Teacher education and feminism

In this article I argue that recent years have seen a steady “reform” of teacher education. In the latest of a long line of initiatives, teaching is being restructured via a framework of National Professional Qualifications and Standards. These both centrally define the activity of teaching at various stages of the teaching “career” and establish new modes of progression for teachers. I argue that the framework neglects teachers' responsibilities in relation to social justice in ways that are particularly worrying for feminists. In addition, I argue that the masculinist nature of the standards, the managerialist restructuring of the social relations within schools, and the drive to recruit more men into teaching all connect to the international epidemic of concern about the “underachievement” of boys. The article draws evidence from two externally funded projects undertaken with Ian Hextall between 1995–1999.     

Official Discourse

This paper analyses two Official Reports on law and order. They confront legitimation deficits, seeking discursively to redeem them by denial of their material geneses. This denial establishes an absence in the discourse. This absence, the Other, is the silence of a world constituted by material relations whose reality cannot be appropriated by a mode of normative argument which speaks to and from its own self-image via an idealised conception of justice. The paper discusses first the Reports' discursive problems, secondly, the disparate jurisprudential knowledges realised by the texts, and lastly the discursive presentation of these knowledges.     

The Use of Discretion in a Rule-Bound Service: Housing Benefit Administration and the Introduction of Discretionary Housing Payments in Great Britain

This paper is concerned with how administrators in the Housing Benefit (HB) service in Great Britain have reacted to the discretionary powers given to local authorities as a result of the introduction of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). DHPs can be awarded to HB claimants deemed to require additional assistance with their housing costs. The paper first argues that the HB service can be categorized as 'rule-bound' before outlining the DHP regime and the nature of the discretion that it affords HB administrators. A brief review of the literature on discretionary decision making in public service organizations suggests four propositions in respect of DHP decision making. The paper then seeks to test these propositions. It concludes that in general HB administrators do not appear to have experienced the difficulties associated with discretionary decision making in rule-bound services that might have been expected on the basis of previous work in this field.     

A reponse to paramilitary policing in Northern Ireland

This essay arises from the experiences of a practitioner who has, until recently, managed a project offering services to those under threat from paramilitary organisations. This essay is divided into two sections. The first section offers an overview of the ideologies and practices of Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries regarding informal justice. The second section examines the problems of intervention with those under threat and the insights offered by an analysis of the project’s casework. NIACRO     

Diasporas as ‘agents of development’: transforming brain drain into brain gain? The Dutch example

This article is based on research that explored and analysed the potential role of diasporas in development aid in the Netherlands. The research adopted the hypothesis that development agencies could benefit from the knowledge, skills, and views of diasporas as ‘agents of development’ and thereby make aid more effective and sustainable. Data were derived from semi-structured interviews with representatives of diasporas residing in the Netherlands; Dutch NGOs selected by the Dutch government for their capacity-building programmes; official donors, namely the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken); and international organisations, such as the International Organization of Migration (IOM). Secondary data were derived from a literature review.