The single biggest future interaction between the public and private sectors in education is the possible creation of a marketised state system. In the last 10 years, educational policy has moved away from the idea of competition between schools to collaboration. However, the Conservative Party has proposed supply-side reforms that would expand the number of school places (by 220,000), with the aim of creating greater levels of choice for parents. This would be done through the creation of ‘New Academies’, with capital funds being diverted from the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. This expansion, in conjunction with declining numbers of school age children, would create a surplus of school places (as necessary for a viable choice system), forcing schools to compete for pupils (as funding follows pupils). Although the Swedish ‘free’ school model is referred to, the current Conservative proposals extend only as far as allowing parents and other non-profit providers into the market, but do not allow for the entry of for-profit enterprises into the state school sector. Whether this is considered in the future, depends on political sensitivities around perceptions of the ‘privatisation’ of state education. In the current economic climate, it is highly likely that the proposal would face strong opposition in the short to medium term, though if market reforms prove successful public opinion may shift. A possible shift in this wider direction may have been indicated by the government’s recent decision to allow private sector companies to run small schools for excluded children in a pilot scheme.

The involvement of the private sector could take two routes; for-profit providers establishing maintained schools or a voucher system to be used at either private or state schools. The former appears the most likely under the current conditions, and would most likely see the entry of private education providers already established in this type of provision abroad such as Edison (largest private operator of Charter schools in the US) and Kunskapsskolan (private operator of free schools in Sweden). A voucher system, similar to the Milwaukee Parental Choice Programme, may prove more publicly palatable (as the majority of independent schools are non-profit) and feasible, as it will enable the rapid introduction of a large number of providers without additional capital costs. However, such a scheme would be beset by thorny political issues such as whether parents were allowed to top-up their vouchers. In either system, children from disadvantaged backgrounds would receive greater funding (as is already the case). This may result in for-profit providers targeting this group (though perceptions of greater commercial risk may hamper this), creating a tiered system of non-profit providers in more affluent areas, and for-profit providers in low income areas.

The success of a marketised system is not however, guaranteed. At present, there is no clear evidential base demonstrating that choice and competition raises educational standards and outcomes. The research carried out to date has been limited and the findings mixed. In addition, research on the effect of choice and competition on segregation (whether on the basis of income, ethnicity and ability) has also proved inconclusive.

This means that it is likely to be ideology that will be the main driver of decisions on the role of competition and choice within public education, whether this be a belief in ‘market darwinism’, parental freedom, localism or perhaps a public finance efficiency drive. Another factor in the success of a marketised system will be how the possible side effects are perceived. For example, the line between segregation and personalisation may be blurred if parents seek to establish a school that meets a particular need, such as in Trevor Phillips’ suggestion that black boys would benefit from being taught separately. In certain American states charter schools utilise a positive discrimination strategy, targeting vouchers at the most disadvantaged communities, resulting in their school population being disproportionately African-American and Hispanic. However, it is unlikely that choice in England will see examples of segregation as witnessed in Holland, where Dutch parents sought to educate their children separately from immigrants, as schools cannot set admission criteria. However, it is possible that small niche schools could emerge that by virtue of their size and location will only serve a certain group, for example a small school in a middle class catchment area.

The side effects of marketised approach aside, such a system will require fundamental structural changes to the way education is organised. Some of these changes could be:

a.    LEA funding linked to performance

b.    capitation as well as funding following pupils (alternative to Conservative proposals once BSF funds are used)

c.    LEA control over school funding and organisation removed

d.    curriculum opt-out (included in Conservative proposals)

e.    robust failure management system such as in USA and New Zealand

f.     school opt out from national staff payment agreements

g.    national school bus system (to facilitate choice for low income families)

h.    lowering of barriers to entry

These changes will have a number of consequences. The education workforce will see the end of standard employment terms, probably seeing an increase in temporary workers and greater variation in teacher contracts as schools compete for staff. This can already be seen within the flexibility for academies to determine teacher pay (though they have not yet chosen to challenge national pay settlements) and the DCSF pilot ‘Power to Innovate’ to allow greater management freedom. Developing a suitable failure management process will be crucial, especially as it is highly unlikely that such schools will be permitted to close, but will therefore find themselves in a cycle of lacking funds to improve which then causes further deterioration as pupils (and therefore money) stay away. It is likely that the private sector will be bought in to provide ‘off the shelf’ failure management regimes in many cases, such as in 3Es Enterprises Kings Manor School. (The school was taken over by a non-profit offshoot of a local college, as parents did not want the school to close down.) To enable choice, a school bus system may be required for those who do not live near their preferred school, though this may see the introduction of co-payment into education as some have suggested pupils (except those on low-incomes) should be charged for the service. As mentioned earlier, the motif of education in the UK has moved from competition to collaboration. In a competitive environment, inter-school collaboration may look very different from how it looks at present, possibly with greater collaboration between smaller institutions than larger ones. The example of Hong Kong, (where the majority of schools are government subsided but independently run) suggests that collaboration would be focused within sectors (e.g. CoE with CoE) rather than across sectors (e.g. private with public), where no external mechanisms exist. However, a marketised education environment with varied provision may also run the risk of creating an unstable, piecemeal system with no coherent aim.

The role of the third sector within state education provision

There has been a growth in the number of faith based institutions providing education in Britain over the last twenty years. Faith based schools constitute about a third of the independent, maintained and Academies sectors. However, with public opinion largely opposed to state funded faith schools (with a minority opposing Muslim schools in particular) , and widespread public and political concern about ethnic segregation, integration and religious extremism, faiths schools and the organisations that fund/support them will come under greater scrutiny. In particular, concerns about independent Muslim and Evangelical Christian schools may lead to greater scrutiny of faith-based education and tighter regulation of the sector as a whole, especially as demographic changes indicate that children from these backgrounds are expected to constitute a greater proportion of the school age population in the future.

The third sector’s involvement in mainstream education is varied, though faith based organisations, such as the Church of England, account for the overwhelming majority. At present other forms of third sector involvement in mainstream state educational provision is limited, but look set to expand. Non-profit organisations have begun to engage directly, such as the Royal Society of Arts which has sponsored an academy in Tipton, which it aims to run in accordance with its’ own educational curriculum, and the Young Foundation which is presently developing a series of studio schools, which will teach the national curriculum to about 300 students through interdisciplinary enterprise projects and vocational learning. Third sector organisations (TSOs) look likely to be at the vanguard of radical approaches to education and learning, though the number of organisations with the capability and funding to engage in such projects may be limited. There are, however, newer forms of TSO, that may eventually establish a model that is more easily replicable. The Bolnore School Group and the Elmgreen Secondary School are foundation schools run by parents and carers who established themselves as charitable organisations.

In actuality, third sector involvement in public service delivery is still a largely unproven experiment, with the main drivers being central government rather than service providers, users or even TSOs themselves. Questions remain as to whether whether TSOs have either the capability, the networks or the willingness to provide public services, as well as where accountability for redress lies in the case of a service failure. The extent to which the third sector (beyond established faith organisations) will be a key player in education provision is therefore difficult to judge at this stage.

Where the growth of the third sector is likely to become most firmly embedded is in the contracted provision of supplementary specialist services to schools, such as that offered by Kid’s Company or Notschool.com, which exist separately from ‘official’ provision and caters to a specific need. Both major political parties have expressed their desire to involve the third sector in this way, though tensions may emerge if public spending is reduced and TSOs are relied on a substitute for government funded provision rather than as a supplement to it, especially where TSOs are engaged in a more complex relationship than just providing contracted services.

State Education Infrastructure Provision

To date the largest private sector involvement in education has been capital investment through PFI projects. As of October 2007, the Department

for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) had signed 115 PFI deals, with a value of

approximately £4.8 billion (including the Building Schools for the Future programme which aims to be complete by 2020) . In addition, the Scottish and Welsh Governments had signed more than 20 education related PFI deals. However, this involvement could be scaled back for a number of reasons. Firstly, adverse economic conditions may see public spending cutbacks forcing a reduction in the scope of the project: BSF has already been scaled down once, from its original aim of renovating every secondary school to now renovating/rebuilding those in most need. Changes to government accounting rules have meant that PFI debts must be included on public sector balance sheets, negating one of the key advantages of PFI schemes for local authorities. There is now also the possibility that construction consortia may have difficulty in raising the capital required in the current financial crisis. Alternatively, government may seek to maintain public spending as an economic stimulus. In addition, the HM Treasury and Audit Commission evaluations rated PFIs positively for value for money and on-time delivery, compared with traditional procurements, suggesting that where capital projects are to go ahead PFI may still be attractive, though the era of PFI as the default choice could be over. This may be especially so as the Commons’ public accounts committee found that local authorities were poor at managing PFI contracts. Also, there has yet to be a long term assessment of PFI contracts’ effectiveness. A change to school building programmes could exacerbate attainment gaps, as highly mixed school estate emerges, with some schools teaching in modern facilities and others left behind in inefficient, poor quality learning environments. However, it is also possible that without a focus on capital investment, attention and funding will be shifted to innovations in learning which may have a larger impact on student attainment.

Academies

After PFI, the Academies programme is the next largest public private interaction in the delivery of state education, though arguably the most important as they are central to both political parties’ plans for education reform, despite opposition from parental groups such as the Anti-Academies Alliance. The programme looks set to undergo significant changes from its present form. Academies are essentially philanthropic ventures for private companies but they are not without risk, requiring as they do a significant financial investment and the possibility of reputational damage where performance is poor. Future involvement of the private sector is therefore not guaranteed, as demonstrated by the withdrawal of Amey from Unity City Academy in Middlesborough. Adverse economic conditions may lead other private sponsors to withdraw from either existing or proposed Academy partnerships, as well as creating a shortage of future private sector partners, hampering proposed expansions of the Academy schools. This coupled with changes to Academy requirements (replacing £2million sponsorship requirement with an endowment fund condition and other exemptions for non-profit organisations with an educational track record) suggest that academies will be increasingly sponsored by third sector educational organisations. At present 45 of England’s 88 universities have agreed to sponsor Academies and the Royal Society of Arts sponsors the Tipton Academy, amongst others. Strong political statements in favour of expanding Academies from both parties look set to embed Academies as the school model of choice, at both primary and secondary levels, though increasingly it appears that the role of the private sector in the programme may not be as dominant as it is at present. Other alternative school models such as trust schools may also prove to be avenues for further involvement by both TSOs and public service organisations such as PCTs. It is possible that the autonomy of the Academies model will lead to an increasing variation of teaching across the country, which may free teachers to innovate but equally could lead to a ‘learning lottery’. The development is, in conjunction with the variety of other possibilities

The role of commercial organisation in shaping learning

A factor that will undoubtedly further contribute to the diversification of learning is the interest of commercial organisations in learning and teaching itself. The perception that the global market divides into knowledge producers and knowledge users, and therefore the need for a knowledge economy workforce, is seeing third parties seeking greater influence over curriculums, pedagogy and educational policy. For example, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Musical Futures programme will be influential in developing future curriculums for music in the UK, whilst technology companies such as Microsoft and Cisco see themselves as having an important role to play in transforming learning and education. Cisco recently published its’ own ‘white paper’ (Equipping Every Learner for the 21^st Century) setting out it’s agenda of ‘Education 3.0′, whilst Microsoft’s involvement in BSF focuses on transforming learning as opposed to just providing IT solutions. This is also reflected in the influence employers seek over developing vocational qualifications that will create the workforce they will require for the future, as demonstrated in Hungary in 2004 when their Ministry of Education created an NVQ based on the first four semesters of Cisco’s Networking Academy Programme, the first such development in Europe. As the private sector becomes more involved in the contents and methods of learning, important questions will arise about the ownership of education and its purpose, the suitability of different models for different learners, and how diverse curriculums and learning models can be managed to maintain national standards. This, in conjunction with the opening up of vocational training routes and developments in on-line learning, could see private sector employers offer a challenge to the monopoly of schools on training and accreditation.

Private Tuition

Formal education is of course not confined to schools, with more than a quarter of 11-18 years olds having private tuition at some point in their school lives, with the fastest growing market being at KS1 & 2 (often primary schools children having intensive tutoring for 11+/grammar school entrance exams). Private tutoring in education remains popular, though there are mixed opinions as to its’ effects. Some research has found resulting academic improvements to be small, whilst others argue that tutoring in sports and arts as well as academics is creating an enlarging group of middle-class ‘renaissance’ children, widening educational attainment gaps. Established private providers such as Kumon and Fleet Tutors have been options for families able to afford them, though low cost providers are emerging onto the market, such as EduComp Datamatics (Career Launcher) and TutorVista offering on-line tuition from India for approximately £50 per month for unlimited sessions. This may see an uptake in the use of tutoring in lower income groups, though it is unknown whether foreign online tutoring will be popular or successful, bearing in mind differences in teaching style, learning cultures, the non-personal format and non-familiarity with syllabuses. An increase in the popularity of affordable tutoring could see new entrants to the education market. For example, Explore Learning offers after-school tuition in a branch of Sainsbury’s supermarket in Hampton, which may herald the entrance of supermarkets to attempt to enter the market. Following trends in America, the reach of private tutoring is now spreading beyond school age children to encompass pre-schoolers. Mainstream companies such as Kumon offer ‘pre-reading’ classes and help with reading and numeracy as anxious parents seek to enhance their child’s future school performance. Tutoring is also reaching upwards with an increasing number of undergraduates also utilising it. Private tutoring itself may also play a larger part in state provision. The use of private tutoring may have counter-intuitive effects. Increasing numbers of middle-class parents are choosing not to send their children to independent schools because they feel they are not diverse enough. Private tutoring may therefore increase the number of middle class children in state education, as it enables middle class parents to get the best of both worlds. Private tuition may even become part of mainstream provision, for example Aimhigher funding has been utilised by schools to send pupils for tutoring with an Oxbridge applications company, and government has pledged one-to-one tuition for pupils falling behind. However, technology such as social networking sites, videocams, VoIP, mobile phones and instant messaging may facilitate peer-to-peer alternatives to paid tutoring, where students collaborate to help and teach their peers and younger students, bypassing formal tutoring altogether.

Use of commercial teaching products within the state sector

Within the state sector, the involvement of private companies in delivering education services is mainly confined to the provision of services or products on a straight-forward retail basis, though this relationship may grow more complex over time. As the use of technology in public education increases schools will be dependent on commercial teaching systems and virtual environments such as Blackboard, Talk2Learn and software for whiteboards, school assessment and tracking pupil attendance. This may create an iterative relationship where products and solutions both respond to and shape user’s needs, influencing how learning and teaching develops. Where this is most important will be in the provision of school IT systems. Private sector IT providers such as Microsoft have already made large headway in their provision to UK schools, a trend that looks set to increase due their involvement in the BSF scheme. Microsoft, for example, is part of several BSF consortia, but has been referred to the European Commission by BECTA due to its’ restrictive licensing agreements and inter-operability restrictions. Schools may find themselves tied in to certain service and software provider (whether by design or practicality) forcing a de facto permanent relationship, suggesting that there will need to be regulation to govern such deals. BECTA is however, promoting the development of open source alternatives through the School Open Source Project, and the uptake of other open source platforms for education such as Moodle, and Linux (as has been adopted by Parkhill Junior School in Essex). It is unclear whether open source will be a viable option for most schools, bearing in mind its niche position within the market, specialised nature and unfamiliarity. Schools look likely to continue to have an increasing interdependence with IT providers, who will therefore have a role in shaping the learning environment that schools will operate within.

Marketing and Education

The sponsorship of school activity by multinational companies such as Nike, a trend that has gained ground in the United States, has not been evidenced in the UK beyond familiar promotional activities such as Tesco’s continuing Computers for Schools scheme, and more recently Morrison’s Let’s Grow seed distribution scheme. Attempts by Cadbury’s to promote its’ ’sports4schools’ programme and Walkers’ Books for School have been met with considerable antipathy where there is a perceived conflict of interest and there doesn’t appear to be much evidence that there will be a significant political or cultural shift in this area in the near future. However, more direct private sector partnerships may be used as marketing opportunities within schools, such as the Fitness Industry Association’s school outreach programme which encourages use of gym facilities by school children, recognising it as an opportunity to market gym services to parents and teachers. Companies may also see partnership as an opportunity to access resources or establish themselves in an particular area; Esporta established a gym within the grounds of the independent St. Edwards School, one of the conditions being use of gym facilities by students.

Private Provision of State Education

To date private companies have had a limited role in direct education provision and school management, one of the few being the American education company Edison, which is currently running Salisbury School in London. Other private sector management involvement has focused on the administration of nine failing LEAs (some of these contracts are now finished). There has been a worldwide growth in education services with several multinational providers emerging such as Edison, Nord-Anglia and GEMS amongst others, and venture capital firms are investing in school enterprises abroad. Within the UK, profit margins on running individual schools are unattractive, and so it seems likely that profit making providers would seek to establish chain schools if they were to enter the maintained market. This is the approach of companies such Kunskapsskolan (Swedish ‘free’ school provider, which is currently planning to sponsor a number of Academies) and Edison (the largest single supplier of contract schools in the US), creating viable profit-making schools through a pooling of shared operational functions, such as HR. If either a Labour or Tory government permitted profit-making institutions to run maintained schools, it seems likely that many of these companies would seek to enter the market. Their entrance would place added pressure on maintained schools, could possibly displace parental or third sector opportunities and also pose a challenge to the independent sector (both as a competitor for independent pupils and to independent schools looking to expand into maintained provision).

Cultural Influences of the Private Sector on State Provision

Expectations of schools have also begun to change, as increasingly they are being exhorted to be adopt an entrepreneurial culture within learning, and an entrepreneurial approach to community engagement and funding. This shift looks to be gathering momentum, especially as a result of the Extended Schools initiative and the BSF/PCP programmes. Southfields College in Wimbledon, for example, contains a public gym which employs pupils as staff, and seeks to utilise its’ school and extended service facilities as a revenue generators. A primary school that participates in the Eastfeast project earns £120,000 a year from its recycling programme. Pupils themselves may be fund-raisers for their school, for example, pupils in Durham who cultivate allotments for profit. Teachers themselves may also become marketable assets, as private and public organisations seek expertise in creating cultures of learning. At the most cutting edge schools may seek entrepreneurial opportunities abroad, such as in the case of Bristol Academy which has announced its’ intention to open for-profit branches in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, following the example of independent schools such as Harrow and Dulwich College which have branches abroad. (In fact, within a competitive system, would maintained schools be able to reverse this and follow a higher education model, teaching paying foreign students as a method of bolstering income?) This shift in culture will have a profound impact on pupils, teachers and school leaders. Definitions of talented pupils may change, and if streaming in academic subjects continues to be common practice in schools, is it possible that pupils could also be streamed by their entrepreneurial flair? For teachers and school leaders a culture of enterprise will require a significant change to the culture of leadership as the roles of headteachers’ changes. However, this may come into conflict with a movement to reinstate an ethos of professionalism which views teaching as an intellectual rather than entrepreneurial activity, perhaps creating tensions over the core role of the school and education. This may perhaps see a division emerging within school leaders of pedagogues and business managers with an increasing involvement of non-teaching staff in school management, and the hiring of management staff from the private sector.

Independent Schools

Independent school provision in England continues to prove popular, seeing a rise in the proportion of privately educated children from 7.1%to 7.3% as of 2007, but a fall in actual numbers. However although the independent school sector has experienced continuous growth over the last 10 years, it has not expanded its’ intake in proportion with the increase in the number of children from professional/managerial backgrounds (who constitute three quarters of independent school intake). This may in part be due to a change in attitude of middle class parents who do not see private schools as socially and ethnically diverse enough. The structure of independent schooling in the UK also looks set to change as growth is forecasted in groups and federations of independent schools. However, where independent schooling has increased greatest is in provision for pre-school children as parents seek to ensure an educational advantage as early as possible. The growth of independent schools also has important consequences for teacher recruitment, bearing in mind that the independent sector employs a disproportionate share of trained teachers (especially in shortage subjects), who are also on average better qualified. An expansion of private provision may see greater stresses placed on teacher training and staff recruitment in state provision.

In the last five years, the number of independent schools that can be classed as being part of a chain has risen by more than a third to 156 at present. Three quarters of this increase was accounted for by commercial groups, such as Cognita and Alpha Plus, rather than by more established federations. It is predicted that these groups of schools will continue to grow, raising the number of children they educate from 3.5 per cent of all independent school pupils to more than 10 per cent by 2017.

Non-educational private sector organisations look likely to develop their own educational provision, possibly as ‘hothouses’ for talented children as in the case of the Premier League, which plans to establish six £25 million boarding schools for talented children. Could this prove an indicator for the start of larger talent recruitment programmes, culminating with sponsorship through higher education and a job for the best students?

Increasingly private schools are being brought into collaborative networks with state schools, through initiatives such as the Independent/State School Partnerships Scheme, which has funded 330 collaborative projects worth £10 million to date. Changes in the requirements to independent schools charity status have meant that the independent schools are considering opening more of their classes and facilities to state schools and the local communities. These closer links and the changes to the Academies funding rules, may encourage the movement of some independent providers into the public sector, such as Colston’s Girls School in Bristol which will become an Academy in 2008. However, polling indicates that only a small number of schools are currently considering this at present. As mentioned above, it is unclear what effect a more marketised state education sector would have on this collaboration, possibly creating greater collaboration between smaller institutions with varied provision and greater competition between larger providers.

Home Schooling

There are parents that have chosen to opt out of both public and private education, and it is estimated that 50,000 children are being home-schooled (exact numbers are not known as there is no duty on LEAs to collect this data), which is a trebling of numbers since 1999. This rise in home schooling looks set to continue, facilitated by the availability of online learning material and more flexible working patterns amongst the population as a whole. The proposed changes to enable parents to establish schools may create space for the formation of micro-schools of between 5 – 30 children, or small sized parent co-operatives as alternatives to traditional home-schooling approaches.

Factors in Higher Education

On the face of it, private sector involvement in the delivery of higher education in the UK is limited, with only one privately funded university in the country, the University of Buckinghamshire. In reality, however British universities are non-profit independent institutions not public sector organisations. The interaction between the private and public sectors in higher education can be spilt into two general themes; how will universities compete as businesses within a globalised higher education market and to what extent will the private sector determine higher education provision in the future.

Markets in UK Higher Education

The funding a British university receives from government is determined by the number of student places it offers, rather than the number of students it attracts, and it is possible that this funding structure may be challenged in the future. It is in the interests of oversubscribed universities to lobby for a more market based system, with government funding following students which would allow them to expand and generate greater income. Elite universities such as Oxford and Imperial, have indicated the possibility becoming privately funded institutions to raise more money, and so governments may alter funding arrangements in an attempt to prevent this.

The move to a market based, competitive environment may see the loss of departments such as chemistry, physics and modern languages if universities are able to make decisions based own their own self-interest, rather than the national interest. At present there are a number of impediments to a more marketised system such as a lack of information to inform the market and no mechanisms to allow funding to follow students.

There is also a risk that market based strategies may adversely affect the social dimension of higher education; universities will be driven by competition for institutional reputation (often determined by the quality of research facilities) rather then being driven by the needs of students or the knowledge society, leading to a diminishment of the contribution of higher education to wider society.

Certain elite universities, such as Oxford and Imperial, have indicated that becoming a private institution is seen a viable possibility. On the face of it this may be possible for elite universities, who could supplement the fall in British students with international students. This would however prove controversial, and could be blocked by government regulation for example specifying a minimum number of domestic students, though already universities such as Imperial have high numbers of foreign students (30% non-EU, 50% no UK total).

Higher Education: Public Good vs. Private Good

Whilst the wider societal benefit of higher education is acknowledged, it is increasingly seen as a private good that primarily benefits the individual. The start of this shift was signalled by the introduction of tuition fees in 1998, and appears to be gathering further momentum. This will have a number of clear implications for higher education. Elite universities, particularly the Russell Group, have indicated their desire for the removal of the current tuition fee cap and a review of funding arrangements. There is also evidence that students themselves also see their relationship with higher education institutions in terms of consumer and service provider, which may have unexpected consequences. A growing number of UK students feel that their university education is not value for money, which may prompt legal action as has happened in the United States and Australia. In a related point, teaching assessment may shift from being institutionally determined to being student determined, as students share negative experiences online and monitor teachers ‘e-trails’ of ability and expertise. Could these cultural shifts therefore cause the value of higher education narrow to qualification and competence rather than as a wider learning experience.

Public/Private Partnerships in Higher Education

In the past philanthropic involvement with universities has been the predominant mode of private sector interaction from the Gates Scholarship for Cambridge University to the controversial funding of the University of Nottingham’s International Centre for Corporate and Social Responsibility by British American Tobacco. Commercial companies have close links with many British universities particularly in fields with industrial applications such as chemistry, physics and biology, often funding research of particular interest to their business. More direct collaborations with the private sector are long established though not widespread or wide ranging, for example the Eisai research laboratory was opened within UCL in 1992, and offers student placements and funds PhD studentships at the University. However, direct partnerships between commercial enterprises and universities are emerging such as the current collaboration between Bristol School of Animation and Aardman Animation Studios, which involves the company co-directing the School and offering students industry links and opportunities. It seems that this will be an area of future growth as Universities seek to fund expansion, with such a policy explicitly promoted by Government.  This may see a greater determination of course content by private collaborators and a utilitarian focus on research and learning with distinctly commercial benefits. The emphasis on the commercial applications of research is already evident by the fact ‘translationality’ is often a condition of research funding.

Such direct partnerships may be impeded by questions over the ownership of any intellectual property, which can be of great value. For example Cambridge University has a consultancy and contracting arm known as Cambridge Enterprise, which offers consultancy services from academics, leverages the Universities IP and offers seed capital to develop ideas originating within the University as does Imperial College (Imperial Innovations).

There are a number of policy developments that appear to pave the way for further private sector involvement in higher education, such as the Leith’s skill reports recommendation that employers should influence, or even determine, higher education offers and that the private sector should co-fund university expansion. In addition, government proposals to repeal the requirement for universities to be active in a number of areas could pave the way for the entry of commercial specialist universities, such as a Microsoft University. Indicators of commercial interest in directly providing higher education can already be seen in the example of advertising agency Weiden and Kennedy’s experimental advertising school, W12 and the Nokia & Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology Design Studio in Bangalore. Ultimately, in an increasingly educated world, integral to universities’ perceived value and reputation, may be not just be education but also the introduction to professional networks and job opportunities via it’s networks and activities.

Competition in a Global Higher Education Market

The biggest issue for universities will be competing as private institutions on the international market. International students will continue to be an increasingly important source of revenue for British Universities, growing from 110,000 in 1995-6 to 250,000 in 2006-7. Globally the number of foreign students is projected to increase, with students originating from India and China being the biggest group (accounting for just under a fifth of international students worldwide).

The number of international students originating from the UK continues to be low, though it is difficult to measure, as complete figures are not collected, though participation in schemes such as Eurasmus has fallen by a third since the 1990s. But this may not always be the case, as in America the number of students studying abroad has increased, especially those studying in China. Private companies in the UK, such as Degrees Ahead, act as agents for overseas institutions promoting foreign study as cost-effective once living costs and tuition fees are taken into account. As the quality of institutions in China and India improve they may prove attractive to some British students. As the market for higher education increasingly becomes viewed as global, is it possible that students who wish to study abroad will seek to utilise their share of government funding (currently subsiding British institutions) and instead use it to part fund study abroad. Could we see a move to an Australian style university system of vouchers and top-ups?

British universities face heavy competition from American institutions and will need to generate large revenues to keep pace in the higher education spending race (Harvard University’s endowment fund is larger than the total annual public funding for all universities in England). This has led to an entrepreneurial mindset in universities, many of whom now see themselves as educators with a global rather than national mission. However, British institutions now face competition from other European institutes adopting this approach, and from many ‘origin’ countries attempting to transform themselves into hosts (China will soon surpass Australia to become the fifth largest host country).

International student demand is for Anglo-Saxon type education (particularly American) provided in English. However, Asian language nations offering cheaper English language training has contributed to a small decrease in the numbers of foreign students studying in the US. In addition, whilst English continues to grow as the international language of choice, UK higher education may need to adapt to a student population that speak variant dialects that such as ‘Hinglish’ (India), ‘Singlish’ (Singapore) and ‘Chinglish’ (China). Students may therefore begin to prefer to learn in English speaking institutions where variant English is spoken rather than ‘British’ English, as it may better meet their immediate needs, such as finding local employment.

The need to compete as global research institutions may also see the formation of ‘megavirsities’ as multiple universities merge. There have already been a number of higher education mergers such UMIST and The Victoria University of Manchester merging to create the UK’s largest single-site University: the University of Manchester, the merging of De Montford and Luton to create the University of Bedfordshire and a number of others underway. Mergers across sectors may also be a viable path; in 2007 Imperial College merged with Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and St Mary’s NHS Trust to become an Academic Health Research Centre, with Nuffield Orthopaedic centre currently proposing a merger with Oxford University.

Overseas Expansion of British Universities

An area of growth is the spread of American, British and Australian universities abroad, such the University of Nottingham in Malaysia and Ningbo (China), Xi’an Jiatong Liverpool University and Queen Margaret University’s plan to open QMU Asia in Singapore. In addition, UK universities have also begun to offer degrees via foreign providers such as the Universities of Wales and Teeside offering degrees through the private education provider AEC in Singapore. However, whilst these ventures are fee charging, many offshore extensions are loss leaders, serving to bolster throughput to domestic institutions or establish a longer term presence. These expansions could serve to destabilise British institutions if they fail to develop a profit-generating model or lose out to either domestic or other foreign competition.

E-Learning and Higher Education

E-learning is a continuing growth area in higher education, opening universities to competition from a vast array of providers from both public and private sector. The current value of e-learning worldwide is estimated to be $20 billion. American universities have been distributing lectures and course material via iTunes for some time, with Oxbridge recently following suit. British universities are in a good position to leverage their brand reputations, especially abroad, though it is not elite universities making most headway in this field. Whilst it appears that students appear to prefer a mixed model of teaching (e-learning and lessons) the example of Ultraversity (the e-learning wing of Anglia Ruskin University) highlights that a 100% online course is possible and that there is demand. It is possible, both domestically and internationally, that e-learning may allow students to mix and match – for example supplementing a local university course with an e-learning module from a prestigious university. A barrier for e-learning expansion, especially in Britain, is the lack of prestige that such qualifications hold, but in a crowded global job market they may prove to be of value.

Lifelong Learning

The dialogue of education has shifted in recent times, increasingly stressing the importance of education beyond the traditional structures of school and university, and advocating lifelong learning. This advocacy has two strands, with one emphasis on skills acquisition to create a highly skilled workforce, and another emphasising the social case for learning (individuals improving their capacities and abilities for their own benefit and well-being). Tension between these two agendas may affect the type of adult learning that is available and taken up, as highlighted by recent falls in arts and language learning, and possible negative impacts on wider mental health.

The role of the private sector in adult learning is currently well developed, with there essentially being an open market for adult learning providers, with courses for first qualifications (such as GCSEs, A-levels and NVQs) and numeracy/literacy funded by government. This area is largely moving in the direction of self-regulation, though how this will impact on standards, accreditation, and transferability of qualifications is yet to be seen. It is also worth considering the impact of a diverse learning market on potential learners:  will there be sufficient information and support for students to assess which course/ qualification will best meet their needs?

Vocational Training

Following criticism that vocational training was failing to meet the needs of industry, the last decade has seen a flurry of activity designed to bring vocational training closer to labour markets. The role of private sector employers in influencing education within this context is therefore pivotal. Internationally, there are four broad models of employer engagement:

• employer involved (voluntarily or statutorily involvement through consultation and financing)
• employer modelled (training modelled on industry best practice)
• employer owned (sectors fund and develop their own training)
• employer driven (public/employer funded training responds to employer demand)

What underpins these different approaches is the purpose of employer involvement e.g. improvement of training supply, improvement of employers services etc. The current UK strategy is a voluntary employer involved approach, based on the understanding from the Leitch review that it is the training system itself that is the block to training. As a result employers have greater influence over qualifications and the shape of the market, focusing on increasing training supply rather than training demand. This has started to shift since Leitch, however, as government recognises the need for demand-led training to meet wider social needs not just employer needs (such as proposals to give employees the right to request (and have considered) training from employers).

Factors involving employers’ engagement with a training agenda are varied and there are tensions not just between employees and employers but also with policy needs. Both individuals and organisations are reluctant to invest in low-level qualifications, due to lack of direct need for more skills, poor returns on low level qualifications, availability of skilled migrants and greater numbers of temporary workers. Employers and employees want short specific courses rather than full qualifications though this then raises concerns over transferability and long-term benefits. At present, employer input into course content through Sector Skills Councils, faces a number of challenges. Defining what skills will be needed and what will be of economic value in the future is difficult due to the unpredictability of labour markets, suggesting that developments such as a market in varied learning products and personalised learning budgets, rather than just an increase in learning providers, would create a more responsive, demand-led learning sector. This also raises the question of balancing an employers immediate training needs (often job and role specific) with the longer term training needs of employees, and meeting demand where there is not a sustainable market to deliver it (e.g. it may be unprofitable to run training course in sparsely populated rural areas. Finally, a reliance on employment based training, leaves out those sections of the population not in employment, possibly increasing the distance between these individuals and the job market.

Alternate Learning Providers

The possible role of the private sector in education outside of the formal structures of school and university have been examined earlier in this report, though there interesting innovations that are worth highlighting. Outside of formal qualifications, learning and education is increasingly being seen within the context of lifestyle choices, with companies providing innovative solutions to meet this need. The US fashion chain Club Monaco ran a short public lecture series on modern culture entitled Urban Studies, whilst a London based store, The School of Life, offers not just courses but educational holidays, public lectures, private dinners with leading thinkers and even personalised ‘reading prescriptions’. The London events company, Intelligence Squared, runs debate events featuring academics and public intellectuals, selling tickets at £25.

Non-profit organisations are also moving into the alternate provision space:  the fashionable author/publisher David Eggers has established a series of retail stores as part of his 826 Valencia literacy project (such as Echo Park Time Travel Mart and Michigan Monster Union), which offer a range of instore literacy training for 8-18 years olds as well as being retail venues. In addition, cultural organisations see education as a central part of their purpose; for example, education and learning is explicitly one of the main aims of the Tate Modern 2 developments.

In some areas of education, learners may rely on private providers to only host a platform for education, whilst they teach each other. Online projects such as The School of Everything (connecting learners and teachers), VideoJug (user created instructional videos), eHow (user created instructional content) and Horse’s Mouth (online mentoring) provide avenues for co-creation and peer-to-peer teaching, as opposed to the more one-way lecture websites such as TED or PopTech. This may have important consequences for the interaction between learners and ‘official’ educators, as students perceptions about who is a teacher and what their role is changes, as well as raising questions about how learners decide what sources are valuable and legitimate sources of information and teaching.

Conclusion

As this report demonstrates the role of the private sector in education will be of continuing importance over the next 20 years, carrying with it the possibility of profound change to the way education is both conceived and delivered in the UK.

Clear questions have emerged from the research into this report that will require further consideration by the participants in the BCH programme. As the role of the private sector extends from beyond service and product provision to actively shaping educational agendas, tensions may arise over the ownership and responsibilities of our education system. This will inevitably include wider philosophical questions as the purpose and nature of education, as well as understanding what type of citizens Britain will need in the future.

Market forces look likely to be a continuing influence on state provided education at all levels, with all levels of education provision having to survive in a competitive environment. The implications for both learners and educators are yet to be fully understood, though clearly both will need different skills and capacities to prosper. Whether marketisation as an approach remains unchallenged however is yet to be seen. The impact of the global financial crisis may cause public services to reappraise their relationships with the private sector, and many of the certainties of recent times may be undermined, perhaps decisively.

However the role of the private sector in education develops it is clear that its’ contribution cannot be discounted or overlooked. Utilising the private sectors strengths, whilst maximising the returns for learners will prove a challenge for all those committed to providing the best possible learning experience for children, students and adults. As the divisions and boundaries continue to blur, not just between private and public sectors but also between learners and teachers, it will be vital for policy makers and thinkers understand the potentials and the pitfalls of the public private relationship in education.

Bibliography

Association of Learning Providers (2008) A Review of the Year 2007/08

Addison-Child, P. and Fish, J. (2007) Turning Heads: Taking a marketing approach to Leadership. National College for School Leadership

Alakeson, V. (2005) Too Much,Too Late: Life chances and spending on education and training. Social Market Foundation

Asato, J. (ed) (2006) Charging Ahead? Spreading the cost of modern public services. SMF

Ball, S. (2004) ‘Education For Sale! The Commodification of everything?’ The Annual Education Lecture. University of London, Institute of Education, University of London

Ball, S. (2007) Choice, Ethics and Professional Change in Education Markets: Full Research Report. ESRC

Ball, S. and Youdell, D. (2007) Hidden Privatisation of Public Education (Preliminary Report).Education International

Ball. S. (2007) Submission to the Public Administration Select Committee Inquiry: Commissioning Public Services from the Third Sector, Local Government Association

Ball. S. (2008) The Education Debate: Policy and Politics in the 21^st Century. Policy Press

Bekhradnia, B. (2003) Implications of the Government’s proposals for university title: or What is a University? Higher Education Policy Institute

Bekhradnia, B. (2004) Government, Funding Council and Universities:  How Should They Relate? Higher Education Policy Institute

Bekhradnia, B. (2005) Demand for Higher Education to 2020. Higher Education Policy Institute

Bekhradnia, B. (2005) HEFCE and the Regulation of Higher Education in a Market Environment. Higher Education Policy Institute

Bekhradnia, B. (2007) Demanding questions: Employers’ needs must not decide what we teach The Guardian, May 22

Bekhradnia, B. (2008) UK Higher Education in the Global Economy: Far Sight or Myopia? (Presentation) September,

Binns, A. (2007) Private tuition booms Times Educational Supplement, 21 September

Blanden, J. and Gregg, P. (2004) Family Income and Educational Attainment: A Review of Approaches and Evidence for Britain. London School of Economics, Centre for Economic Performance

Blanden, J., Gregg, P. and Machin, S. (2003) Changes in Educational Inequality (Working Paper No. 03/079). University of Bristol, Leverhulme Centre for Market and Public Organisation

Bloom, A. (2005) Private tuition fails results test Times Educational Supplement, 8 April

Boone, J. (2006) Schools will hire private sector Chief Executives The Financial Times, 25^th July

Buie, E. (2008) ‘Renaissance children’ on the rise Times Educational Supplement, 10th October

Confederation of British Industry (2007) Going global: The world of public private partnerships

Cummings, C. et al (2007) Evaluation of the Full Service Extended Schools Initiative: Final Report, Department for Education and Skills Research Programme (Department for Children, Schools and Families), June

Curtis, P. (2008) ‘Sin bins’ to be run privately The Guardian, October 23

Department of Children, Schools and Families (2008) Balls’ academy revolution to bring “university culture” to schools gathers pace (press release), 10 September

Department for Education and Skills (2007) Faith in the System, The role of schools with a religious character in English education and society

Davies, B. and Hentschke, G. (2006) Public/private partnerships in education: insights from the field. School Leadership and Management, 26 (3) July

DCSF (2007) Schools and Pupils in England. January 2007 (Final)

E-Learning for Leadership: Emerging indicators of effective practice. National College of School Leadership, 2003

European Commission (2004) eSkills Public Private Partnerships: Issue Paper for the European eSkills Forum (eSF)

Fielden, J. et al (2007) Global Horizons for UK Students: A guide for Universities. Council for Industry and Higher Education

Frean, A. (2008) Private school too posh for many middle-class parents, says MTM Consulting The Times, 17^th September

Freedman, S., Lipson, B. and Hargreaves, D. (2008) More Good Teachers. Policy Exchange

Future of Education Institutions (2006) Conference Report, JISC Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards

Gibbons, S. and Machin, S. (2001) Valuing Primary Schools. London School of Economics, Centre for the Economics of Education, August

Gibbons, S., Machin, S. and Silva, O. (2006) Competition, Choice and Pupil Achievement. London School of Economics, Centre for Economics of Education

Gibbons, S., Machin, S. and Silva, O. (2006/07) ‘The educational impact of parental choice and school competition’. CentrePiece (Magazine of the Centre for Economic Performance), Winter

Glatter, R. and Harvey, J.A. (2006) Varieties of shared headship: a preliminary exploration. National College for School Leadership

Goodman, A. and Sibieta, L. (2006) Public Spending on Education in the UK. IFS Briefing Note 71, Institute of Fiscal Studies

Green, C. (2005) The Privatisation of State Education: Public partners, Private Dealings. Routledge

Green, F., Machin, S., Murphy, R. and Zhu, Y. (2008) Competition for Private and State School Teachers. London School of Economics, Centre for Economics of Education

Gunter, H. (2005) Leading Teachers. Continuum

Guruz, K. (2008) Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy. State University of New York Press

Haldenby, A (ed) School education to 2010 – Absence of Reform, Andrew Haldenby in Public Service Reform 2006-2010. Smith Institute

Hastings, S. (2005) Private tuition Times Educational Supplement, 13 May

HM Treasury (2008) Making changes in operational PFI projects (Thirty-sixth Report of Session 2007-08), Committee of Public Accounts, The Stationary Office

Hockley, T. and Nieto, D. (2004) Hands Up for School Choice! Lessons from school voucher schemes at home and abroad. Policy Exchange

Istance, D. (2001) Work on schooling for tomorrow: trends, themes and scenarios to inform leadership issues. NCSL

Jha, A. (2007) Over the rainbow The Guardian, February 27

Jones, S. and Bradwell, P. (2007) As You Like It. Demos

LaRocque, N. (2007) Infrastructure Public Private Partnerships in the Education Sector: Presentation to the PPPI Workshop, World Bank Institute, (Cairo), June 18-20th

LaRocque, N. (2008) Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education: An International Review (Literature Review). CfBT Education Trust

Larsen, K., Martin, J.P. and Morris, R. (2002) Trade in Educational Services: Trends and Emerging Issues (Working Paper). OECD, May 2002 (Revised Version)

Leadbetter, C. (2005) The Shape of Things to Come: personalised learning through collaboration. The Innovation Unit

Leadbetter, C. (2008) What’s Next? 21 ideas for the 21^st Century. The Innovation Unit

Lim, C. and Davies, C. (2008) Helping Schools Succeed: Lessons from Abroad. Policy Exchange

Lipsett, A. (2008) Private schools turn their back on academies The Guardian, September 12

Local Government Association (2007) Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) 2007: The Future Role of the Third Sector in Social and Economic Regeneration. Joint submission from LGA, IDeA and LGIU,

Machin, S. and Vignoles, A. (2006) Education Policy in the UK. London School fo Economics, Centre for the Economics of Education

MacLeod, D. (2007) Private school pupil numbers in decline The Guardian, November 9

Marginson, S. and van der Wende, W. (2007) Globalisation and Higher Education (Education Working Paper No. 8) OECD

Marginson, S. and van der Wende, W. (2007) To Rank or To Be Ranked: The Impact of Global Rankings in Higher Education. Journal of Studies in International Education 11 (3/4), Fall/Winter 2007, pp.306-329

Marley, D. (2008) Academies feel the credit crunch bite as first sponsor pulls out Times Educational Supplement, 17 October

MT Consulting Independent Education Sector Report 2007, MT Consulting, 2008

National Audit Office (2007) Local Area Agreements and the Third Sector: Public Service Delivery

Norrington, A. and Paton, G. (2006) Pupils aged just eight in 11-plus cramming Times Educational Supplement, 22 September

OECD (2004) Internationalisation of Higher Education (Policy Brief)

OECD (2004) Internationalisation and Trade in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges

O’Shaughnessy, J. and Leslie, C. (2008) More Good School Places. Policy Exchange

O’Leary, D. and Oakley, K. (2008) The Skills Paradox. Demos

Partnerships UK (2007) PFI: The State of the Market

Patrinos, H.A. (2007) Public-Private Partnerships in Education: Presentation for World Bank, June

Perspective UK (2008) Delivery Partnerships Collaborate With Private Sector To Develop High Tech Solution For Tracking Student Attendance & Progress Press Release

PSCA International (2008) Public Service Review: PPP 08

Public Services and the Third Sector: Rhetoric and Reality, Eleventh Report of Session 2007-08, Volume 1, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, 2008

Razzall, K. and Hannam, L. (2007) Home-schooling on the rise Channel 4 News Online, 26 Sep

Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap (Policy Green Paper No.1), The Conservative Party, 2008

Razzall, K. and Hannam, L. (2007) UK home-school cases soar Channel 4 News Online, 26 Sep

Schwartz, S. (2003) Reclaiming Our Universities. Policy Exchange

Schwarzenberger, A. (ed) (2008) Public / private funding of higher education: a social balance. HIS: Forum Hochschule

Sellgren, K. (2008) Skills drive risks mental health BBC News Online, 22^nd October

Shepherd, J. (2008) No school like home The Guardian, August 19

Sibieta, L. (2006) Choice and Competition in Education Markets.

Sibieta, L., Chowdry, H. and Muriel, A. (2008) Level Playing Field? The Implications of School Funding. CfBT Education Trust

Social Trends 34, National Statistics, 2004

Spear, R., Cornforth, C. and Aitken, M. (2007) For Love and Money: Governance and Social Enterprise. NCVO

Stephens, L. (2008) Co-Production: A Manifesto for Growing the Economy. New Economics Foundation

Thompson, K., Davies, B. and Ellison, L. (2004) Can private companies successfully turn around a failing school? National College of School Leadership

van der Wende, M. (2007) European Responses to Global Competition in Higher Education (Paper for the Crisis of the Publics Symposium). Centre for Studies in Higher Education, University of California at Berkeley)

van der Wende, M. (2008) Rankings and Classifications in University Education: A European Perspective. In: Smart, J.C. (ed) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. Springer, 2008

van Vught, F.A. (2006) Higher Education: system dynamics and useful knowledge creation. In: Duderstadt, J. and Weber, L. (eds) Universities and Business: Towards a better society. Economica

Vincent-Lancrin, S. (2006) Globalisation, Market forces and the Future of Higher Education (Presentation for CERI expert meeting Lisbon, 4-5 May 2006), OECD/CERI

Whitty, G. (2000) Privatisation and Marketisation in Education Policy (Speech to NUT conference on ‘Involving the Private Sector in Education: Value Added or High Risk?’), University of London, Institute of Education, 21 November

Williams, J. and Rossiter, A. (2004) Choice: the evidence. The Social Market Foundation

Winter, H. (2008) Premier League plan for elite boarders The Telegraph, 8th Oct

Wood, C. (2005) Making Choice a Reality in Secondary Education. The Social Market Foundation

Woolcock, N. (2008) British universities lose ground to their richer foreign rivals The Times, 9^th October

‘Special offer at the supermarket … extra lessons for children‘, London Evening Standard, 28^th January 2008

The Next Practice in Education Programme: Learning, Insights and Policy Recommendations, Innovation Unit, 2008

APPENDIX

This report was informed by interviews with the following individuals, though the report does not necessarily reflect the views of the individuals named.

Interviewees

Professor Stephen J. Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education

Valerie Hannon, Director of Strategy, The Innovation Unit

Professor Stephen Heppell

Tony Howell, Chief Education Officer, Birmingham City Council

Paul Roberts, Director of Strategy, IDeA

David Walker, Managing director of Communications and Public Reporting

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap (Policy Green Paper No.1), The Conservative Party, 2008

School pupils: by type of school, Social Trends 34, National Statistics, 2004

‘Sin bins’ to be run privately, Polly Curtis, The Guardian, October 23 2008

The Education Debate: Policy and Politics in the 21^st Century, Stephen Ball, Policy Press, 2008

Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Homepage, Wisconsin Department of Instruction

‘The educational impact of parental choice and school competition’, Stephen Gibbons, Stephen Machin and Olmo Silva, CentrePiece (Magazine of the Centre for Economic Performance), Winter 2006/7

Choice: the evidence, Jonathan Williams & Ann Rossiter, The Social Market Foundation, 2004

Making Choice a Reality in Secondary Education, Claudia Wood, The Social Market Foundation, 2005

Making Choice a Reality in Secondary Education, Claudia Wood, The Social Market Foundation, 2005

School education to 2010 – Absence of Reform, Andrew Haldenby in Public Service Reform 2006-2010, Andrew Haldenby (ed), Smith Institute, 2006

More Good School Places by James O’ Shaugnessy and Charlotte Leslie, Policy Exchange, 2005

Making Choice a Reality in Secondary Education, Claudia Wood, The Social Market Foundation, 2005

More Good Teachers, Sam Freedman, Briar Lipson and Professor David Hargreaves, Policy Exchange, 2008

More Good School Places by James O’ Shaugnessy and Charlotte Leslie, Policy Exchange, 2005

Level Playing Field? The Implications of School Funding, Luke Sibieta, Haroon Chowdry, Alistair Muriel, CfBT Education Trust, 2008

Making Choice a Reality in Secondary Education, Claudia Wood, The Social Market Foundation, 2005

Can private companies successfully turn around a failing school? Case study: Kings College for the Arts and Technology, Guildford, Ken Thompson with Brent Davies and Linda Ellison, NCSL, 2004

Charging Ahead? Spreading the cost of modern public services, Jessica Asato (ed), SMF, 2006

Helping Schools Succeed: Lessons From Abroad, Cheryl Lim and Chris Davies, Policy Exchange, 2008

Faith in the System, The role of schools with a religious character in English education and society, Department for Education and Skills, 2007

Guardian/ICM Poll 2005 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/23/schools.faithschools)

Submission to the Public Administration Select Committee Inquiry: Commissioning Public Services from the Third Sector, March 2007, Local Government Association

Public Services and the Third Sector: Rhetoric and Reality, Eleventh Report of Session 2007-08, Volume 1, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, 2008

Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education: An International Review (Literature Review) Norman LaRocque, CfBT Education Trust, 2008

HM Treasury: Making changes in operational PFI projects (Thirty-sixth Report of

Session 2007-08), Committee of Public Accounts,The Stationary Office, 2008

‘Academies feel the credit crunch bite as first sponsor pulls out‘, David Marley, Times Educational Supplement, 17 October, 2008

‘Balls’ academy revolution to bring “university culture” to schools gathers pace’ (press release), Department of Children, Schools and Families, 10 September 2008

See: http://www.thersa.org/projects/education/rsa-academy—tipton

eSkills Public Private Partnerships: Issue Paper for the European eSkills Forum (eSF), European Commission, 2004

Work on schooling for tomorrow: trends, themes and scenarios to inform leadership issues, David Istance, NCSL, 2001

‘Private tuition‘, Steven Hastings, Times Educational Supplement, 13 May 2005

‘Pupils aged just eight in 11-plus cramming’, Alison Norrington and Graeme Paton, Times Educational Supplement, 22 September, 2006

‘Private tuition fails results test’, Adi Bloom, Times Educational Supplement, 8 April, 2005

‘‘Renaissance children’ on the rise‘, Elizabeth Buie, Times Educational Supplement, 10th October 2008

‘Special offer at the supermarket … extra lessons for children‘, London Evening Standard, 28^th January 2008

‘Private tuition booms‘, Amy Binns, Times Educational Supplement, 21 September 2007

E-Learning for Leadership: Emerging Indicators of effective practice, Angele McFarlane, Anton Bradburn and Agnes McMahon, NCSL, 2003

Hidden Privatisation of Public Education (Preliminary Report), Stephen Ball and Deborah Youdell, Education International, 2007

See FIA website: http://www.fia.org.uk/activity-programs/active-at-school/key-benefits.html

Hidden Privatisation of Public Education (Preliminary Report), Stephen Ball and Deborah Youdell, Education International, 2007

Hidden Privatisation of Public Education (Preliminary Report), Stephen Ball and Deborah Youdell, Education International, 2007

Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education: An International Review (Literature Review) Norman LaRocque, CfBT Education Trust, 2008

Making Choice a Reality in Secondary Education, Claudia Wood, The Social Market Foundation, 2005

Privatisation and Marketisation in Education Policy (Speech to NUT conference on ‘Involving the Private Sector in Education: Value Added or High Risk?’), Geoff Whitty, Institute of Education, University of London, London, 21 November 2000

What’s Next? 21 ideas for the 21^st Century, Charlie Leadbetter, The Innovation Unit, 2008

The Next Practice in Education Programme: Learning, Insights and Policy Recommendations, Innovation Unit, 2008

‘Schools will hire private sector Chief Executives’, Jon Boone, The Financial Times, 25^th July 2006

DCSF: Schools and Pupils in England: January 2007 (Final)/ ‘Private school pupil numbers in decline‘, Donald MacLeod, The Guardian, November 9 2007

‘Private school too posh for many middle-class parents, says MTM Consulting‘, Alexandra Frean, The Times, 17^th September 2008

Competition for Private and State School Teachers, Francis Green, Stephen Machin, Richard Murphy, Yu Zhu, Centre for the Economics of Education, London School of Economics, 2008

MT Consulting Independent Education Sector Report 2007, MT Consulting, 2008

‘Premier League plan for elite boarders’, Henry Winter, The Telegraph, 8th Oct 2008

‘Private schools turn their back on academies‘, Anthea Lipsett, The Guardian, September 12 2008

‘Private schools turn their back on academies‘, Anthea Lipsett, The Guardian, September 12 2008

No school like home, Jessica Shepherd, The Guardian, August 19 2008

HEFCE, and the Regulation of Higher Education in  a Market Environment, Bahram Bekhradnia, Higher Education Policy Institute, 2005

‘Higher Education: system dynamics and useful knowledge creation’, F.A. van Vught, in Universities and Business: Towards a better society, J. Duderstadt and L. Weber (eds.),

Economica, 2006

‘Over the rainbow‘, Alok Jha, The Guardian, February 27 2007

UK higher Education in the Global Economy: Far Sight or Myopia, Bahram Bekhradnia, Presentation September 2008

Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards, Future of Education Institute Conference Report: Topic 5: The human angle: what will the educational experience be for learners, academic and admin staff in the future?, 2006

Demanding questions: Employers’ needs must not decide what we teach, Bahram Bekhradnia, The Guardian, May 22 2007

Implications of the Government’s proposals for university title:  or What is a University?, Bahram Bekhradnia, 2003

Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards, Future of Education Institutions Conference Report: Topic 1: Wider global and societal trends affecting future educational institutions, 2006

Global Horizons for UK Students: A guide for Universities, John Fielden et al., Council for Industry and Higher Education, 2007

Reclaiming Our Universities, Stephen Schwartz, Policy Exchange, 2003

‘British universities lose ground to their richer foreign rivals‘, Nicola Woolcock, The Times, 9^th October 2008

Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy, Kemal Guruz, State University of New York Press, 2008

Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy, Kemal Guruz, State University of New York Press ,2008

As You Like It, Samuel Jones and Peter Bradwell, Demos, 2007

‘Skills drive risks mental health‘, Katherine Sellgren, BBC News Online, 22^nd October 2008

A Review of the Year 2007/08, Association of Learning Providers, 2008

The Skills Paradox, Duncan O’Leary and Kate Oakley. Demos, 2008

Prime Minister’s speech to the House of Commons announcing draft legislative programme, Gordon Brown, 14^th May 2008

www.theschooloflife.com

www.826valencia.org

The profile of the creative and cultural (C&C) sector has for a combination of economic, social and educational reasons, risen dramatically since New Labour came to power in 1997 (Bilton, 2007; Garnham, 2005; Hesmonhalgh, 2005). Economically, the sector has presented itself, and been perceived by ministers, as a paradigmatic example of the ‘information/knowledge-based’ industries which economic gurus assume will be the basis of nation states’ prosperity in the 21^st Century (Porter and Ketas, 2003). Socially, the sector symbolizes the type of cultural diversity that New Labour’s quasi-social democratic project aspired to foster because it generates new cultural products and services and new culturally diverse audiences for those products and services (Guile, 2006). Educationally, an increasing number of young people aspire to enter the sector (DCMS, 2001). Taken in combination, these developments have led the government to accept that all young people should be offered an opportunity to ‘express and channel their creativity through a wide range of activities’ in primary, secondary and tertiary education to both support their creative aspirations (DCMS, 2001, foreword), and to maintain that higher-level qualifications are the vehicle to assist them to gain access to the C&C sector.

This paper questions the link that policymakers assume exists between qualifications and access to employment in the C&C sector. It first identifies how labour market conditions in the C&C sector do not reflect the prevailing conventional wisdom that qualifications are the ‘magic bullet’ (Keep, 1999) for securing employment. Secondly, it demonstrates how the dynamics of policy formation in the UK impose a straitjacket on the education and training (E&T) system thereby denying E&T agencies the autonomy to intervene to assist people post-qualification to gain access to the sector. Thirdly, it identifies the way that non-government agencies -’intermediary organisations’ – address this problem by providing new spaces and pedagogies to assist aspiring entrants to develop the requisite form of ‘vocational practice’ and ’social capital’ to enter the sector (Guile and Okumoto, 2008). The paper concludes that, if the government wants the C&C sector to realize the aforementioned economic and social goals, it will have to foster more ‘heterarchical’ (Jessop, 1998) governance cultures to support demand-and-supply side E&T partners to work together to develop innovative strategies to enhance entry routes into the C&C sector.

The creative and cultural industrial sector

The distinctive features of the sector

It is widely accepted that although some industries in the C&C sector, for example, art and design, broadcasting, film, music, etc, have been a longstanding feature of the UK and for that matter the American, European, and Pacific Rim economies, the process of industrial convergence, centred around the use of digital technology, which began in the late 1980s has gradually established the conditions for these sectors to be to be intertwined economically and technologically in radically new ways (Coffee, 1996; Tapscot, 1995). The C&C sector is a paradigmatic example of this type of convergence. Sometimes the sector is defined in terms of the outputs achieved by the following fifteen industries: Crafts, Design, Fashion, Film, Music, Performing Arts, Publishing, Research and Development, Software, Toys, TV and Radio and Video Games (Howkins, 2002). On other occasions it is defined in terms of the occupations that generate the new ideas that enable those industrial segments to flourish (Florida, 2002). Irrespective of which view of the C&C sector is adopted, it is generally agreed that it is now worth worldwide about $2.2 trillion and, according to the World Bank’s estimation, is growing at 5% per year (Florida, 2002). The largest market is America which is now worth in excess of $1 trillion while Britain is ranked third in the creative economy behind Japan. The UK’s creative and cultural sector generates revenues of around £115 billion and employs 1.3 million people. They contribute over £10 billion in exports and account for over 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and, moreover, output from these sectors grew by more than twice that of the economy as a whole in the late 1990s (DCMS, 2001).

Trans-nationally, the profile of the clusters and sectors that comprise the C&C sector are rather different from the historical profile of conventional economic sectors such as the automobile and pharmaceutical industries (Florida, 2002). The latter industries are characterised by strong national identities and vibrant corporate sectors, with strong ’strategies’, ’structures’ and ’systems’ which facilitated the manufacture of standardized products and services (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1997). Whilst globalization has transformed competitive strategies and work organization in those industries significantly, they still tend to be involved with large-scale production. In contrast, the profile and structure of the C&C is characterised by a mix of a small number of global corporations and national organizations and a very large number of SMEs and freelance work, which is concentrated in specific regions, and who continually form value chains and networks, often for a short duration, to develop a continual flow of new products or services (Florida, 2002).

Furthermore, unlike industrial sectors such as the automobile, engineering and medical sectors which have historically been characterized by very strong ‘occupational labour markets’ (OLMs) and firm-specific ‘internal labour markets’ (FILMs) (Ashton, 1995), the creative and cultural sector is characterised predominantly by ‘external labour markets’ (ELMs). These labour markets function in rather different ways from one another. OLMs enable new entrants to be trained in a range of skills which provide competence in specific occupations. This process of occupational socialization results in the development of an identification with an occupation, for example, engineer, nurse, mechanic, as well as a ’skill base’ that can be enhanced through further training within firms. FILMs provide a series of job or career ladders which, following further training, enable young employees to be promoted and to progress within an organization.

These labour market conditions are only really found in those segments of the C&C sector which have developed equivalent professional identities and education and training traditions, for example, broadcasting and printing, although even here OLMs are no longer as an entrenched feature of these industries as they were in the 196/7/80s (Sutton Trust, 2006). In the main, large swathes of the C&C sector are characterized by ELMs. These markets are formed where the buying and selling of labour is not linked to jobs which form part of a FILM or a long standing and clearly defined OLM. Movement of labour in ELMs is determined by the price attached to the job and/or contract on offer and the requirements of the individual concerned and such jobs/contracts in the creative and cultural industries tend to run the gamut from high to low skill. Traditionally, ELMs were seen as constituting the ’secondary labour market’ and labour market economists tended to treat them as less desirable work contexts for young people than OLMs and FILMs because they did not offer the same form of employment protection and structured opportunities for development (Ashton, 1995, p15).

The impact of globalization, new forms of work and out-sourcing has, however, profoundly increased the prevalence of ELMs within the UK economy in general (Ashton, 1995) and in the creative and cultural sector in particular (Bilton, 2007), with the result that even organizations such as the BBC, which in the past offered its employees permanent contracts, is now inclined to place new recruits on short-term and temporary contracts. The net effect has been the emergence of less structured careers and greater economic uncertainty. Marsden (2008) has characterized this shift from OLMs to ELMs as the introduction of a ‘tournament’ culture in the C&C sector. By this he means aspiring entrants are prepared to seek out a mix of unpaid internships and/or work experiences and tolerate the uncertainties of low-paid freelance work, in the hope that it will enable them to develop the appropriate mix of vocational practice and social capital to secure either a permanent position or longer contracts and better pay as a freelance worker.

Government policy for education and training

The national policy cycle and its implications for E&T policy

The UK’s national policy cycle has been predicated since the late 1980s on a ‘cycle of state intervention’ (Keep, 2006). Both the previous Conservative and New Labour administrations have ascribed a centrality to upskilling that is not shared by other actors, particularly employers, and which render all assumed stakeholders in the upskilling process, for example, educational institutions, Local Learning and Skills Councils (LLSCs), merely as delivery agents for national policy, rather than active contributors to the formulation of public policy. To realise this upskilling agenda, successive governments have engulfed the E&T system with an escalating series of policy dictums which they are obligated to address. These supply-side measures and levers, which reflect the well-established belief amongst policy makers in the efficacy of centrally imposed planning regimes, specify targets, explicitly interface funding, with targets, and severely restrict the scope for any discussion of the direction of policy (Keep, 2006).

The net effect has been to produce a crippling paradox. On the one hand, the UK government’s commitment to free-market neo-liberal policies renders unavailable the potential policy interventions used in other countries – for example, training levies, strong trade unions and statutory rights to collective bargaining on skills, strong forms of social partnership – or a targeted industrial policy to support high skill sectors. On the other hand, the government’s concern to micro-manage all aspects of E&T policy predisposes SSCs and LLSCs to work with the DCSFs to realize national E&T targets by allocating funding in line with those targets, thereby denying them the opportunity to sponsor initiatives which might offer an alternative vision and set of practical measures to facilitate access to the labour market.

This mismatch between demand and supply of E&T has a number of unintended consequences. At present, although the national policy rhetoric constantly affirms the centrality of ‘choice’ and ‘flexibility’ if the UK is to respond to the demands of the knowledge economy, E&T policy is tightly circumscribed by policymakers assumptions there are clear and functioning OLMs and FILMs in all areas of the UK economy whose needs can be met through the creation of sector skills agreements and qualification blueprints. As a consequence, all that the government’s much vaunted rhetoric of choice and flexibility amounts to is an opportunity for the demand-side to tailor pre-given blueprints to reflect their needs. Moreover, when the government encounters opposition to or a reluctance to go along with its E&T agenda, it rarely pauses to consider whether policy is correct for all industrial sectors. Instead, the government tries to realize its goals by offering a limited number of financial inducements, the form of a public subsidy for E&T programmes such as the AAP and task-specific adult training to employers in an attempt to secure greater employer investment in training (Keep, 2006). Consequently, the above labour market assumptions and ideological no-go-zones mean that the UK policy severely restricts stakeholders’ scope to experiment or innovate in relation to their perception of their needs.

Operating within this framework, New Labour’s rallying cry to E&T stakeholders has been that policy must intertwine competitiveness and social inclusion on the grounds that education is the best policy to support employability in, and growth of, the knowledge economy (Lauder, 2004). The emphasis in the first decade of educational policy from 1997 to 2007 fell upon making the supply-side more responsive to government priorities. Firstly, universities were encouraged to address social exclusion by widening participation so as to attract non-traditional learners, for example, learners whose families have little or no previous experience of university study, into HE, rather than to target measures to facilitate access into specific subjects or occupational sectors. Broadly speaking, the widening participation initiatives have been fairly successful in achieving their goals, although non-traditional access tends to have been skewed towards ‘new’ rather than ‘Russell Group’ universities (Burke, 2000). Moreover, new vocational qualifications such as the Foundation Degree (FD) were introduced to address perceived skill deficits at intermediate (associate professional and technical) level and also as a strategy to help the Government to meet its target of ensuring that at least 50% of the population entered HE (DfEs, 2003). FDs have proved to be an effective strategy for ‘credentialising’ high volumes of experienced workers’ knowledge and skill in the public sector (Gallagher and Reeves 2006), and a flexible framework for employers to align degrees more closely to niche needs in the private sector (Evans et al, forthcoming).

Secondly, the government has forced (and continues to force as the announcement on 7.1.2009 demonstrates) the Local Learning and Skills Councils (LLSCs) to present the Apprenticeship/Advanced Apprenticeship Programme (AAP) as a vehicle to attract those young people not proceeding into further and higher education, whom the government perceives to be vulnerable to social and economic exclusion. In this respect, the AAP has become a strategy to secure volumes, in terms of apprentice numbers and participating sectors, rather than on skill formation in those sectors committed to securing economic growth (Fuller and Unwin, 2003). In the past, ‘apprenticeships were demand rather than supply-led. Employers decided when and if they needed apprentices’ (Fuller and Unwin, 2003b). Thus, apprenticeship was very responsive to labour market demand. In contrast, at the present time the prevailing orthodoxy of centrally imposed planning regimes and national targets for education and training, coupled with the nexus of quangos, for example, Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) with responsibility for devising sector skills agreements to deliver those targets and whose livelihood depends on meeting their target quotas, serves to underpin a decidedly supply-side conception of E&T. This has a number of pernicious effects as regards apprenticeship: most employers, despite having a degree of representation on the boards of SSCs and LSCs, and particularly employers in the C&C sector, rarely feel any particular ownership of apprenticeships (Fuller and Unwin, 2003a; Hutton, 2006); and the hands of the SSCs and LSCs are tied as regards financially supporting any new initiatives for learning and development that do not directly support government targets for education and training or their own financial position.

The publication of the Leitch Report (2006), however, inaugurated a shift away from a concern for, on the one hand, incentivising and pressurising the supply-side to respond to government targets and, on the other hand, encouraging individuals to invest in their own training and development. These foci were replaced by a concern to put employers in the driving seat through the Train to Gain initiative and by enhancing the role of the SSCs in order to make the E&T system more demand rather than supply-led (Delorenzi, 2007). Specifically, adult learning policy is now focused on two Public Service Agreements (PSAs) targets – to increase the number of people with basic skills, and to increase the number with level 2 qualifications. Whilst the equity and social justice arguments that underpin a concern for increasing the proportion of the population that have basic skills and hold Level 2 qualifications are unquestionable, the Leitch Report perpetuates the straitjacket that the government has imposed on the E&T system. It fails to acknowledge that the most effective strategy for enhancing regional and national competitiveness is to support adults who already hold Level 3 qualifications to broaden the base of their expertise (Delorenzi, 2007) and that this frequently requires access to short un-accredited provision (Mason, 2008).

The ‘cycle of intervention’ and its implications for the C&C sector

Despite the shift to demand-led E&T that Leitch purportedly inaugurated, the direction of educational policy for the C&C sector continues to remain firmly under the hand of the government. This is, in part, because SSCs and LLSCs in general, and in the C&C sector specifically, perceive that their primary purpose is to function as a delivery agent for government policy, rather than an institutional tier capable of mediating between central government and other groups in the E&T system or even a bulwark against the arms of Whitehall. It is also in part because both organisations are subject to the constantly changing direction and priorities of national E&T policy. This state of affairs is clearly evident from the way in which Skillset, who represents broadcasting, film, video and multimedia, and Creative and Cultural Skills (C&CS), who represent advertising, crafts, cultural heritage, design, music, performing, literary and visual arts, have either responded to their E&T remits or have in the case of HE been affected by other aspects of policy.

In the case of HE, C&C-related degrees have been growing annually since 1994 and resulted in a 55% increase in enrolments in creative and art and design subject areas by 2005 (Universities UK, 2005). Moreover, this growth continues independent of any action on behalf of either of Skillset or C&CS. This is partly because universities have or have established strong links with the C&C sector and therefore have been able to identify/respond to emerging demands. Nevertheless, despite universities’ close links with the C&C sector, studying for a C&C-related degree rarely provides an expectation or understanding of what is required in vocational contexts (Raffo et al, 2000). Hence many graduates with C&C degrees have a post-graduation ‘vocational need’: to acquire the ‘vocational practice’, that is the mix of knowledge, skill and judgement, employers are looking for, via a mix of unpaid internships, work placements, etc (Guile, 2009).

The one, albeit small, area of influence SSCs have in relation to HE is with respect to the design of FDs. Here some very successful, albeit very low volume, FDs have been designed, for example, Skillset and the London College of Communication’s FD in Media Practice. This FD has a strong track record of assisting new entrants and ‘career switchers’ to gain access to their desired niche in the C&C sector (Evans et al forthcoming). The FD’s success is due to its ability to offer learners work placements in the heart of the UK’s C&C sector. This assists them to develop not only their vocational practice, but also the social capital in the form of a network of contacts who might offer them or recommend them for contract/project-based employment.

In the case of apprenticeship, Skillset and C&CS are struggling to persuade employers to participate in the AAP. The C&C sector lags significantly behind traditional sectors associated with apprenticeship such as Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction as well as other non-traditional sectors such as Business Administration. There was not one C&C industry in the list of the ‘top ten’ participants in the AAP (Fuller and Unwin, 2003) and this situation has not subsequently improved; moreover, even in the list of the ‘top forty’ sectors where apprentices begin at age 18 and over, the C&C sector is only represented by industries which have either historically been characterized by a combination of strong OLMs and FILMs, for example, broadcasting and newspapers or recent high growth sectors such as IT where certain segments have developed fairly robust OLMs and FILMs over the last two decades.

This is partly because the flexible blueprints and the provision of a public subsidy has failed to encourage participation in the AAP on behalf of those sectors that are characterized by a high proportion of SMEs, very strong ELMs, and little history of involvement in nationally accredited apprenticeship programmes such as Art and Design, Film, Fashion, Film, Music, New Media, Performing Arts, etc. SMEs are reluctant to participate in the AAP because firstly, they lack the financial and human resources to be convinced that they would benefit from participating in the AAP (Hutton, 2006). Secondly, the mandatory qualification outcomes in the blueprint for AAP – NVQs, Technical Certificates and Key Skills – are perceived in the sector as serving ‘educational’ goals because they are promoted by the DCSF to enhance academic progression, rather than attempts to develop sectorally-relevant vocational knowledge and skill (Guile and Okumoto, 2007). Thirdly, the onus from central government on SSCs and LLSCs to secure high volumes and to roll out apprenticeship frameworks nationally severely inhibits them from supporting employers’ demands for bespoke apprenticeships. SSCs are reluctant therefore to invest in such schemes because they are not guaranteed to offer a sufficient return on the investment when it comes to achieving AAP targets. As a consequence, it took over four years, for example, for the first ever Advanced Apprenticeship in Media Production, which was developed by Skillset in collaboration with the BBC, North West Vision and Media and the LSC, to be launched (Damners, 2008).

Skillset and C&CS have both supported the development of the first creative and cultural Diploma. This is a new qualification that was launched in September 2008. Its aim is to promote diversity, opportunity and inclusion by offering pathways to support learners to enter occupational sectors or progress into HE, including work-related learning opportunities (Huddlestone, 2008). The Diploma in Creative and Media (DCM) has therefore to square the government’s circle of developing vocationally relevant skills and positioning learners to progress at some point in the future into HE. Although it is too soon to judge on the basis of any empirical evidence, the exigencies of the C&C labour market described in the previous section suggest that achieving this goal is a tall order. The DCM promotes the impression that intermediate-level qualifications are the stepping-stone to employment in the C&C sector. Yet, it is clear that not only is access to the C&C sector difficult for people who hold a degree, but also difficult to sustain a career in the sector (Galloway et al, 2006; Lindley and Galloway, 2005; Guile and Okumoto, 2006). For this reason, graduates and recent entrants often resort to ‘multiple job holding’ to supplement their income stream whilst they break in or establish themselves in their chosen niche (Baines and Robson 1999; Creigh-Tyte and Thomas 1999). Thus, Skillset and C&CS run the risk of inadvertently increasing social frustration rather than assisting young people to achieve their social aspirations, as young people discover that DCM does not necessarily constitute a qualification to secure their employment in the C&C sector.

The root of the problem that Skillset and C&CS jointly face is the assumed link that the government believes exists between qualifications and access to the labour market. This is predicated on a notion that there are functioning OLMs and FILMs in the C&C sector, that these labour markets will channel the flow of highly qualified students towards their preferred occupational destinations, and that employers will use qualifications as a proxy measure for vocational practice in the recruitment process (Guile, 2009). These assumptions are, s we have seen, wide of the mark and, as a consequence, Skillset and C&CS’s efforts to support aspiring entrants to gain access to the C&C sector are floundering.

New spaces, pedagogies and expertise

Given this difficulty, aspiring entrants have recourse to two main strategies to gain access to the sector: to exercise their own agency and identify and negotiate internships and work placement to develop their vocational practice and social capital, or to participate in the development activities that ‘intermediary agencies’ offer (Guile and Okumoto, forthcoming). These agencies have grown in number over the last decade as it has become apparent that aspiring entrants require help post-graduation to realise their ambitions (Guile and Okumoto, forthcoming). The term intermediary agencies encompass a diverse range of organisations. Some are found in (i) the formal education sector, for example, education-industry liaison units in universities (ii) the not-for-profit sector, private companies with a sectoral specialization, and possibly some industry funding, providing a range of learning and development programmes for aspiring entrants and longstanding members of their field (iii) the non-formal sector, colleges that do not receive statutory funding, and (iv) the public sector, for example, local government funded community-liaison agencies.

Intermediary agencies are rather different from traditional forms of community education (CE) that is usually delivered by cohorts of trained educators employed by local authorities (Tett, 2002). In contrast, intermediary agencies attempt to co-ordinate segments of the labour market by acting as catalysts to bring conglomerates, SMEs, freelancers and networks together to forge partnerships. The aim of these partnerships is two-fold: to assist aspiring entrants to supplement their qualifications or prior experience to develop the forms of vocational practice and social capital that will help them enter the creative industries, and to increase the flow of experienced people into the sector. Over the last decade, they have achieved this goal by:

• securing funds from sources such as the European Union, UK government departments, charitable foundations and the private sector to provide new spaces for learning. These can include (i) the provision of short courses that usually do not result in a recognized qualification (ii) offering bursaries/access to master classes, and (iii) negotiating internships/work placements with companies
• employing experienced professionals such as tutors/mentors to support aspiring entrants in ways that are appropriate to the needs of the sector
• working closely with employers and educational institutions to design innovative forms of education and training that address pressing skill needs.

The next section of the paper illustrates the vital contributions that intermediary organisations make by summarising research from four case studies undertaken as part of The Last Mile Project (Guile, 2006). This was a three-year project funded via the EU EQUAL Programme.

One example of the work of an industry-education funded intermediary agency is the Jewellery Industry Innovation Centre (JIIC). The JIIC is attached to the University of Central England, Birmingham and has a remit to provide support in research and development in the UK jewellery industry. The jewellery industry presents aspiring entrants with a very specific kind of challenge. Much of this sector depends upon a value network of ‘horizontal’ collaboration between SMEs and freelancers who create new products and services, and ‘vertical’ collaboration between large firms who act as suppliers and distributors (Bilton, 2007). This generates a pattern of economic activity based on local ties where SMEs and freelancers are committed to the creation of new jewellery products and the larger firms are concerned with their manufacture and distribution.

Working in partnership with the Innovation Unit (IU), part of Birmingham City Council’s Economic and Development Department, and funds secured from the European Social Fund, the JIIC designed a new un-accredited project – the Design Work Placement (DWP) Project. This project ran for six months and based on a three-way partnership (a) participating manufacturers gave recently qualified jewellers an opportunity to develop a new range of commercial products based on their research because they had faith in the JIIC’s track record in identifying new talent (b) recently qualified jewellers worked for a small bursary in order to learn how to incubate (ie create, cost, and monitor the fabrication of their designs) because they appreciated that this would provide an invaluable opportunity to develop their vocational practice and their social capital within the sector, and (c) the JIIC acted as project managers and mentors for the participant jewellers (Guile and Okumoto 2008).

The scheme involved an iterative mix of learning strategies. The JIIC ran workshops to support the recently qualified jewellers to develop an industry-relevant approach to designing new jewellery collections. It introduced them to more commercially-orientated methods of working, encouraging them to attune themselves more to the way in which cultural trends influence how people incorporate jewellery into their fashion style, supported the process through one-to-one mentoring, and ran showcasing events with industry representatives for the participants at the end of the project. The jewellery companies provided the participating jewellers with, on the one hand, very demanding commercial projects, for example, graduates enrolled on jewellery degrees usually have a whole term to produce the final design for their degree whereas the company expected forty new designs to be produced within twelve weeks, which the companies expected to be manufactured within the next twelve weeks; and, on the other hand, opportunities to become familiar with up-to-date techniques of production that they had never encountered in college and to participate in production planning meetings. The aspiring jewellers had to learn to take advantage of this mix of formal pedagogic strategies and workplace-generated pedagogic strategies in order to formulate and instantiate their designs.

In addition to achieving its stipulated goal of assisting the participating companies to enhance their product ranges and the participating jewellers to develop their vocational practice, the DWP also achieved another goal. It assisted the participating jewellers to decide whether to remain a jewellery designer and as a consequence become a freelance worker, or to enter management within a jewellery company and therefore be in a better position to secure a full-time position. Moreover, the jewellers who took the former decision recognised that life as a freelancer required them to develop what has been referred to as ‘moebius-strip’ expertise (Guile, 2007), that is the entrepreneurial expertise to demonstrate to national and international jewellery companies and journalists that they are sufficiently versatile to use their expertise to meet the requirements of any contract.

The work of Slough Borough Council’s Arts Development Team (ADT), which is a regional arts partnership receiving some core funding from the local council to ensure that the arts in Slough have the best grounding, resources and connections, is an excellent example of how the networking undertaken by intermediary agencies can result in innovative strategies to facilitate access into the C&C sector. Because the UK’s four largest film studios are located within fifteen minutes of Slough, Creative Academy (CA), one of ADT’s partners, prioritized film as an industrial sector where they were keen to secure employer support to assist young people from the Slough area to gain access to the industry. This led George Kirkham, Director of CA, to meet Carlo Dusi, Director of Aria Films, and negotiate work placements for ten aspiring entrants on Carlo’s forthcoming production.

Carlo was responsive to George’s pitch for work placements because he was aware that ‘the film production community is not a nurturing one’ and that it is difficult ‘to establish a career in the industry unless one can find an opportunity to work within the industry (Guile and Okumoto forthcoming). The aim of the partnership between Aria and CA was to enable people with Level 3/4 qualifications in a film-related field, for example, Special Effects, Make-up Design or Television and Production, or people who had experience of working in television and/or on the production of advertisements, to move into the film industry. To realize this goal, Carlo offered them a two-week work placement on either the ’shoot’ or the post-production for the film he was producing Kill Kill Faster Faster. The film was shot in Rotterdam for six weeks in June/July 2006 with the budget of £3.7 million. Seven participants undertook technical positions in Rotterdam, while three were involved in post-production work in London once the filming was complete.

Given that Carlos’s film crew had no previous experience of supporting interns on a film shoot and the participants equally lacked any experience of such work, George and Carlo devised a multi-faceted system to support both parties. Prior to the Rotterdam shoot, the CA ran a series of workshops to support the participants in understanding the aims of the scheme, and prepared for their roles through one-to-one meetings with experienced professionals in the field of lighting, filming, sound, etc. During the shooting, the CA offered on-site mentoring support by visiting the participants and helping to iron out any misunderstandings and/or difficulties that arose. Post-placement, the CA arranged for information on seminars, events and job vacancies to be sent to the interns. Prior to the participants arriving in Rotterdam, Carlo briefed the experienced technical staff that he had recruited for the film as regards his rationale for agreeing to provide work placements, explained his expectations of the interns’ ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ role, and the technical staff’s coaching and modeling role. Subsequently, he split his time between overseeing the production process and acting as the participants’ mentor throughout the shoot and post-production phases.

This work placement supported the participants in developing their vocational practice and social capital in order to be in a position for an employer to offer them a contract for their services. In the case of the former, the placement demonstrated that although film-related qualifications can provide a conceptual understanding and orientate aspiring entrants towards key issues about the history and social conventions that inform film-making, such knowledge has to be supplemented by experience of practice. This is because much of the knowledge that is an integral feature of forms of vocational practice such as sound, lighting, direction, is invested in action, and involves developing the form of judgement that are inimical to professional performance. In the case of the latter, the opportunity to hear experienced professionals’ ‘war stories’ about which film events to attend and which networks to join, enabled participants to realised the link between vocational practice, social capital and moebius-strip expertise: the latter provides the network that may generate a demand for their services providing they are perceived as someone who can creatively deploy their expertise in a range of situations.

One example of the work of a non-formal intermediary agency is WAC Performing Arts and Media College. WAC specialises in the field of performing arts and raises its income from a mix of EU, Local Learning and Skills Council, and industry sources of funding. In recognition that many of its graduates, who were active in the field of world arts, were unable to supplement their freelance income streams through securing employment as a teacher/teaching assistant because they lacked a recognized qualification, WAC decided to create a degree in world art forms. To do so, WAC turned to the framework provided by Foundation Degrees (FD).

WAC drew on its accumulated experience in running non-accredited courses and designed the FD around an integrated learning-teaching curriculum (Guile and Okumoto 2009). The hallmark of this curriculum was the way in which WAC mobilised its accumulated social capital (ie the number of ex-WAC graduates who were experienced professionals in the field of world arts forms) to work as teachers. Their involvement enabled participants to develop their vocational practice to industry-standards as well as to expand their network of contacts and thus position them to gain access to the performing arts’ notoriously tricky external labour markets. WAC achieved these two goals by using the expertise of its staff and ex-graduates to (i) explain the discipline-based knowledge and skill that underpins different world art forms in ways that extended their existing vocational practice and developed their professional identity and confidence (ii) provide opportunities for learners to plan and then perform in a wide range of contexts and for culturally diverse audiences. This opportunity to participate legitimately, albeit peripherally, with a range of different world art forms in authentic settings enabled participants to develop the forms of judgement that are integral to the development of their practice, and (iii) provide opportunities for learners to bridge and link their existing fledgling network to other existing and successful networks.

The wide variety of learning opportunities enabled FD participants to firstly, develop new forms of vocational practice and bridge and link their existing and new social capital in ways that could, in future, result in them being invited to contribute their specific vocational expertise to a dance, music, etc, contract that others had secured. Secondly, the diverse learning opportunities also positioned the FDs’ participants to develop the entrepreneurial expertise to start looking at themselves as not just performers searching for contracts for their specific world art expertise, but also as arts practitioners who have developed broader-based capabilities that could assist them to secure employment in art-based project management and/or community education.

Finally, the partnership between Birmingham’s Innovation Unit (IU) and the city’s Repertory Theatre (REP) provides an excellent example of how to devise an innovative project to assist aspiring entrants enter the C&C labour market. Using ESF funding, the IU and REP developed a ‘Technical Apprenticeship’ (TA) that offered eight apprentices, none of whom held a qualification above Level 3, to successfully enter the C&C sector. The Rep devised the TA outside the national blueprint for apprenticeship for two main reasons. It felt that the AAP had firstly, been designed to serve ‘educational’ goals because it is promoted by the DfES to enhance academic progression, rather than as genuine attempts to develop the sector-specific vocational knowledge and skill that they feel it is important for apprentices to develop (Guile and Okumoto 2007). Secondly, work in the theatre (and, for that matter, live events in general) is characterised by a ‘project culture’. This work context means that the AAP with its attendant package of NVQ assessment and the requirement for day-release is not a practical option, because it is utterly impracticable to release apprentices to attend courses in FE colleges or private training providers or to stop and assess apprentices’ competence in the middle of a production. To do so would deny the apprentices the opportunity to develop key aspects of vocational practice which are unlikely to surface again within the life span of a production.

To realize its vision of creating a modern culturally diverse and inclusive traditional craft apprenticeship which reflects the realities of the new work context in which it operates, the Rep appointed a Project Coordinator, John Pitt, who had worked as Production Manager previously in the Rep as well as having extensive knowledge and experience in training and development. Working with the Technical Heads of Department (THDs), for example, Lighting, Costume, Wigs, Sound, etc, John designed an apprenticeship that immersed apprentices in the ‘work flow’ of the Rep theatre life so they are involved in every stage of mounting a production. John negotiated with the THDs for the apprentices to have the opportunity to be: (i) ‘legitimate peripheral participants’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991) within their department, that is, activity engaged with the production process and supported in situ by modeling and demonstration activities in order to develop their technical expertise, and (ii) ‘boundary crossers’ (Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström, 2003) between departments, that is, provided with opportunities to grasp the connections between different forms of vocational practice that exist within the Rep and how they all contribute to the success of a performance.

John also arranged for the apprentices to enhance their on-the-job learning in the down-time between productions by offering them access to a bespoke curriculum consisting of a mix of generic knowledge and skill about the process of production, and occupationally-specific knowledge and skill relating to their technical specialism. Furthermore a programme of limited work rotation and visits to other theatres and events across the country were arranged. These experiences enabled the apprentices to locate their understanding of vocational practice in a wider context and lay the foundation for them to transfer their knowledge and skill into other theatrical contexts.

The Rep’s model of apprenticeship supported the apprentices’ skill formation and transfer because it not only developed distinctive forms of occupationally-specific knowledge and skill which are in short supply and hence for which there is a high demand in the global C&C economy, but it also developed their social capital and entrepreneurial ability. Recognising that the UK’s national system of repertory theatres is characterised by the type of strong mutually self-supporting networks, characterised by high levels of trust amongst all levels of specialism and seniority, the Rep bridged and linked their apprentices into as many of these networks as possible. They did so in the knowledge that, on the one hand, these networks would accept that an apprentice ‘trained’ at Birmingham Rep was well trained and sufficiently experienced to be offered a contract for their services; and, on the other hand, that the apprentices had acquired the ability to demonstrate to prospective employers that they were sufficiently versatile to operate effectively in a range of settings, for example, theatres, television studios and live events.

Coda to the Case Studies: all the participants are now active in the C&C sector with contracts for their services.

Learning to work in the C&C sector: future challenges

The future context

The trend away from OLMs and FILMs and towards ELMs and ‘tournament’ competitions is likely to continue rather than diminish, for a number of reasons, over the next ten years. Firstly, this trend, although not necessarily as pronounced and entrenched in other parts of Europe, is nevertheless occurring globally throughout the C&C sector. The net effect is to position aspiring entrants to the C&C sector, as the EU commissioned report from KEA (2006) observes, as “new workers”/”new entrepreneurs”, between capital and labour because:

“The traditional categories of the “full-time job society” (“here the worker, there the employer”) no longer apply; the cultural content worker is suddenly also a (cultural) entrepreneur (without capital). In academic literature the “new worker” is described as multi-skilled, multifunctional and flexible in working time as well as often being self-employed” (KEA, 2006, p91).

Secondly, policymakers continue to affirm the importance of expanding these industries without paying any attention to labour market conditions and the way in which they inhibit people from learning to work in the C&C sector (Hesmondhalgh, forthcoming). Even the KEA (2006, p9) report that has, as we have seen above, very presciently identified the new conditions in which aspirant workers find themselves, falls back on the current European Union version of the UK conventional wisdom and argues that workers will require higher levels of knowledge and skill. Thus the report ends up perpetuating, rather than offering any fresh thinking on how to overcome, the dilemma described in this paper.

This suggests that the transition of any young people into the labour market, which many researchers had noted even before the impact of the ‘credit crunch’ had become more extended than in the post-war period during the 1990s (Evans, 2000; Chisholm, 1999), is likely to become even more extended in the future. Moreover, given the opacity of the C&C labour market and the fact that access is dependent on the development of the forms of social capital that provide people with access to the networks that gate-keep and facilitate employment in the C&C sector, it also suggests that access is likely to become even more competitive as the C&C sector gradually comes to terms with the implications of the ‘credit crunch’.

Assuming that the depiction of the above trends is correct and that the mismatch between the UK’s national policy cycle and the government’s assumptions about the role of qualifications as a proxy measure for vocational practice continues, then access to the labour market is likely to be exacerbated rather than diminished in any great respect. In the case of graduates, this is in part because the massification of higher education has generated a continual flow of graduates who are prepared, because they are financially cushioned by their families or are prepared to engage in multiple job-holding, to accept fairly insecure and temporary positions in an attempt to develop the forms of vocational practice and social capital to gain access to the C&C labour market (Oakley, 2007). In the case of students holding Level 3 qualifications, the combination of the flexible conditions of the UK labour market, coupled with employers’ preferences to recruit graduates in non-graduate roles (Mason, 2004), is exerting considerable ‘downward’ pressure on such students and has the effect of denying them access to the port-of-entry positions that would otherwise be commensurable with their qualifications and experience. Taken in combination, these developments suggest that there is likely to be an increased demand for the forms of intervention activity and provision of learning and development activities that intermediary agencies have been providing.

New principles for E&T

In light of these circumstances and irrespective of any change of government, there will have to be new direction to E&T policy if policymakers are to support aspiring entrants and career-switchers to realize their ambitions to work in the C&C sector and support the sector to continue to serve as the ‘engine’ of post-industrial growth in the UK. Based on the argument presented in this paper, this new direction presupposes a series of new principles for UK E&T policy. The principles are as follows:

1. The rebalancing of the tension between market (ie ‘demand-led) and state (ie supply-led) provision through the introduction of ‘heterarchical’ (Jessop, 1998) modes of E&T planning and delivery.

The problem generated by the state/market dichotomy in governance strategies has been widely recognized for some time. Jessop (1998, 2000) has argued that this has resulted at the macro government level in the constant substitution of one with another. He argues that rather than trying to manage the relative change between states, markets and globalization within one overall structure, what is required is the introduction of ‘new balancing points’ that enable policymakers to involve stakeholders more directly in the coordination process. Jessop offers the principle of self-organisation, in his terms’ heterarchy’, as an alternative mode of governance. From Jessop’s perspective, heterarchical governance, coupled with the autonomy at the regional level to determine how to deploy national fundings streams, offers a potential key to unlock the totality of the state/market interface at the macro-level.

There is not sufficient space here to do justice to the complexity of Jessop’s argument. I want to suggest, however, that his notion of heterarchical governance can be usefully extended to the way in which E&T policy and provision could be addressed in future in the C&C sector. This claim can be illustrated by returning to the example of Birmingham Reparatory Theatre’s Technical Apprenticeship.

It was argued earlier that in its desire to make apprenticeship part of a vocational ladder within the education and training (E&T) system, the government firstly, overlooked that (i) the primary purpose of apprenticeship is to develop vocational practice, and (ii) the project-based nature of work in much of the creative and cultural sector requires a ‘project-based’ approach to education and training and that existing arrangements and funding patterns for on-and-off-the-job training are incompatible with this type of work. Secondly, the government imposed a policy making cycle, funding constraints and targets that totally limited the scope of regional stakeholders to respond in innovative ways to their pressing needs.

If the principle of heterarchy was used to rebalance the current E&T system, this broadening of the principles of governance would offer E&T stakeholders the opportunity to ‘co-configure’ (Engeström, 2008) innovative solutions to the issue of access. In the case of the reservations expressed in the C&C sector about the AAP Blueprint, this new space could be used to enable employers, working in conjunction with intermediary agencies and Further Education Colleges, to design models of apprenticeship that actually reflect their needs. Such a development would introduce a slightly different twist to the notion of ‘employer leadership’ advocated by the Leitch Report. Instead of assuming that qualification blueprints are the definitive solution to employability in the knowledge economy and arguing that employers should take the lead over FE colleges/training providers implementing the AAP Blueprint, this broader system of E&T governance would create the conditions for employers to develop bespoke models of apprenticeship based on a clear articulation and specification of the principles of occupational skill formation and skill transfer. To ensure that employers do not interpret this new freedom as a license to create a host of new ‘restrictive’ apprenticeships (Fuller and Unwin, 2003), Local Learning and Skills Councils could be required by central government to devise regional ‘kite marking’ systems for such alternative models of apprenticeship. These systems would be based on clearly defined criteria for skill formation, skill transfer and employability so that apprentices developed the requisite form of vocational practice and social capital, thereby reassuring policymakers that the new schemes are educationally robust and offer value for money.

The introduction of these new principles of governance would also mean that E&T funding regimes for apprenticeship and other programmes would have to be re-thought. At present policymakers operate with ‘Welfarist’ notions of labour markets (ie that all employers will or can be persuaded to recruit regular numbers on an annually recurring basis), and ‘Fordist’ mechanisms to control the E&T system (ie funding FE Colleges and private training providers on the basis of enrolling ‘training volumes’ and achieving ‘training completions’). These assumptions about the operation of the labour market and this accountability and funding model is completely at odds with the growth of ELMs and project work in the C&C sector, let alone elsewhere in the economy. Heterarchical principles of governance would involve a shift away from these centrally controlled auditing and funding mechanism. Instead they would require the devolution of budgetry oversight to regional E&T stakeholders and the provision of ring-fenced budgets to support E&T innovation. These conditions would provide E&T stakeholders with the relative autonomy to design bespoke E&T solutions that reflect the needs of the C&C sector at the regional level.

2. Reconceptualising ‘vertical’ (ie education to work) and ”horizontal’ (ie work/unemployment to work) transitions as the development of vocational practice, social capital and moebius strip expertise rather than the acquisition of qualifications.

The recent debate about the role of qualifications and access to the labour market has forgotten that although qualifications are important because they are the long standing way to certify the forms of knowledge and skill students acquired in education, they do not constitute proxy measures for vocational practice, social capital or entrepreneurial ability, despite policymakers and some researchers views to the contrary. Moreover, policymakers have also failed to detect that the growth of ELMs is creating a new type of post-degree vocational need – opportunities for graduates to supplement the forms of knowledge and skill certified by qualifications with opportunities for vocational enculturation and the development of social capital and entrepreneurial ability – an issue that does not currently figure in the post-Leitch E&T agenda.

It has long been recognized that vocational practice, social capital and entrepreneurial expertise cannot be broken down into discrete units of study and taught independent of any contact with workplaces. This is not to suggest that study and simulation cannot provide a grounding and inspiration for learners, rather it is an acknowledgement that vocational practice, social capital and entrepreneurial expertise have to be developed in situ, that is in conditions of work or through the provision of opportunities to gain access to networks and specialist advice, rather than through study or simulation.

Enacting this insight, however, presupposes a further shift in the government’s E&T policy. It requires the introduction of a more multifaceted and differentiated strategy based on an explicit recognition of the different contribution that the following activities play in facilitating access to the C&C sector. They are:

• accreditation activities (ie academic or vocational qualifications)

• industry-recognised activities (ie knowledge and skill acquired from non-accredited activities such as work placements, internships, master classes)
• network activities (ie the development of a personal occupational labour market as the basis of securing contracts and the forms of entrepreneurial expertise to promote oneself in ELMs).

The first step to implement this strategy is for the government to stop predetermining the type of output (ie qualifications), the type of provider (i.e. Colleges of Further Education and accredited training providers) and the funding regime for all aspects of E&T. The second step is to relax the reigns of policy and offer all E&T stakeholders the opportunity brokered bespoke E&T solutions, for example, identifying how to incorporate, what this paper has referred to as access to industry-recognised and networked activities either as integral parts of accredited programmes (see the WAC Case Study) or as part of non-accredited programmes (see the CA and JIIC Case Studies). Because these activities develop vocational practice and social capital in a way that educational programmes in colleges and universities struggle to do so, they need to become a supplement to the national E&T framework of provision rather than a marginal, albeit highly effective, way of supporting transition into the labour market.

3. A shift from conceiving learning as consisting of the accumulation of pre-specified outcomes to seeing it as the development of judgement.

In addition to the UK’s tendency to conceive learning as consisting of the accumulation of pre-specified outcomes, the introduction of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) is resulting in pressure on educational institutions to standardise qualifications throughout Europe through the use of programme specifications and learning outcomes. This development is likely to reaffirm the idea pan-Europe that qualifications constitute a proxy measure for vocational practice and hence access to the C&C sector. This is deeply worrying because, as the case studies presented in the paper demonstrate, the knowledge associated with any field of vocational practice is always broader than any qualification. It requires opportunities for people to ‘conduct inquiries’ rather ‘rehearse procedures’ and, in the process, to develop the forms of judgement that are inimical to practice (Sennett, 2008).

What is required, therefore, is the formulation of a language of description for vocational practice that will offer researchers, policymakers and practitioners a resource to identify the different contributions that accredited, industry-recognised and network activities make to supporting vertical and horizontal transitions into the labour market. The first step towards such a language of description has already been taken (Guile, 2009). It has resulted in the formulation of three concepts of vocational practice. They are the evolutionary (ie the gradual development of a practice through individual and collective agentic activity), laterally-branching (ie the explicit use of professional/vocational field-specific forms of knowledge and skill (ie codified and non-codified) to develop a practice in ways that can be recognised in the field, and envisioning (ie inter-professional activity to envision a new form of practice).

These conceptions offer a way to capture the different modalities of practice and the forms of judgement associated with them. They could be used by E&T stakeholders to (i) identify the forms of working and learning that have to occur outside of educational institutions to facilitate their development; (ii) consider how to build strategic partnerships at the regional level to provide people with access to these forms of working and learning, and (iii) to press the case for the greater recognition for pedagogic activity within national and international E&T policy formation.

References

The Arts Council of England (2002) A balancing act: artists’ labour markets and the tax and benefit systems (Research Report 29). Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/documents/publications/phpLI8ihP.pdf Accessed 28 July 2006.

The Arts Council of England (2003) Artists in figures: a statistical portrait of cultural occupations (Research Report 31). Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/documents/publications/artistsinfigures_phpOCnaap.pdf Accessed 28 July 2006.

Ashton, D. (1993) Understanding change in youth labour markets: a conceptual framework. Journal of Education and Work, 6 (3), pp.5-23.

Baines, S. and Robson, E. (1999) Being self employed and being enterprising in the cultural sector. Paper presented at the 22^nd ISBA National Small Firms Policy and Research Conference: European Strategies, Growth and Development. Leeds, ISBA.

Bilton, C. (2006) Management and creativity: From creative industries to creative management. London, Blackwell.

Coffe, D. (1996) Competing in the age of digital convergence. San Francisco, Jossey Bass.

Creigh-Tyte, A. and Thomas, B. (2001) Employment. In: Selwood, S. (ed.) Cultural sector: profile and policy issues. London, Policy Studies Institute.

DCMS (2001) The creative industries mapping document 2001. Available from http://www.culture.gov.uk/global/publications/archive_2001/ci_mapping_doc_2001.htm Accessed 28 July 2006.

Delorenzi, S. (2007) Learning for life: A new framework for adult skills. London, Institute for Public Policy Research.

DfES (1998) The learning age. London, The Stationery Office.

Engeström, Y. (2008) From teams to knots. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Evans. K. (2000) INCOMPLETE REFERENCE

Florida, R. (2002) The rise of the creative class. New York, Basic Books.

Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2003) Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector, social inclusion approach. Journal of Education and Work, 16 (1), pp.5-25.

Guile, D. (2006) Access, learning and development in the creative and cultural sector: from ‘creative apprenticeship’ to ‘being apprenticed’. Journal of Education and Work, 19 (5), pp.433-454.

Guile, D (2007) Moebius-strip enterprises and expertise: challenges for lifelong learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 26 (3), pp.241-261.

Guile, D. and Okumoto, K. (2007) ‘We are trying to reproduce a crafts apprenticeship’: from Government Blueprint to workplace generated apprenticeship in the knowledge economy. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 59 (4), pp.551-575.

Guile, D. and Okumoto, K. (2008) Developing vocational practice in the jewelry sector through the incubation of a new ‘project-object’. International Journal of Educational Research Vol INCOMPLETE REFERENCE

Guile, D. and Okumoto, K. (2009) ‘They give you tools and they give you a lot, but it is up to you to use them’: the creation of performing artists through an integrated learning and teaching curriculum. Studies in the Education of Adults, 1

Guile, D. and Okumoto, K. (forthcoming) ‘Being apprenticed’ in the film industry: capital, practice and expertise. INCOMPLETE REFERENCE

Hesmonhalgh, D. (forthcoming) Cultural and Creative Industries. In: Bennett, T. and Frow, J. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis. London, Sage

Howkins, J. (2001) The creative economy. London, Penguin.

Hutton, W. (2006) Creative apprenticeship. London, Creative and Cultural Skills.

KEA European Affairs (2006) The economy of culture in Europe. Available from http://ec.europa.eu/culture/eac/sources_info/studies/economy_en.html Accessed 1 March 2007.

Keep, E. (2006) State control of the English education and training system – playing with the biggest train set in the world. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 58 (1), pp.47-64.

Lauder, H. (2004) Review symposium. British Journal of the Sociology of Education, 25 (3), pp.379-383.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. New York, Cambridge University Press.

Leitch, S. (2006) Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills. Final report. Available from http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/523/43/leitch_finalreport051206.pdf. Accessed March 1, 2007

Marsden Oakely, K. (DATE?) Better than working for a living? Skills and labour in the festivals economy. London, Celebrating Enterprise

Porter, M. and Ketels, C.H.M. (2003) UK competitiveness: Moving to the next stage. London, DTI.

Raffo, C., O’Connor, J., Lovatt, A. and Banks, M. (2000) Attitudes to Formal Business Training amongst Entrepreneurs in the Cultural Industries: situated business learning through ‘doing it with others’. Journal of Education and Work, 13 (2), pp.215-230

Sennett, R. (2008a) Lecture at the Royal Society of the Arts, Monday 11^th February.

Tuomi-Gröhn, T. and Engeström, Y. (eds.) (2003) Between school and work: New perspectives on transfer and boundary crossing. Amsterdam, Pergamon.

Tapscot, D. (1995) The digital economy. New York, McGraw Hill.

Universities UK (2005) Patterns of higher education institutions in the UK: fifth report. Available from http://bookshop.universitiesuk.ac.uk/downloads/patterns5.pdf Accessed 28 July 2006.

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

The participatory nature of Web 2.0 emphasised the tools and platforms that enable users to tag, blog, argue, rank and generate their own content all over the web. The new participatory culture blurs fundamental rules of marketing that aim to create a singular product that will sell on global scale. Instead, growing numbers of media industries are looking to design a service that will allow users to connect, create and share in ways that encourage a social aspect to new media. Many new technologies take full advantage of the Web 2.0 participatory culture that desires to customise, create and communicate across a range of media and platforms. In the development of this technology, a culture of individuality has been employed to encourage users to join and construct their own profiles (ie Facebook, MySpace, Google Homepage, and My Yahoo). Based on Lévy’s work, Henry Jenkins speaks to the differences of these new spaces in terms of commodity, labour and larger cultural traditions:

The new information space involves multiple and unstable forms of recontextualisation. The value of any piece of information increases through social interaction. Commodities are a limited good and their necessity creates or enacts equalities. But meaning is a shared and constantly renewable resource and its circulation can create and revitalise social ties (2006, p140)

The ‘meaning’ that people construct in communities of user-generated content has become a highly marketable resource in the new media industry. Information and communication have become the currency of new Web based products and services. Through her work on ‘Soap Talk’ Nancy Baym shows how the online ‘fan’ is devoted to sharing and takes some joy in sharing knowledge -’epistemphilia’ (Baym, 1998, pp14-15). Baym continues that there is a ’socio-emotional’ aspect to many of the fan culture interactions, meaning that knowledge is in no way separable from our pleasures and desires in these new spaces. The implication for this new combination of product and emotion is a contextualisation of labour that distorts the relationship between producers and consumers. This confounds the old commodity spaces that were characterised by various forms of de-contextualisation, including an alienation of labour and hierachised view of knowledge.

Coté and Pybus (2007) characterise the recent movement in Social Network Sites (SNSs) as creating a new space for immaterial labour 2.0. They develop the ideas of Maurizio Lazzarato (1996) which defined immaterial labour as the ‘cultural content’ that is produced through a ‘conflation of production and consumption; an elision of author and audience’ (Coté and Pybus, 2007, p89). The 2.0 addition to the standard explanation of immaterial labour is intended to show the ramped-up, accelerated form of communication that is established through an increased level of participation. Immaterial labour 2.0 explains the new social practices that are heavily mediated in our everyday lives and how information and communication have become the capital which is integral to the market as a whole. For Coté and Pybus, it is through the affective relationships in MySpace that capital is sustained through a network of connections. This subjective turn is in direct opposing to material forms of labour and shows how the production of ones identity in MySpace produces a form of biopower.

New Learning Practices

So far, the new social spaces on the internet have been shown to create ‘knowledge spaces’ (Lévy) that generate a new form of immaterial labour (Coté and Pybus). The main aim of the next section is to describe these new spaces in more detail. As Coté and Pybus spoke mostly of MySpace and Lévy of a range of community practices sometimes not even of an online dimension, it is paramount to trace what exactly we mean by new social spaces. This should aid the ability to map out a possible set of futures with regard to the changes in information and communication technologies in these new spaces. The recent impacts to education that is considered to be more popular in the future will be explored in three main areas: Online Source Applications, Open Educational Resources and New Social Network Sites (SNS).

Open Source Applications and Open Educational Resources

Open Source Applications are programs that can be freely downloaded onto any computer and allow the student to take control of their own learning. On a larger scale learning management systems such as Moodle, Sakai and ATutor focus on providing course management systems for teachers and educators. Open Source Applications have also benefited from the technological increase of community tools that are geared towards education, such as LAMS, Drupal and Connexions. These sites have a development and community essence to their design and encourage members to ‘chat’ with other users as they access their course management program. This has all been made possible by the development of supporting software including Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and Audacity. The advances in internet technology should not be treated as the success of one program over another; there is a more gradual rate with which it moves forward as a whole.

The collaborative culture has produced a wide range of Open Educational Resources (OER) that has undergone a number of initiatives from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNESCO intended OERs to allow free access to knowledge for courses and a wider public use. The internet was the only way to make this wave of information available to everybody and in a style that would not form a hierarchy of one piece of knowledge over another. The Creative Commons (CC) license also made sure that the rights of the user were accounted for. This made it easy to publish over the internet without worrying about copyright laws and led to the success of websites such as Wikipedia and WikiUniversiy. Clearly, the impact of OER and Open Source Applications has had an overwhelming impact on the shape of modern educational practices; however, the majority of this review will focus on the rise of new communities through SNSs.

Social Network Sites and Learning

The population size of some SNSs has grown exponentially in the decade. Facebook is currently thought to be growing at a rate of 150,000 new users per day; with most users are spending twenty minutes or more on the site (ComScore, 2007). On these sites (which also include MySpace, Hi 5, Bebo and Xanga) users are able to chat, blog, post videos and photos on a specially designated profile page. For danah boyd, these sites represent a space of ‘networked publics’ that allows people to come together through technology that promotes participation (boyd, 2006). These sites essentially perform many activities that are available in other areas of the internet. Most members quickly learn how to build a profile and manage issues of a technical nature quickly and simply. However, up until now MySpace and other sites have been used for primarily social purposes and the amount of actual information exchanged is very low – it is about communication. Recent attempts to use SNSs in education involves combining OER with the sites, this has most widely been used in conjunction with Facebook.

Understanding New Spaces

How then to understand these new technologies? Or better still, the impact of technologies being merged together? The following section will be divided into three main areas: Knowledge Production, The Networked Classroom and The New Experience of Teaching and Learning. The first, Knowledge Production, will be looking at the changing role of knowledge in the new sphere of online based learning. This will use a range of examples to show how teachers can embrace the changing shape of traditional knowledge in a culture focused around communication and collaboration. The second section will focus on the classroom practices as a whole that can be networked through new technologies. This will show how institutions are beginning to combine ‘blackboard’ online resources with popular SNS like MySpace and Facebook. Finally, the last section will be dedicated to a wider discussion of the implications of the network culture with regard to the different subjectivities that are formed in mediated relationships online. More pressingly, how will education function in new spaces that have been, up until now, reserved for interaction of a purely social kind?

Knowledge Production and Sharing

Weblogs (or just ‘blogs’) are the personification of user-generated content, in the sense that they are personal accounts that are constructed into the truth on a certain subject (see Andrea’s Jam Recipes and How to meet girls online using Facebook). A blog can be written about pretty much anything and there is even a collective name for all the blogs on the Web – the ‘blogosphere’. The blog culture was initially documented by bloggers or media enthusiasts themselves (eg Blood, 2000). Many blogs have been found to contain personal information including first name terms, online/offline contact references and personal photographs (eg Nardi, Schiano and Gumbrecht, 2004; Herring, Scheidt et al, 2004). The structure of blogs are routinely composed in ‘reverse chronological order’, which means that new posts are found at the top of the page (eg Herring et al, 2004; Nardi et al, 2004). Trying to define ‘the blog’ neatly characterises the range of methodological arguments that comes to follow. So, for now, this review will use the fairly recent introduction of ‘blog’ (noun and verb) to the Oxford English Dictionary (2003) as a place to start: ‘to blog is to be part of a community of smart, tech-savvy people who want to be on the forefront of a new literary undertaking’ (OED, 2003, as cited in boyd, 2006).

Blogging was a relatively exclusive pastime until the release of the first free blogging software (Pitas and Blogger) and special search engines that made tracking blogs easier (Blo.gs, blogpulse.com, etc.). The impact of blogging can be seen all over the internet, particularly as an alternative way of accessing and sharing current news sources. The blogosphere has been found to be a flexible communicative space for different groups of people (Feenberg and Bakardjieva, 2004) that permeate most niches of social life, from scholarly to political issues (Glenn, 2003). The sheer transcendence of this technology has brought issues of privacy to the fore in modern interpretations of the technology. This review will now look at real world examples and how knowledge is appropriated and distributed within these blogs.

Figure 1. Screenshot taken from The Science Blog (www.scienceblog.com)

The above screenshot is taken from a blog dedicated to science that is run independently. It markets the site with the tag line ‘Science news straight from the source’ and allows students to engage with a range of science topics freely and easily. There are three main implications for knowledge production of this form. Firstly, the website is positioned as a primary source of information. This site enables students to search from within a multitude of topics that are posed as written by professionals and not just by other students. Secondly, the knowledge is presented in an easily manageable form that spans a range of ages and abilities. It could also be easy to take the knowledge gathered on the science blog and re-produce it somewhere else on the Web. Thirdly, by adding the ‘comment’ section, students are openly encouraged to be critical of the issue in question. This allows students to question the origin of ‘truth’ and invites the student to feel empowered to question the foundation of certain knowledge. Even science itself is open to interpretation on sites of this kind; the basic principles of science are freely explored in terms of culture, politics and history.

The scope for online learning using blogs is not specifically geared towards children. In the following ‘Maths Blog’ (Figure 2) the focus is on maths help for parents of children aged 5 to 11. This blog is constructed by a number of authors and the intention is to de-mystify educational practices, thereby, making knowledge openly accessible to all. Numerous blogs of this kind exist and they make the possibility of learning through the internet a real possibility. In fact, knowledge of any particular aspect of everyday life can be readily mobilised into a blog that can shared with everybody on the Web (for example, Mothersclick and TuDiabetes). One potential drawback of knowledge of this kind is that there is a potential for people to publish incorrect facts in blogs. This is evident in moral panic around the site Wikipedia. This means that we need to educate children in the ways of validating information in blogs.

As stressed at the beginning of this review, the Web 2.0 era allowed students to use online blogs to gather information on a range of topics. This represented a form of informal learning that encouraged them to be critical of the ‘truth’ in knowledge. However, as we recall, the Web 2.0 was most characterised by the ability to ‘mix-up’ information by adding their own spin. Therefore, the Web 2.0 culture is learner-driven, conversation-focused and defined by the learners’ perception of need. This unavoidably positions the schooling system as teacher-driven and defined by the perceptions of another person (the teacher). However, dualism is not always helpful as it rarely arises that a student has a negative view of the education system, while still having such a positive view for educational practices of another kind. Instead, this review would like to encourage the idea that blogs (such as the maths and science blogs mentioned here) offer students an opportunity to add to the teaching they are given in schools. It produces a space where a student can feel empowered to ask questions or take the time to read a particular subject they have more interest in. Education needs to shake off the image of schools as cold, hard places and encourage the idea of the internet as a fun, new place for learning. Instead, the internet and other emerging technologies operate as a mid-point for future learning as they create new spaces for creative, social forms of learning.

Figure 2. Screenshot taken from Maths Blog (www.mathsblog.com).

In the Maths and Science blog there is a definite sense of a strong teaching authority behind the content. As stated with Wikipedia, it can be very difficult to authenticate the information that is presented in a blog. This is because blogs are given a relatively low status (eg blogs are not considered to be credible for reference in a peer reviewed journal). However, in learning to ask questions of the facts found in blogs many students learn to accept that is there is a large amount of information that is not necessarily helpful. The maths and science blogs in this example are presented as more than just one person’s opinion on a subject and manage the problem of authenticity by using a professional style. A future development would be to teach students how to find a reliable source on the internet and encourage them to openly criticise the origin of certain truths or facts from the Web.

Knowledge production of the future will be reliant on inventive thinking. The student will have to be creative, self-directed and curious about new forms of knowledge. They will also need to be able to manage complexity and risk taking. It is these skills that should become fed, intravenously, into the teaching of the future through the traditional school setting. Teaching will involve giving the student tools to take command of their own learning and cover the essential communication skills: collaboration, communication and social responsibility will be at the heart of future learning. The student will no longer be a consumer of education, but a creator. This will have an overriding affect on the way we use future learning programs, so that, the wealth of information on the Web is encouraged through the traditional school system.

The Networked Classroom

The following section will show that blogs are not the only way students can communicate and learn online. The amount of new possibilities for online learning has exploded in the last decade and this can be seen due to a continual need to ‘network’. In Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) literature the issue of a ‘network’ has become one that is frustratingly adjoined to the phrase ‘networking’. In this sense, a network is the physical distribution of a collection of nodes in a network and ‘network-ing‘ is social and cultural practices that are focused on making new friends instead of maintaining existing friends from their offline relations (for more detail on this discussion and history of SNS in generalm see boyd and Ellison, 2007). SNSs are packed with different forms of information and communication that allow the member to construct a profile and then add this profile to other profiles. Each person who joins the site adds value to everyone else on the network by opening their ‘friends’ to new connectedness across the network. The notion of a friend here has been found to not have a literal translation, but moreover, represents the enigmatic way that people continually add more friends to increase their social status.

At first, SNSs like MySpace and Facebook seemed to be an extension of older SNSs or an amalgamation of other online activities, such as YouTube, Flickr or Instant Messaging. However, new SNSs quickly became much more; infiltrating schools, colleges and strict working environments with their catchy profile pages and their constant need to be updated. Many authors have considered the rise of SNSs as a unique way of constructing a personal identity within a web-based system; a system that is then deeply entangled with a ‘mainstream’ culture (boyd, 2007). This has gone as far to say that MySpace use is so heavily intertwined with a member’s life that their self-esteem is driven by MySpace activity (Valkenburg, Peter and Scouten, 2006). In MySpace the notion of friending is of particular importance as the popularity of a ‘top 8′ application made many members group their friends into an order of personal significance. This would list the ‘best friends’ for everyone on the network to see and brings an air of social drama to the construction of a MySpace profile.

SNS members engage with others through their own profile by leaving blogs, photographs, videos or any other range of personal information. They can also ‘post’ on a friends profile by leaving a message on their ‘wall’ (the wall being a specifically designed area of the profile that caters for short text-like messages). The many SNSs vary slightly in the profile arrangement, but most are organised around a profile photograph (which is typically of the member) and their personal information. The SNSs are usually geared towards a certain demographic: Facebook for the college graduate, MySpace for the plucky teen and LinkedIN for the professional, for example. There have also been SNSs for niche networking groups, such as Sagazone for the over 65s. One thing that is paramount throughout all of these SNSs is that the visual appearance of the profile page is of great importance. Many users spend hours subtly modifying the background, layout and aesthetic features of their profile page.

The drive to customise a profile page personifies the wider web 2.0 genre that is obsessed with creativity and communication. Although, with a medium of this kind it can be difficult to see how education could benefit from embracing technologies like MySpace and Facebook. The answer to this question is layered: at one level Facebook may exist as a good place for course leaders to post information, such as links, course messages and general information. On another level, Facebook could also be a place for like-minded students to talk about recent educational issues around a certain topic or ideas. There is also the possibility that Facebook could be combined with course management systems like Blackboard or Moodle, which would update the Facebook with any recent information that had been added to the system. So, there seems to be the educational possibilities of using Facebook as a tool in its own right or combined with another form of learning software.

One potential benefit to using Facebook as an educational tool is that students could feel empowered to communicate with others in an informal style that would benefit learning. There is also the possibility that those who intend to learn using Blackboard infrequently do. This seems to fit the analogy of the teachers who tirelessly add more references to their course material, but finds that their students typically use other resources to understand a certain topic (eg Wikipedia). It should not be assumed that the student does this to simply try and find the information in the easiest manner; it could be that the format of knowledge being explained on different websites is of a style they can better understand.

It is clear that combining Facebook and Blackboard is no easy process. The introduction of formal educational practices into a space that is essentially a social arena has implications for immediate boundary issues. Many students use Facebook and MySpace as an essentially social space where they like to hang out and spend time with their friends. Thus, the introduction of formal education practices are met with anxiety and apprehension. As we saw with the blogs, learners are empowered to take control of their education by using sites like MySpace and Facebook. One interpretation is that students will learn through SNSs regardless of the absence or presence of exact course materials. It is the sense of using the connected network to advance their own learning that drives them to use the site. Perhaps, instead of providing the exact teaching practices the teacher may get more success out of inspiring the learner to go off and use a SNSs or a blog to find what information they can. In the case of the science blog, it was maintained by a headmaster from a secondary school, therefore, the future could imply that teachers are still handing out the information; it just comes in a variety of new forms.

So far, we have looked at two very different forms; the teacher-run blog and the student-driven SNS. However, they are both underpinned by a focus on the learner being driven towards a form of education that instils innovation and communication in the student. The teacher in this new world is not to be forgotten; in fact, there are some definite advantages to teaching practices in the technological future. Course management systems make it easy to contact an entire group of students and construct lessons that build on a number of resources. But there is a high likelihood that the transition to the increased dependence on technology will not be an easy one. This could be primarily driven by the high amount of personal information that students place on the site (Stutzman, 2006). For the student, Facebook has been found to be a place for a heavy amount of identity work that does not easily coincide with formal teaching practices.

It is highly probable that the technology of the future will be just as disjointed as it is today. It is in the current movement that all forms of technology are trying to be used for education. In actuality, some technologies provide a sense of informal learning and function most efficiently not as an official educational tool. The innovative student of the future enjoys scouring the Web for new places to communicate and source different facts. It is within a future plane of informality that a high amount of learning is done, and, by giving the student the tools to use the Web effectively, the teacher of the future will need to be fluent in information and communication technologies. It is clear that the network that will provide much of the background to the education of the future is heavily mediated with communication technologies and the wide spectrum of knowledge practices.

Towards a New experience of Teaching and Learning

The use of SNSs like MySpace and Facebook as educational tools brings a variety of issues into view including; conceptions of ‘mind’, how knowledge is stored, and brings subsequent ideas about learning to the fore. This causes an opportunity to rethink the dominant ideas around knowledge as a fixed entity that exists objectively, independent of people. For example, the idea that knowledge incurs slowly over time with the gradual increase of areas and disciplines, which is typically stored in a book or database is up for debate in light of the future changes to education. Learning is no longer an individual activity that takes place in the ‘mind’ of the student. It is also no longer to be treated as a fairly similar experience for everyone. Essentially, learning of the future will be subjected to a social backdrop of infinite information and communication.

New forms of education will need to incorporate the social aspect of learning and creativity. Education practices of the future will need to be attuned to the way social groups use technologies, such as MySpace and Facebook which can be used to aid teaching and learning. SNSs operate as a way of supporting the collective memory that is held by a community. SNSs, like schools, do not exist purely in terms of learning. They also open up to do a wide range of identity related issues that are effervescent in any school-time interaction. MySpace allows members to constantly update their profile and change the ‘top 8′ friends to those who they are most genuinely friendly with at the current time. It is a way out, playing out many of the dilemmas that are typically associated with the image of playground interaction. But, even in this function, this serves a purpose to education as a whole.

Issues of Searching and Unwanted Content

An area for controversy emerges around the equal access to these new spaces with reference to a strong digital divide between those who can and can not afford to have the internet. As part of the UK Children Go Online project, Lingstone and Bober (2004) notice how socio-economic status discriminates between daily and weekly users. This is reinforced at home as children from middle class families typically experience the internet first-hand from their parents. Middle class children have been found to have a greater quality of access to the internet that is recognizable in the improved sense of the risks that are attached to information. The widespread appreciation of access can be seen in a number of governmental initiatives that are continually trying to close this divide (eg ‘One Laptop per Child’ and city-wide wireless access). It is clear that policy needs to strongly encourage equality in information that does not limit the working class experience of the internet (ie speed of access, freedom of searching).

‘Digital Natives’ as explained by Marc Prensky (2001) is the provocative name for those children who have grown up with digital technology. For Prensky, digital natives operate at a ‘twitch speed’ that is a product of their time spent with computer systems and a culture of diverse media influences. Prensky states that the advanced level of media exposure has lead to changes in ‘neural wiring’ through a process of neuroplasticity. Within this theory digital natives are considered to have shorter attention spans, but have an increased ability in visual and spatial tasks that is represented neurologically. It is clear to most people that those children who use more computer based tasks will have some impact on their experience of learning in the future. Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) describe the next generation of learners (n-gen) as highly computer literate, connected to a variety of networks and benefiting from a creatively-rich form of learning.

However, in recent cases it has been found that children who have been heavily socialised in a strong media environment do not come without their problems, and to a certain extent, many issues that have been found to impact a child learning are found to be re-produced in the use of new technology. Many of these issues are presented in the work of Williams and Rowlands (2007) in the combined efforts of the British Library and the JISC. This work brings together a number of resources to show how children and young people have a set of computer related problems that are based on basic learning practices. Williams and Rowland (2007) cite the work of Chen (2003) who found that children have difficulty finding alterative synonyms when the original searches do not find any relevant results. But on a broader scale, Williams and Rowland (2007) draw together findings that show how children can have difficulty checking the relevance of information gathered through a searches on Web (see Valenza, 2006; Shenton and Dixon, 2004).

In light of these issues the responsibilities across government, education legislation and industry have been highly debated. Through this debate the role of the parent has been identified as one of particular importance. In many cases parents fail to see the educational benefits of using such a technology and are generally ambivalent about the use of the internet. This could be related to the many moral panics that continually plague privacy issues on the Web. Many of these issues cloud the worthwhile activities that can back-up the learning that is taking place in the school setting. However, in many cases tighter regulations would act to control the unacceptable use information and communication on the Web. For example, in a recent case of a Facebook hate group, Oboler (2008) reported the ineffective nature of the Facebook organisation to intervene due to their ambiguous terms of service which limited the amount of action they could take to reduce discrimination in their pages. Ultimately, the hate group was broken down by users within the site. Similarly, many children are able to recognise behaviour they should avoid, for example, Livingstone, Bober and Helsper (2005) found that only 9% of the UK Children Go Online project had visited a website that encouraged hateful behaviour, 2% being those who had visited the page intentionally. The proportions of younger children (9-11 year olds) were considered less likely to encounter undesirable content.

It appears that there is a considerable amount of pressure on parents to regulate Internet responsibility. Even though younger children have been less likely to find unwanted content, the slight amount they do come in contact with could have more drastic effects. Allborn and Wlliams (2002) found that 45% (60% boys and 28% of girls) had experienced unpleasant material over the internet, but only 14% had then gone on to discuss these issues with their parents. It also appears that older teenagers are aware of privacy issues and they restrict access to the photos and videos (PEW, 2007). There is also evidence to suggest that most Bloggers, who are more likely to be older, upload information to the Web even when they are fully aware of the risks (McCullagh, 2008). This shows that new regulatory procedures are needed to protect younger users and improve communication channels between parents and children who are at risk.

With ever increasing access to the internet children of all ages are going to be continually faced with some form of unwanted content. Most believe that the increased level of anonymity and access to the internet will cause an increased level of anti-normative behaviour, for example, the internet has been shown to increase gambling (Griffiths, 2003) child abuse (Carr, 2004) and pornography (Hughes, 2004). New benchmarks need to control the way that children are able to search the net, this stems from parental controls at home through to legislative responsibility to reduce the amount of harmful content on the Web.

Intellectual property and Copyright

Web 2.0 as a platform for content creation is based on the presumption that people will re-distribute content they find in others places on the Web. The content is typically owned by the site owner (the organisation hosting it or the user in whose domain the content is being created) and people who created or contributed to content on the site. Within blogs or media sharing sites the latter is usually limited to tags, comments or extra content that is clearly divisible from the original content. There is also the possibility that an entire system may own the copyright to all the content posted on it, such as YouTube and MySpace. In each of these communities the organisation writes their own ‘terms of service’ and ‘code of conduct’ that explain how information can be used and shared. In many cases, users of these latter sites are unaware of the legal, pragmatic and ethical guidelines that are not universally undertaken by these sites (this was shown in the formation of a hate group on Facebook mentioned earlier). The sites rely on users reporting issues that confound the interests of the site. These sites also make use of the Creative Commons license that involves a number of re-use policies for the public to avoid being held liable for copyright infringements. This involves a number of licenses that are continually evolving and can sometimes make use of a number of ‘take down’ measures for inappropriate content.

New Social landscapes

One further tool of the future that could change the way people learn and interact on a wider scale is Web 3D. Second Life (SL), for example, is an online ‘virtual world’ that enables the member to construct a fully 3D avatar and roam around the virtual world. In Second Life you are free to build any kind of structure or building; the only cost is incurred by paying for the piece of ‘land’ that the building resides on. SL has its own currency (Linden Dollars) that can be exchanged for US dollars before entering the virtual world. Similarly to the other technologies contained within this review, Second Life relies heavily on the student engaging with the technology on a personal level and using it in their own way as an educational device.

However, there is also a large number of teaching practices that are taking a similar form in SL as in the offline world. For example, new auditorium style lecture theatres are growing in SL that enable people to engage with different topics and speakers from all over the globe. There are also other Web 3D programs, such as World of Warcraft and The Simms that are still positioned as a game. However, SL is set out for members to roam freely and conduct in the usual activities they would do in the real world. The New Media Consortium has a number of videos that indicate the educational value of SL. There is a limitless possibility to the activities in SL that will allow students to recreate many learning settings, for example, taking a tour of ancient Greece or the world from above. There is a limitless potential to the experiences in SL and students can learn by ‘doing’ and ’seeing’ in a way that promotes creativity, communication and new forms of learning. Through these technologies modeling and simulation are ways of knowing and experiencing learning.

Possible Futures

This review does not support the possibility that new generations will only need a computer to teach them how to speak, calculate and talk by the year 2020 (Eskow, 1998). Instead, this review attempts to recognise that education of the future could have great success by harnessing the creative use of new technologies. By embracing the social aspects of future technological trends education could join the communication and participatory culture. In returning to William Gibson’s opening quote, we are reminded that many future technologies are already here – they are just waiting to be distributed on a wider scale. However, it is clear that at the rate that SNSs like MySpace and Facebook are growing they will not be able to continue for long. Most likely, a number of similar programs will emerge that facilitate the same social drive for information and creativity.

The future should be considered as a plurality of possibilities which will produce independent learners who are responsible for the own realization of these goals. One possibility is the growing sentiment of Personal Learning Environment (PLE) movement that is based on utilising Web 2.0 social software that enables learners to take control of their own education. Obviously, this has stronger implications for higher education, but aspects of the personal style of teaching will potentially filter down into teaching practices for younger children. However, it is difficult to see how many of these technologies will be different to the majority of systems that are already in place. In fact, Web 2.0 technologies currently work to try and aid the traditional schooling system by backing-up the education that takes place in the classroom. The PLE is generated to be almost self-sufficient and not require the work in the classroom. This seems to be returning to the original problem of excluding teachers from the educational process. This raises issues of assessment and the issues of a changing political climate that may detract from an education system of this kind.

A further possibility is that notions of pedagogy may change dramatically. As we have seen in this review, it is becoming more common to try and merge social, cultural aspects of learning with individual notions of agency. This raises the question; can schooling ever be constructed as an agency for individual forms of teaching, whilst maintaining or furthering a culture? If the answer is yes, then the future of teaching and learning will demand new forms of assessment, particularly in the higher education sector that will allow for pedagogic experimentation that will utilise Web 2.0 tools. Namely, how will Web 2.0 technologies that are formed through participation remain a sense of individual assessment? This is within a context that individual assessment is required for a labour market that demands a reorganisation of individual skills that can be assigned to certain jobs. Also, how will these new pedagogic models influence the learning in younger children? Will we be shaping the future possibilities of information and communication from a younger age? How can we then protect younger children from the risks? Would this eradicate the argument that has been explained as against notions of a digital native? In short, the future requires a great deal of research on the implications of changing pedagogic systems and new ways of understanding new knowledge spaces.

Conclusion

The aim of this review was to explore how students will view future education in light of the changes in knowledge construction, participation and networks. At the heart of this discussion was a drive to keep the vision of the future within a realm of certain possibility (in the sense that wild speculation about computer technology, however probable that future may become, does not aid the preparation for future education practices). The future has therefore involved a discussion of many of the technologies that exist currently, but on a wider scale. The first section focused on the new form of knowledge using examples from a range of blogs. These blogs indicated the amount of knowledge that was accessible to a student and encouraged them to question the origin of certain ‘facts’ and ‘truths’. The second section, entitled the networked classroom, gave an insight into the social, collaborative community that underpins future learning practices. Where SNSs like MySpace and Facebook encourage members to build a personal profile and identify with their network of values and practices.

The final section of the review was focused on the overall sense of knowledge and education in the future networked, participatory culture. This emphasised the essential role of communication and information from the earlier parts of the review. SNSs and Virtual worlds were explored as a new area of educational enhancement due to the limitless possibilities within education. All of these technologies require teaching to encourage the social aspects of online communities and a clinching of new tools and platforms that make education of the future possible. Learning has been shown to take many forms and to benefit, if not always directly, from the creative, innovative practices that are instilled in future collaborative technologies.

Web References:

http://moodle.org/

http://sakaiproject.org/portal

http://www.atutor.ca/

www.connexions-direct.com/

http://www.lamsinternational.com/

http://drupal.org/

http://www.open.ac.uk/study/index.htm

http://www.eportfolio.org/

http://www.scienceblog.com/

http://mathsblog.co.uk/

http://www.mothersclick.com/

http://tudiabetes.com/

http://researchblog.ecornell.com/

http://classblogmeister.com/

http://blo.gs/

http://technorati.com/

https://www.blogger.com/start

http://www.pitas.com/

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml

http://thesims.ea.com/

http://secondlife.com/

www.sagazone.co.uk/

http://hi5.com/

www.Facebook.com

www.MySpace.com

www.Bebo.com

http://www.blackboard.com/us/index.bbb

www.wikipedia.org

References

Allborn, E. and Williams, P. (2002) Nasties in the Net: Children and Censorship on the Web. New Library World, 103, pp.30-38

Baym, N. (1998) Talking about Soaps: Computer Practices and Computer Mediated Culture. In: Harris, C. and Alexander, A. (eds), Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture and Identity. New York, Hampton Press.

boyd, d. (2006) A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the definition of a medium. Reconstruction 6.4. Available from http://reconstruction.eserver.org/064/boyd.shtml Accessed 1.8.2007

boyd, d.(2008) Understanding Socio-Technical Phenomena in a web2.0 era. MSR New England Opening. Cambridge, MA., September 22.

Blood, R. (2002) Weblogs: A history and perspective. In Rodzvilla, J. (ed) We’ve got blog: How weblogs are changing our culture. Cambridge, MA., Perseus Publishing.

Carr, J. (2004) Children’s Safety Online: A Digital Manifesto. London, Children’s Coalition for Internet Safety.

Coté, M. (2003) The Italian Foucault: Subjectivity, Valorization, Autonomia. Politics and Culture, 3

Coté, M. and Pybus, J. (2007) Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks. Ephemera, 7 (1), pp.88-106.

Chen, S. (2003) A study of high school students Online Catalog searching behaviour. School Library Media Quarterly, pp.33-40.

comScore (2007) Shifts in Ad focus rankings in march provide interesting precursor to the google-Doubleclick merger. Comscore Media Matrix releases March top 50 web rankings and analysis. Social networking sites experience interesting gains in March; Spring brings Americans to home improvement, real estate and automotive sites. Available from www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1019

Gibson, W. (1984) Neuromancer. WHERE, Harper Collins Publishers.

Glenn, D. (2003) Scholars who blog. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 49 (39).

Griffiths, M.D. (2003) Internet Gambling: Issues, Concerns and Recommendations. Cyber Psychology and Behaviour, 6, pp.557.

Ebbinghaus, H. (1964 [1885]) Memory. trans. H.A. Ruger and C.E. Bussenius. New York, Dover.

Hughes, D.M. (2004) The use of new communications and information technologies for sexual exploitation of women and children. In: Waskul, D.D. (ed), Net.seXXX: Readings on Sex, Pornography, and the Internet. New York, Peter Lang.

Jenkins, H. (2006) Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York, New York University Press.

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Macgill, R. and Smith, R. (2007) Teens and Social Media. Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Lazzarato, M. (1996) Immaterial Labour. Available from http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcimmateriallabour3.htm

Levy, P. (1998) Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age. London and New York, Plenum Trade.

Lévy, P. (1999) Collective Intelligences: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace. (Trans. R. Bonomo). WHERE, Perseus Books.

Lingstone, S., Bober, M. and Helsper, E.J. (2005) Internet literacy among children and young people: findings from the UK children go online project. WHERE, WHO Publisher?

McCullagh, K. (2008) Blogging: Self-Presentation and Privacy. Informations and Communications Technology Law, 17 (1), pp.3-23

McLulan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The extensions of man. New York, McGraw Hill.

Nardi, B., Schiano, D. and Gumbrecht, M. (2004) Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary? Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Chicago, ACM.

Oblinger, D and Oblinger, J. (2005) Is it Age or IT: First steps towards understanding the Net Generation. In: Oblinger, J. and Oblinger, D. (eds) Education the Net Generation, Educause 2003. Available from http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/5989

OECD (2003) The Oxford English Dictionary. ‘Blog’

Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. NCB University Press. 9 (5).

Rice, J.E. (2008) The New ‘New’: Making a case for critical affect studies. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 94 (2), pp.200-212.

Shenton, A. and Dixon, P. (2004) Issues arising from youngster’s information seeking behaviour. Library and Information Science Research, 26, pp.117-200

Stutzman, F. (2006) An Evaluation of identity-sharing behaviour in social network communities. International Digital and Media Arts Journal, 3 (1). Available from www.ibiblio.org/fred/pubs/stutzman_pub4.pdf Accessed 22 August 2008.

Valenza, J.K. (2006) They might be gurus. Teacher Librarian, 34 (1), pp.18:26

Valkenburg, P.M., Peter, J. and Schouten. P. (2006) Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents’ well-being and social self-esteem. Cyberpsychology and Behaviour, 9 (5), pp.584-590.

Williams, P. and Rowlands, I. (2007) The literature on young people and their information behaviour. Work package II, A British Library/JISC Study.

Notes

1 Coté and Pybus work extensively with Michel Foucault’s notions of power/biopower. For an introduction to this work on power and subjectivities, cf. Coté (2003).

2 Jam recipe blog: http://www.andreasrecipes.com/2008/10/07/jalapeno-jelly/

3 Meeting people through Facebook article: http://www.datingserviceswebsite.com/meetinggirlsonline-using-facebook.php

[1] Second Life video from the New Media Consortium: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TMGR9q43dagandfeature=related

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Leisure and consumption

Traditional anchors for identity, such as occupation or region, now compete with, or are replaced by, identities based upon consumption, lifestyle and leisure (Giddens, 1991). Leisure-based activities have increasingly become important indicators of who we are and our place in society, including how we understand civic and political participation. A series of shifts have occurred which have further strengthened the relationships between consumption and identity for young people. These include delaying responsibilities associated with adulthood and independent living, an increase in communication media, and developments in advertising and marketing.

The cost of living and of higher education are two factors that have led to British youth delaying their participation in responsibilities associated with adulthood, such as independent living, home ownership or parenthood. Depending on their socio-economic status, on average, young people remain either financially dependent on their parents, or contribute financially to the parental home, until their late twenties (Parker, Aldridge & Measham, 1998). Without the need to pay for mortgages or children this delayed access to adult responsibilities means that young people often have more time and money for leisure than had previous generations.

The ability to consume has been further enhanced through developments in technology that have given young people unprecedented access to information on a multitude of consumption and leisure practices and to the people and communities who participate in them. Such technologies include the internet, increases in the number of television channels, and changes in publishing that have reduced production costs, making specialist smaller readership magazines commercially viable.

Young people are also targeted by those interested in commercially exploiting youth markets, including, for example, regional governments who have seen young adults’ consumption in bars and clubs as the solution to city centre regeneration (Chatterton & Hollands, 2003). A range of aggressive and insidious marketing techniques have been developed and used to target young people, including, for example, giving popular children free products to promote to their peer group. So while there has always been a complex interaction between the media, consumer interests and ‘authentic’ youth culture (Riley & Cahill, 2005) young people today experience unprecedented exposure to commercial pressures (see, for example, discussions of ‘ethnographic marketing’, ‘viral advertising’ and ‘KGOY’ (Kids growing older younger).

Branding and other marketing practices have intimately linked identity with consumption. For example, young men may identify as a ‘rebel’ by buying particular clothes rather than having participated in any act considered rebellious (Gill, Henwood & McClean, 2005). There is considerable debate over the agency young people have regarding consumption and identity. Young people are not necessarily passive consumers and while they may be attracted to particular identities associated with branded materials they may take these items and rework them in various ways, including parody. Others argue however, that the notion of agency is itself an illusion of discourses of consumption, or at the very least, subversion through consumption has limitations. (For an example of the debates on agency and consumption in relation to young women and sexualised clothing see Duit & van Zoonen (2006, 2007) and Gill (2007)).

The relationships between traditional anchors of identity and those produced through consumption and leisure are also disputed. Indeed, analyses of ‘changing times’ tend to be anecdotal, with limited empirical work available (www.identities.org.uk). It is likely, however, that young people’s subjectivities are constructed through a variety of identities shaped by ‘traditional’ orientations to class, region, family and gender, and more ‘liquid’, flexible ones orienting around leisure-based activities, such as sports or shopping. Thus, leisure and consumption-based identities may not have replaced traditional anchors for identity, rather, when young people had access to them these identities may sit alongside each other, being drawn upon when contextually relevant (Riley, Griffin & Morey, 2008). Having access to, and being able to participate in, both traditional and liquid identities is subject to a complex interaction of personal and social variables, but is linked to social inequality. For example, working class children are more likely to have a TV in their bedroom, increasing the amount of advertising to which they are subjected (Mayo, 2005).

Multiplicity

As well as opening up opportunities for leisure and consumption increases in communication media have offered a plethora of ways of understanding ourselves. In having access to, for example, history programmes about life in ancient Egypt, soap operas with evil twins, or channels dedicated to extreme sports, young people grow up in a world in which they have literally seen it all before. Thus, the proliferation and globalisation of near instant forms of technological communication make available a dynamically-shifting range of stories and forms of knowledge that can inform young people’s identity management. Subjectivity, then, is not considered to be constructed from pre-formed essences which exist independently outside of time, talk or other social activity, but are constantly (re)produced in interaction, constructed from the range of subject positions available to the individual, which may be contradictory or only partially formed.

Developments in communication technologies have intensified relationships between subjectivity and technology. There has always been a link between subjectivity and technology, for example using a hammer allows a person to experience their arm as a lever (Burkitt, 1999). However, distinctions between bodies, selves and technology have increasingly blurred, leading analysts to talk of cyborg as a metaphor for understanding contemporary subjectivity in which the boundaries between organism and machine are transgressed and from which new senses of self emerge (Gergen, 1991). For example, mobile phones can give us the sense of never being alone, of carrying with us the potential of always being able to connect to others.

For contemporary young people, exposed to and consuming a range of communication media, consumption and leisure practices, the traditional move from identifying with one’s family to one’s peer group is now one that is likely to involve multiple peer groups. It is therefore more appropriate to think of youth cultures in the plural in order to foreground the multiplicity of identities that orient around the notion of youth and to think of young people moving dynamically between these communities. In previous eras, subcultures, such as hippies or punks, bestowed meaningfulness on those who clearly identified with one group, locating authenticity in those who most closely approximated the permanent alternative lifestyle that reflected the norms associated with this group (McKay, 1998). Now such an understanding of authenticity may be less valued and meaningfulness may be as easily located in temporary, fluid and multiple identities, identities facilitated through technology and consumption practices. So while some people may still strongly identify with one group, others adopt a more playful pick-and-mix approach, moving through a kaleidoscope of fractured scenes and taste cultures (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2004).

While youth cultures have multiplied and fractured, other, homogenising forces have come into play, including the globalisation of youth cultures and the blurring of adult and youth activities. Communication technologies have aided the globalisation and commercialisation of youth cultures, working as homogenising forces that enable youth cultures to be formed and communicated almost instantly in more or less similar ways across the world (see, for example, Studdert’s (2006) discussion on African Chelsea football club supporters). There has also been a blurring of adult and youth interests and activities. Just as young people delay taking on adult responsibilities and so extend their adolescence into adulthood, older generations too have been less inclined to relinquish youthful activities. The music video game ‘Guitar Hero’, for example, recently advertised itself as cross-generational entertainment for parents and their teenage children to use while queuing together for a festival. Successful movement across these boundaries is not, however, a given. Instead, scenes usually fracture and multiply to accommodate niche markets, for example ‘Baby Raves’ – electronic dance music daytime events held for parents with small children.

Having a range of identities has traditionally been understood as psychologically healthy, since a person can maintain positive self esteem by drawing on other aspects of self if one aspect experiences failure (see, for example, work on Social Identity Theory by Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The increase in opportunities to experience multiple identities may therefore be considered to have positive potential. Creating different identities, such as online avatars or Bluetooth monikers, allow people to construct different senses of selves that represent or allow them to engage in different behaviours and activities. For example, different DJ names can represent different types of music played by that person, freeing the DJ from being pigeon-holed while also allowing him/herself to communicate to his/her potential audience what kind of music to expect on a particular night. However, concern has been raised that the number of identities a person may be expected to dynamically and, in a 24 hour culture, perpetually, move through, can create over-demanding situations, causing stress. Furthermore, some understandings will inevitably clash with others, so that multiplicity is associated with contradiction. For example, young women are expected to both have ‘girl power’ and to be heterosexually attractive, thereby reproducing traditional expectations of femininity (for examples, see Gill 2006, or http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/newFemininities/).

Problems associated with consumption are also implicated in the management of multiple identities, since these different aspects of self are often facilitated through the ability to consume. Participation requires, for example, entrance to clubs, appropriate clothes, or technological equipment. School children regularly use social networking sites after school to communicate with each other, creating social exclusion for those without access to the internet at home. Thus, there are significant structural inequalities in the ability to adopt a playful ‘pick-and-mix’ stance. Indeed significant inequalities may be produced at the most basic level of self-storying, since the most excluded in society may struggle even to tell one, let alone, multiple narratives about themselves.

Neo-liberalism

The need to story oneself with multiple narratives, whether drawn from traditional- or consumption-based identity markers, is particularly relevant because of the dominance of neo-liberalism. Identity has always been an important marker for young people, and engaging in leisure and consumption, such as in choices around appearance and clothes, has played a significant role in this. What is different for today’s youth is the tightening of meaning around identity and consumption that has been facilitated through neo-liberal rhetoric of risk, responsibility and individualism.

Neo-liberalism describes the idea that people are encouraged to see themselves as if they are autonomous, rational, risk-managing subjects, responsible for their own destinies and called “to render one’s life knowable and meaningful through a narrative of free choice and autonomy – however constrained one might actually be” (Gill, 2006, p.260; see also Kelly, 2006). From this position, the social context in which a person lives is reduced to their immediate interpersonal relations, and any personal, social or health problems, and their attendant solutions, are located within the individual. Neo-liberalism allows people to make sense of themselves in individualistic and psychological terms, understanding their consumption practices as freely chosen markers of their identity (Cronin, 2003). Neo-liberal rhetoric of individual choice and responsibility now dominates much of post-industrial sense making about what it means to be a good person. Such changes have been identified as powerful new forms of governance (Rose, 1989). For example, being asked to work excessive and low paid hours may not be considered exploitation but accounted for in terms of a worker’s psychological characteristic of being a helpful person (Walkerdine, 2002). Thus, young people are developing their sense of self in a context in which wider discourses in society encourage them to understand themselves through psychological and individual discourses, rather than those that are communal or sociological.

Neo-liberal subjectivity has been associated with an increased focus on the body as an important site for identity management. For example, there has been a coupling between neo-liberal values of rationality and responsibility and the cultural valuing of slenderness, so that a slender and toned body has come to represent a person who has rational control over their appetites and who acts responsibly in relation to maintaining a healthy body. These associations mean that body size has come not just to signify physical health, but also mental health and morality (Riley, et al, 2008).

The relationship between the body and identity may be particularly important for young people, given that in comparison to adults, young people tend to have less control over other aspects of their lives. Young people may employ a range of body modification techniques, from dieting and weight training to cosmetic surgery or body art. As an example, body art, an umbrella term for a variety of practices including tattoos and piercings, has become increasingly popular as a way of articulating personal and social identities (Riley & Cahill, 2005) and with continued developments in technology and cosmetic surgery may produce ever more creative forms of body modification (for example, the use of implants to create horns).

Youth cultures are often associated with pleasure and hedonism, and the body is central to these issues. For example, electronic music dance culture (also known as ‘rave’) employs technologies such as sound systems, lasers, electronically manufactured music and ‘designer’ drugs to produce hyper real communal and embodied experiences (Wilson, 2006). These experiences allow participants to develop identities and experiences of self that may be incorporated into neo-liberal narratives of self. Neo-liberal rhetoric can also be employed to justify such pleasures, as it can be argued that the individual has the right and freedom to engage in escapism through extreme but pleasurable intoxication (Riley, Morey & Griffin, 2008). Given the excessive weekend drinking seen across Britain’s city centres such a ‘culture of intoxication’, in which people collectively seek and celebrate a loss of control, may be considered normalised for many young people (Measham & Brain, 2005). Paradoxically then, neo-liberal rights and responsibilities discourses may be employed to justify embodied, communal, intoxicated and even ‘mad’ selves, selves that are the antithesis of the rational neo-liberal subject.

Neo-tribalism

Neo-liberalism has arguably come to dominate much of contemporary western thinking about subjectivity, however, it is not without competing discourses. For example, sociologist Michel Maffesoli, while also emphasising the informal and local, argues that contemporary social organisation is highly social. Maffesoli’s theory of neo-tribalism challenges notions of society as increasingly alienated and individualistic and instead characterises daily life as a continuous movement through a range of small and potentially temporary groups that are distinguished by shared lifestyles, values and understandings of what is appropriate behaviour (Maffesoli, 1996). These groups give a sense of belonging and identity, examples of which include gathering to watch football in a bar, participants on service user websites or regular commuters sharing public transport. What distinguishes neo-tribal social formation from traditional social groupings is that people belong to a variety of groups, many of them by choice, so that neo-tribal memberships are plural, temporary, fluid and often elective (Riley, Griffin & Morey, in submission).

Within neo-tribal theory people are understood as moving dynamically through a series of groups, some more partially formed than others, which are in the person’s locality. However, technologies such as the internet make the notion of being ‘local’ relative, since people may share physical or virtual proximity. That neo-tribes are distinguished by the grouping, however temporary in time or space, of people who share lifestyles, values and understandings of what is appropriate behaviour leads Maffesoli to analyse such groups as engaged in moments of ’sovereignty over one’s own existence’. Neo-tribal gatherings provide sovereignty because they create temporary pockets of freedom to engage in behaviours and values associated with that group, which may be different from the values and expected behaviours of other groups (that participants may or may not also be members of). For example, a person may shout aggressively when watching football in a bar, but would not raise their voice at a family meal.

Creating spaces in which to practice one’s group values requires a turning away from other groups in order to ‘do your own thing’. The resultant lack of engagement with other groups, in particular more dominant groups, often leads to youth cultures being constructed as problematic. First, because it is read as a sign of young people failing to engage with adult groups or adult led activities deemed good for the young people. Second, these groups are often understood as challenging the dominant culture or celebrating values at odds with the dominant culture, creating moral panics that construct young people as ‘folk devils’. However, analyses of these groups often show a complex blending of values that both reflect and challenge dominant values. For example, pro-ana websites, which are created by young women to promote the concept of anorexia as a lifestyle choice, are an example of young women engaging in valued practices of being pro-active and employing technological skills. However, they are applying themselves to the promotion of a cause that can lead to serious illness or death. Similarly, setting up an illegal rave requires the bringing together of a diverse set of resources that include entrepreneurial, organisational, musical and electrical engineering skills, skills used to facilitate parties that are unlicensed, held on other people’s property and involve high levels of illicit drug use.

Dominant values themselves are, of course, constantly being negotiated and Maffesoli (1996) argues that there is currently a general move by the ‘masses’ away from the institutional power and rational organisations that defined the modern age to a zeitgeist that celebrates sociality, proximity, emotional attachments and hedonistic values. Thus, when groups create opportunities to practice sovereignty over their existence they are creating spaces in which to engage in values that orient around sociality, emotionality and hedonism. In relating neo-tribalism to young people, it may be useful to recognise the similarities between Maffesoli’s concept of sovereignty and Hakim Bey’s ‘Temporary Autonomous Zones’ (TAZ), a term he uses to describe transitory unsanctioned self-governing sites (Bey, 1991). In coming together to participate in acts of sociality and hedonism, TAZs or neo-tribal gatherings can be understood as providing sites of resistance to a neo-liberal sensibility based on rationality, rights, responsibility and individualism.

The creation of temporary and fluid spaces in which to participate in one’s own values, can be understood as an emerging form of political engagement, an ‘everyday politics’ that focuses on the local, informal or personal, rather than engaging with official organisations and institutional power. Personal lives have been used previously as the basis for political activism (examples being the ‘identity politics’ of feminism, gay/lesbian liberation and black power). However, such forms of political activism, like traditional political activities, often focus on a social change agenda. What distinguishes the new personalised form of politics is that the focus is on creating temporary spaces in which to participate in ones’ own values and associated behaviours – to be able to ‘do your own thing’ – thus participants do not necessarily need to engage with other groups or organisations of governance. Everyday politics is thus about creating spaces in which to live out alternative values, shifting political participation to the ‘everyday’ individual or informal group level.

An ‘everyday politics’ may be particularly relevant for young people because of a perceived lack of attention from those involved in traditional politics to issues of concern for young people (eg the environment). Furthermore, as Harris argues, when young people engage with state institutions to effect social change, their action problematically works to both endorse these systems and to locate themselves in a subordinate position within them: “young people may well have their own ideas about how states and citizenry should operate, and to ask to be included or to participate in the current order is to endorse a system that may be fundamentally at odds with these other visions. Further, it is to accept one’s subordinate position as a fringe dweller who can only ever hope to be invited or asked to participate, but who can never do the inviting themselves” (2001, p.187). Like Maffesoli, Harris argues that one solution is not to engage with institutions associated with governance and power, but to create one’s own spaces of autonomy. Harris’s (2001) work on girlzines is such an example. Harris (ibid.) argued that the young women involved used internet magazines to create their own space from which to negotiate, redefine and reclaim politics, citizenship and novel gender subjectivities. Harris’s work suggests that leisure and entertainment based activities can provide sites for young people to engage in practices that relate to participation and citizenship, providing the opportunity to produce ‘counter stories’ that act as “forms of politics, often misrecognised as entertainment” (Harris, Carney & Fine, 2001, p.12). Neo-liberalism is implicated in ‘everyday politics’ since neo-liberal rhetoric of focusing on the personal through discourses of individual choice and personal responsibility provides the ideological context in which locating political participation at the individual or informal group level makes sense. However, arguments for these forms of political engagement are controversial and empirical work is scattered and underdeveloped (a special issue of ‘Youth’ on everyday politics edited by Anita Harris is currently underway; also see Riley et al, in submission).

Implications

Adolescence and early adulthood are traditionally conceptualised as making up an important time in identity development. Today’s youth experience this time in a context in which the culturally dominant model of the self is of an autonomous, rational, psychological subject who bears ultimate responsibility for the self and who must manage multiple identities, many of which are made available through consumption and technology.

This context provides a range of opportunities for pleasurable and playful engagement with identity, allowing the young people who can take these opportunities to construct a sense of place in the world. However, this construction of self also creates certain stressors. First, locating every success or failure at the personal or psychological level absents other ways of making sense of oneself and masks the impact of structural inequalities on life ‘choices’. Second, the constant pressure to (re)make yourself and manage multiplicity is both demanding and requires the management of contradictory identities. Third, structural inequalities mean that some people do not have the resources to do this kind of identity management.

In masking the impact of structural inequalities neo-liberalism sets the scene for a shift towards a personalising of politics. Locating oneself at the personal and psychological level, coupled with a general move away from engaging with traditional institutional power, creates the context in which it may make sense for young people to focus their political energies on informal acts, such as recycling or benefit gigs for small charities. This shift can be read as reflecting an alienation from traditional politics that is a part of the contemporary British political landscape (Colman & Gøtze, 2001; Harris, 2001), or more positively, as a sign of a zeitgeist swing away from one form of political engagement to another (Maffesoli, 1996).

Although neo-liberalism has come to dominate our understanding of the subject it is one concept amongst many. One alternative to neo-liberalism that also has political potential is neo-tribalism (Maffesoli, 1996). Neo-tribalism argues that our identities are made from moving through a variety of local groups to which we have an emotional attachment, these groups are conceptualised as creating temporary pockets of sovereignty in which to celebrate values of hedonism and sociality. Youth cultures can be conceptualised as neo-tribes, in which young people carve out temporal spaces in which to practice particular sets of values and behaviours. In creating these spaces neo-tribes can be considered as new forms of political participation, since they allow alternative values systems to survive. Young people may therefore create their own neo-tribes in which to celebrate identities that offer an alternative to the rational risk managing neo-liberal subject, the ‘culture of intoxication’ being one such example.

The moral panic that ensued from today’s culture of intoxication is part of a long history of representing ‘youth as problem’ and can be seen to inform tensions around how contemporary young people appropriate space and technology. While being youthful is a valued commodity, young people themselves are often represented as deviant, representations that are classed and gendered – sexually active females, criminally active males, for example (Griffin, 1993). (For a contemporary example, see the very particular and narrow reading of youth in the World Bank’s World Development Report, which locates solutions to problematic youth in formal institutions, absenting the possibilities that youth cultures themselves provide positive spaces for identity development (Luttrell-Rowland, 2007)).

Hedonistic youth cultures can, however, be analysed as attempts to use pleasure as a vehicle for creating positive social alternatives. Rave culture, for example, exhorts the values of PLUR – peace, love, unity and respect (Wilson, 2006). Similarly, excessive weekend drinking in city centres has been analysed as a sign that working class youth have the confidence to use these public spaces in a way that previous generations did not (Chatterton & Hollands, 2003).

However, such forms of resistance may reinforce the overall dominance of neo-liberalism. For example, engaging in intoxicated excesses at the weekend may release tension created by the stress of being a neo-liberal subject, facilitating participants to return to work on Monday. Participants of hedonistic resistance to neo-liberalism often account for their behaviour with neo-liberal rhetoric of rights and risk, arguing that if one is ultimately responsible for oneself then one also has a right to do what one wants with that self (Riley, Morey & Griffin, 2008). There is therefore a complex interaction between alternative and dominant discourses of self since one may be enabled by the other. Young people may be snatching spaces to be ‘free’ but they are using the masters’ tools to do so. Thus, while neo-tribal memberships provide participants with a sense of belonging they may not challenge the neo-liberal construction of self as a project. Furthermore, neo-tribalism still requires the subject to manage multiplicity (in this case of group/tribal based identities) with the attendant stressors of multiplicity described above. Neo-liberal constructions of the self and multiple subjectivities are thus likely to continue into the future as significant ways of understanding oneself and place in the world.

There are examples of young people participating in collective action, a recent example being the anti-Iraq war ‘Not in My Name’ campaign. However, it has been argued that the impact of locating responsibility at the personal level has reduced young people’s ability to make collective challenges since they are less likely to be exposed to discourses of collective experience and struggle, including, for example, those of feminism (McRobbie, 2008). Neo-liberalism may also foster a culture in which the social contract between citizen and government is weakened – if successes or failures are reduced to the interpersonal, then the citizen owes the state nothing.

The proliferation and globalisation of near instant forms of technological communication combined with the multiple and fragmented nature of social lives means that we have available to us an ever shifting kaleidoscope of understandings from which we can draw on in the (re)production of neo-liberal subjectivities. These subjectivities are reduced to their immediate interpersonal relations, to the realm of the personal and psychological, but not necessarily to the private. Communication technologies allow the self to be (re)produced in the public sphere, for example though entries in social network sites such as Facebook, blogs or personal and work websites. Just as every aspect of life can already be seen on TV, so we replay it back using technology to make partial and fractured narratives of ourselves that span space and time. See, for example, ‘FutureMe.org’, an online resource for sending emails to yourself in the future. The ‘best’ of these messages are made public in an anonymous form for entertainment. Indeed it may be that communication technologies are creating a situation where people understand aspects of themselves as only truly meaningful when offered up for the consumption of others. It is possible therefore that communication technologies, such as Web 2.0, are creating a new shift in which the private may only be meaningfully experienced when in the public.

Developments in technology are likely to enhance this process. For example, the ability to store a lifetime of video on an iPod will allow an individual to consume their own life experiences (Cliff, O’Malley & Taylor, 2008). Fear of social exclusion if one doesn’t participate in these technologies, plus surveillance technology, such as CCTV and the use of finger print scanners to ID children in schools, means that there is only limited opt out from these forms of technology. Furthermore, communication technologies do not provide unlimited ways of self-storying. Rather the technologies themselves and the cultural valuing of particular traits create powerful scaffolding around which people build their self-narratives. For example, there are international internet dating websites that require participants to describe the colour of their hair and eyes, despite these being primarily defining features for Caucasian people. Similarly, research on online gaming shows that participants regularly create avatars that fulfil conventional definitions of heterosexually attractive gendered attributes (for example, women create female avatars that have slender, toned bodies) (Waskul & Edgley, 2000).

In the future young people will therefore have to negotiate a self that is splintered off into a series of surfaces that reflect both the technologies that enable them and the cultural mores in which they are located. Sociologist Norbert Elias argued that changes in social structures during the Middle Ages led to a shift in human subjectivity in which the public and private became compartmentalised. Responses to actions such as public defecation changed, so that people moved these behaviours to the private sphere. These changes led to a shift in consciousness in which thoughts could also become private, making, for example, the experience of ‘repressed anger’ a possibility, since previously anger was a public act and not a private experience (that one may or may not express). Changes in contemporary social organisation, enabled through communication technologies, have the potential to create similar radical changes in subjectivity. Notably, a fractured and multiple self experienced in the public sphere and reflected through technology across a range of temporal physical and virtual locations.

Already the internet has produced a situation in which aspects of our selves are created through technology and distributed across time and space. Some of these selves have connections to each other, as in the past selves communicating with future selves as via FutureMe.org. With other selves the connections to the original source(s) are broken or new connections are made, such as forgotten photographs uploaded onto public domains and re-appropriated by friends, colleagues or people unknown. An example of re-appropriation I found was a young girl’s homepage that had a photograph of another (attractive) child on it, with the explanation that ’she looks a bit like me’. It may be that young people will experience fractured and multiple subjectivity in the same way that they are encouraged to consider high street clothing – as tools of identity to be temporarily appropriated, experienced and then cast off in favour of some new look or experience. Future subjectivity may therefore be conceptualised as a collection of multiple, diffuse selves existing across time and space, that have differing degrees of relationships with each other and perhaps no longer needing to be held together by the concept of a ‘core self’.

It is likely, therefore, that in the future young people will need to find ways to exist in the plural. In a preferable future they will be able to develop a sense of being valued and of having opportunities to participate positively in the many social worlds that will be potentially available to them. Schools and other educational institutions will have a duty to help facilitate this.

One way to increase young people’s access to traditional and liquid identities from which to story themselves would be through the creation of more personalised education. In the same way that technologies are enabling increasingly more individually tailored medical interventions, a personalised educational system could be developed in which each student would in effect be their own portfolio manager, managing themselves as a project. The aim for educationalists would be to help young people identify their values, interests and talents and to find ways of using these to develop the various skills they need to become critical and engaged citizens who feel valuated and located in their world.

By drawing on young people’s own interests educators may use leisure and consumption as a way to excite them about education, creating holistic ways to develop young people’s understanding and engagement with their world. Pop music, for example, is often a key site for young people’s interest and identity. Music technologies now allow people to compose music without needing knowledge of musical theory. Creating music with this technology can be used as a starting point for students to gain a sense of self-efficacy, from which they might develop their education holistically, exploring a range of associated subjects including musical theory, socio-political history and practical learning through organising and performing in a concert. It may therefore be an advantage to blur education with entertainment, particularly given the expectation, at least in some sections of society, that work should be enjoyable (Tapscott, 2008).

Future education may require different relations of authority between educational institutions and their students. Already communication technologies have reduced teachers’ control over pupils. For example, school pupils have created a mobile phone ring tone that their teachers cannot hear by recording the ‘mosquito’, a high pitched noise used to keep teenagers away from public amenities like late night shops. Technologies are likely to increase young people’s autonomy, like some contemporary adults they may work (or study) from home, or in the future, they may use biologically embedded technologies only viewable to themselves (Cliff, O’Malley & Taylor, 2008). A personalised education system that incorporates the values and interests of the student is likely to enhance self-motivated study and create more egalitarian relationships with educational institutions. However, respecting the values and interests of students may bring challenges, given that youth cultures are often a complex blend of dominant and counter cultural values. After all, one can confidently predict that young people will sometimes do things not expected or approved of by their elders.

Communication technologies mean that educators and students can draw from a huge range of resources of expertise. For example, lectures from world renowned academics are available on ‘YouTube’. The role of future educators in a personalised educational setting would then be to help young people identify which sites may help them develop the skills they most need to meet their educational interests, values and needs. Educators would also have the role of helping students make links between their personal portfolios and the wider world. For example, identifying transferable skills, connections to the job market and developing critical analytical skills that would help them negotiate their way through their virtual and physical worlds. One way to do this is for students to be encouraged to explore the power of language in structuring the way people understand their world, so that students can critically evaluate the texts that they use through the analytics of argument, reflection and doubt (Gergen with Wortham, 2001; Postman, 1995). Postman (1995), for example, argues for a curriculum that constructs knowledge as historically multiple, borrowed and intermingled. Such a curriculum would introduce plurality and set a framework for understanding one’s own multiplicity, contradictions and socio-historic context.

Drawing on Postman would allow future educators to help young people develop a critical framework to negotiate and manage both their personal and social identities, while challenging some of the individualism of neo-liberalism and allowing young people to explore the impact of taking up particular identities in particular ways. This approach would prepare young people to both positively engage with the requirements of neo-liberal subjectivity, while also having the critical skills to explore alternative discourses, such as those associated with collective identities or spirituality.

In helping young people locate themselves as persons in relationships, embedded in a range of local and global communities educators would act as ‘community enablers’. An example of using communication technologies to develop positive social identity based narratives comes from California, where young Hispanic pupils, living in a context in which their families have lower socio-economic status in comparison to their white counterparts, worked with Web 2.0 technology to produce positive narratives of their ethnic identity, which were then shared between themselves and with their wider community (Rodriguez, 2007). A similar project could, for example, be used with young people in the UK who struggle to find positive self-narratives in their communities (for example, young unemployed working class men in post-industrial Britain (Winlow, 2001)).

Helping young people form positive relationships with their community could be enabled through setting assessments that connect individuals together to demonstrate the values and necessity of group cohesion. Efficacy of group work would be further enhanced if assessments were directly linked to involvement in community action, either in the school or wider community, so that young people were encouraged to consider themselves has having meaningful connections to their communities (see action research and social constructionist approaches in education, eg Gergen with Wortham, 2001; Reason and Bradbury, 2008). Such projects would explicitly or implicitly teach students about social citizenship, and have the potential to tap into neo-tribal values of sociality, emotionality and the pleasures associated with creating pockets of sovereignty over one’s own existence.

Neo-tribal theory argues that as people move in and out of the various groups to which they are affiliated their understanding of what is right and acceptable behaviour becomes relative, since it shifts for each group (Maffesoli, 1996). This form of relativist morality replaces the universal distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ on which modernist notions of morality are based. Maffesoli’s argument is that such a relativist perspective facilitates tolerance, since it allows for, and indeed normalises, a diversity of values and practices across different communities and social groups. If this hypothesis is correct it would be possible for educators to help young people identify their various memberships and to facilitate pride and positive identities in these memberships, without the need to negatively construct out-groups. An ideal outcome of neo-tribalism, then, is to enjoy confidence in one’s own memberships while maintaining an interest in others, a standpoint that may protect young people from being attracted to more fundamentalist orientated identities that provide a sense of security through the creation of a negative ‘Other’.

Future educators could therefore value and work with what students bring to their classes, facilitate successful management of the self as a project and act as community enablers. In a preferable future they would also take on the role of protector. Young people will need protection and guidance in terms of managing their public selves, including the implications of how they present themselves online, as well as managing the stresses of multiple identities (which may include class related expectations of over- or under- achievement). Students will need support in how to engage with technology without getting lost or consumed by it. Young people will also need to be protected against bullying facilitated by technology (eg mass ‘hate’ texts), privacy invasions (by both individuals and government institutions) and virulent advertising.

A preferable future then, is one where schools are fun, interesting, relevant and safe. Places where it is recognised that young people bring a range of interests and values to their educational setting, which are engaged with in order to facilitate the development of positive personal and social identities. A personalised portfolio model of education in which the educator acts as a facilitator may help students gain the skills for successful management of the self as a project, so that they may enjoy the rights and responsibilities attached to neo-liberal subjectivity. However, educators would also need to provide alternative discourses to neo-liberalism, helping young people develop critical faculties and to explore other ways of understanding themselves, in particular as persons in relationships embedded in communities. Educators will also need to act as protective stewards, shielding young people from some of the more aggressive and insidious aspects of technology, surveillance and commercialisation, helping young people develop skills to safely negotiate their identities across the various mediums they will inhabit.

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

References

Bey, H. (1991) T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. New York, Autonomedia.

Burkitt, I. (1999) Bodies of Thought: Embodiment, Identity and Modernity. London, Sage.

Chatterton, P. and Hollands, R. (2003) Urban nightscapes. Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power. London, Routledge.

Cliff, D., O’Malley and Taylor, J. (2008) Beyond Current Horizon’s paper.

Colman, S. and Gøtze, J. (2001) ‘Bowling Together: On line Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation. London, Hansard Society.

Duits, L. and van Zoonen, L. (2006) Headscarves and Porno-Chic: Disciplining Girls’ Bodies in the European Multicultural Society. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13 (2), pp103-117.

Duits, L. and van Zoonen, L. (2007) Who’s Afraid of Female Agency? A Rejoinder to Gill’. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 14 (2), pp161-1

Gergen, K. (1991) The Saturated Self. New York, Basic Books.

Gergen, K.J. with Wortham, S. (2001) Social Constructionism and Pedagogical Practice. In: Gergen, K.J., Social Constructionism in Context. London, Sage.

Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Gill, R. (2006) Gender and the Media. London, Polity Press.

Gill, R. (2007) Critical respect: The difficulties and dilemmas of agency and ‘choice’ for feminism: A reply to Duits and van Zoonen. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 14 (1), pp.65-76.

Gill, R., Henwood, K. and McClean, C. (2005) Body projects and the regulation of normative masculinity. Body & Society, 11, pp37-62.

Griffin, Chris (1993) Representations of Youth: The study of Youth and Adolescence in Britain and America. Cambridge, Polity.

Greener, T. and Hollands, R. (2006) ‘Beyond subculture and post-subculture? The case of virtual psytrance’ Journal of Youth Studies, 9 (4), pp393-418.

Harris, A. (2001) ‘Dodging and waving: Young women countering the stories of youth and citizenship’, International Journal of Critical Psychology, 4 (2), pp183-199.

Harris, A., Carney, S. and Fine, M. (2001) Counter work: Introduction to ‘Under the covers: Theorising the Politics of Counter Stories’. International Journal of Critical Psychology, 4 (2), pp6-18.

Kelly, P. (2006) ‘The entrepreneurial self and ‘youth at-risk’: Exploring the horizons of identity in the twenty-first century’, Journal of Youth Studies, 9 (1), pp17-3.

Luttrell-Rowland, M. (2007) Gang soldiers and ‘Idle Girls’: Constructions of youth and development in world bank discourse. Research in Comparative and International Education, 2 (3), pp230-241.

McKay, G. (1998) DIY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties Britain. London and New York, Verso

McRobbie, A. (2008) Displacement Feminism. London, Sage.

Maffesoli, M. (1996) The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London, Sage.

Mayo, E. (2005) Shopping Generation. London, National Consumer Council.

Measham, F. and Brain, K. (2005) ‘Binge’ drinking, British alcohol policy and the new culture of intoxication. Crime, Media, Culture, 1 (3), pp262-283

Muggleton, D. and Weinzier, L. (2004) The Post-Subcultural Reader. New York, Berg.

Postman, N, (1995) The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York, Alfred Knopf.

Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (2008) Handbook of Action Research. London, Sage.

Riley, S., Burns, M., Frith, H., Wiggins, S. and Markula, P. (2008) Critical Bodies: Representations, Identities and Practices of Weight and Body Management. London, Palgrave.

Riley, S.C.E. and Cahill, S. (2005) Managing meaning & belonging: Young women’s negotiation of authenticity in Body Art. Journal of Youth Studies, 8 (3), pp261-279.

Riley, S., Griffin, C. and Morey, Y. (2008) Reverberating Rhythms: Social Identity and Political Participation in Clubland. End of Award Report, ESRC, ref.RES-000-22-1171.

Riley, S., Morey, Y. and Griffin, C. (2008). Ketamine: The Divisive Dissociative. A Discourse Analysis of the Constructions of Ketamine by Participants of a Free Party (Rave) Scene. Addiction, Research and Theory, 16 (3), pp217-230.

Riley, S., Griffin, C. and Morey, Y. The case for ‘everyday politics’: evaluating neo-tribal theory as a way to understand alternative forms of political participation, using Electronic Dance Culture as an example. Sociology, in submission.

Rodriguez, M. (2007) Transnationalism through the eyes of young people. Paper presented at the BSA seminar Young people, new technologies and political engagement, University of Surrey, 24-25^th July.

Rose, N. (1989) Inventing our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Studdert, D. (2006) Conceptualising community: Beyond State and Individual. London, PalgraveMacMillan.

Tajfel, H. and Turner, J.C. (1986). The social identity theory of inter-group behavior. In: Worchel, S. and Austin, L.W. eds. Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago, Nelson-Hall.

Tapscott, D. (2008) Generation Expects. Guardian, 8^th November, p.1. ‘Work’ section

Walkerdine V ed (2002) Challenging Subjects: Critical Psychology for a New Millennium. London, Palgrave MacMillan.

Waskul, D., Douglass, M. and C. Edgley. (2000) ‘Cybersex: Outercourse and the Enselfment of the Body’, Symbolic Interaction, 23 (4), pp375-397.

Wilson, B. (2006) Fight, Flight or Chill. Subcultures, Youth and Rave into the Twenty-First Century. Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Winlow, S. (2001) Badfellas: Crime, Tradition and New Masculinities. London, Berg.

This is being used for example at a City Academy in Bristol to replace taking the register and for ordering lunch.

See Gergen with Wortham (2001) for a discussion of social constructionist approach to education, which includes the principles of making education relevant to student’s lives, taking a holistic approach, encouraging reflexivity and making links to activities and actions outside the classroom.

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Over the last 70 years, the English education system has been twice remade – first in 1944, and then in 1988. These episodes introduced important institutional change, but they went further than this. In each case, they configured new relationships between education and other kinds of social arrangement, both economic and cultural. The 1944 Education Act established education as key to economic growth, and made school for the first time central to the experience of working-class teenagers; the changes brought about by the Education Reform Act (1988) connected education to an emerging knowledge economy, and laid the basis for a culture of attainment and competition, in school and beyond. In each case, educational reform was driven by powerful forces of social and political change: broadly social democratic in the first instance, Conservative – that is to say, market-orientated – in the second. In each case, too, a political revolution was involved, in which some social actors came to the fore, while others faded from the scene. Thus 1944 promoted local education authorities and teachers’ organisations to a position of power, while 1988 saw these actors largely replaced by the rising influence of school managements, and, later, private providers.

The educational energies set in motion by ‘1988′ carried through into the New Labour years, and in many ways were strengthened and systematised then (Ball, 2008). This review seeks to take the measure of their impact. But it also addresses wider issues. ‘1988′ was part of a larger programme of transformation, often called ‘neo-liberal’ (Harvey, 2005) and to make sense of issues of knowledge, identity, culture and community, means that the interaction of education with the other elements of this programme needs to be addressed. It is by taking the measure of these combined transformations that the review tries to think its way into the future. Will the period 2010-2025 see such a profound re-shaping of the education system as those of 1944 and 1988? Will it accelerate, or divert, the cultural and social energies set in motion in the 1980s? Will the social and occupational arrangements associated with the famously uneven patterns of wealth distribution created through neo-liberalism harden into permanent structures? We can start to answer such questions by looking at what social research is telling us about the present.

Grounded, differentiated cultures

Social theory, Majima and Savage (2006) point out, is prone to make the claim that some time in the late 20th century, a transformation of the human personality occurred, that can be described in terms of ‘individualisation’ (Beck and Beck-Gersheim, 2001), detraditionalisation (Giddens, 1994) or an accommodation of ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2000). These accounts depict a world in which people have become increasingly ‘reflexive’ about their lifestyle choices and their values; they rely less on traditional modes of thinking, and are, compared with earlier generations, less influenced by the cultures to which they belong. Majima and Savage are sceptical; they regard these claims as being ‘empirically ungrounded’. For them, values and meanings are in a strong sense culturally located. They grow out of mundane experience, and are more susceptible to immediate material pressures than to long waves of cultural change. Specifically, ‘attitudes and values’ arise from the processes through which people seek to differentiate themselves from some social groups and claim affinity with others. (2007, p297). These processes occur in a ‘politically charged environment’; they are products of ‘wars of manoeuvres’ between social groups and positions (2007, p312). If we want to understand culture, therefore, we need to understand it in terms of social location, of difference and of contestation.

These arguments direct us towards two kinds of understanding. The first prioritises the material position of young people, in terms of the influence upon them of the job market, of education, and of their communities. The second emphasises cultural difference. In both cases, the intention is not to construct ‘youth’ or ‘young people’ as unified categories, but to look at patterns of change from a perspective concerned with their varied impacts on the young. French researchers, reflecting on the youth uprisings against police violence and economic insecurity in 2005-6, have written of the need to think in terms of ‘deux jeunesses’, those of the banlieues and those outside, whose conditions and prospects differ widely, though over both there hangs the shadow of ‘precarity’ (Mauger, 2006). A similar emphasis runs through this paper.

Knowledge

Knowledge is increasingly understood in terms of its economic value. One of the main tenets underlying education policy is that ‘information and knowledge are replacing capital and energy as the primary wealth-creating assets’. (Ball, 2008, p19) This claim is sometimes linked to an expectation that the workforce of the future will be increasingly knowledgeable and more highly skilled. From this stems the ‘promise’ that underlies policy exhortations to young people, that they should seek higher levels of qualification, and longer periods in education, in return for rewarding jobs. However, the nature and extent of the knowledge economy have been called into question by many researchers in ways that suggest a very different configuration of knowledge from that sketched by policy. At stake in this questioning are issues of qualification, skill, quality of experience and reward. These issues, of course, are played out among the adult workforce, but their backwash effect in education, training and the social positioning of young people is considerable.

According to Castells (1998), knowledge economies are, in terms of their social relations, divided economies, with the categories of ’symbolic analyst’ and ‘generic labour’ standing on opposite sides of a social divide. Other writers elaborate this point. Nolan (2004) writes of an ‘hour-glass economy’, in which the occupational structure is polarised between relatively secure high-skilled work, and a mass of lower-skilled, lower-paid and insecure employment. Brown (2003) and Brown and Hesketh (2004) tell a similar story, in which, while management, professional and technical jobs are expanding, so too are routine service jobs. Ewart Keep points out that these projections of polarisation are of crucial importance for education ‘because the assumption is that a knowledge-driven economy and an associated labour market demand for ever higher skills is just around the corner is implicitly seen as one of the main means by which expansion of all phases and forms of post-compulsory learning can be justified and learners motivated’ (Keep, 2005, p548). If this assumption is incorrect, then the motivating promise of ‘good jobs for all’ is unlikely to be believed. Lebaron (2006) writes in this context about the ‘devalorisation’ of educational qualifications: levels of educational attainment have risen, and expectations have been heightened, yet access to secure jobs, to housing and to an ‘autonomous’ adult life is harder to come by. In such a situation, education, for a sizeable section of the youth population, loses legitimacy (Bendit 2006).

So far, we have discussed knowledge in terms of training and qualifications – issues which cover only part of the field. Another set of arguments, running much wider than the ’skills’ debate, concerns the relationship to the economy of the whole body of knowledge generated by populations – some of it certified and explicit, some of it ‘tacit’ and informal. This is the context in which some theorists have developed the idea of ‘mass intelligence’ or the ‘general intellect’ (Dyer-Witheford, 1999; Virno, 2004; Dowling, 2006). Knowledge is now the ‘principal productive force’ (Virno, 2004, p100); and ‘immaterial labour’ the defining form of work. Immaterial labour is an elastic concept that includes both the kind of knowledge work associated with ‘mental’ labour, and what Michael Hardt’s calls’the affective labour of human contact and interaction’ which through ‘the creation and manipulation of effects’ can bring into being ‘a feeling of ease, well being, satisfaction, excitement, passion – even a sense of connectedness or community’ (Hardt, n.d.). Whatever type of immaterial labour is emphasized, the tendency is to argue that it is produced in the course of the ‘ordinary’ exchanges of daily life, as well as through more specialized training. To understand the contemporary workforce and its capacities, one thus needs to think outside the workplace, and outside the educational institutions which have traditionally served it. Dowling explains that the ability to manage affect that was the basis of her waitressing work depended on social skills acquired outside the restaurant. Dyer-Witheford claims that the new communicational capacities and technological competencies developed through young people’s media practices are both ‘the premises of everyday life’ and an economic resource that employers can exploit. Constantly on-line, immersed in a continuous, electronically mediated communicability, young people acquire the know-how required to perform immaterial labour. But this ‘know-how’ has a complicated relationship with business requirements. It may well be the case that management seeks to make ‘the worker’s personality and subjectivity susceptible to organisation and command’ (Lazzarato, 1996, quoted in Dowling, 2006), but in practice, subjectivity also contains a surplus of ‘excessive’ human capacity, underemployed in the contemporary workplace.

These understandings complement, in a different theoretical idiom, the recent findings of sociologists of work, who identify a gap between the capacities of worker and the requirements of the enterprise in which they work. Pursuing this argument, Warhurst and Thompson (2006) develop a number of themes. They are sceptical about claims for upskilling, suggesting that firms’ investment in ICT tends more to routinise than to make complex the demands of work; and following the Canadian research of Livingstone and Schottz (2006), they suggest that ‘current labour processes’ are not effective in ‘utilising the existing skills of workers’. Higher education may have created a ‘mass of potential knowledge workers’ (2006, p788) but for an important section of the workforce, what is required of them by the work process is much less than their education and experience have rendered them capable of. Moreover, any upskilling that may be required ‘appears to be complemented by deteriorations in other work aspects, namely autonomy and discretion’ (2006, p790). The ‘knowledge gap’, in this case, has less to do with the deficiencies of school-leavers, than with the unfulfilling aspects of work. It is for reasons connected to the cultural surveillance and control that are exercised in the workplace, argues Willis (2003), that working-class energies have directed themselves away from production, and towards consumption, as a source of fulfilment and a resource for the construction of identity.

This is not the whole picture, though. More innovative enterprises, write Warhurst and Thompson, are keen to ‘identify and utilise’ the knowledgeability of their workforces, wanting to ‘introduce organisational structures and practices that facilitate initiative and innovation in the form of creativity and continuous improvement’ on the part of workers, whether routine or expert (2006, p794). Hartley, in a review of contemporary educational discourse, adds that it is not just at the top end of the labour market that such capacities capacities are thought to be required. There are sections of the economy – personal services, for instance – which are ‘high touch’ more than they are high tech and in which emotional intelligence is an asset which management needs to tap (Hartley, 2003). (Here Hartley echoes some of the argument of Hardt, above.) This reading of economic need validates new educational approaches, to which issues of ‘creativity’ are central. In Anna Craft’s words, the ‘economic imperative to foster creativity in business has helped to raise the profile and credentials of creativity in education more generally’ (1999, p11). This, in terms of educational history, is creativity of a new type, going well beyond the traditional arts-based model – an approach exemplified in some of the work sponsored between 2002 and 2009 by Creative Partnerships. The key point that educationalists must absorb is that adapting to new social and economic complexities is not something that can be learned systematically, as a set of rules but rather requires attentiveness to what James Scott (1998) terms ‘metis’, practical knowledge, that stems from the subject’s ability to draw from the entire range of their experience, to articulate that which in other circumstances would remain tacit, and in doing so to respond productively – creatively – to new challenges. Creativity is not only a set of skills, but a modality of life.

The pattern of argument here is a complex one, in which the possibilities of a fuller development of the personality, of the sort at which educationalists have traditionally aimed, is mixed up with more instrumental ideas of what it means to be creative. As the French sociologists Boltanski and Chiapello put it, work has become ’simultaneously more autonomous and more constrained’ (2005, p430), and a similar tension is likely to run through schooling, so that ‘creativity’ comes to mean both the promise of a new and more liberated way of ‘doing education’, and a preparation for a working life in which to be ‘creative’ is to be an economic asset as much as a free individual.

Social influences on the cultural

Michael Rustin (2008) makes a distinction between policy norms and what, following Lockwood (1964), he calls systemic conflict. Since the late nineties, he suggests, English society may well have experienced consensus at the level of policy, with few disagreeing with ‘Third Way’ approaches to problems of economic and social change; but this should not cause us to overlook the continued existence of deep-rooted systemic tensions. He specifies two kinds of tension in particular. The first is ‘current levels of social inequality’, which mean among other things that ‘educational outcomes and therefore employment prospects for the lowest third of the population remain obstinately poor’ (2008, p278). Rustin is doing no more here than confirming a wealth of research data, which attests not only to continuing inequality but to rates of social mobility that were lower at the end of the 20th century than during the post-war decades of educational reform and occupational change (Sutton Trust, 2005). Cultural patterns and senses of individual and collective identity are, and will be, profoundly affected by the closure and exclusion involved in this impasse. Indeed, Gayo-Cal, Savage and Warde (2006), in their attempt to draw ‘a cultural map of the United Kingdom’, refer to ‘entrenched cultural divisions within the social body’, identifying patterns not just of cultural diversity, but of antagonism, ‘Young, poorly educated males’ are deeply at odds with the cultural attachments of wealthier groups, without, according to the researchers, having alternative, positive preferences of their own (2006, p219, p226). Thus here too the concept of ‘deux jeunesses’- two stratified kinds of youth experience – is salient.

The second tension identified by Rustin has to do with social solidarity, with the norms and collective practices which, for classical sociology, contribute to social cohesion. Again what are at issue are enduring tendencies, rather than episodic quirks. Referring to work by Layard (2005) and Offer (2006), and adopting arguments similar to those of Wilkinson (1997) and Oliver James (2007), Rustin suggests that ‘improvements in living standards seem to be accompanied by no increases in self-reported happiness’ (2008, p278). On the contrary, inequalities and ’social epidemics’ of family breakdown, of depression and addiction produce effects of ‘ill-being’. As others (for instance, Buckingham, 2000) have pointed out, young people and children are strongly affected by such tensions. Economically and culturally, they have benefited from the growth of the youth market for consumer goods: as Willis (1990) showed, commercialised, ‘commodified’ products provide vital symbolic resources for the creation of youth identities. But such commercialised engagement is also seen to put children in moral and sometimes physical danger (Buckingham. 2000). Socially, children and young people are the focus of considerable anxiety, both as victims (’stranger danger’) and as threats (‘feral youth’). Educationally, the pressures of a performance culture seem to contribute to low levels of happiness (UNESCO. 2007). It seems right to understand these various tensions as long-lasting, as inter-connected, and as powerful shapers of culture and identity.

However, this is not the only way in which the social and cultural positioning of young people is described. Majima and Savage (2007) in their longitudinal study of cultural attitudes in the period 1981-1999 claim to detect a shift towards ‘more rebellious and conscientious’ attitudes. Cunningham and Lavalette, in a study of school-student participation in the anti-war movement of 2003, identified similar attitudes (2004). It seems reasonable to predict that, among a section of children and young people, the environmental and social crises that one can envisage for 2025 will provoke similar responses. Solidarity, lost in one area, may be regained in another.

Ethnicity

The growing demographic importance of ethnic communities, and of mixed heritage populations, is generally recognised (Finney and Simpson, 2008). The kinds of inter-community relations which are connected to these trends are much more disputed, as are the associated issues of identity.

Broadly, there are three positions in the identity debate. None of them is simply a commentary on cultural trends; each seeks to shape the reality they describe in a desired direction. The character of ‘identity’, both individual and collective, will be strongly affected by which model(s) emerge from the contest as dominant.

The first model is based on a theory of communities divided primarily on lines of ethnicity and leading ‘parallel lives’. (Cantle, 2005). Meaningful interaction is here ‘virtually non-existent’ (Burnett, 2007), and communities develop their own separate identities and belief systems. This diagnosis has been politically influential and has supported a drive to consolidate a general sense of Britishness, ‘a political identity (created) through active membership of the nation state, which regulates individual behaviour and provides for collective action’ (Cantle, quoted in Burnett, 2007, p117.) A second, alternative model, supported by recent social research (Wetherell, 2008), emphasises less the separateness of communities than the interaction between them. In the process of interaction, ‘new, complex, hybrid forms of identity are emerging among second and subsequent generations of migrants as part of the normal process of identity change over time’ (Wetherell, 2008, p780). These identities, it is argued, in the great majority of cases, include a strong British component. Not all identities are hybridised, of course: some groups, including white British working-class people, ‘try to hang on to older cultural forms and senses of belonging’. And, in all cases, ethnically-based identities are articulated, in different ways, with social class.

A third model accepts much of what is said about hybridisation, but is much less certain that it necessarily creates what Gilroy celebrates as ‘a convivial mode of interaction where differences have to be negotiated’ (Gilroy, 2005, p438, cited in Wetherell, 2008). Yousuf notes that ‘growing numbers’ of people have ‘dual or multiple loyalties’ that cross national boundaries: ‘globalisation of communications allows people to align themselves with any social, cultural or political group anywhere in the world’ (2007, p362). Her account is different from that of others who write about hybridity, however, because she accentuates the element of potential conflict between such loyalties. In globalised times, to separate the ‘inside’ of the national state from the ‘outside’ is not possible. At particular moments, where the relationship between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ is one of tension, then potential conflicts are activated, and the attachment of some groups of citizens to what they customarily see as ‘their’ state becomes strained: ‘loyalties can be recalcitrant and unpredictable’ (2007, p363). Evidence collected by Liz Fekete (2008) develops the point further. In a world where there is no ‘over there’ – no international space entirely separate from that of the national state – the response of states to perceived threats to their security adds to internal tensions, with particular consequences for some minority groups. In the wake of the London bombings of 2005, and what Muslim communities experienced as a backlash, Fekete described a process of cultural and social withdrawal, ‘a kind of counter-culture, a refusal to participate, on the basis of “I don’t want what I can’t get.”

Thus, while the salience of ethnicity to culture and identity is beyond question, the modes through which it will be experienced – convivial, defensive – are harder to predict.

Education: differentiated expansion

Education is, of course, shaped by forces that have their origins elsewhere, in the economy, or in wider patterns of social change. But it is also a force in its own right, constructing knowledge, allocating social positions, shaping identities. Making sense of trends in education is therefore vital to understanding the future patterning of knowledge, culture, communities and identities.

We can begin this work of making sense by noting two long-term, interlinked tendencies, summed up in the phrase ‘differentiated expansion’. Education has vastly expanded, in ways that affect all social groups. Expansion has occurred along several axes: ‘vertically’, one can speak of the development of under-5 and post-16 education; further steps towards the massification of higher education; the demands of lifelong learning. ‘Horizontally’, the formal curricular work of the school is increasingly accompanied by pre-school and after-school provision. As the summer rituals surrounding examination results show, the majority of the school population has been drawn into processes of certification and has a strong emotional investment in them. As we shall see, whether one looks at the span of a day or the course of a lifetime, education occupies an ever-larger and personally important part of it, so that Bernstein’s diagnosis of a ‘pedagogisation’ of society (2001) looks more and more accurate. Yet this rich landscape of education is highly differentiated: access, attainment, quality, resources and occupational destination are all strongly conditioned by gender, ethnicity and social class. Understandings of ‘knowledge’, ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ have therefore to grasp both general patterns of experience in a pedagogised world, and specific, differentiated situations.

A disarticulated system

Ball (2008) describes the current school system as ‘disarticulated’, based increasingly on diversity of provision. Diversity has allowed opportunities for the exercise of parental choice, with ’skilled chooser’ parents, mainly middle-class, able to secure advantage for their children (Gewirtz et al, 1995). This is a competitive system, in which those who can afford it have developed the habit of buying resources to support their children, over and above what is offered by the school. Buckingham and Scanlon (2003) describe parents’ investment in home-based ICT; Ball (2007, 2008) shows the ways in which parents make use of the growing market in private provision (home tutoring, for instance) in an attempt to ensure success. Competition, also, is not just a matter of securing access to ‘good’ primary and secondary schools. It extends upwards to university level, with a growing status distinction between groups of universities, and with assessment systems that increasingly register the small differences in exam performance that make a difference to university admission. Here, too, individuals need to develop the skills of choice and calculation, so that, according to some researchers (Brown 2003), education is more than ever seen as a ‘positional’ rather than an ‘absolute’ good.

Are there any reasons to think that these strong tendencies, which have been in motion for nearly two decades, will lessen in their effects over the next 15 years? To answer the question, several possibilities need to be taken into account. One is that government investment in early years education and in targeted programmes of student support will lessen some of the effects of social disadvantage, and weaken the effects of middle-class advantage. Another is that the habits of ’skilled choosing’ will be learned by working-class parents and students. A third is that the cultures of schools – because they need to motivate rather than disengage students – will make a turn away from ‘performativity’ towards an agenda that emphasises other needs. We have already seen how this might occur under the banner of ‘creativity’. It is conceivable that ‘personalisation’ might also support such a change. Leadbeater (2008) thinks that a personalised agenda based on mentoring, family support, individualised timetables and a meaningful curriculum would transform the school experience of large numbers of working-class students, and claims to see the beginnings of such an agenda already, in some schools, taking shape. A pre-condition of success, he argues, is that schools should be capable of acts of ‘cultural recognition’, which understand and positively evaluate the meaning-making capacities of students, and of the communities they come from. Extending Leadbeater’s argument, one might envisage schools recognising, too, their students’ investment in popular culture.

Against these possibilities might be placed the stratifying influence of labour markets, an influence whose pressure on the school it is hard to see diminishing. Also relevant is the capacity of more privileged groups, demonstrated frequently in educational history, to keep ahead of the game (Crouch, 1998), or to turn to their advantage policies which were drawn up with equal opportunity in mind. From this point of view, it is possible to see how, when making an informed choice of secondary school has become a capability within the reach of all parents, the skills of choice are replayed at a higher and more complex level, in relation to A level pathways and to higher education. Likewise, ‘personalisation’ might become an effective means of providing for the privileged, as much as it served the needs of less privileged groups; while the content acquired by the ‘creativity’ agenda could quite feasibly vary according to class and status. Finally, as the Ajegbo Report on cultural diversity (2007, p34) pointed out, the capacities of schools to respond to the cultures of non-privileged students have often been limited: it is one thing to set out a policy of personalisation, another thing to construct a school that can deliver it. While one line of policy may offer support to the development of students’ voice, another may endorse practices of exclusion from school, or strong forms of surveillance and discipline, that tend to discourage it (Monk, 2005). It may be, too, that although schools have acquired many new capacities, especially in the area of ‘effectiveness’, there have also been significant losses along the way. Between 1970, say, and 1990, attentiveness to the languages, dialects and cultures of school-students was well-developed in some curriculum areas (Burgess and Martin, 1990) and was linked to an often-productive questioning of the relationship between the formal knowledge of the school and the everyday experience of its students. Arguably, since 1988, this interest has been pushed to the margins of a teacher consciousness shaped by the requirements of national curricula and literacy frameworks.

Identity issues

Schools are places where attempts occur to realise the designs of policy – to produce responsible citizens, capable workers and so on. But if we limit ourselves to such topics, we do not fully capture the ‘identity work’ that occurs in schools – work which involves the responses of the school population as much as it does the intentions of policy-makers. Ethnographic research in schools has, since the 1960s, uncovered various and localised patterns of sub-culture that are often resistant to the official culture of the school, and that are important sites for the formation of student identity. Willis (1990) showed the extent to which such identity formation made use of commercial culture – clothes, music, pub culture – partly because of its lack of connection to formal education. Phoenix (2005) presented evidence to suggest that this identity work was significantly differentiated by class. Others, more recently, have researched the affordances for identity formation that electronic media provide (Pahl and Rowsell, 2005). One important and consistent finding of research is that the identities that some groups of students make for themselves are both resources from which they can achieve a sense of self-worth and group solidarity, and, at the same time, a route to educational exclusion. This was the conclusion of Paul Willis’s classic work ‘Learning to Labour’ (1977), and it has been reiterated by other researchers since. Most recently, Louise Archer and her colleagues (2003, 2007) have shown the processes through which students construct identities that equip them well for aspects of urban life, while disqualifying themselves from prospects of educational success. The problems that arise from such choices are all the more difficult because the identities which students construct are plainly seen by them as a valuable resource, rather than the result of a mistaken choice. It is reasonable to predict, that if inequality continues to be a feature of the social life of young people, then so, also, for some groups, will be what Willis calls the ‘desperate work’ of (counter-cultural) identity formation.

Elsewhere, in a disarticulated school system, other kinds of identity will be constructed, whose cultural markers will be different. Still salient here are the distinctions between high and low culture which framed discourses about culture and education in the post-war period (Jones, 2009, forthcoming). A complete polarisation of these terms is unfeasible, since the vast growth of the culture industries has blurred the distinction between the two spheres, and high culture itself, now more thoroughly exposed to commodification, has incorporated popular forms. (Anderson, 1998); even the most culturally privileged of students will have a knowledge of popular media culture. Nevertheless, markers of cultural difference, arranged along an axis of ‘high’ and ‘low’, facilitate the processes of ‘distinction’ that is vital to class and group identities (Bourdieu, 1986) and high culture continues to supply elite groups with cultural capital.

Conjecturing the Future

What can these sketches of the present tell us about the future? One set of possibilities insistently presents itself: 2010-2025 will not see a profound rearrangement of the education system. The main reason for thinking this is that the social and political energies that are needed to bring about transformative change are lacking. A decade before 1944, it was obvious that there existed a powerful demand for ’secondary education for all’. Likewise, in the decade leading up to 1988, the existence of a Conservative project, capable of addressing the social and economic tensions of the 1970s, was plain to see. Nothing comparable exists now, and for this reason it is plausible to construct a future based on the projection of current tendencies, rather than the emergence of a radically new scenario. And what applies to education applies, a fortiori, to the wider tendencies that shape knowledge identities, cultures and communities.

On such a basis, one might construct a scenario like the following:

Conflict beyond British borders catches Britain in its flames. A narrow and embattled national identity is reinforced. Race and religion become conduits through which global tensions flow. Environmental issues likewise become a battleground: climate change,

global shortages of food and natural resources, provoke a competition for survival.

Economic and social polarisation continues. For large sections of the population, precarity – intermittent and partial access to the labour market – becomes a way of life. In the absence of social housing, the dependency of younger on older generations grows. Education remains a field in which processes of differentiation are intense, and where the pressure to perform is the basic principle that regulates institutional life.

The problems of youth are at the heart of the country’s social conflicts. The promise that educational achievement will enable security and fulfilment is seen as a rotten one. One response – following the model of France in 2005/6 and Italy in 2008 – is spectacular outbreaks of protest. Another is the everyday ‘refusal’ of the school by large sections of its population.

There develops also a culture of refusal and defiant marginality. In an effort to re-engage their students, schools attempt to relate to it – under a variety of banners, from ‘creativity’ to ‘thinking skills’ to ‘emotional intelligence’. But the pressures of performativity, the difficulties faced by teachers trained to work with a fixed and orthodox curriculum, the intensity of students’ refusal and the overwhelming effects on the school of social breakdown, make this attempt, in many urban schools, a failure. Aspirations to ‘cohesion’ are still voiced by policy-makers, but increasingly ring hollow. Private sector education, meanwhile, continues to guarantee future security, and in those schools (academies, trust schools, well-located church schools) that form large enclaves of relative privilege within the public sector, another kind of education is evolving. Though performance-focused, it sees the necessity of creativity in a knowledge economy, as well as the advantages it can confer. It is here teaching and learning mutate away from the mould in which they were fixed by the national curriculum and by testing. Authentic reform occurs, but is, as always, limited by social situations.

Yet, were other sorts of social energy to be released, culture and education might be configured in very different ways.

Accepting their relative decline, governments of the West withdraw from conflicts whose blowback has heightened domestic tensions. Responding to public clamour, governments co-operate to mitigate the effects of climate change and to apportion the planet’s resources equitably. Strong environmental movements monitor what they do, and make the fate of the earth the central issue in political and social life.

Economic production is reshaped on environmentalist principles. Public investment and redistributive taxation diminish inequalities, and in this new context, the employment and housing prospects of young people improve. As the occupational structure comes to resemble less an hour-glass than a broad-based, low-angled pyramid, so students become more attached to an educational system whose promises they can see as reliable.

The lessening of economic insecurity lifts pressure from the school. Education is less likely to be seen as a positional good, possession of which is only valuable if it confers advantage. Equity becomes a stronger working principle in education, while differentiation diminishes. A new assertiveness among teachers means that they play a greater role in innovation, and can respond without anxiety to cultural change and the tensions that accompany it. Students find that their symbolic creativity is recognised and valued, and that the school has become a place where they can experiment, refine and develop the creativity of home and community.

Argument, debate and protest become ordinary features of the life of schools and communities, which engage continually with the ‘real life’ issues. They contribute to the common stock of intellectual resources that is needed to devise responses to social and environmental problems that exist on a planetary scale. They provide a context and a resource for cultural production.

Neither of these scenarios will come to pass, but they at least measure out the spectrum of possibilities that is open to education and culture. One end of that spectrum, darker in its colours, is closer to realisation than the other. But,as ever, what will happen is not written in the stars, nor even in the best efforts of policy-makers. Identities, knowledges, cultures – even schools – are less ductible than policy sometimes imagines, and there are surprises in store for us, beyond current horizons.

References

Ajegbo Report (2007) Curriculum Review: Diversity and Citizenship. London, DfES

Anderson, P. (1998) The Origins of Postmodernity. London, Verso

Archer, L. and Yamashita, H. (2003) Theorising Inner City Masculinities. Gender and Education, 15 (3), pp.115-132

Archer, L., Hollingworth, S. and Halsall, A. (2007) ‘University’s not for me- I’m a Nike person’: Urban, working class young people’s negotiations of ’style’, identity and educational engagement. Sociology, 41 (2), pp.219-237

Ball, S. (2007) Education PLC. London, Routledge/Falmer

Ball, S. (2008) The Education Debate. Bristol, Policy Press

Bauman, Z. (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge, Polity Press

Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001) Individualization. London, Sage

Bendit, R. (2006) Youth Sociology and Comparative Analysis in the European Union Member States. Revista de Sociologia, no. 79, pp.49-76

Bernstein, B. (2001) Dialogue. In: Morais, A. et al (eds) Towards a Sociology of Pedagogy: the contribution of Basil Bernstein to Research. New York, Peter Lang

Boltanski, L. and Chiapello, E. (2005) The New Spirit of Capitalism. (translated G. Elliott). London, Verso

Bourdieu, P. (1986) Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste.

Brown, P. (2003) The Opportunity Trap: education and employment in a global economy. European Education Research Journal, 2 (1), pp.141-79

Brown, P., Hesketh, A. and Williams, S. (2004) The Mismanagement of Talent: employability and jobs in the knowledge economy. Oxford, Oxford University Press

Buckingham, D. (2000) After The Death of Childhood. Cambridge, Polity Press

Buckingham, D. and Scanlon, M. (2003) Education, Entertainment and Learning in the Home. Buckingham, Open University Press

Burgess, T. and Martin, N. (1990) The Teaching of English in England, 1945-1986: politics and practice. In: Britton, J., Shafer, R. and Watson K. (eds)

Burnett, J. (2007) Review of Community Cohesion: a new framework for race and diversity by Ted Cantle. Race and Class, 48 (4), pp.115-118

Cantle, T. (2005) Community Cohesion: A New Framework for Race and Diversity. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Castells, M. (1998) End of Millennium. Oxford, Blackwell

Craft, A. (1999) An analysis of research and literature on creativity in education. London, QCA

Crouch, C. (1998) Social Change in Western Europe. Oxford, Oxford University Press

Cunningham, S. and Lavalette, M. (2004) ‘Active Citizens’ or ‘Irresponsible’ Truants? School Student Strikes Against the War. Critical Social Policy, 24 (2), May 2004, pp.255-269

Dowling, E. (2006) Formulating New Social Subjects? An Inquiry Into The Realities Of An Affective Worker. Paper to the Conference on Immaterial Labour, Multitudes and New Social Subjects: class composition in cognitive capitalism, King’s College, Cambridge. Available from http://www.geocities.com/immateriallabour/programme2006.html Accessed 2nd December 2008

Dyer-Witheford, N. (1999) Cyber-Marx. Urbana, Il., University of Chicago Press

Fekete, L. (2008) Integration, Islamophobia and Civil Rights in Europe. London, Institute of Race Relations

Finney, N. and Simpson, L. (2008) Internal migration and ethnic groups: evidence from Britain from the 2001 census Population. Space and Place, 14 (2) pp.63-84

Giddens, A. (1994) Beyond Left and Right: the future of radical politics. Cambridge, Polity Press

Gayo-Cal, M., Savage, M. and Warde, A. (2006) A cultural map of the United Kingdom 2003. Cultural Trends, 15 (2-3), pp.215-39

Gewirtz, S., Ball, S. and Bowe, R. (1995) Markets, Choice and Equity. London, Routledge

Gilroy, P. (2005) Multiculture, Double Consciousness and the ‘War on Terror’. Patterns of Prejudice, 39 (4) pp.431-43

Hardt, M. (n.d.) Immaterial Labour. Available from www.generation-online.org Accessed October 25^th 2008

Hartley, D. (2003) New Economy, New Pedagogy. Oxford Review of Education 29 (1), pp.81-94

Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neo-liberalism. Oxford, Oxford University Press

James, O. (2007) Affluenza: how to be successful and stay sane. London, Vermiliion Books

Jones, K. (2009, forthcoming) Culture and Creative Learning. London, Arts Council England (Creative Partnerships Literature Reviews)

Keep, E. (2005) Reflections on the curious absence of employers, labour market incentives and labour market regulation in English 14-19 policy – the beginnings of a change? Journal of Education Policy, 20 (5), pp.533-553.

Layard, R. (2005) Happiness; lessons from a new science. London, Allen Lane

Lazzarato, M. (1996): Immaterial Labour. In: Virno, P. and Hardt, M. (eds) Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press

Leadbeater, C. (2008) What’s next: 21 ideas for twenty-first century learning. London, Innovation Unit

Lebaron, F. (2006) Avenir probable et construction du possible. Un mouvement porteur d’avenir. Nouveaux Regards, Revue de l’Institut de recherches ee la FSU No. 34, juillet-septembre pp. 4-7

Livingstone, D. and Schotlz, A. (2006) Contradictions of Labour Processes and Workers’ Use of Skills in Advanced Capitalist Economies. In: Shalla, V. and Clement, W. (eds) Work in Tumultuous Times: Critical Perspectives. Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press

Lockwood (1964) Social Integration and System Integration. In: Zollschan, G. and Hirsch, W. (eds) Explorations in Social Change. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.

Majima, S. and Savage, M. (2007)) Have there been culture shifts in Britain? Cultural Sociology, 1 (3), pp.293-315.

Mauger, G. (2006) De l’émeute de novembre aux manifestations anti-CPE: une alliance improbable? Nouveaux Regards, 34, pp.8-13

Monk, D. (2005) (Re)constructing the Head Teacher: legal narratives and the politics of school exclusions. Journal of Law and Society, 32 (3), pp.399-423

Offer, A. (2006) The Challenge of Affluence: self-control and well-being in the United States and Britain since 1950. Oxford, Oxford University Press

Nolan, P. (2004) Shaping the future: the political economy of work. Industrial Relations Journal, 35 (5), pp.378-387

Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J (2005) Literacy and Education: The New Literacy Studies in the Classroom. London, Paul Chapman

Phoenix, A. (2005) Young People and Consumption: commonalities and differences in the construction of identities. In: Tufte, B. et al Frontrunners or Copycats. Copenhagen, Copenhagen Business School Press

Rustin, M. (2008) New Labour and the Theory of Globalisation. Critical Social Policy, 28 (3), pp.273-282

Scott, J. (1998) Seeing like a State: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, Yale University Press

Sutton Trust/Centre for Economic Performance / Blanden, J., Gregg, P. and Machin, S. (2005) Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America

UNESCO (2007) Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007. Paris, UNESCO

Virno, P. (2004) A Grammar of the Multitude. Cambridge, MA., Semiotext(e)

Warhurst and Thompson (2006) Mapping Knowledge in Work: proxies or practices. Work, Employment and Society, 20 (4), pp.787-800

Wetherell, M. (2008) Speaking to power: Tony Blair, complex multicultures and fragile white English identities. Critical Social Policy, 28 (3), pp.299-319

Wilkinson, R. (1996) Unhealthy Societies: the afflictions of inequality. London, Routledge

Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour: how working-class kids get working-class jobs. WHERE, Saxon House

Willis, P. (1990) Common Culture. Buckingham, Open University Press

Willis, P. (2003) Footsoldiers of Modernity: the dialectics of cultural consumption and the 21^st-century school. Harvard Educational Review, 78 (3), pp.390-416

Yousuf, Z. (2007) Unravelling identities: Citizenship and legitimacy in a multicultural Britain. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10 (3), pp.360-373

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.