Labour, Learning and the Economy: a ‘policy sociology’ perspective

Abstract

This paper considers Labour's education policy portfolio in two loosely related ways. Firstly, I argue for the need to see the policy continuities between the Conservatives and Labour in an international context and to suggest that in a sense Labour's policies are not specific to Labour at all; they are local manifestations of global policy paradigms. Secondly, I begin to sketch out an argument which suggests that in one key respect Labour's policy thrust is contradictory in its own terms. That is, the over‐riding emphasis on education's role in contributing to economic competitiveness rests on a set of pedagogical strategies the effects of which are actually antithetical to the needs of a ‘high skills’ economy. This contradiction arises in part from an inherited, and ultimately self‐defeating, impoverished view of ‘learning’. I shall also point to some of the effects of performativity in relation to teaching and learning