The (absent) politics of neo-liberal education policy

Critical social pedagogy: Colliding with neo-liberal education management

This paper reports research conducted by the Research Centre for Learning and Social Transformation. Our work on workbased learning (WBL) reframes the dualism of higher education and vocational education and training within a critical social pedagogy framework. In implementing WBL we are aware of the epistemological and historical backgrounds of workbased learning and the tensions between compe...

The Terms of the Neo-Liberal Consensus

And so the most spectacular crash of the world's most neo-liberal government ushered in the neo-liberal consensus. From now on both major contending parties in the British state accept the essential neo-liberal tenets: markets should rule under the guidance of entrepreneurs, with minimal intervention from government; taxes and public spending, and in particular the redistributive effect of dire...

The Politics and Analytics of Health Policy

Let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. Within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the West’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. Comparing the US with mainland Europe and indeed Canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...

Human Rights in the Neo-liberal Imagination

“Enemies of the People?” Public Health in the Era of Populist Politics; Comment on “The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy”

In this commentary, we review the growth of populist politics, associated with exploitation of what has been termed fake news. We explore how certain words have been used in similar contexts historically, in particular the term “enemy of the people,” especially with regard to public health. We then set out 6 principles for public health professionals faced with these situations. First, using th...