Institute of Advanced Study

This resource comes from the findings of a Higher Education Academy-funded project ‘Developing students’ knowledge of phonics in secondary teacher education.’ The project was led by Professor Viv Ellis (Brunel University) in collaboration with Professor Henrietta Dombey (University of Brighton), Dr Hannah Grainger Clemson (University of Warwick), and Dr Ian Thompson (University of Oxford). Fieldwork for the project was carried out in secondary schools in Oxfordshire and the London Borough of Hillingdon.

This article discusses a case study exploring how drama as a learning toolkit is appropriated by a History teacher and the impact it has on classroom learning practices and relationships. The value placed on drama as a tool is rooted in a concern for the engagement of pupils and the consolidation of factual knowledge. Despite evidence of enjoyment and understanding, teacher and pupils concerns for ability and confidence create tension and reinforce the teacher's dominant control of the pupils and action. Nevertheless, moments of spontaneity unlock the potential for dramatic play, reopening discussions regarding the nature of 'creativity' in education. desk.) This outburst on the very last word of the speech is a contrast to the measured way he has recited the rest of his speech and it takes the listening pupils by surprise. Caroline and Daniel half turn their heads to each other and smile, exhaling small giggles. Andrew's head turns towards them briefly, then to Barney, then back to Caroline and Daniel then finally to Barney. Andrew still has his arm in the air. Barney looks at him.

This article explores an empirical case study of a secondary Religious Studies classroom where a teacher's two main goals of improving exam results and providing opportunities for moral and spiritual development are entwined. Emphasis is placed on creating the appropriate atmospheric context for pupil experiences, particularly via the teacher's own physical and vocal expression. She aims to work on the pupils' multisensory and emotive experience, in order to encourage personal investment in the lesson tasks en route to achieving a good degree of recall. This modelled practice is not static or stand-alone, but operates within a learning process designed for pupils to encounter different experiences through different modes of communication and to reflect on those experiences. Analysis of the observed lessons and interviews reveals tension between the principal aim of engaging pupils on a personal, emotional level and the highly structured, teacher dominated process that is ultimately practised.

Principles of sufficiency are widely discussed in debates about distributive ethics. However, critics have argued that sufficiency principles are vulnerable to important objections. This article seeks to clarify the main claims of sufficiency principles and to examine whether they have something distinctive and plausible to offer. The article argues that sufficiency principles must claim that we have weighty reasons to secure enough and that once enough is secured the nature of our reasons to secure further benefits shifts. Having characterized sufficientarianism in this way, the article shows that the main objections to the view can be avoided; that we can examine the plausibility of sufficiency principles by appealing to certain reasons that support a shift; and that we should be optimistic about the prospects for sufficientarianism because many of our strongest reasons seem to be of this sort. This shift, I claim, is the overlooked grain of truth in sufficientarianism.

This paper aims to clarify an account of the good enough parent, a key concept in debates about the justification of the custodial arrangements of children, such as the family. The most plausible justifications of the custodial arrangements of children are offered by so-called Dual-Interest Views, which hold that both the adult’s and the child’s interests are relevant to such decisions. An implication of these views is that in order to retain custody of their children parents need only be good enough. However, they do not tell us how bad a good enough parent can be. This paper examines the considerations relevant to devising an account of the good enough parent and defends a particular account, which enables us to identify sufficient reasons to remove children from the custody of their parents.

This paper argues that a commitment to the priority of a certain kind of autonomy, what I call Rawlsian Autonomy, entails a commitment to self-realization, which includes the development of our natural talents and interests. Educational institutions, then should be designed so as to provide sufficient opportunity to develop those talents and interests. Moreover, since the account of autonomy, from which sufficient opportunity is derived, is given lexical priority in Rawls theory, the primary aim of a just educational system is not equal opportunity but sufficient opportunity. Some of the practical implications of taking sufficient opportunity are considered for the charitable status of independent schools and curriculum design.

Some political philosophers working on justice in child-rearing are attracted to a dual-interest view. The dual-interest view holds that both the interests of parents and the interests are children are relevant to the evaluation of child-rearing arrangements, including custodial decisions. By contrast, the child-centered view holds that only the child’s interests are relevant to the evaluation of such arrangements. Part of the motivation for the dual-interest view is that it promises to explain certain intuitions better than the child-centered view. These include the intuition that it is wrong to deny decent parents custody of their children even when much better parents are available (The Better Parents Worry) and the intuition that it would be wrong to shuffle babies from biological parents to non-biological parents at birth (The Baby Shuffling Worry). However, whether the intuitions can be successfully explained by the dual-interest view, and therefore whether the view itself can be motivated, depends on their being a defensible account of the parenting interest that can explain those intuitions. In this paper I argue that some of the characterizations of the parenting interest that have been offered by dual-interest theorists are inadequate to explain those intuitions and that there are independent reasons, such as equal opportunity between fertile and infertile couples, for thinking that we may have to accept that those intuitions are, to some extent, mistaken.

Sufficientarianism is the view that it makes a moral difference whether a person has enough or not. The thought is that those who do not have enough of some important goods have an especially strong claim to extra benefits and having enough is so important that we should try to ensure that as many people as possible have enough as a primary goal. Critics of the view have argued that sufficientarians are vulnerable to several compelling objections. However, I argue that rather than being the final word on Sufficientarianism, these objections raise tricky questions that remain unanswered, including, How much is enough? What precisely is the moral difference that securing enough makes? and how can it make such a moral difference to have enough rather than just less than enough? Critics believe that these questions cannot be answered convincingly, and that Sufficientarianism is therefore an inadequate view of distributive justice, but I argue that these important questions can be answered in ways that are at least plausible. To this end, I discuss the kinds of answers that are available to Sufficientarianism in general and to specific sufficientarian views including the two most influential views and some new views.

Abstract: in this paper I argue that upper-limit sufficientarianism suffers from a major problem stemming from its distinctive indifference to supra-threshold distributions. I argue that supra-threshold distributions must either be relevant justice or irrelevant to justice, but facing up to this distinction shows that upper-limit sufficientarian face a dilemma. Either supra-threshold distributions are relevant to justice, and the indifference to those distributions is incoherent or supra-threshold distributions are irrelevant to justice, and indifference to those distributions is trivial as it is not a matter of justice nor is it a contested claim.

This paper defends a cap on the proportion of privately educated students admitted to elite colleges. This policy is a response to difficulties raised by the fact that education is both instrumentally, positionally valuable and intrinsically valuable. It aims to leave space for parents to invest in the development of their child's talents without these advantages spilling over into inequalities in job and life prospects. {click the link}

In this paper I examine the most prominent position in the debate about justice in the costs of children: the public goods approach. According to the public goods approach, non-parents can be required to share the costs of children, perhaps through the machinations of the welfare state, because children are a special benefit to them: a public good. I will make two critical claims about this position. First, I will argue that that the position explicitly answers only one of the three questions central to an account of justice in the costs of children: the question of Who can be required to share the costs, and it therefore neglects the very important question of How Much those who can be required to share the cost can be required to share. This question of How Much is highly significant because the answer to it will determine how generous the welfare state can be, the main reason why we are even drawn to the question of justice in the costs of children in the first place. Second, I will argue that a deeper examination of the core commitments of the public goods approach severely constraints the costs that non-parents can be required to share, and therefore limits the extent of public support for parents to a level below what seems to be assumed by proponents of the argument and by much contemporary practice. In light of this, proponents of the public goods approach must find another argument to support further cost-sharing, or else significantly pare back their ambitions for the welfare state and cost sharing among parents and non-parents.