Preti Taneja taught creative writing as part of Learning Together, Cambridge University’s prison education programme which took students into high-security prison to learn alongside incarcerated men. One of her first prison students was Usman Khan. Released on licence two years later, he went on to perpetrate the 2019 London Bridge terror attack in which Taneja’s Learning Together colleague Jack Merritt, and Saskia Jones were killed. Aftermath is Taneja’s 2021 award-winning work of abolitionist, lyric non-fiction about the attack: a searching lament on institutional violence and structural harm, Islamophobia, trauma and terror, prison and grief. This article presents two extracts from parts one and three of the book, Radical Doubt and Radical Hope, which were included in Taneja’s 2022 British Academy Lecture at the University of Leeds.
{"title":"Aftermath: Radical Doubt; Radical Hope","authors":"Preti Taneja","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a14","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Preti Taneja taught creative writing as part of Learning Together, Cambridge University’s prison education programme which took students into high-security prison to learn alongside incarcerated men. One of her first prison students was Usman Khan. Released on licence two years later, he went on to perpetrate the 2019 London Bridge terror attack in which Taneja’s Learning Together colleague Jack Merritt, and Saskia Jones were killed.\u0000Aftermath is Taneja’s 2021 award-winning work of abolitionist, lyric non-fiction about the attack: a searching lament on institutional violence and structural harm, Islamophobia, trauma and terror, prison and grief. This article presents two extracts from parts one and three of the book, Radical Doubt and Radical Hope, which were included in Taneja’s 2022 British Academy Lecture at the University of Leeds.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"69 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141112042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Niger Delta has been a site of trauma as a result of decades of non-stop environmental pollution. Existing studies have explored the socio-political and economic implications of pollution and its quotidian impact on the lived experiences of the people. This study, however, focuses on ecopoetry as a genre that reflects, and reflects on, the trauma of ecological degradation and the spiritual implications for the Niger Delta. By doing so, it explores traumatogenic metaphors and religious motifs in ecopoetry from the region. This informs the purposive selection of two Niger Delta poetry collections—Tanure Ojaide’s Songs of Myself: Quartet (2015) and Stephen Kekeghe’s Rumbling Sky (2020). The poems are subjected to critical literary analysis, undergirded by Jacob Olupona’s perspective of ecology of religion and Stef Craps’ trauma theory, to examine how the impact of environmental degradation on the mental health and spiritual well-being of the people is poetically addressed. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: literary, cultural and religious perspectives’, edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba.)
尼日尔三角洲因数十年不间断的环境污染而饱受创伤。现有研究探讨了污染对社会政治和经济的影响及其对人们生活经验的日常影响。然而，本研究侧重于生态诗歌这种体裁，它反映并反思了生态退化造成的创伤以及对尼日尔三角洲的精神影响。为此，本研究探讨了该地区生态诗歌中的创伤隐喻和宗教主题。在此基础上，有目的地选择了两部尼日尔三角洲诗集--塔努雷-奥贾伊德的《我自己的歌》（Songs of Myself：四重奏》（2015 年）和 Stephen Kekeghe 的《隆隆的天空》（2020 年）。本文以雅各布-奥卢波纳（Jacob Olupona）的宗教生态学视角和斯蒂夫-克拉普斯（Stef Craps）的创伤理论为基础，对这两部诗集进行了批判性的文学分析，以研究环境退化对人们的心理健康和精神福祉造成的影响是如何通过诗歌加以解决的。(本文发表于由 Adriaan van Klinken、Simon Manda、Damaris Parsitau 和 Abel Ugba 编辑的专题文集《非洲生态：文学、文化和宗教视角》）。
{"title":"Traumatogenic metaphors and religious motifs in Niger Delta ecopoetry","authors":"Emmanuel Edafe Erhijodo","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a17","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Niger Delta has been a site of trauma as a result of decades of non-stop environmental pollution. Existing studies have explored the socio-political and economic implications of pollution and its quotidian impact on the lived experiences of the people. This study, however, focuses on ecopoetry as a genre that reflects, and reflects on, the trauma of ecological degradation and the spiritual implications for the Niger Delta. By doing so, it explores traumatogenic metaphors and religious motifs in ecopoetry from the region. This informs the purposive selection of two Niger Delta poetry collections—Tanure Ojaide’s Songs of Myself: Quartet (2015) and Stephen Kekeghe’s Rumbling Sky (2020). The poems are subjected to critical literary analysis, undergirded by Jacob Olupona’s perspective of ecology of religion and Stef Craps’ trauma theory, to examine how the impact of environmental degradation on the mental health and spiritual well-being of the people is poetically addressed. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: literary, cultural and religious perspectives’, edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba.)\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"51 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141108886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay is a reflection on two creative documentary films produced as outputs of projects supported by the British Academy: The Faces We Lost (2017) and (Dis)Appear (2023). Both films focus on the commemorative and memorial functions of domestic and ID photographs – The Faces We Lost in relation to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and (Dis)Appear in relation to the civic-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983). The essay outlines the importance of domestic and ID photographs in each context and discusses some of the conceptual, formal and creative decisions behind the two documentaries. But it also attempts to contribute to the conversation about creative documentary filmmaking, and creative practice research more generally, as a form of academic enquiry. Lastly, it asks questions about the opportunities and limitations of making films within the academic rather than commercial environment, especially films made in and about the Global South.
本文是对两部创意纪录片的反思，这两部纪录片是英国科学院支持项目的成果：The Faces We Lost》（2017 年）和《(Dis)Appear》（2023 年）。这两部影片都聚焦于家庭和身份证照片的纪念和追思功能--《我们失去的面孔》与 1994 年卢旺达针对图西族的种族灭绝有关，而《(Dis)Appear》则与阿根廷的公民-军事独裁统治（1976-1983 年）有关。文章概述了国内照片和身份证照片在每种情况下的重要性，并讨论了两部纪录片背后的一些概念、形式和创作决定。同时，文章还试图就创意纪录片制作以及更广泛意义上的创意实践研究作为一种学术探究形式展开讨论。最后，它提出了在学术环境而非商业环境中制作电影的机遇和局限性问题，尤其是在全球南部制作的电影和关于全球南部的电影。
{"title":"(Extra)ordinary images: photography, memory and creative documentary – Rwanda and Argentina","authors":"Piotr Cieplak","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a06","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay is a reflection on two creative documentary films produced as outputs of projects supported by the British Academy: The Faces We Lost (2017) and (Dis)Appear (2023). Both films focus on the commemorative and memorial functions of domestic and ID photographs – The Faces We Lost in relation to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and (Dis)Appear in relation to the civic-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983). The essay outlines the importance of domestic and ID photographs in each context and discusses some of the conceptual, formal and creative decisions behind the two documentaries. But it also attempts to contribute to the conversation about creative documentary filmmaking, and creative practice research more generally, as a form of academic enquiry. Lastly, it asks questions about the opportunities and limitations of making films within the academic rather than commercial environment, especially films made in and about the Global South.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"14 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141110026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article sets out an original and exploratory framework for examining emerging concepts of cultural mobilities and heritage with a key focus on the infrastructure and spatialities of cultural mobilities in, of and through Asia—specifically China. To date, the scholarly analysis of mobilities has been dominated by the social sciences in relation to central themes of migration, national borders, crisis and transnational flows of objects and people. This paper seeks to expand the focus in mobilities discourses to humanities, not only to research how infrastructures and spatialities are shaped by culture and heritage but also to analyse cultural mobility through infrastructure and spatialities. We set out epistemic considerations for approaching cultural mobilities through an interdisciplinary lens that seeks to address heritage studies of diverse kinds, from environmental to religious to architectural. By centring Asian epistemes, the paper also challenges recognition and interpretation biases in the humanities and social sciences that continue to privilege Eurocentric hegemonies. Together, the co-authors examine: how Asian cultures operate through material and non-material infrastructures that defy singular location in geopolitical crossings and networks; how culture is mobilised in different ways through infrastructure; the entanglement of cultural heritage with political infrastructure and living practice as well as embedded values. The article discusses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), yoga as a cultural infrastructure between India and China, and the infrastructure and multiple spatialities of Chinatown as a evolving practice of cultural heritage.
{"title":"Cultural mobilities and cultural heritage: concepts for an Asia-centric approach","authors":"Karen O’Brien-Kop, Xiang Ren, Alessandro Rippa","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a12","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article sets out an original and exploratory framework for examining emerging concepts of cultural mobilities and heritage with a key focus on the infrastructure and spatialities of cultural mobilities in, of and through Asia—specifically China. To date, the scholarly analysis of mobilities has been dominated by the social sciences in relation to central themes of migration, national borders, crisis and transnational flows of objects and people. This paper seeks to expand the focus in mobilities discourses to humanities, not only to research how infrastructures and spatialities are shaped by culture and heritage but also to analyse cultural mobility through infrastructure and spatialities. We set out epistemic considerations for approaching cultural mobilities through an interdisciplinary lens that seeks to address heritage studies of diverse kinds, from environmental to religious to architectural. By centring Asian epistemes, the paper also challenges recognition and interpretation biases in the humanities and social sciences that continue to privilege Eurocentric hegemonies. Together, the co-authors examine: how Asian cultures operate through material and non-material infrastructures that defy singular location in geopolitical crossings and networks; how culture is mobilised in different ways through infrastructure; the entanglement of cultural heritage with political infrastructure and living practice as well as embedded values. The article discusses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), yoga as a cultural infrastructure between India and China, and the infrastructure and multiple spatialities of Chinatown as a evolving practice of cultural heritage.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"20 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141109936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As immersive exhibitions and entertainments have become fashionable, it should be remembered that they have a long history, stretching back to the panoramas of the 18th century and the many optical novelties of the Victorian era, leading up to cinema and subsequent attempts to make this a more immersive experience. More recently, the concepts of cyberspace and the metaverse have been imported from science fiction to describe virtual experiences now available through digital media. Remediation theory should explain these, as well as their evident popularity, yet cultural and aesthetic hostility to such spatial illusions is almost as old as the new media themselves, and has reappeared in response to immersive exhibitions.
{"title":"Immersion – new media and old ambitions","authors":"Ian Christie","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a03","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000As immersive exhibitions and entertainments have become fashionable, it should be remembered that they have a long history, stretching back to the panoramas of the 18th century and the many optical novelties of the Victorian era, leading up to cinema and subsequent attempts to make this a more immersive experience. More recently, the concepts of cyberspace and the metaverse have been imported from science fiction to describe virtual experiences now available through digital media. Remediation theory should explain these, as well as their evident popularity, yet cultural and aesthetic hostility to such spatial illusions is almost as old as the new media themselves, and has reappeared in response to immersive exhibitions.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141108138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this interview, Professor Catherine Hall considers the impact and legacy of Edward Long’s three-volume History of Jamaica, published in 1774. Long—slave-owner, planter and supporter of a racial-based slave economy—drew on a range of contemporary thinking in politics, economics and natural sciences, and on his own detailed experience of Jamaica, to make a case for the ‘naturalness’ of African enslavement and of what is now termed ‘racial capitalism’. Professor Hall considers the uncomfortable contexts and longevity of this seminal 18th-century book and its influence on racial thinking that still resonates today.
{"title":"The long shadow of Edward Long","authors":"Catherine Hall, Elizabeth Edwards","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a08","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this interview, Professor Catherine Hall considers the impact and legacy of Edward Long’s three-volume History of Jamaica, published in 1774. Long—slave-owner, planter and supporter of a racial-based slave economy—drew on a range of contemporary thinking in politics, economics and natural sciences, and on his own detailed experience of Jamaica, to make a case for the ‘naturalness’ of African enslavement and of what is now termed ‘racial capitalism’. Professor Hall considers the uncomfortable contexts and longevity of this seminal 18th-century book and its influence on racial thinking that still resonates today.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"30 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141112874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article probes the mainstream UK structure of feeling—to use the classic term invented by Raymond Williams—on the Irish question. It argues that there was, and is a historic inability in a largely peaceful stable society to face up to the life and death issues, more recently those connected with political violence, posed by Ireland. The material covered ranges from the Irish famine of 1846 to 1850, to the war of independence 1919 to 1921 and the modern Ulster Troubles. It notices how often the need to preserve a comfortable often, but not always, liberal self-image involves a significant neglect of Irish realities. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered on 31 May 2023.
{"title":"How the British have misunderstood Ireland and Northern Ireland","authors":"Paul Bew","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a04","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article probes the mainstream UK structure of feeling—to use the classic term invented by Raymond Williams—on the Irish question. It argues that there was, and is a historic inability in a largely peaceful stable society to face up to the life and death issues, more recently those connected with political violence, posed by Ireland. The material covered ranges from the Irish famine of 1846 to 1850, to the war of independence 1919 to 1921 and the modern Ulster Troubles. It notices how often the need to preserve a comfortable often, but not always, liberal self-image involves a significant neglect of Irish realities. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered on 31 May 2023.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141111049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The impact of colonialism and empire and then of transport, logistics, advertising, media, cinema, radio, tourism, and the internet extended the global reach of English. With 1.13 billion speakers, one in seven in the world now has some English competence. Within this global circulation of English, we have the global teaching of English language and literature, most recently captured for Britain in a June 2023 British Academy report, the relevant findings of which are the decline in the information age and under neoliberal governments of university students reading English Literature and the rise of Creative Writing and world literatures in translation. I distinguish global from world Englishes as the hegemonic language of global trade and finance from more bottom-up Englishes mixed with other languages on the streets; discuss the state of English studies globally; and propose decolonising and denationalising the curriculum. The notion of national languages, identifying a language with national unity, is a very modern idea, only about three centuries old and arising with the formation of modern nation-states. We might use the lived histories of global and world Englishes to transcend both romantic revolutionary and far-right exclusionary nationalisms in literary and language studies in favour of more cosmopolitan, multilingual, and convivial approaches.
{"title":"Language and literature in the information economy: the state of English, English and the state","authors":"Regenia Gagnier","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a11","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The impact of colonialism and empire and then of transport, logistics, advertising, media, cinema, radio, tourism, and the internet extended the global reach of English. With 1.13 billion speakers, one in seven in the world now has some English competence. Within this global circulation of English, we have the global teaching of English language and literature, most recently captured for Britain in a June 2023 British Academy report, the relevant findings of which are the decline in the information age and under neoliberal governments of university students reading English Literature and the rise of Creative Writing and world literatures in translation. I distinguish global from world Englishes as the hegemonic language of global trade and finance from more bottom-up Englishes mixed with other languages on the streets; discuss the state of English studies globally; and propose decolonising and denationalising the curriculum. The notion of national languages, identifying a language with national unity, is a very modern idea, only about three centuries old and arising with the formation of modern nation-states. We might use the lived histories of global and world Englishes to transcend both romantic revolutionary and far-right exclusionary nationalisms in literary and language studies in favour of more cosmopolitan, multilingual, and convivial approaches.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"62 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141110566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article deals with the very emblematic, but largely understudied, trajectory of national and local development in Paraguay, which is an example of a subtractive geography that produces spaces that are, in aggregate, less than before. Subtraction is an old driving force of nation-building as it connects the subtractive colonial past with the cultivated deserts of hyper-neoliberal agribusiness. The production of Paraguayan spaces has been based on the subtractive inclinations of its military–agrarian ruling elite, which compromised the national territory in tragic wars with regional neighbours and, since the end of the 19th century, the selling of land to foreigners and international companies. The subtractive pattern of a subordinate and aggressive capitalist development has been especially predicated upon the negation of the most fundamental rights and entitlements of Indigenous peoples. The discussion is based on research dedicated to understanding the struggle of the Paĩ Tavyterã Indigenous nation. Despite systematic denunciation of the anti-Indigenous direction of development by national and international organisations, the ancestral territories of the Paĩ Tavyterã have been under attack and they have been treated as generic citizens and cheap labourers. At the same time, the response of Indigenous peoples and other sectors of the working class has emerged in the form of anti-subtraction reactions. Decolonisation is, first and foremost, an anti-subtraction movement that aims at reverting the deficit caused by systemic subtraction and collectively seeking for social, political and spatial additions.
{"title":"Development, subtraction and the Indigenous peoples of Paraguay","authors":"A. Ioris","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a05","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article deals with the very emblematic, but largely understudied, trajectory of national and local development in Paraguay, which is an example of a subtractive geography that produces spaces that are, in aggregate, less than before. Subtraction is an old driving force of nation-building as it connects the subtractive colonial past with the cultivated deserts of hyper-neoliberal agribusiness. The production of Paraguayan spaces has been based on the subtractive inclinations of its military–agrarian ruling elite, which compromised the national territory in tragic wars with regional neighbours and, since the end of the 19th century, the selling of land to foreigners and international companies. The subtractive pattern of a subordinate and aggressive capitalist development has been especially predicated upon the negation of the most fundamental rights and entitlements of Indigenous peoples. The discussion is based on research dedicated to understanding the struggle of the Paĩ Tavyterã Indigenous nation. Despite systematic denunciation of the anti-Indigenous direction of development by national and international organisations, the ancestral territories of the Paĩ Tavyterã have been under attack and they have been treated as generic citizens and cheap labourers. At the same time, the response of Indigenous peoples and other sectors of the working class has emerged in the form of anti-subtraction reactions. Decolonisation is, first and foremost, an anti-subtraction movement that aims at reverting the deficit caused by systemic subtraction and collectively seeking for social, political and spatial additions.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"61 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141110373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The economic value of education is widely known. However, policymakers, despite recognising its economic benefits in theory, in practice treat education spending and school funding as a cost. In the English context, this has led to a shortfall in investment in education, training and skills. The prevailing characterisation of education as a cost obscures its genuine societal and economic value, and there is a particular need for better measurement of its social benefits, including human capital, in terms of health, civic participation, and well-being. This article explores the consequences of downplaying the investment role of education, which include cuts in real-terms education spending despite trying to pursue an economic growth agenda, and increases in educational and income inequality. The current (burdensome) accountability system then adds to the problem of underinvestment, measuring as it does only a narrow range of academic outcomes. Its high-stakes approach also appears to be undermining the desirability of teaching as a profession, which will be detrimental to education quality. This article discusses potential solutions, advocating for a comprehensive and long-term approach to education planning and measuring outcomes beyond traditional academic metrics. It urges a paradigm shift in perceiving education as a sustained, lifelong investment, necessitating strategic systemwide planning, cross-party consensus and, above all, a commitment to valuing the education system and its workforce. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered in November 2022.
{"title":"The English education system: undervalued and over-measured","authors":"Anna Vignoles","doi":"10.5871/jba/012.a21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/012.a21","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The economic value of education is widely known. However, policymakers, despite recognising its economic benefits in theory, in practice treat education spending and school funding as a cost. In the English context, this has led to a shortfall in investment in education, training and skills. The prevailing characterisation of education as a cost obscures its genuine societal and economic value, and there is a particular need for better measurement of its social benefits, including human capital, in terms of health, civic participation, and well-being. This article explores the consequences of downplaying the investment role of education, which include cuts in real-terms education spending despite trying to pursue an economic growth agenda, and increases in educational and income inequality. The current (burdensome) accountability system then adds to the problem of underinvestment, measuring as it does only a narrow range of academic outcomes. Its high-stakes approach also appears to be undermining the desirability of teaching as a profession, which will be detrimental to education quality. This article discusses potential solutions, advocating for a comprehensive and long-term approach to education planning and measuring outcomes beyond traditional academic metrics. It urges a paradigm shift in perceiving education as a sustained, lifelong investment, necessitating strategic systemwide planning, cross-party consensus and, above all, a commitment to valuing the education system and its workforce. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered in November 2022.\u0000","PeriodicalId":93790,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the British Academy","volume":"7 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141108465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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