22
Education
The Scottish educational policy community has traditionally been one of Scotland’s most
distinct policy communities; the educational histories of Scotland and England are very
divergent, as are the associated ideas and issues of social status and social function of education
(Anderson, R. D. 1995; Paterson 2003). While there is a lively Scottish industry involved in
debunking myths of the ‘lad o’parts’ who advances in society by merit and the educational
system, there is also a grain of truth– Scottish schools, in curriculum, culture, image, and results,
are far more homogeneous than the English, and Scotland has less of the socially prestigious (or
at least aspirational) network of public schools that play such a role in English class formation.
In the universities, the homogenizing impact of factors such as the Research Assessment
Exercise, and the unifying effect of a single UK academic labor market have been counteracted
by the pronounced localism of Scottish students (Wyn Jones, 2004:19) and the deep local roots
of the universities. This set of distinctive Scottish institutions has lived under different
legislation, direction, and political imperatives from England for most of its history, and the
organization of Scottish education outside the universities has been consistently different. The
result is the presence of a distinct world of Scottish educational administration, with its own
internal hierarchies, institutions, predelictions and resources; (Humes 1986; McPherson and
Raab 1988; Humes and Bryce 1999; Paterson 2003; for a nice example of how this distinctive
policy community’s values and influence worked on a UK government’s idea, Teelken 2000).
The participants in this policy community are those based in producer organizations with
expertise and a role in the institutions: local government, academics working in Scottish
educational studies, the unions in the schools (especially the Educational Institute of Scotland)
and the leaders of the schools themselves. This is not a large group, and it has fairly consistent
preferences, fairly consistent habits of keeping some policy ideas alive and burying others. The
broad themes of policies that succeed in this policy community are equality as a goal and
similarity as a mechanism; a lack of interest in relentless testing and targeting, and a
professional’s sensitivity to the dysfunctions that emerge; and a concern with partnership rather
than competition between organizations. The Blair governments, concerned as ever with
demonstrating the value for money of the public services via targets and standards, and
improving performance via more management and market models (“choice), are again the foil;
English educational policy includes a high degree of government-induced differentiation
between schools (“City academies”) and multiple forms of testing at all ages.
Convention