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Adult literacy practitioners and employability skills: resisting neo-liberalism?
Journal of Education Policy
Abstract
We draw on theories of policy enactment to explore the ways in which the situated, material and external contexts and professional cultures in adult literacy in the UK have influenced practitioners. Our analysis of the transnational (OECD, EU) and UK external policy contexts found that skills-related education is prioritised, with a focus on economic growth through increased productivity and accountability. This can lead to a narrow conceptualisation of literacy as a set of information processing skills needed for employment that limits the curriculum so that the knowledge of the participants is ignored. However, our findings show that there is not a one-way flow from the transnational to the local. Instead, literacy practitioners translate and enact policy texts based on their situated contexts and professional cultures leading to approaches to teaching and learning that keep learners and their goals at the centre of the curriculum. We conclude that shared understandings of good practice and an underpinning value system, along with creative ways of delivering pre-set outcomes, allow practitioners to resist to some extent the neoliberal discourse whilst meeting the requirements of policy and funding. However, how feasible delivering this alternative curriculum is over the longer term remains to be seen.
... It is contended that current forms may be too focused on vocational and skill outcomes rather than more broadly supporting individuals achieve greater social capital (Allatt & Tett, 2019;Black & Bee, 2018;Boggs, Stewart, & Jansky, 2017;McHardy, Wildy & Chapman, 2018). Teaching adults to improve literacy was traditionally based in a liberal-progressive pedagogy (Black & Bee, 2018), however this has been superseded by human capital theory based on neo-liberalism that has resulted in the move to a skill or competency-based focus (Allatt & Tett, 2019). ...
... It is contended that current forms may be too focused on vocational and skill outcomes rather than more broadly supporting individuals achieve greater social capital (Allatt & Tett, 2019;Black & Bee, 2018;Boggs, Stewart, & Jansky, 2017;McHardy, Wildy & Chapman, 2018). Teaching adults to improve literacy was traditionally based in a liberal-progressive pedagogy (Black & Bee, 2018), however this has been superseded by human capital theory based on neo-liberalism that has resulted in the move to a skill or competency-based focus (Allatt & Tett, 2019). Despite changes to expected curriculum and funding tied to delivery of a work-focused curriculum, many educators still focused on the needs of their learners and endeavoured to both meet their desire to deliver a holistic rather than the narrow work focused curriculum but also to achieve the employment outcomes expected from increased literacy (Allatt & Tett, 2019). ...
... Teaching adults to improve literacy was traditionally based in a liberal-progressive pedagogy (Black & Bee, 2018), however this has been superseded by human capital theory based on neo-liberalism that has resulted in the move to a skill or competency-based focus (Allatt & Tett, 2019). Despite changes to expected curriculum and funding tied to delivery of a work-focused curriculum, many educators still focused on the needs of their learners and endeavoured to both meet their desire to deliver a holistic rather than the narrow work focused curriculum but also to achieve the employment outcomes expected from increased literacy (Allatt & Tett, 2019). ...
Low literacy in adulthood can be a powerful barrier to opportunity. Our research explored how participation in a free adult literacy program that provides dyadic support can help participants to build confidence and meet their unique literacy goals. We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 randomly-selected adult literacy learners who participated in the program. Respondents had diverse literacy skill gaps and needs, and the program helped them to begin to address these issues. Respondents' learning goals were more typically directly linked to study or work requirements rather than social needs, and some respondents demonstrated an ongoing commitment to improving their literacy beyond the program, showing an internal locus of control and a lifelong learner orientation. Improvement in literacy for vocational needs had a tangible influence on respondents' working lives. Some respondents showed an ongoing autonomous effort to build their literacy skills that was related to confidence gained through program participation.
... This narrow and instrumental focus is not unique, and is similar to literacy policies and lifelong learning policies more broadly in the UK and across other OECD countries (Biesta, 2006;Allatt & Tett, 2019). In part, this is a result of the government Digital literacy for adults 149 departments (DCMS and BIS) engaged in supporting these initiatives and their different priorities. ...
... The ways that practitioners will teach digital literacy is not a direct translation of policy, it is very much mediated by the local contexts and cultures within which practitioners work; and they do take a stance which acknowledges people's existing knowledge, understanding, experiences and skills. They will often work around government targets and agenda setting to continue to provide a broader literacy education that connects with an individual's interests, motivations, local community and technological resources (Smythe, 2015;Allatt & Tett, 2019), sometimes referred to as a learning ecology (Barron, 2006). Yet, these instrumental policies do have an impact on the opportunities people have to learn, what people are taught and how they are taught. ...
... This risks that the dominant experience for adults who have limited skills to use the Internet can be one where they have an immediate task to complete (e.g. benefits application, job application), where there is an immediate negative consequence if they do not achieve it successfully (Smythe & Breshears, 2017;Allatt & Tett, 2019), or where their old occupation may no longer be available to them for reasons beyond their control (e.g. due to job cuts in their area or personal health reasons), which may mean an IT role is being 'forced' upon them as the only option. ...
The development of digital skills for all is a key focus of many educational policies across the globe. Despite the significant attention paid to the nature and suitability of such policies targeted at young people, there has been far less focus on digital skills policies targeted at adults. This article contributes to this literature. It outlines current digital skills policy in England. Having established this background, it analyses 30 interviews with digitally competent adults from lower socio‐economic backgrounds about their experiences of learning to use the Internet. In doing so, the article highlights that a narrow and instrumental digital skills agenda is emerging in the education of adults, driven by the needs of the commercial sector, that is in stark contrast to the experiences, motivations and hopes of adults who learn about, and use, digital technologies. Reframing digital skills as part of a broader adult education agenda may offer a way to facilitate the development of digital literacies that individuals seek.
... Particular attention was made to ensuring: anonymity, informed consent, the right to withdraw, transparency, privacy. The first project, conducted in 2017, (Allatt & Tett, 2019) focused on how the opportunities and constraints of employability-focused programs had influenced practitioners' approaches to learners. The second, conducted in 2020, (Tett, 2023) investigated the changes that had impacted AL practitioners in the preceding three years and what the causes and consequences of these changes were. ...
... In this section, I show the changes that practitioners experienced in the outcomes expected from AL programs. I am prioritizing outcome measurements because these externally imposed criteria privilege those aspects of performance which can be quantified and generally fail to recognize more qualitative, equally important changes (Allatt & Tett, 2019). The consequence of this narrowing of the curriculum in response to these externally imposed outcomes tends to result in a deficit approach to learners' own knowledge (Tett, Hamilton & Crowther, 2012). ...
Data from two research projects with adult literacies practitioners based in Scotland are used to illustrate how policies underpinned by ideologies based on Human Capital Theory (HCT) lead to a narrow conceptualization of the purpose of literacies education. It is argued that HCT ideology permeates international and national policies and thus influences practice. This results in a focus on the economy, rather than the individual, leading to narrow domains of skills-focused knowledge that become accepted as normal and are difficult to challenge. The paper outlines the changes experienced by practitioners, especially those focused on employability programs, but also shows how these changes have been resisted particularly in relation to how the curriculum is negotiated, and outcomes are assessed with learners. Practitioners were able to maintain values-based approaches and protect democratic practice through interactions with colleagues that reinforced a collective understanding of what were fundamental principles for delivering social justice-based literacies programs. It is concluded that, while practitioners were critically reinterpreting aspects of the dominant discourse through building on learners' experience and valuing their perspectives, social justice requires that the impact of broader social and economic inequalities on participation in education is addressed through structural changes rather than individual effort. Introduction In this paper I draw on two research projects with literacies practitioners based in Scotland to illustrate how policies underpinned by ideologies based on Human Capital Theory (HCT) can lead to a narrow conceptualization of the purpose of literacies education. This conceptualization focuses on what is good for the economy rather than on promoting education's role in human flourishing (Lynch, 2022). The literature shows (e.g. Baquedano-López et. al, 2013), however, that if the emphasis in literacies programs is on the development of narrow employability-focused skills then the rich resources that participants' experience and interests provide for learning are not utilized. Research also illustrates how practitioners committed to social justice can create "locally relevant curricula" (O'Cadiz, et.al, 1998, p. 536) rather than following prescribed programs. I contribute to this literature by showing how the HCT approach can be challenged by practitioners from professional cultures that emphasize the quality of the teaching, inclusion, and relationships in adult literacies rather than narrow skills-based outcomes.
... For example, studies showed that providers in Canada and the UK spent more time completing relevant accountability paperwork (Gibb, 2015;Tusting, 2012), leading Tusting (2012) to coin the term accountability literacies to describe educators' accountability-related reading and writing practices. In addition, Allatt and Tett (2019) have highlighted how practitioners in the UK were challenged to meet funders' requirements and respect learners' knowledge. Overall, researchers have illustrated how ABE performance accountability policies in different countries affect how providers spend their time (Gibb, 2015;Tusting, 2012), how professional development is offered (Smith, 2009), and how providers make decisions regarding enrolment in their programs (Gungor & Prins, 2011). ...
... Furthermore, the results of this study support previous findings regarding the tensions in ABE practice, especially in relation to meeting performance metrics for funding and serving their adult learner populations (Gungor & Prins, 2011;Pickard, 2021). Finally, our findings support Allatt and Tett's (2019) claim that practitioners bear an unfair burden of simultaneously meeting policy requirements (demonstrating outcomes) and supporting their learners and respecting their knowledge. ...
This chapter will examine local implementation of the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (Title II, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act). Specifically, the chapter will investigate what WIOA’s accountability policy does and how local actors implement and influence policy through a qualitative case study design of one local adult basic education (ABE) community in a Southeastern U.S. urban area. This chapter focuses on the only two WIOA-Title II1-funded ABE providers in the area and their workforce development partners, highlighting how WIOA shapes services for adults who are learning English.
By focusing on ABE providers’ agency and practices of performance accountability policy, this chapter will elucidate how local policy actors negotiate WIOA, and in doing so, how they and their state-level counterparts both adapt to and reshape international and federal policy trends. This chapter fits with the goals outlined in part 4 of this book, including the focus on the constellation of actors involved in adult education policy implementation, the effects of adult education policy for a specific group of learners (i.e., EMAs with limited formal schooling), and the relationship between international trends and local implementation.
... Content selection: These findings align with previous research (Akintolu & Uleanya, 2021;Allatt & Tett, 2019;Eilks & Hofstein, 2017;Kepp, 2023;Lee et al., 2020;Wu, 2020) emphasizing the importance of content selection and showing that adult literacy is based on specific goal setting and providing necessary content to ensure sustainable development. Additionally, the importance of content selection, considering the need and talent, is deemed very important. ...
Purpose: The current research was conducted with the aim of designing a curriculum model for adult literacy. Methodology: In terms of purpose, this research is fundamental-applied, and regarding data type, it is qualitative. The population in the study included experts from the organization (literacy movement managers, deputy ministers of curriculum education) and academia (university faculty members), as well as 30 relevant scientific documents and records. In this research, purposive sampling was used to determine the samples, considering 20 individuals based on the saturation principle as the sample size. Semi-structured interviews were utilized in the qualitative part of the current study. To ensure the validity of the tool in the qualitative section of the research and to ensure the accuracy of the findings from the researcher's perspective, opinions from professors familiar with this field and academic experts who were knowledgeable and skilled in this area were sought. In the current study, test-retest reliability and intra-subject consensus method were used to calculate the reliability of the interviews conducted. The data analysis method in the qualitative section was theoretical coding. Therefore, the analysis of data obtained from interviews and documents was carried out in three stages: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, and based on this, the concepts and categories of the research were classified. Findings: The results of the research showed that the objectives of the adult literacy curriculum include adaptability to the environment and strategic competencies. Also, the content of the adult literacy curriculum includes content selection and content organization. Teaching and learning methods in this research include the transmission method and the activity-based method. Finally, the results showed that the evaluation method of the adult literacy curriculum includes goal-based evaluation, method-based evaluation, and content-based evaluation. Conclusion: Each theme and its subthemes underscore the comprehensive approach required to design an effective adult literacy curriculum. The curriculum must be adaptive, strategically competent, well-organized in content, employ effective teaching and learning methods, and incorporate multifaceted evaluation strategies to meet adult learners' diverse needs and promote sustainable literacy education.
... Second, adult literacy is particularly important in economic development and information technology is a means by which such education can be enhanced, especially in the light of the fact that adult learning is largely devoted to mature students who are already involved in the workforce. It follows that adult literacy is a means of human resource development because it provides workers, inter alia, with the opportunity of expanding their knowledge and gaining new skills (Blunch & Portner, 2011;Blunch, 2017;Allatt & Tett, 2019). In essence, the adult literacy rate within the remit of this study is the percentage of people aged 15 and above who can both read and write in order to communicate effectively. ...
The study assesses linkages between information technology, inequality, and adult literacy in 57 developing countries for the period 2012–2016. Income inequality is measured with the Gini coefficient while six dynamics of information technology are taken on board, namely use of a virtual social network, Internet access in schools, Internet penetration, mobile phone penetration, fixed broadband subscription, and a number of personal computer users. The empirical evidence is based on interactive Tobit regressions. The findings show that only Internet access in schools unconditionally promotes adult literacy. The corresponding inequality threshold that should not be exceeded for Internet access in schools to continue promoting adult literacy is 0.739 of the Gini coefficient. Policy implications are discussed.
... Second, adult literacy is particularly important in economic development and information technology is a means by which such education can be enhanced, especially in the light of the fact that adult learning is largely devoted to mature students who are already involved in the workforce. It follows that adult literacy is a means of human resource development because it provides workers, inter alia, with the opportunity of expanding their knowledge and gaining new skills (Blunch & Portner, 2011;Blunch, 2017;Allatt & Tett, 2019). In essence, the adult literacy rate within the remit of this study is the percentage of people aged 15 and above, who can both read and write in order to communicate effectively. ...
The study assesses linkages between information technology, inequality and adult literacy in 57 developing countries for the period 2012-2016. Income inequality is measured with the Gini coefficient while six dynamics of information technology are taken on board, namely: use of virtual social network, internet access in schools, internet penetration, mobile phone penetration, fixed broadband subscription and number of personal computer users. The findings show that only internet access in schools unconditionally promote adult literacy. The corresponding inequality threshold that should not be exceeded in order for internet access in schools to continue promoting adult literacy is 0.739 of the Gini coefficient. Policy implications are discussed.
... Echoing the Macau Policy Address 2021, the university released a new vision and mission i.e., to provide services for the region, to nurture application-oriented talent, to increase student recruitment, and to operate under the disciplines of under market-oriented principals. Thus, the language it uses to describe its vision and mission represents its evolving neoliberal nature (see Allatt and Tett, 2018), which therefore, presents a suitable venue for investigating Macanese university teachers' lived experience in neoliberalism. ...
Against a background of promoting the industrialization of higher education in Macau due to COVID-19's damage to the territory's major industry—gambling, the present study adopted phenomenological psychology to explore teachers' lived experience of being pedagogical in a university with a neoliberal vision and mission. Using a general structure, the findings revealed that teachers encountered challenges being pedagogical. These challenges emerged not only due to the university's corporate management, but more importantly because of a shift in perceptions—where students became like customers and teachers became self-interested—which made pedagogical relationships difficult to establish. Furthermore, teachers were found to develop negative emotions when their pedagogical actions or intentions conflicted with neoliberalism. The findings suggest that pedagogy in higher education is being challenged and transformed.
... Within such debates the explanation for differences in patterns of participation tend to be reduced to individual problems or "barriers" that need to be overcome; with no recognition of the wider structural barriers that may better explain inequalities in the uptake in the use of the Internet for learning and any benefits that may result. This focus on agency and neglect of social structure is well recognised by Education scholars (eg, Allatt & Tett, 2019;Evans, Schoon, & Weale, 2013). Indeed, the problematic "responsibilization of the individual" is well recognised across all policy sectors (Juhila, Raitakari, & Hall, 2016). ...
This paper uses nationally representative survey data of adults Internet use in Britain to examine current patterns in the uptake of lifelong learning via the Internet. We develop and test a model that accounts for structure, agency and outcomes using structural equation modelling to address two questions: (1) how structure (as measured by age, gender, SES, Education and ACORN) is related to personal and capital enhancing outcomes of learning online; and (2) how agency (as measured by digital skills and engagement with online learning) mediates this relationship. We demonstrate that social structure remains an important factor in understanding patterns of uptake and outcomes of online learning, alongside an individual’s agentic behaviours. We suggest that countries such as the UK, which have become overly focused on individual interventions to increase the uptake of lifelong learning via the Internet, are going in the wrong direction. Such interventions have failed in the past, and we suggest that they will continue to do so unless policy makers reconceptualise lifelong learning and the Internet in ways that take social structures into account.
... For example, Stomquist (2009) has argued that empowerment education comprises four equally important dimensions: cognitive, economic, psychological, and political and programs should be evaluated on how well informed and assertive adults have become about the issues that are important in their lives. On the other hand, programs within the HC framework are mainly focused on the cognitive dimension and evaluated on the growth in literacy and numeracy skills especially those that will contribute to employability (see Allatt & Tett, 2019). In this book the purpose of adult literacy is mainly conceptualised in terms of its economic impact so readers that are interested in the political role of adult literacy will need to look elsewhere. ...
... Hamilton and Pitt (2011) suggest that 'functional' literacy is aligned with a 'human resource' model in which literacy is understood as 'a commodity to be exchanged in the global market place' (Hamilton, 2012, p. 170). This discourse of functionalism in relation to literacy has also been linked to a neoliberal agenda as a result of the way it links literacy with employability and economic issues (Allatt & Tett, 2019;Duckworth & Brzeski, 2015;Hamilton & Pitt, 2011). ...
This article is based on qualitative research with adult literacy practitioners and learners in the north of England. I draw on interview and focus group data to identify their perspectives on adult literacies and compare these with the understandings of literacy on which current policy-making for adult literacy in England is based. The research revealed a wide range of ways in which literacy is understood in practice, compared with a much narrower conceptualisation in current policy. The article concludes that teachers' and learners' perspectives on adult literacies reinforce the notion that literacy is not a fixed concept, but that its meanings and uses vary according to time and context. It argues, however, that a policy environment based on an understanding of literacy which emphasizes employability and economic outcomes creates challenges for teachers and
learners to maintain their own perspectives in relation to what literacy constitutes and what is important in adult literacy education.
... The new curriculum requires the balancing of participants' needs, interests, and knowledge of curricular requirements in terms of measurable learning outcomes, and of maintaining the providers' responsibilities towards the funding authority. The pivotal question is, whether or not the adult educators will be able to maintain their andragogical approaches to facilitating and learning, and to 'keep learners and their goals at the centre' against all odds, as described for the UK case by Allatt and Tett (2019). For Austria, two essential factors must be taken into account. ...
Drawing on a strongly grassroots and expertise-supported development in the field of adult basic education in Austria, this paper traces the current shift to politically motivated
interventions. The article is based on a methodologically triangulated case study based on interviews (part 1), review of theory (part 2), and document analysis (part 3). It unveils
a unique spirit of empowerment and emancipation in Austrian adult basic education. This spirit currently seems to be at risk. The authors identified five signposts of a changing
landscape showing a strong tendency towards impact orientation in terms of employability and upskilling: (1) Standardisation and one of its unintended consequences (2) Technocracy over expertise (3) Narrowing the curriculum (4) Teaching supersedes facilitating (5) Research and development - disliked. In order to preserve the tradition within the framework of adult basic education, the authors emphasise the importance of raising informed and critical voices.
... The key benefit of participation in these programmes was not related to the stated primary purpose of finding secure and worthwhile employment, but rather the opportunity for social contact in particular, as Brian illustrated, with programme tutors. Programme tutors can be viewed positively, as in Brian's case, by participants, which may reflect recent research by Allatt and Tett (2018), illustrating that employability tutors can, in some cases, use their agency to resist the neoliberal construction of learners as deficit, creatively keeping learners and their goals at the centre of the programme and affording participants some measure of recognition and respect. ...
This article argues for the continued importance of adult education in communities, an approach to adult education which has been maligned and ignored in policy that has, instead, incessantly prioritised employability skills training. The significance of adult education in communities is that it seeks to build the curriculum from the interests, aspirations, and problems that people experience in their everyday lives by providing opportunities for individual and collective change (more below). We draw on data taken from a study by one of the authors, which used a life history approach to explore the outcomes for 14 people from the deindustrialised North East England of participation in either employability skills training or community adult education. We document several themes through these stories: churning, surveillance, precarity, demoralisation, ontological insecurity, and personal renewal.
In this chapter we review Australasian research on numeracy education published from 2020 to 2023. This is the second consecutive chapter to be dedicated to numeracy research in MERGA’s four-yearly reviews, which reflects the significance of research and policy developments in this field. Not only has numeracy become an important goal of schooling, but it also permeates all aspects of people’s lives. For this reason, we have framed the chapter around the concept of numeracy as a life-wide and a lifelong resource. Life-wide perspectives come to the fore in research on the role of numeracy in the formal curriculum and beyond formal education. In the former, numeracy can be represented as a cross-curricular competency or as mathematical literacy in financial, statistical and spatial contexts; beyond formal education, the home, community and workplace are rich numerate environments. Research on lifelong numeracy considers learning, teaching, and assessment from early childhood into the school years, teacher education, tertiary, vocational and adult education. The chapter begins with a critique of current numeracy policies and concludes with suggestions for future research into critical numeracy, teacher preparation, adult numeracy provision, numeracy in senior secondary school courses, and the impact of cross-curricular approaches and resources on numeracy development.
This article investigates if health inequalities can be reduced using popular education (PE) methods. It argues that, although ill health may be experienced as a private trouble, it is embedded in broader social and political processes and should be seen as a public issue. It illuminates this concept of health by using student writings from the Health Issues in the Community (HIIC) project. These writings illustrate the impact of unemployment, lack of facilities, food poverty etc. on people’s physical and mental health and the action they have taken to challenge and reduce these inequalities. It is argued that PE contributes to human flourishing, but the educator must resist the power they have to steer students in particular directions. It concludes that whilst PE cannot abolish health inequalities, HIIC participants have taken small steps to change existing realities and so have challenged oppressive social relations.
Australia's natural environment poses challenges for human inhabitants and will continue to pose novel challenges in an era of climate change. However, the resources that people can access to respond to climate change are diverse and unequally distributed. While this suggests a role for education, especially for those who are most socially and economically vulnerable, integrating climate change literacy into educational programs is not straightforward in all sectors. Studies have shown that increased standardization of curricula constrain teacher autonomy and pose dilemmas for teachers faced with tensions between curricular requirements and their professional judgment about appropriate pedagogy and curricula. This article considers the possibility of educational intervention for socially and economically disadvantaged adults with limited English language and literacy skills by investigating how a group of teachers in accredited literacy courses viewed their role in addressing climate change and environmental literacy in their literacy classes.
Der Beitrag rückt das transformative Potenzial von Erwachsenenbildung ins Zentrum. Typischerweise kann Teilnahme an guter Basisbildung lebensverändernde (Bildungs-)Erfahrung ermöglichen. Gegenstand dieses Beitrags ist die Frage, wie gute Basisbildung gestaltet wird und um welche tiefgreifenden Wirkungen es sich handelt. Dieser Frage wird aus Sicht des transformative learning und, damit in Verbindung stehend, der Transformative Learning Theory nachgegangen. In Form einer Literaturübersicht zu Adult Basic Education bzw. Literacy Education werden Forschungsergebnisse vorgestellt, die mit der theoretischen Brille des transformative learning auf das Bildungsgeschehen und die Lernprozesse sowie Lernergebnisse blicken. Darin zeigt sich eine humanistische und demokratische Bildungspraxis, die auf die Entfaltung des Potenzials von Menschen über die Lebensspanne setzt und die Selbst- und Mitbestimmung in der Bildungsarbeit hochhält. Es werden weiterführende Fragen und Überlegungen dokumentiert, die sich aus der Auseinandersetzung mit aktuellen Entwicklungen innerhalb der österreichischen Basisbildung und den Ergebnissen der Literaturübersicht zum transformative learning in der Basisbildung speisen.
When Germany performed the first national assessment on reading and writing skills among adults in 2010 (LEO), it was late compared to other European countries such as
England or France. Now the results of the second round of that survey reveal a higher average literacy level in Germany compared to the preceding survey. In this paper, we briefly discuss the state of literacy research in large-scale surveys and offer some critical viewpoints. Next, we present the results of the two LEO surveys from 2010 and 2018. Besides providing information about the composition of the low-literate adult population in Germany (aged 18-64 years), we selected results that might help to critically revise current stereotypes about adults who have difficulties reading and writing.
Recognising both the complexity of skills policies and the potential for peer learning, the OECD has developed a global skills strategy that helps countries to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their national skills systems, benchmark them internationally, and develop policies that can transform better skills into better jobs, economic growth and social inclusion. This publication presents a strategy that will help countries reach the goal of having and making the best use of a high-quality pool of skills. The OECD skills strategy shifts the focus from traditional measures of skills, such as years of initial education and training or qualifications attained, to a much broader perspective that includes the skills people can acquire, use and maintain, and also lose, over a whole lifetime. Without sufficient investment in skills, people languish on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into economic growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global society. In addition, the publication points out that for skills to retain their value, they must be continuously maintained and upgraded throughout life so that people can collaborate, compete and connect in ways that drive economies and societies forward.
The dominant view among British policy-makers is that benefit sanctions for the unemployed who are claiming the Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA) are effective at increasing flows from unemployment into sustainable employment. This paper tests this theory using aggregate cross-sectional data for Great Britain for the period May 2001 to December 2014. Descriptive analysis found the relationship between sanctions and labour market outcomes was ambiguous, while trends in labour market outcomes were highly correlated with labour market demand. Multivariate SVAR time-series analysis, controlling for labour market demand, found evidence that changes in the threat and use of sanctions had a positive impact on flows into work in the short run but not in the long term, and had no definitive impact on ILO unemployment at all. Interrupted time-series analyses suggest we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the impact of introduction of a new JSA sanctions regime in October 2012 (with higher financial penalties associated with being sanctioned) had no impact on flows into work from JSA. In Britain, intensifying the use of sanctions and introducing harsher penalties associated with being sanctioned has been largely ineffective at increasing flows from JSA into sustainable employment. Given the negative financial and social impacts of sanctions on those affected, and the lack of evidence of a sustained positive impact on employment, the basis for the new sanctions policy is unclear.
This paper deploys some concepts from the work of Michel Foucault to problematise the mundane and quotidian practices of policy translation as these occur in the everyday of schools. In doing that, we suggest that these practices are complicit in the formation of and constitution of teacher subjects, and their subjection to the morality of policy and of educational reform. These practices are some ways in which teachers work on themselves and others, and make themselves subjects of policy. We conceive of the processes of translation, its practices and techniques as a form of ethics, the constitution of a contemporary and contingent version of professionalism through the arts of self-conduct. In all of this, it is virtually impossible to separate out, as Foucault points out, capability from control. We argue that the development of new capacities, new skills of classroom management, of pedagogy, bring along with it the intensification of a power relation. We are primarily concerned with Foucault’s third face of power, pastoral power or government and how this interweaves and overlap with other forms of power within processes of policy and educational reform.
The years 2003 – 2013 marked a coming-of-age in the adult literacy field in Canada, as it reconciled the politics of international literacy surveys and their accountability regimes with the actualities of literacy work among people caught in the nets of neoliberal economics. The concepts of policy networks, powerful literacies and workarounds are used to capture how educators attempt to escape or repair the effects of standardized accountability regimes to create new networks of adult literacy practice that reflect local learning needs and interests. The nexus of this struggle suggests consequences for the work of all educators within an emerging ‘new precariat’ and downgrading of public education spaces.
Well-being and employment activation have become central and intertwined policy priorities across advanced economies, with the mandation of unemployed claimants towards employability interventions (e.g. curriculum vitae preparation and interview skills). Compelled job search and job transitions are in part justified by the well-being gains that resulting employment is said to deliver. However, this dominant focus within the activation field on outcome well-being – the well-being improvement triggered by a transition to paid work – neglects how participation in activation schemes can itself affect well-being levels for unemployed people – what we term ‘process well-being’ effects. Combining theoretical literature with empirical work on the UK's large-scale quasi-marketized Work Programme activation scheme, we develop the limited existing academic discussion of process well-being effects, considering whether and how activation participation mediates the negative well-being effects of unemployment, irrespective of any employment outcomes. We further relate variation in such process well-being effects to the literature on activation typologies, in which ‘thinner’ work-first activation interventions are linked to weaker process well-being effects for participants compared to ‘thicker’ human capital development interventions. Confirming these expectations, our empirical work shows that Work Programme participants have, to date, experienced a largely ‘thin’ activation regime in which participants are both expected to, and empirically demonstrate, similar if not lower levels of process well-being than those who are openly unemployed. These concerning findings speak to all nations seeking to promote the well-being of unemployed people and particularly those perusing ‘black box’ activation schemes based around quasi-marketization, devolution and New Public Management.
Over the last 20 years, international attempts to raise educational standards and improve opportunities for all children have accelerated and proliferated. This has generated a state of constant change and an unrelenting flood of initiatives, changes and reforms that need to be ‘implemented’ by schools. In response to this, a great deal of attention has been given to evaluating ‘how well’ policies are realised in practice – implemented! Less attention has been paid to understanding how schools actually deal with these multiple, and sometimes contradictory, policy demands; creatively working to interpret policy texts and translate these into practices, in real material conditions and varying resources – how they are enacted! Based on a long-term qualitative study of four ‘ordinary’ secondary schools, and working on the interface of theory with data, this book explores how schools enact, rather than implement, policy. It focuses on
Background:
In England between 2010 and 2013, just over one million recipients of the main out-of-work disability benefit had their eligibility reassessed using a new functional checklist-the Work Capability Assessment. Doctors and disability rights organisations have raised concerns that this has had an adverse effect on the mental health of claimants, but there are no population level studies exploring the health effects of this or similar policies.
Method:
We used multivariable regression to investigate whether variation in the trend in reassessments in each of 149 local authorities in England was associated with differences in local trends in suicides, self-reported mental health problems and antidepressant prescribing rates, while adjusting for baseline conditions and trends in other factors known to influence mental ill-health.
Results:
Each additional 10 000 people reassessed in each area was associated with an additional 6 suicides (95% CI 2 to 9), 2700 cases of reported mental health problems (95% CI 548 to 4840), and the prescribing of an additional 7020 antidepressant items (95% CI 3930 to 10100). The reassessment process was associated with the greatest increases in these adverse mental health outcomes in the most deprived areas of the country, widening health inequalities.
Conclusions:
The programme of reassessing people on disability benefits using the Work Capability Assessment was independently associated with an increase in suicides, self-reported mental health problems and antidepressant prescribing. This policy may have had serious adverse consequences for mental health in England, which could outweigh any benefits that arise from moving people off disability benefits.
This article explores the relative importance of different socio-demographic and practice-oriented factors that are related to proficiency in problem solving in technology-rich environments (PSTREs) and by extension may be related to complex problem solving (CPS). The empirical analysis focuses on the proficiency measurements of PSTRE made available by the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which is relevant for gaining insight on some of the factors related to CPS. The purpose was to examine the relationship between the broad information processing experience that individuals gather in different contexts over the lifespan, and the chances to develop problem-solving skills that adults receive in different socio-demographic profiles. Results reveal that socio-demographic factors such as age, education and immigration status as well as practice-oriented factors such as ICT use and reading practice at and outside work are strongly related to proficiency.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has developed impressive machinery to produce international comparative data across more than 70 systems of education and these data have come to be used extensively in policy circles around the world. In many countries, national and international comparative data are used as the bases for significant, high-stakes policy and reform decisions. This article traces how international comparability is produced, using the example of equity measurement in OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It focuses on the construction of the objects of comparison and traces the struggles to produce equivalence and commensurability across diverse and complex worlds. Based on conversations with a number of measurement experts who are familiar with the OECD and PISA, the article details how comparability is achieved and how it falters and fails. In performing such an analysis, this research is not concerned with ‘exposing’ the limitations of comparison or challenging their validity. Rather, based on the work of Steve Woolgar and other scholars, it attempts to mobilise a ‘sociology of measurement’ that explores the instrumentalism and performativity of the technologies of international comparisons.
Recently, critical policy scholars have used the concepts of enactment, context and performativity as an analytic toolkit to illuminate the complex processes of the policy cycle, in particular, the ways in which a multitude of official education reform policies are taken up, challenged and/or resisted by actors in local, situation-specific practices. This set of theoretical tools are usually deployed to analyse interview data collected from a single school or cluster of schools to draw findings or conclusions about the complex processes of policy enactment. We aim to build on this critical policy studies work by, firstly, highlighting key aspects of these theoretical/methodological constructs, secondly, exploring the performative role of research in the materiality of specific contexts and, thirdly, theorising education policy research in terms of ontological politics. We ground this work in a recent collaborative enquiry research project undertaken in Queensland, Australia. This research project emerged in the Australian policy context of National Partnership Agreement policies which were designed to reform public or government-funded schools servicing low socio-economic communities, in order to improve student learning outcomes, specifically in literacy and numeracy as measured by high-stakes national testing.
ABSTRACT In this paper the primary emphasis is upon the general and common elements in contemporary, international education policy, but nonetheless the discussion also considers the processes of translation and recontextualisation involved in the realisation or enactment of policy in specific national and local settings. A set of generic 'problems' which constitute the contemporary social, political and economic conditions for education and social policy making are adumbrated. The emergence of ideological and 'magical' solutions to these problems is identified and the means of the dissemination of these solutions are discussed. A relationship between the global market and the marketisation of education is suggested and explored.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
Recently, there has been a rapid proliferation of scholarship on resistance but little consensus on its definition. In this paper, we review and synthesize the diverse literatures that invoke the concept of resistance. This review illuminates both core elements common to most uses of the concept and two central dimensions on which these uses vary: the questions of whether resistance must be recognized by others and whether it must be intentional. We use these two dimensions to develop a typology of resistance, thereby clarifying both the meaning and sociological utility of this concept.
This article is based on a keynote paper presented to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), University College Dublin, 5-9 September 2005. The massification of education in European countries over the last 100 years has produced cultures and societies that have benefited greatly from state investment in education. To maintain this level of social and economic development that derives from high quality education requires continual state investment. With the rise of the New Right, neo-liberal agenda, there is an attempt to offload the cost of education, and indeed other public services such as housing, transport, care services etc., on to the individual. There is an increasing attempt to privatise public services, including education, so that citizens will have to buy them at market value rather than have them provided by the state. Europe is no exception to this trend of neo-liberalisation. Recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports, including one on higher education in Ireland, (2004), concentrate strongly on the role of education in servicing the economy to the neglect of its social and developmental responsibilities. The view that education is simply another market commodity has become normalised in policy and public discourses. Schools run purely as businesses are a growing phenomenon within and without Europe, and there is an increasing expectation in several countries that schools will supplement their income from private sources, even though they are within the state sector. In this article, the writer presents both a critique of the neo-liberal model of marketised education and a challenge to academics to work as public intellectuals both individually and with civil society organisations to develop a counter- hegemonic discourse to neo-liberalism for higher education.
This article explores assessment policy in two European universities with different political, historical and social backgrounds: the University of Glasgow and Tallinn University. The University of Glasgow is a well-established Russell Group university in the UK; Tallinn University is a relatively new university in post-Soviet Estonia, shaped by very recent neoliberalisation processes. By applying a Foucauldian theorisation and Faircloughian methodology, this article approaches assessment policy as not only relating to institutional contexts but also national and global policy environments. The article argues that the assessment policy in Glasgow relates to globally dominant neoliberal discourses of accountability and excellence. These discourses have turned assessment into a complex technology of government that manages educational processes as well as academic and student subjectivities. While Tallinn University is shaped by neoliberalism at strategic levels, the policy documents in Tallinn still indicate a strong sense of local tradition where regulations have a modest impact on academic freedom and assessors’ disciplinary power over students.
With the end of ‘methodological nationalism’, educational scholars working within a tradition of transnational governance are considering how the OECD shapes national policy and discourse (Henry et al., 2001; Rinne et al., 2004; Rubenson, 2008; Sellar and Lingard, 2013). Rinne et al.’s statement that ‘The OECD has become a kind of “eminence grise” of industrialised countries’ education policy’ (2004, 456) captures the dominant position in the literature. In this chapter I look more closely at the role of the OECD in manufacturing the ‘common sense’ of adult learning and education, and setting agendas that become taken for granted and govern national policy actors’ approach to adult learning and education reforms. I start with a brief description of the organization and the mechanisms by which it shapes national policy agendas. Then I explore the place of education within the OECD and analyse its involvement in adult learning and education, paying special attention to developments since the late 1990s.
This paper explores, from a Foucauldian perspective, the emergence and nature of the current EU education policy priority issue of ‘early school leaving’. The paper suggests that a number of problematisations developing from the failure to secure Lisbon Strategy objectives have served to create a much stronger focus on the issue of young people deemed to be leaving education and training early in EU states. In examining how EU policy discourse positions such young people (subjectivation), the paper highlights how this has narrowed to a concern with young people as economic problems and principally positioned as economic units which are required to be more productive. Education and training are understood as investments in human capital and as the principal means to secure the dominant global economic position desired by the EU. The paper suggests, however, that human capital theory has been modified within this approach so that merely being retained in an educational setting is seen as proxy for the investment which education and training represent. This is a weaker policy position than previously espoused but, born of economic crisis, one which addresses related EU political aims of softening youth unemployment figures, dampening associated unrest and reducing risks to social cohesion.
The literature on governmentality has had a major impact across the social sciences over the past decade, and much of this has drawn upon the pioneering work by Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose. This volume will bring together key papers from their work for the first time, including those that set out the basic frameworks, concepts and ethos of this approach to the analysis of political power and the state, and others that analyse specific domains of the conduct of conduct, from marketing to accountancy, and from the psychological management of organizations to the government of economic life.
Bringing together empirical papers on the government of economic, social and personal life, the volume demonstrates clearly the importance of analysing these as conjoint phenomena rather than separate domains, and questions some cherished boundaries between disciplines and topic areas. Linking programmes and strategies for the administration of these different domains with the formation of subjectivities and the transformation of ethics, the papers cast a new light on some of the leading issues in contemporary social science modernity, democracy, reflexivity and individualisation.
This volume will be indispensable for all those, from whatever discipline in the social sciences, who have an interest in the concepts and methods necessary for critical empirical analysis of power relations in our present.
Background:
Many governments have introduced tougher eligibility assessments for out-of-work disability benefits, to reduce rising benefit caseloads. The UK government initiated a programme in 2010 to reassess all existing disability benefit claimants using a new functional checklist. We investigated whether this policy led to more people out-of-work with long-standing health problems entering employment.
Method:
We use longitudinal data from the Labour Force Survey linked to data indicating the proportion of the population experiencing a reassessment in each of 149 upper tier local authorities in England between 2010 and 2013. Regression models were used to investigate whether the proportion of the population undergoing reassessment in each area was independently associated with the chances that people out-of-work with a long-standing health problem entered employment and transitions between inactivity and unemployment. We analysed whether any effects differed between people whose main health problem was mental rather than physical.
Results:
There was no significant association between the reassessment process and the chances that people out-of-work with a long-standing illness entered employment. The process was significantly associated with an increase in the chances that people with mental illnesses moved from inactivity into unemployment (HR=1.22, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.45).
Conclusions:
The reassessment policy appears to have shifted people with mental health problems from inactivity into unemployment, but there was no evidence that it had increased their chances of employment. There is an urgent need for services that can support the increasing number of people with mental health problems on unemployment benefits.
The impact of participation in adult literacy programmes on learners’ identities is examined through an interrogation of their past and current experiences and the assessment of the effect of particular pedagogies. The findings show how learners’ positive experiences in their programmes had caused them to re-evaluate their previous understandings and enabled the construction of new identities as people that are able to learn. These changes had come about through the challenging of negative discourses, the creation of new figured worlds and imagined futures, and the use of a learning curriculum where learners’ experiences were utilized as positive resources.
State Education as High-Yield Investment: Human Capital Theory in European Policy Discourse
Human Capital Theory has been an increasingly important phenomenon in economic thought over the last 50 years. The central role it affords to education has become even more marked in recent years as the concept of the ‘knowledge economy’ has become a global concern. In this paper, the prevalence of Human Capital Theory within European educational policy discourse is explored. The paper examines a selection of policy documents from a number of disparate European national contexts and considers the extent to which the ideas of Human Capital Theory can be seen to be influential. In the second part of the paper, the implications of Human Capital Theory for education are considered, with a particular focus on the possible ramifications at a time of economic austerity. In problematizing Human Capital Theory, the paper argues that it risks offering a diminished view of the person, a diminished view of education, but that with its sole focus on economic goals leaves room for educationists and others to argue for the educational, social, and moral values it ignores, and for the conception of the good life and good society it fails to mention.
Human capital refers to the knowledge, information, ideas, skills, and health of individuals. This is the "age of human capital" in the sense that human capital is by far the most important form of capital in modern economies. The economic successes of individuals, and also of whole economies, depends on how extensively and effectively people invest in themselves. Studies suggest that capital invested in men and women constitutes over 70 percent of the total capital in the United States. The total invested in schooling, on-the-job training, health, information, and research and develop-ment is surely over 20 percent of gross domestic product. Technology may be the driver of a modern economy, espe-cially of its high-tech sector, but human capital is certainly the fuel. An economy like that of the United States is called a cap-italist economy, but a more accurate term is human capital or a knowledge capital economy. While all forms of capi-tal are important, including machinery, factories, and fi-nancial capital, human capital is the most significant.
This paper considers the policy environment of adult literacy as a space within which sites of learning are shaped and given value. It explores the interplay between international, national and local visions of what literacy is, who literacy learners are and what counts as learning, thereby linking broader social formations with local practices of literacy learning. The paper briefly reviews changes in UK policy related to adult literacy over the last 40 years, identifying some of the international and national influences on it. In particular, it describes the rising importance of international policy indicators through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union. These reach into the very heart of sites of learning, via the national media, policy documents and performance indicators used to evaluate both teachers and learners. It argues that the human resources view of literacy learning that has dominated recent policy initiatives produces a moral order of literacy which organises our understanding of different sites of learning, the people active within them and the different forms of learning in which they engage. Formal learning is privileged over informal learning; standardised and measurable outcomes are preferred. The ‘good’ literacy learner is constructed as a responsible citizen contributing to global prosperity.
This paper explores the ‘joined‐up thinking’ and attempts at ‘joined‐up working’ that policy architects recommend for the successful operationalization of the New Deal for 18–24 year olds. In particular, it examines the difficulties arising around the full‐time education and training option. The research project reports upon the ‘implementation gaps’, in particular the workings of Employment Service Personnel and College staff who strive to interpret and work within the relevant policy guidance for the New Deal for Young People (NDYP). The paper draws upon semi‐structured interviews and documentary analysis from a qualitative case study in South Wales to describe the interaction and articulation of the ‘main players’ who facilitate New Deal education and training options. Centralized and mandatory programmes like the New Deal for Young People which aims to be integrative and ameliorative, but which are framed within a strong sanctioning policy, have created tensions between those professionals trying to work in a ‘joined‐up’ manner. The guidance, educative, and social work elements which contribute to a positive learner/trainee identity are at odds with the surveillance and policing roles involved in monitoring claimant participation. FE staff who facilitate and manage the ‘New Deal’ full time education and training option emerge as a seriously challenged group, which has to forge workable and practical applications of a policy which somewhat undermines notions of a learning society and lifelong learning.
This paper analyses the relation between power and politics under the conditions of economic globalisation and transnational policy‐making in education. The paper argues that power lies not only with the producers of the dominant educational discourse nor simply with the very discourse which is circulated and reproduced in national legislations, local policies and pedagogic practices; it lies with the increasingly global endorsement of a specific perception of what education should be about: to maintain or increase ‘economic competitiveness’, ‘growth’, ‘development’ and ultimately ‘progress’. Progress remains the central signification of societies today, as the paper argues, and, therefore, the main source of power, namely of widespread consent around a largely common set of education policies promoted across countries.
The present situation is another unresolved crisis within the conjuncture that we can define as 'the long march of the Neoliberal Revolution'. Each crisis since the 1970s has looked different, arising from specific historical circumstances. However, they also seem to share some consistent underlying features, to be connected in their general thrust and direction of travel. In ambition, depth, degree of break with the past, variety of sites being colonised, impact on common sense, shift in the social architecture, neoliberalism does constitute a hegemonic project. Paradoxically, such apparently opposed political regimes as Thatcherism and New Labour have contributed in different ways to expanding this project. Hegemony has constantly to be 'worked on', maintained, renewed, revised. Excluded social forces, whose consent has not been won, whose interests have not been taken into account, form the basis of counter-movements, resistance, alternative strategies and visions ? and the struggle over a hegemonic system starts anew. Now the Coalition is taking up the same cause.
This paper examines how economics imperialism (the increasing colonization of other disciplines by neoclassical economics) has affected contemporary education policies. I suggest that an increasing preoccupation with education meeting the needs of the economy, together with the prevalence of economic concepts outside of economics, have contributed to the development of education policies which mimic economic ideas. The specific policies which it considers are outcomes-based qualifications frameworks, which are becoming increasingly prevalent internationally. I argue that in the main, outcomes-based qualifications frameworks can be seen as tools for creating or regulating education markets, and that their underpinning logic is the logic of neoclassical economics. I further argue that the educational ideas that are invoked in association with outcomes-based qualifications frameworks, and which have often been seen as progressive, or empowering, or anti-elitist, have commonalities with the tools of analysis of neoclassical economics. Specifically, ideas about knowledge and the curriculum which have traditionally been seen as progressive have an overemphasis on individuals, and underemphasis on structures. These underlying similarities have facilitated the process whereby education policy has been rewritten using the tools of neoclassical economics, enabling the description of neo-liberal policies in progressive terms.
This article analyses recent developments in policies to promote the employability of unemployed and economically inactive people in the UK. It discusses the extent to which these policies reflect the dominant approaches of ‘Work First’, where programmes focus mainly on compulsory job search and short-term interventions to facilitate a quick return to work, or human capital development (HCD), where programmes tailor services to promote longer-term skills and personal development. Specifically, the article reports on case-study research into two recent pilot initiatives: Working Neighbourhoods (which targeted a range of intensive services in neighbourhoods characterised by high levels of inactivity) and Pathways to Work (which combines employability services and cognitive behaviour therapy-type approaches to help clients to manage health problems). While both pilots have retained strong Work First features, they potentially represent a shift towards a more HCD-oriented approach, through the delivery of more holistic ‘coping and enabling’ services. However, there remain concerns that, as with previous progressive policy initiatives, the positive lessons of these pilots will not be fully mainstreamed. We conclude that, if the UK is to balance Work First compulsion with high-quality services delivering progress in the labour market and HCD, a strengthening of ‘coping and enabling’ interventions is required, alongside a renewed commitment to training.
Rizvi and Lingard's account of the global politics of education is thoughtful, complex and compelling. It is the first really comprehensive discussion and analysis of global trends in education policy, their effects - structural and individual - and resistance to them. In the enormous body of writing on globalisation this book stands out and will become a basic text in education policy courses around the world. - Stephen J Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London, UK, In what ways have the processes of globalization reshaped the educational policy terrain?, How might we analyse education policies located within this new terrain, which is at once local, national, regional and global? In Globalizing Education Policy, the authors explore the key global drivers of policy change in education, and suggest that these do not operate in the same way in all nation-states. They examine the transformative effects of globalization on the discursive terrain within which educational policies are developed and enacted, arguing that this terrain is increasingly informed by a range of neo-liberal precepts which have fundamentally changed the ways in which we think about educational governance. They also suggest that whilst in some countries these precepts are resisted, to some extent, they have nonetheless become hegemonic, and provide an overview of some critical issues in educational policy to which this hegemonic view of globalization has given rise, including: devolution and decentralization new forms of governance the balance between public and private funding of education access and equity and the education of girls curriculum particularly with respect to the teaching of English language and technology pedagogies and high stakes testing and the global trade in education. These issues are explored within the context of major shifts in global processes and ideological discourses currently being experienced, and negotiated by all countries. The book also provides an approach to education policy analysis in an age of globalization and will be of interest to those studying globalization and education policy across the social sciences.
The principle that it is better to let some guilty individuals be set free than to mistakenly convict an innocent person is generally shared by legal scholars, judges and lawmakers of modern societies. The paper shows why this common trait of criminal procedure is also efficient. It extends the standard Polinsky and Shavell (2007) model of deterrence and shows that when the costs of convictions are positive, and guilty individuals are more likely to be convicted than innocent individuals it is always efficient to minimize the number of wrongful convictions, while a more than minimal amount of wrongful acquittals may be optimal.
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Adult Literacy and Numeracy: Government Response to the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee
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More Powerful Literacies: the Policy Context
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European Adult and Lifelong Education in Times of Crisis: Where Is Social Justice When the Social Dimension Turns into Social Cohesion
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