Frank Coffield
Biographic Data
| ID | 298516 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank Coffield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank |
| FAMILY NAME | Coffield |
| SIGNATURE | COFFIELD F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0346-990X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 127 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Why the McKinsey reports will not improve school systems
In the last four years McKinsey and Company have produced two highly influential reports on how to improve school systems. The first McKinsey report How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top has since its publication in 2007 been used to justify change in educational policy and practice in England and many other countries. The second How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better, released in late 2010, is a…
Rolling out ‘good’, ‘best’ and ‘excellent’ practice. What next? Perfect practice
The identification and dissemination of ‘good practice’ has for years been a central part of the Government's strategy for radical change of the education system. ‘Good practice’, however, is no longer good enough, nor is ‘best practice’. The requirement now for post‐compulsory education and training (from which all our examples are taken) is nothing less than ‘excellent practice for all’. This article critically examines these highly significant…
How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy
The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work‐bas…
A new learning and skills landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council
This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme of research into “Teaching and Learning”. The project, entitled “The Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector”, explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system (LSS) are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalised groups of post-16 lear…
Alternative routes out of the low skills equilibrium: A rejoinder to Lloyd & Payne
In 2002, I wrote a critical account in this journal of the Performance and Innovation Unit’s analysis of workforce development and the policy which has since emanated from it. Lloyd and Payne, again in this journal, criticized that account for both claiming too much in terms of progress made and for saying too little about what policies are needed to usher in a demand‐led system. In this rejoinder, the areas of agreement and disagreement between …
Britains continuing failure to train: The birth pangs of a new policy
This article provides an account of the latest official attempt in the UK to generate both a new analysis of the underlying causes of under-investment in workforce development and a new policy to rectify the weaknesses. The account is based on the participation of the present author who was a member of the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU) Academic Panel on workforce development during 2001. First, the establishment and remit of the PIU are…
Where's the beef? A response to 'Missing the point about the Learning and Skills Council: A comment on Coffield' by Patrick Ainley
My critical evaluation of the government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, which was published in the Journal of Educational Policy (2000, 15(2), 237-246) has provoked a critique by Pat Ainley, which is the main purpose of this section of the journal on Documents and Debates. He claims that my article suffers from two sins of omission: first, I am apparently unaware that the new legislation excludes higher …
Lifelong learning as a lever on structural change? Evaluation of white paper: Learning to succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning
The government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, is here evaluated. The considerable strengths of the proposals ? replacement of the TECs with Learning and Skills Councils, the adoption of social partnership in the membership of the new Councils, the substantial increase in resource and a large number of specific measures - are briefly welcomed. A number of serious reservations are then discussed in detail …
Breaking the Consensus: Lifelong Learning as Social Control
This article rejects the powerful consensus in the UK and beyond to the effect that lifelong learning is a wonder drug which, on its own, will solve a wide range of educational, social and political ills. The main features of the consensus are encapsulated in a few central tenets and their influence demonstrated by a few representative quotations. Ten key problems with the consensus are listed and this analysis·prompts the question, if the thesis…
Introduction and overview: Attempts to reclaim the concept of the learning society
Once an idea becomes a rhetorical device and is applied indiscriminately, it ends up like the boy who cried wolf. No one believes there is any substance to what is said . . . unfortunately, the act of joining together the words ['learning’ and ‘society'] does not make a theory, nor a practice. (Mark Smith, Developing Youth Work 1)
The Great British Experiment
One of the consequences of the wave of radical and ambitious reforms introduced by Conservative governments since 1979 is that the United Kingdom can be viewed as a social laboratory where other nations can see the outcome of experiments which they may very well hesitate to impose on their own citizens. By appealing to the sovereignty of the market, Conservative ministers set out to transform almost every aspect of social life in Britain: for exa…
Training and enterprise councils: The last throw of voluntarism
Risky Business
Louts and Legends: Male Youth Culture in an Inner City School
A Cycle of Deprivation: A Case Study of Four Families
Hooligans or Rebels
Entrée and Exit
A Cycle of Deprivation? A Case Study of Four Families
Breaking the Consensus: Lifelong Learning as Social Control
This article rejects the powerful consensus in the UK and beyond to the effect that lifelong learning is a wonder drug which, on its own, will solve a wide range of educational, social and political ills. The main features of the consensus are encapsulated in a few central tenets and their influence demonstrated by a few representative quotations. Ten key problems with the consensus are listed and this analysis·prompts the question, if the thesis…
Why the McKinsey reports will not improve school systems
In the last four years McKinsey and Company have produced two highly influential reports on how to improve school systems. The first McKinsey report How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top has since its publication in 2007 been used to justify change in educational policy and practice in England and many other countries. The second How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better, released in late 2010, is a…
Rolling out ‘good’, ‘best’ and ‘excellent’ practice. What next? Perfect practice
The identification and dissemination of ‘good practice’ has for years been a central part of the Government's strategy for radical change of the education system. ‘Good practice’, however, is no longer good enough, nor is ‘best practice’. The requirement now for post‐compulsory education and training (from which all our examples are taken) is nothing less than ‘excellent practice for all’. This article critically examines these highly significant…
Britains continuing failure to train: The birth pangs of a new policy
This article provides an account of the latest official attempt in the UK to generate both a new analysis of the underlying causes of under-investment in workforce development and a new policy to rectify the weaknesses. The account is based on the participation of the present author who was a member of the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU) Academic Panel on workforce development during 2001. First, the establishment and remit of the PIU are…
Lifelong learning as a lever on structural change? Evaluation of white paper: Learning to succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning
The government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, is here evaluated. The considerable strengths of the proposals ? replacement of the TECs with Learning and Skills Councils, the adoption of social partnership in the membership of the new Councils, the substantial increase in resource and a large number of specific measures - are briefly welcomed. A number of serious reservations are then discussed in detail …
How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy
The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work‐bas…
A new learning and skills landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council
This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme of research into “Teaching and Learning”. The project, entitled “The Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector”, explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system (LSS) are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalised groups of post-16 lear…
Alternative routes out of the low skills equilibrium: A rejoinder to Lloyd & Payne
In 2002, I wrote a critical account in this journal of the Performance and Innovation Unit’s analysis of workforce development and the policy which has since emanated from it. Lloyd and Payne, again in this journal, criticized that account for both claiming too much in terms of progress made and for saying too little about what policies are needed to usher in a demand‐led system. In this rejoinder, the areas of agreement and disagreement between …
Introduction and overview: Attempts to reclaim the concept of the learning society
Once an idea becomes a rhetorical device and is applied indiscriminately, it ends up like the boy who cried wolf. No one believes there is any substance to what is said . . . unfortunately, the act of joining together the words ['learning’ and ‘society'] does not make a theory, nor a practice. (Mark Smith, Developing Youth Work 1)
Training and enterprise councils: The last throw of voluntarism
A Cycle of Deprivation? A Case Study of Four Families
A Cycle of Deprivation: A Case Study of Four Families
Hooligans or Rebels
Entrée and Exit
Louts and Legends: Male Youth Culture in an Inner City School
Training and enterprise councils: The last throw of voluntarism
Risky Business
The Great British Experiment
One of the consequences of the wave of radical and ambitious reforms introduced by Conservative governments since 1979 is that the United Kingdom can be viewed as a social laboratory where other nations can see the outcome of experiments which they may very well hesitate to impose on their own citizens. By appealing to the sovereignty of the market, Conservative ministers set out to transform almost every aspect of social life in Britain: for exa…
Introduction and overview: Attempts to reclaim the concept of the learning society
Once an idea becomes a rhetorical device and is applied indiscriminately, it ends up like the boy who cried wolf. No one believes there is any substance to what is said . . . unfortunately, the act of joining together the words ['learning’ and ‘society'] does not make a theory, nor a practice. (Mark Smith, Developing Youth Work 1)
Breaking the Consensus: Lifelong Learning as Social Control
This article rejects the powerful consensus in the UK and beyond to the effect that lifelong learning is a wonder drug which, on its own, will solve a wide range of educational, social and political ills. The main features of the consensus are encapsulated in a few central tenets and their influence demonstrated by a few representative quotations. Ten key problems with the consensus are listed and this analysis·prompts the question, if the thesis…
Where's the beef? A response to 'Missing the point about the Learning and Skills Council: A comment on Coffield' by Patrick Ainley
My critical evaluation of the government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, which was published in the Journal of Educational Policy (2000, 15(2), 237-246) has provoked a critique by Pat Ainley, which is the main purpose of this section of the journal on Documents and Debates. He claims that my article suffers from two sins of omission: first, I am apparently unaware that the new legislation excludes higher …
Lifelong learning as a lever on structural change? Evaluation of white paper: Learning to succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning
The government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, is here evaluated. The considerable strengths of the proposals ? replacement of the TECs with Learning and Skills Councils, the adoption of social partnership in the membership of the new Councils, the substantial increase in resource and a large number of specific measures - are briefly welcomed. A number of serious reservations are then discussed in detail …
Britains continuing failure to train: The birth pangs of a new policy
This article provides an account of the latest official attempt in the UK to generate both a new analysis of the underlying causes of under-investment in workforce development and a new policy to rectify the weaknesses. The account is based on the participation of the present author who was a member of the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU) Academic Panel on workforce development during 2001. First, the establishment and remit of the PIU are…
Alternative routes out of the low skills equilibrium: A rejoinder to Lloyd & Payne
In 2002, I wrote a critical account in this journal of the Performance and Innovation Unit’s analysis of workforce development and the policy which has since emanated from it. Lloyd and Payne, again in this journal, criticized that account for both claiming too much in terms of progress made and for saying too little about what policies are needed to usher in a demand‐led system. In this rejoinder, the areas of agreement and disagreement between …
A new learning and skills landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council
This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme of research into “Teaching and Learning”. The project, entitled “The Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector”, explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system (LSS) are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalised groups of post-16 lear…
How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy
The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work‐bas…
Rolling out ‘good’, ‘best’ and ‘excellent’ practice. What next? Perfect practice
The identification and dissemination of ‘good practice’ has for years been a central part of the Government's strategy for radical change of the education system. ‘Good practice’, however, is no longer good enough, nor is ‘best practice’. The requirement now for post‐compulsory education and training (from which all our examples are taken) is nothing less than ‘excellent practice for all’. This article critically examines these highly significant…
Why the McKinsey reports will not improve school systems
In the last four years McKinsey and Company have produced two highly influential reports on how to improve school systems. The first McKinsey report How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top has since its publication in 2007 been used to justify change in educational policy and practice in England and many other countries. The second How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better, released in late 2010, is a…
Sociology (15 works) · Political science (11 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Education Systems and Policy (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Engineering (4 works)