Conceptualizing Interagency Coordination as Metagovernance: Complexity,Dynamism, and Learning in Australian and British Statistical Administration

Top-down methods of interagency coordination are inadequate in contemporary public administration, where multiple departments and agencies interact across loosely coupled networks to solve complex problems. The concept of metagovernance suggests governments can employ combinations of coordination instruments to steer dispersed actors toward common goals. This article asks how officials in Australian and British statistical administration addressed problems with traditional coordination methods. Interviews with senior official statisticians show a transition from traditional interagency coordination to metagovernance, driven by failures and learning. Metagovernance captures how interagency coordination is increasingly practiced, though existing theories should give more attention to learning and adaptation.     

‘I'm going to get a job at the factory’: attitudes to women's employment in a mining community, 1945-65

This article examines how couples in mining households managed the increasing opportunities for women to work outside of the home in the period following the Second World War. Households in mining communities have regularly been characterised in research literature as operating strictly segregated gender roles and the lack of employment opportunities in mining areas appears to have accentuated the rigid division of labour. However, in some areas where the mining industry was in decline, new employment opportunities for married women increased, which inevitably placed a strain on the male provider model. This article explores these issues in relation to the ironstone mining district of East Cleveland and uses data generated from thirty-three semi-structured interviews. It will be argued that whilst the separation of the male provider and female homemaker role remained the ideal for many couples, others chose to avail themselves of the economic and psychological benefits of female employment. However, even amongst those couples where the women did undertake paid employment, the image of the male as provider was still preserved by the use of various strategies.     

Hispanic College Attendance and the State of Texas GEAR UP Program

This article reports the results of an evaluation of the state of Texas GEAR UP project implemented in six school districts from 1998 to 2005. The intent of the program was to enhance preparation for post‐secondary education among low‐income, Hispanic students. The program was comprised of practical interventions including vertical curriculum alignment, training teachers in advanced placement techniques, encouraging students to take rigorous courses, and increasing outreach about college attendance to students and parents. The central dependent variable is reports by parents of graduating seniors about whether their children would be attending college. A multivariate analysis, controlling for household SES, student grades and attendance, household composition, and language spoken in the home indicates that increased student exposure to the GEAR UP program markedly increases the probability that parents will report that their children are going to attend college.