The politics of teachers' work in the context of curriculum resources marketisation policy reforms in three secondary schools in Tanzania : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at Massey University, Manawatu Campus, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Before Tanzania enjoyed the fruits of postcolonial education policy reforms, the country was hit by the world economic crises in the 1970s. Consequently, Tanzania and other developing countries turned to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) that imposed, financed, and controlled her education and economic policy through the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) of the 1980s. Thus, Tanzania adopted education privatisation and marketisation policies during the 1990s. More specifically, in 1991, the Policy on Production and Distribution of School and College Books, which I will call Marketisation Policy, redefined school and college curriculum resources according to market principles. The purpose of this study was to critically analyse how marketisation policy reforms, reconstructed at societal, institutional, and local classroom levels, reshaped teachers’ subjectivities and practices between 1992 and 2012. Using an ethnographic case study of three secondary schools from northern Tanzania, the study examines teachers’ work histories, politics, and cultures using a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1995, 2015) and the theory of pedagogic discourse (Bernstein, 1971, 1975, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2000). The study aimed to answer three research questions, namely: (1) What policy texts and discourses were constructed in the process of marketisation policy interpretation in secondary schools? (2) How do marketisation policy texts and discourses reshape secondary school teachers’ subject positions and pedagogical codes? and (3) How do the subject positions and pedagogical codes constructed by marketisation policy texts and discourses reshape teachers’ pedagogic practices and official knowledge construction? Marketisation policy implementation and professional documents, interview and focus group transcripts, and classroom observation notes were collected from the three schools. These were analysed to discern themes that characterised the nature, history, and politics of teachers’ work practices. Findings indicate that marketisation policy texts and discourses positioned secondary school teachers as passive and dependent consumers of marketised curriculum resources (MCR) produced by private publishers and the state. They were also positioned as lacking knowledge to plan, decide, and implement curricula, pedagogic, and evaluation practices. These subject positions constrained teacher creativity and critical thinking, and reproduced capitalist publishers and state power and ideologies through the policy texts and discourses. Curricular, pedagogical, and evaluatative cultural practices were dominated and influenced by capitalist publishers and the state through marketisation policy texts and the discourses of finance, MCR, educational materials’ approval, and advertising. The study documents how marketisation policy aims, objectives, outcomes, and pedagogic strategies reflected the aims and effects of both colonial and postcolonial education policy. Teachers and students constructed multiple power/knowledge and resistance to dominant discourses based on accessible MCR, private tuition, past educational training, collaboration with colleagues, and attending some training. However, although these discourses empowered them to construct and exercise power/knowledge to respond to marketisation policy discursive constraints, they also reconstructed curriculum domination because of students’ limited access to MCR and classroom curriculum discourses

Market reform and fiscal laxity in Communist and post-Communist Hungary: A path-dependent approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework in order to analyse and understand the twin developments of successful microeconomic reform on the one hand and failed macroeconomic stabilisation attempts on the other hand in Hungary. The case study also attempts to explore the reasons why Hungarian policymakers were willing to initiate reforms in the micro sphere, but were reluctant to initiate major changes in public finances both before and after the regime change of 1989/1990. Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies a path-dependent approach by carefully analysing Hungary's Communist and post-Communist economic development. The study restricts itself to a positive analysis but normative statements can also be drawn accordingly. Findings – The study demonstrates that the recent deteriorating economic performance of Hungary is not a recent phenomenon. By providing a path-dependent explanation, it argues that both Communist and post-Communist governments used the general budget as a buffer to compensate the losers of economic reforms, especially microeconomic restructuring. The gradualist success of the country – which dates back to at least 1968 – in the field of liberalisation, marketisation and privatisation was accompanied by a constant overspending in the general government. Practical implications – Hungary has been one of the worst-hit countries of the 2008/2009 financial crisis, not just in Central and Eastern Europe but in the whole world. The capacity and opportunity for strengthening international investors' confidence is, however, not without doubts. The current deterioration is deeply rooted in failed past macroeconomic management. The dissolution of fiscal laxity and state paternalism in a broader context requires, therefore, an all-encompassing reform of the general government, which may trigger serious challenges to the political regime as well. Originality/value – The study aims to show that a relatively high ratio of redistribution, a high and persistent public deficit and an accelerated indebtedness are not recent phenomena in Hungary. In fact, these trends characterised the country well before the transformation of 1989/1990, and have continued in the post-socialist years, too. To explain such a phenomenon, the study argues that in the last couple of decades the hardening of the budget constraint of firms have come at the cost of maintaining the soft budget constraint of the state

Regulation, valuation and systemic liquidity.

It is a commonly held view that International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), adopted by the European Union in 2005 and by other jurisdictions, compounded the recent fi nancial crisis. Application of the IAS 39 rule that governs loan-loss provisions and extends mark-to-market valuation of assets meant that when credit prices fell sharply in 2007 and assets were revalued using the new lower prices, it triggered a need for institutions to raise capital by selling assets, which pushed prices down further, causing more revaluations and more selling in a vicious circle. Mark-to-market volatility added to this unstable dynamic by keeping new buyers away. Fair value accounting rules are pro-cyclical and can contribute to the systemic disappearance of liquidity.1 The price of assets if they were to be sold immediately fell substantially below the price of the same assets if they were to be held to maturity or for some time period beyond the crisis. This liquidity premium was no longer a fraction of a percentage point, but tens of percentage points. A number of observers have concluded that mark-to-market accounting should be suspended during a crisis. On its own, I believe this initiative would further weaken incentives for responsible lending in the good times. Nor would it solve the problem in bad times. The pro-cyclical use of market prices is not the preserve of accounting standards –it also lies at the heart of modern financial regulation. Financial crashes are not random. They always follow booms. Offering forbearance from mark-to-market accounting or other rules during a crisis, yet using these rules at other times, such as during the preceding boom, would promote excessive lending and leverage in the good times. This asymmetry would contribute to more frequent and severe crashes. Second, crises are a time where a rumour becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, as panic and fear spread. It is, arguably, not the time to generate a rise in uncertainty by changing accounting standards. There is room for a revision to the application of mark-to-market rules, but not a revision based on relying on the messenger’s every last word in good times and shooting him in the bad times. But the mechanisms that lead market participants to greet price declines with sell orders have not all to do with value accounting. Current prices, including spot and forward prices, play an important role in the market risk and credit risk management systems approved by financial regulators. Risk limits and sell orders are triggered in response to a rise in price volatility and/or a fall in price. The very philosophy of current banking regulation –risk sensitivity– is about incorporating market prices into the assessment and response to risk. It should be no surprise that if prices, both prices for current and future delivery, are pro-cyclical, then placing an increasing emphasis on price in the management and regulation of risk, will lead us to systemic collapse. This article examines the role of valuation and systemic liquidity and argues that an approach to how we apply mark-to-market accounting and market prices or risk that is driven more by an economic view can improve the systemic resilience of the fi nancial system.

Household Income Determination and Regional Income Differential in Rural China

Regional income dispersion is a sensitive issue in China in terms of judging the impact of economic reform. This study looks closely at the issue as to what are the determinants of income variation among households in general, and which are the key determinants of income dispersion among different regions. The study uses the data from a sample survey on 1000 rural households in five Chinese provinces. Household income equations are estimated to assess the determinants of income variations among China’s rural households. Blinder’s (1973) decomposition approach is used to determine whether the regional income differential is mostly due to regional endowment differential or regional premium. Among other interesting findings, the major determinant of regional income dispersion seems to be the degree of regional marketisation. Moreover, the rate of return to most factors is significantly different across regions. These findings suggest that further economic reform in less developed regions and the open up of inter-regional trade and factor mobility are the most important factors in reducing the regional income differentialhousehold income; regional differential; rural china

Media Industries as Structure: Objectivism and the Societal Context - Case Study: The Political Economy of Television Sports Rights

The chapter as a whole will offer an outline how political economy has come to operate across different aspects of media, cultural and communication studies, and attempt to outline a methodology for how best to implement this approach for research. My contribution sits alongside this, offering a case study where I reflect quite openly about how I myself use political economy in my research, how exactly I went about doing this from a methodological standpoint, and also how effective it was as a method of research. I therefore frame my contribution around a piece of my research that I have actually done where I took a political economy approach. More specifically, readers will find below a piece that thinks about the how's and why's of using this approach for television sports rights. I have also used a political economy theory for the analysis of public service broadcasting (see Iosifidis, 2007, 2010), media ownership (see Iosifidis, 1997, 2011) and social media (see Iosifidis and Wheeler, 2016)

Universities, social movements and market forces

Universities have changed drastically over the past few decades. To understand and articulate what has happened, I make a stab at answering, however sketchily, the following questions: What forces have shaped universities over recent decades? What as been the impact of social movements such as socialism, feminism, africanism on the process of the production of knowledge? Why has it been deemed necessary, not only to demand inclusion of the excluded in the domain of higher knowledge, but to challenge the existing canon and to struggle for radically new approaches to curricula? What has been achieved by history from below, gender studies, african studies, postcolonial studies? What has happened to all the passionate debates between contending paradigms? Are market forces marginalising all else? Is it desirable and/or possible to resist? How is the project of academic transformation in South Africa unfolding within this global field of forces

Assessment innovation and student experience: a new assessment challenge and call for a multi-perspective approach to assessment research

The impact of innovative assessment on student experience in higher education is a neglected research topic. This represents an important gap in the literature given debate around the marketization of higher education, international focus on student satisfaction measurement tools and political calls to put students at the heart of higher education in the UK. This paper reports on qualitative findings from a research project examining the impact of assessment preferences and familiarity on student attainment and experience. It argues that innovation is defined by the student, shaped by diverse assessment experiences and preferences and therefore its impact is difficult to predict. It proposes that future innovations must explore assessment choice mechanisms which allow students to shape their own assessments. Cultural change and staff development will be required to achieve this. To be accepted, assessment for student experience must be viewed as a complementary layer within a complex multi perspective model of assessment which also embraces assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment for life long learning. Further research is required to build a meta theory of assessment to enhance the synergies between these alternative approaches and to minimise tensions between them