PE7072 - Critical Issues in Education: Policy, Power and the Politics of Education

The programme uses Technology Enhanced Learning as a framework to support and enhance teaching and learning. As a Distance Learning programme, delivery is entirely online via a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Each module is supported by numerous interactive sessions over a period of 10 weeks of learning, leading to an assessment submission week (you will study one module at a time). Session delivery captures a variety of formats acknowledging the nature and content of the individual module and subject, alongside your needs as a student. You will also be encouraged to participate in interactive discussion boards, where you will be able to share your thoughts with others and engage in debate. Some sessions are text based, others utilise audio and video tools to deliver the learning materials. All sessions have interactive elements that enable you to enhance your understanding and consolidate your learning, thereby facilitating formative feedback. All modules are supported by online reading lists that provide simplified access to various electronic, digital and hard copy sources. You also can participate in scheduled Microsoft Teams sessions, in which you will be able to “video-conference” academic tutors and students.

Within the programme, there are wide ranging opportunities for you to engage actively in research rich learning through problem solving, project work and real-world examples all of which are informed by current research and practice, as well as reading journal papers that develop your theoretical insight. All of the Level 7 modules that form the programme cover each of the four elements of research-rich learning, but with increasing emphasis on you, as a student, being an active participant rather than part of an audience. There is a significant application of research-based (enquiry-based) and research-tutored approaches, the former being significantly supported through organisation-oriented summative assessment.

There are a range of mechanisms to support you academically throughout your Distance Learning study with us. These will include induction and study support interventions, supported electronically, to recognise the different backgrounds of students entering this programme at Level 7.
You will have the support of an academic Programme Leader from the subject discipline, who will lead the programme from an academic perspective and will be available to support you in terms of any academic guidance you require. From an individual module perspective, you will be supported academically by the module tutor leading the individual module you are undertaking at any given point in time, alongside the receipt of peer support from your fellow participants on your module, be it through Microsoft Teams and/or online discussion boards.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge and Understanding (KU)
1. Demonstrate a critical and systematic understanding of major theoretical frameworks used to analyse the politics of education, evaluating how power, ideology, and social inequality shape educational aims, practices, and institutional arrangements.
2. Critically evaluate the design and consequences of assessment and accountability systems in education, drawing on empirical and theoretical sources to analyse their impacts on equity, professional practice, and institutional behaviour.

Intellectual / Professional Skills and Abilities (IPSA)
1. Interpret and critically analyse educational policy texts with conceptual precision, tracing the interests, assumptions, and power relations embedded in policy language and examining the conditions under which policy is produced, legitimised, and contested.
2. Analyse and critique curriculum debates — including knowledge-rich, skills-based, and decolonisation perspectives — drawing on evidence and theory to construct and defend positions on what counts as legitimate educational knowledge and why.

Personal Values Attributes (PVA)
1. Produce a sustained, original argument about a significant issue in educational policy or practice, integrating theoretical analysis and critical ethical reflection to propose and justify defensible lines of critique or intervention, demonstrating the disposition of a critically informed practitioner-scholar.

Formatively you will engage in discussions with your peers on discussion forums. This will include sharing ideas on issues of interest and how you will effectively address these in your assessed presentation. Your tutor will guide you as you plan and structure your assessments.

Summative:
You will submit a recorded presentation defending your position on a contested issue in education. Examples of contested issues include, but are not limited to:
• Decolonising education
• Standardised testing and assessment
• School autonomy vs. accountability
• Admissions and selection: catchment areas, selective schools
• Teacher professionalism and workload
• Inclusion and special educational needs, mainstreaming vs. specialist provision

30mins presentation

MLOs: KU1 & 2; IPSA 1 & 2; PVA 1

Feedback:
You will receive feedback from your tutor and peers as you engage in individual and group tasks and at live sessions. Your grade will be informed by the assessment criteria and the Module Learning Outcomes.

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This module starts from the central proposition that education is never neutral. Curriculum choices, assessment frameworks and policy initiatives all embody assumptions about knowledge, social order and whose interests education serves. You will develop theoretical and analytical tools to interrogate those assumptions and to produce sustained, evidence-informed critiques. Key topics include the politics of curriculum (whose knowledge counts; knowledge-rich vs skills-based approaches; decolonisation), assessment and accountability (high-stakes testing, inspection regimes, effects on equity and professional autonomy), and policy formation and contestation (national and international agencies, market forces, advocacy and resistance). The module emphasises close reading of policy texts, rigorous argumentation, and the development of a practitioner-scholar stance that applies structural and theoretical analysis to educational institutions and systems.