Neoliberalising Education: New Geographies of Private Tuition,Class Privilege,and Minority Ethnic Advancement

Geographic research on neoliberalism has explored the restructuring of educational landscapes wrought through marketisation of preschool, school and higher-education provision and considered the responsibilisation of parents and children for educational outcomes. This study develops understanding of the contingent emergence of neoliberal educational reform, and its progressive and regressive impacts, through an examination of the burgeoning private tuition market in England and Wales. The paper outlines the contours of the previously hidden supplementary education industry, demonstrating that it reinforces regional and classed inequalities, while opening possibilities for ethnic minority advancement. Conceptually, the paper advances debate about socio-spatial specificity in neoliberal change, showing that the intersection of policy, free markets and consumer behaviour reshapes the educational landscape in ways that extend beyond state intention and control. Through these processes, contingent market forms are produced that offer social mobility for some, but ensure the social reproduction of enduring regimes of power.     

Fear and loathing in Kansas City: Political harassment and the making of moderates in America's abortion wars (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The pro‐life movement regularly employs tactics of political harassment in its campaign against abortion. As the murder of the controversial abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, demonstrated last year, such tactics often betray a potential for violence. This paper explores how the militant tactics of the pro‐life movement in the 1990s have contributed to the formation of a ‘new’ political identity in Kansas politics: that of the moderate Republican. But for those that seek to counter‐mobilize against the Christian right, the political stakes remain high.     

Societal repercussions of the rise of large-scale traditional iron production: a West African example

Numerous scholars have outlined what they believed to be the consequences of the advent of iron technology in sub-Saharan Africa: increased food production using more efficient bush clearing tools; increased population densities; larger and more stable communities; increased trade, specialization and social differentiation; and the embryonic rise of modern politics. (Davidson 1974.) However, little has been demonstrated in the field.A regional study of the Bassar iron industry of northern Togo has shown that the rise of large-scale iron production may lead to higher population densities, larger and more stable communities, a more aggregated settlement pattern in the ore zone, and increased craft specialization and trade. However, it does not necessarily result in a significant increase in the degree of political centralization. The Bassar data also suggest that even the appearance of relatively small scale iron production may generate similar trends, albeit at more modest levels.

---

Résumé De nombreux auteurs ont décrit ce qu'ils proposent d'avoir été les conséquences de l'adoption de la technologie de fer dans l'Afrique au sud du Sahara: augmentation de la production de nourriture à l'aide des outils plus efficaces pour débroussailler le paysage; augmentation des densités de population; communautés plus grandes et plus stables; croissance de la commerce, de la specialisation artisanale et de la differentiation sociale; et naissance embryonique de la politique moderne (Davidson 1974). Cependant il n 'y a que très peu de ce schéma qui a été validé par les recherches sur le terrain.Une étude régionale de l'industrie du fer des Bassar du nord de Togo a montré que l'essor de la production de fer à grande échelle peut aboutir à des densités de population plus hauts, des communautés plus grands et plus stables, une répartition de l'habitat plus agrégée dans la zone des minerais de fer, et l'augmentation de la specialisation artisanale et du commerce. Cependant il n'aboutit pas obligatoirement à une centralisation importante au niveau politique. Les résultats fournis par cette étude des Bassar nous amènt à proposer aussi que même l'apparition de la production modeste de fer peut donner naissance à des développements comparables, mais d'un ampleur plus restreint.

     

ON THE STABILITY OF HOUSING SECTOR INTERACTION: EVIDENCE FROM 42 METROPOLITAN AREAS*

ABSTRACT. Residential vacancy chain models based on White's (1971) application of Markov chain theory are used to simulate flows of housing vacancies through a set of interdependent housing market sectors. Measures of housing sector interaction are derived from such models. Our purpose here is to address the issue of time stationarity raised by their use. U.S. census data are available to calibrate such models at two, and sometimes three, points in time. Data from 42 different SMSAs are used to generate 56 cross-temporal comparisons with interobservation periods ranging from three to eight years. Stability of interaction is addressed from two perspectives–the sectoral perspective and the areawide perspective. Results are mixed and depend upon which measure of interaction is used, which perspective is addressed, and the duration of the interobservation period. However, within limits, findings support continued use of vacancy chain models.     

Britische Politiker als Liebhaber der Wissenschaft (ca. 1850–1914) — Zur Ideologie des Amateurismus

The various scholarly and scientific endeavours — comprising both arts and sciences —, which British statesmen persued in their leisure time, transcend the mere biographical aspect. In the light of the slow, yet steady professionalisation of educational and political institutions, many of them modernised or newly created in order to achieve what came to be called “National Efficiency”, the literary and scientific pastimes of men, like Gladstone, Morley, Salisbury, Balfour or Haldane, seemed soon to become somewhat obsolete. Yet, it is argued, that the often professedly amateurish activities did not merely display the traditional hobby attitude to the sciences, so characteristic of the wealthy aristocrat, but in some cases revealed a good understanding of the scientific and educational needs of society, leading up to their active advancement. The British amateurs, it would seem, were pleading for providing a balanced higher education and training, rather than going for the technical excellence of the political rival Imperial Germany, which dazzled and, at the same time, intimidated some of them.