how this impacts on the way teachers think or act in relation to their work. This paper takes a particular instance of an Australian primary school and examines how teachers' subjectivities are worked on and how teachers' pedagogical selves are being disrupted and fundamentally recast as a consequence of local school management.