A Reappraisal of Children’s ‘Potential’

What does it mean for a child to fulfil his or her potential? This article explores the contexts and implications of the much-used concept of potential in educational discourses. We claim that many of the popular, political and educational uses of the term in relation to childhood have a problematic blind spot: interpersonality, and the necessary coexistence for the concept to be receivable of all children’s ‘potentials’. Rather than advocating abandoning the term—a futile gesture given its emotive force—we argue that the concept of children’s potential must be profoundly rethought to be workable as a philosophical notion in education. In an era marked by the unspoken assumption that ‘unlimited potential’ is always a good thing, we argue that it might be necessary to think about the limitations of the notion of individual potential; namely, the moment when it comes into contact with other people’s projects. We propose a conceptualisation of potential as the negotiated, situated, ever-changing creation of a group of individuals, in a process marked by conflict, and which remains essentially difficult.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11217-016-9508-

Dynamics of social class contempt in contemporary British television comedy

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Taylor & Francis.British television comedy has often ridiculed the complexities and characteristics of social class structures and identities. In recent years, poor white socially marginalised groups, now popularly referred to as “chavs”, have become a prevalent comedy target. One of the most popular and controversial television “comedy chavs” is Little Britain's fictional teenage single mother, Vicky Pollard. This article examines the representation of Vicky Pollard in light of contemporary widespread abuse of the white working class. Highlighting the polysemic and ambivalent nature of Vicky Pollard's representation, the article argues that whilst Little Britain's characterisation of Vicky Pollard largely contributes to contemporary widespread demonisation of the working class, there are moments within Little Britain when a more sympathetic tone towards the poor working class may be read, and where chav identities are used to ridicule the pretensions, superficiality, and falsity of middle-class identities. The article concludes that television comedy has been, and continues to be, a significant vehicle through which serious concerns, anxieties, and questions about social class and class identities are discursively constructed and contested

Social justice intents in policy: an analysis of capability for and through education

Primarily developed as an alternative to narrow measures of well-being such as utility and resources, Amartya Sen’s capability approach places strong emphasis on people’s substantive opportunities. As a broad normative framework, the capability approach has become a valuable tool for understanding and evaluating social arrangements (e.g. education policies and development programmes) in terms of individuals’ effective freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings. This paper explores the recent emergence of ‘capability’ in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. We explore capability as a framing device and reveal how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen’s conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education. The analysis shows that the social justice intent of a capability approach appears to be overtaken in the White Paper by an emphasis on outcomes, performance and functionings that seek to serve the nation’s economic interests more than the interests of students, especially the disadvantaged

British immigration policy, depoliticisation and Brexit

This paper seeks to problematise the historical significance of the EU for British governing strategy with reference to immigration policy and the concept of depoliticisation. Situating British governing strategy in terms of the crisis-prone nature of capitalist society, this paper argues that British immigration policy has been depoliticised through, initially, the invocation of globalisation and, more recently, the EU. Through this strategy, the British state has been able to repeatedly claim that immigration policy is largely out of its hands, as they have no control over workers wishing to enter Britain looking for work. This paper makes three claims: firstly, immigration policy has been used as a means by both Conservative and Labour governments to manage inflation and labour; secondly, successive governments have sought to depoliticise immigration policy through reference to external forces; thirdly, this strategy of depoliticisation ultimately failed, politicising Britain’s relationship with the EU and creating conditions for Britain’s exit from the EU