For academics and students, Education Management in Managerialist Times offers a critical guide to existing educational management texts and makes a strong case for redefining educational management along more socially and politically informed lines. The book also offers practitioners alternative management strategies intended to contest, rather than support, managerialism, while being realistic about the context within which those who lead and manage schools currently have to work.

Research is increasingly highlighting the influence of school contexts on school processes and student achievement. This article reviews a range of social justice rationales for taking school contexts into better account, and highlights the challenges contextualisation currently poses for practice and for policy. It notes important constraints on contextualised practice and limited developments in contextualising policy. There is now increasing concern to recognise and understand context in school effectiveness and school improvement research but such research needs to consider school context (...) much more, in order to provide a stronger underpinning for contextualised policy and practice. School composition research is potentially most insightful because it addresses the issue most directly. Nevertheless future large-scale studies in this area need to overcome a number of limitations within the existing literature. (shrink)

The paper examines variations in the extent of special education needs (SEN) in different socio-economic contexts, drawing on data from 46 English primary schools. It examines the implications of variations in SEN for individual pupils and for school organisation and processes. It reviews funding allocations for SEN and what they mean for the provision of support in different settings.

This article compares the school-level education policies of the Labour-led coalition government elected in New Zealand in late 1999 with those of New Labour in England. It illustrates that the policies being introduced by the Labour coalition have been generally less managerial and market-oriented than New Labour's even though neoliberal pressures are likely to constrain what appears to be a shift to the left in New Zealand. The difference between the two settings is explained through reference to party political and (...) contextual factors and policy and research implications are also discussed. (shrink)