Since the 1988 Education Reform Act, the teacher’s role in England has changed in many ways, a process which intensified under New Labour after 1997. Conceptions of teacher professionalism have become more structured and formalized, often heavily influenced by government policy objectives. Career paths have become more diverse and specialised. In this article, three post-1997 professional roles are given consideration as examples of these new specialised career paths: Higher Level Teaching Assistants, Teach First trainees and Advanced Skills Teachers. The article goes on to examine such developments within teaching, using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to inform the analysis, as well as Bernstein’s theories of knowledge and identity. The article concludes that there has been considerable specialization and subsequent fragmentation of roles within the teaching profession, as part of workforce remodelling initiatives. However, there is still further scope for developing a greater sense of professional cohesion through social activism initiatives, such as the children's agenda. This may produce more stable professional identities in the future as the role of teachers within the wider children’s workforce is clarified

The introduction of artificial intelligence in education (AIED) is likely to have a profound impact on the lives of children and young people. This article explores the different types of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in common use in education, their social context and their relationship with the growth of commercial knowledge monopolies. This in turn is used to highlight data privacy rights issues for children and young people, as defined by the 2018 General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The article concludes that achieving a balance between fairness, individual pedagogic rights ( Bernstein, 2000 ), data privacy rights and effective use of data is a difficult challenge, and one not easily supported by current regulation. The article proposes an alternative, more democratically aware basis for artificial intelligence use in schools.

This article discusses how the introduction of technology has led to a fundamental shift in the relationship between education and time. As a means of analysing the extent of such changes on pupils from different backgrounds, I use Bernstein's 'conditions for democracy' as a framework for evaluating the impact new understandings of time in education are having on disadvantaged social groups in England. I conclude that Bernstein's framework presents a useful way of illuminating the complex interplay of personal agency and the external environment. Consequently, here we see that new definitions of time in education, specifically with regard to synchronous versus asynchronous learning, have resulted in new inequalities for those in deprived areas.

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This article discusses whether the occupational culture of teachers has changed as a consequence of increased managerialism, using as an exemplar some of the routine planning, assessment and reporting procedures in common use in schools in England. The article examines this claim in the light of developments after the 1988 Education Reform Act, which had a profound effect on the way education is delivered in England. It then relates this question to the issue of teacher and pupil identity within the English education system, and concludes that there are dangers with using such frameworks for education, as they can undermine the role of the child as an individual within the schooling process.