Choice in Public Services: Crying 'Wolf' in the School Choice Debate

Choice, diversity and personalisation have been key to the New Labour project in public services. With the emergence of a reinvigorated Conservative party as a credible electoral threat, and the end of the Blair era, it seems appropriate to consider the continuing viability and longevity of the New Labour public service project. In this article, I approach the issue of choice in public services through an examination of the long-running controversy over choice in the English secondary school system. I argue that the opponents of choice have been reluctant to engage with the notion of choice in public services due to concerns over the supposed negative effect that consumer choice has on the equity and quality of service provision. This paper aims to challenge the claim that any element of choice in education necessarily has deleterious effects on social justice. I argue that the case against school choice has not been decisively made and that school choice can, in principle, form part of a socially progressive educational project by redistributing power to service users and helping to maintain popular support for public provision of education.     

Parliament on its Knees: MPs' Expenses and the Crisis of Transparency at Westminster

In May 2009, revelations made in The Daily Telegraph about the way that MPs had used and abused the House of Commons expenses and allowances regime threw the British political system into turmoil, forced the resignation of the Speaker of the Commons along with a number of implicated MPs, and ignited talk about a crisis in parliamentary democracy and a collapse of public trust in politics. This article explores the events that led to this situation, from the structure of MPs pay and allowance system, the Freedom of Information context that framed the disaster, and the crisis of transparency which the House of Commons has itself precipitated. It argues that, talk of parliamentary reform aside, MPs must radically rethink the way that they approach their representative role and the nature of their broader engagement with the public they claim to serve.     

Relativism

Modern democracies increasingly confuse civic or political equality with a radical relativism that calls into question legitimate principles of hierarchy and the very idea of reasonable value judgments. This confusion reflects a “corruption,” in Montesquieu’s sense, of democracy rooted in a refusal to recognize distinctions that are integral to both human nature and social life. A moderate form of cultural relativism is a genuine intellectual achievement that helps combat ethnocentrism and allows one to better appreciate the full range of human experience. But criteria of meaning and truth are by no means entirely dependent upon cultural context. Our contemporary awareness of the “relativity” of cultures and historical experiences must be complemented by a robust appreciation of the universality of Reason and citizenship.

Resettling Refugees in Rural and Regional Australia: Learning from Recent Policy and Program Initiatives

Conscious policy and program support for the resettlement of refugees in regional and rural areas is a relatively recent trend in Australia. Resettlement is a complex process that hinges on the establishment of viable communities. This review suggests that its outcomes, especially for refugee communities, are potentially mixed. However, an appropriately resourced, well managed and well planned refugee resettlement program can potentially provide beneficial outcomes for refugees and host communities. This article draws on existing empirical data and contributions made at a VicHealth Roundtable in late 2007 to thematically explore the challenges facing rural and regional resettlement programs. Given that settlement is a dynamic process and the approaches to rural and regional settlement are evolving, this article provides 12 propositions for a more effective and integrated approach to policy and practice.     

英语文化渗透式教学的实践与探讨

语言与文化具有紧密的联系。英语教学不应以通过考试为目的,而应注重提高实际生活中运用语言能力和交际能力。本文强调教学过程中应加强文化的渗透,利用多种渠道使学生了解中西文化的差异,并对英语教学中应注意的问题进行分析和探讨。     

高校学生党员先进性教育途径的探索

作者针对学生党员的思想状况进行了系统分析,针对学生党员思想问题的多样化与复杂性,试图探索高等院校加强和改进学生党员先进性教育的途径,使得高校学生党员先进性得到充分展示,进而使之成为高等院校思想政治工作得一面旗帜。同时,促进思想政治教育工作切实有效的开展。     

浅谈体育游戏在中学体育与健康课教学中的运用

体育游戏对于促进学生智力的发展,促进学生身体的生长发育,培养运动兴趣具有重要意义,对于提高中学体育与健康课的教学质量,顺利完成教学任务,具有积极的作用,体育游戏是进行中学体育与健康课教学的手段之一,是体育与健康课教育的重要方法。根据游戏的特点和价值,结合中学教材内容,正确科学选择游戏并合理组织实施,既能充分调动学生的情趣,又能很好地辅助教学任务的完成。     

浅谈如何在体育教学中渗透德育

体育教学与德育教育密切相关。文章结合自身教学实际,主要探讨了体育教学中渗透德育教育的内容形式,包括爱国主义教育、组织纪律观念教育、集体主义教育、团队精神培养、意志品质培养等。     

Why Do States Commission the Truth? Political Considerations in the Establishment of African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

Although the use of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) has grown considerably over the last 3 decades, there is still much that we do not know concerning the choice and the structuring of TRCs. While the literature has focused primarily on the effects of TRCs, we examine the domestic and the international factors influencing the choice of a commission in sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to 2003 using pooled cross-sectional time series. We find that states which adopted a TRC prior to South Africa were generally repressive centralized regimes which used the truth commission as political cover. However, since South Africa’s TRC, democratizing states have been more likely to adopt a truth commission as a form of transitional justice.

Five Challenges to Legalizing Economic and Social Rights

In recent years, dozens of human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across the globe have begun to advocate for economic and social rights, which represents a significant expansion of the human rights movement. This article investigates a central strategy that NGOs have pursued to realize these rights: legalization. Legalization involves specifying rights as valid legal rules and enforcing them through judicial or quasi-judicial processes. After documenting some of the progress made toward legalization, the article analyzes five unique challenges involved in legalizing economic and social rights. It is important to identify these challenges because they must be overcome if the human rights movement wishes to refute the notion that economic and social rights are inherently non-justiciable (and therefore, to some, invalid as rights). These challenges also point to the possibility that legalization is not the only, or even the best, strategic pathway to realize economic and social rights effectively.