The nature and implications of the part-time employment of secondary school pupils

This paper reports on the results of a review of existing measures of enterprising skills and attitudes. The review was undertaken firstly to identify definitions of enterprising skills and attitudes and secondly to inform the design of the questionnaire of school pupils and of the focused studies. It has been written by Linda Brownlow and Sheila Semple, both members of the research team. This paper is being circulated to advisory group members only at this stage [2004]

Post-16 Curriculum and Qualifications Reform in England and Scotland: lessons from home international comparisons

In this article we compare Curriculum 2000 and Higher Still, recent reforms of post-16 education in England and Scotland respectively. We draw on current and earlier research on the unification of academic and vocational learning in England, Scotland and other European countries in order to suggest areas for mutual learning to inform future curriculum and qualifications reform north and south of the Border. We highlight five of these - the conduct of the policy process, issues of progression, assessment, approaches to vocational education and key/core skills. In our conclusion we speculate on the possibility of either convergence or divergence of the English and Scottish upper secondary education systems as both evolve

To know ourselves? Research, data and policy-making in the Scottish education system

This paper considers the role of independent research in helping an education and training system ‘know itself’, illustrating this through the experience of the Centre for Educational Sociology (CES) of which David Raffe was a member and director. It highlights the tensions in the research-policy relationship arising from the different ‘normative worlds’ of researchers and policy makers, and their priorities at each stage of the policy cycle. It shows how such tensions have been evident in the research-policy relationship in Scotland pre- and post-devolution and points out the importance of the plural provision of research support and funding. The paper argues the need for system-wide, longitudinal data to enable a country to ༘know’ its education and training system and analyse the impact of government policies and wider societal change. It points out that Scotland no longer collects such data and so cannot interrogate and understand its education and training system. The failure of policy makers to learn from the experience of their own country’s past is noted; the paper concludes by reaffirming the need for research to challenge policy and policy-makers, especially in a system such as Scotland with a tendency to complacency

Bridging divides–social science, educational policy and the improvement of education and training systems:An appreciation the contribution of David Raffe (1950–2015)

This Introduction provides an overview of the distinctive contribution of the late David Raffe to educational research in the UK and internationally over a 40-year period. His wide-ranging research on post-compulsory education and training systems was enriched by the development of conceptual distinctions that have become part of the lingua franca of sociology and the study of education reform. David’s particular style of scholarship focused on the improvement of education systems through collaborative working; historical and comparative analysis and the processes of policy learning. In particular he argued that both researchers and policy actors should understand the specificities of their own national contexts rather than simply engage in ‘policy borrowing’ from other contexts or countries. The Introduction also outlines how the various contributors to the journal have engaged with David’s scholarship, and demonstrates the continuing relevance of his intellectual legacy to understanding today’s turbulent political and policy world