You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Alice Bradbury discusses how the meritocracy myth reinforces educational inequalities and analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience might challenge how we classify and label children as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.
Understanding Early Years Inequality uses critical sociological perspectives to examine the impact of changing assessment policy on primary school classrooms, with a particular focus on issues of inequality. Drawing on accounts of life in early years classrooms, Alice Bradbury suggests that a specific model of the ‘good learner’ operates, and that this model works to exclude some groups of students from positions of educational success. Key themes examined throughout this book relate to: The relationship between assessment policy and children’s identities as learners; The complexity of classroom life; The power of assessment to shape definitions of ‘learning’ and ‘learners’; Th...
The COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, but this hiatus provided an opportunity to rethink the fundamental principles of our education system. In this thought-provoking book, Alice Bradbury discusses how, before the pandemic, the education system assumed ability to be measurable and innate, and how this meritocracy myth reinforced educational inequalities – a central issue during the crisis. Drawing on a project dealing with ability-grouping practices, Bradbury analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience have revised these ideas about how we classify and label children, and how we can rethink the idea of innate intelligence as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.
The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education explores and critically analyses the growing dominance of data in schools and early childhood education settings. Recognising the shift in practice and priorities towards the production and analysis of attainment data that are compared locally, nationally and internationally, this important book explores the role and impact of digital data in the ‘data-obsessed’ school. Through insightful case studies the book critiques policy priorities which facilitate and demand the use of attainment data, within a neoliberal education system which is already heavily focused on assessment and accountability. Using an approach influenced by policy s...
Understanding Early Years Inequality uses critical sociological perspectives to examine the impact of changing assessment policy on primary school classrooms, with a particular focus on issues of inequality. Drawing on accounts of life in early years classrooms, Alice Bradbury suggests that a specific model of the ‘good learner’ operates, and that this model works to exclude some groups of students from positions of educational success. Key themes examined throughout this book relate to: The relationship between assessment policy and children’s identities as learners; The complexity of classroom life; The power of assessment to shape definitions of ‘learning’ and ‘learners’; Th...
This unusual collection of short stories captures the essence of life in the theatre. Behind the superficial glamour lies a world marked by ambition, jealousy and heartache.
This exciting new book provides a novel interdisciplinary introduction to Childhood and Youth Studies and Psychology. Its accessible approach illuminates holistic understandings of children and young people’s lives by drawing from multiple disciplines and theoretical frameworks and wide-ranging research examples, including case studies from around the world, featuring children and young people’s perspectives throughout. Weaving insights from education and cultural studies, social anthropology, and sociology with social, cultural, and developmental psychology, it covers children and young people’s experiences and development from infancy to young adulthood (0–23 years) and their right...
Early childhood education and care has been a political priority in England since 1997, when government finally turned its attention to this long-neglected area. Public funding has increased, policy initiatives have proliferated and at each general election political parties aim to outbid each other in their offer to families. Transforming Early Childhood in England: Towards a Democratic Education argues that, despite this attention, the system of early childhood services remains flawed and dysfunctional. National discourse is dominated by the cost and availability of childcare at the expense of holistic education, while a hotchpotch of fragmented provision staffed by a devalued workforce struggles with a culture of targets and measurement. With such deep-rooted problems, early childhood education and care in England is beyond minor improvements. In the context of austerity measures affecting many young families, transformative change is urgent.
Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. During the cost-of-living crisis, schools and nurseries have had to step beyond their educational purpose to offer free food to families through food banks. This book explores how these food banks operate, why families use them and how they affect children’s participation and wellbeing. Drawing on case studies of 12 primary schools and early years settings across England, it examines the impact on family wellbeing, home-school relationships and staff. The authors argue that the situation will remain unsustainable if this welfare work continues to be unfunded and unrecognised, raising a significant question of who should and who can be responsible for alleviating child poverty.