Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994;Pollitt, 1990;Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and deprofessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic 'middle' managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level.

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This paper explores representations of girls in current discourses of neoliberal development through an analysis of a range of texts that promote the global Girl Effect movement. These representations are situated in the context of theoretical debates about gender mainstreaming and policy developments that construct girls and women's ‘empowerment’ as ‘smart economics’. The paper draws on postcolonial and transnational feminist analyses that critique market-led approaches to development and their complicities in the dynamics of neo-colonialism and uneven development, to contextualise the Girl Effect movement. It is argued that the Girl Effect movement draws on colonial stereotypes of girls as sexually and culturally constrained, but reworks these through the discourses of neoliberal development to construct girls as good investment potential. In doing so, it reproduces a dominant narrative that highlights the cultural causes of poverty but obscures structural relations of exploitation and privilege.

This article examines the changing conditions of governance in the post‐incorporated further education (FE) sector. Six years on from the incorporation of colleges in 1993 (Further and Higher Education Act, 1992), the article considers the various ways in which FE governance finds expression in market and managerial reform in this expanding £4bn sector recovering from industrial conflict, low morale, mismanagement and, in some cases, sleaze. In this article the authors analyse the wider policy impact of corporate managerialism on forms of governance at college level, which mirror what, elsewhere, has been described as a crisis of standards in public life. Drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] funded project 1997‐99 [R000236713] undertaken at Keele, the article analyses the meaning of governance as it is interpreted by chairs of governors interviewed in the study. This article connects with wider findings from the Keele Study regarding the work of lecturers, senior and middle managers in FE. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which chairs mediate reform at college level and, in terms of their business acumen and ‘special relationship’ with chief executives, influence the institutional rather than pedagogic culture of FE. Given the lack of critical FE research in this area, the nature of this article is necessarily tentative, including its conclusions for a more public reconfiguration of FE.

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