Actor-network theory (ANT) is enjoying a notable surge of interest in educational research. New directions and questions are emerging along with new empirical approaches, as educators bring unique sensibilities and commitments to the ongoing debates and reconfigurations that characterise ANT-inspired research. Ethics and politics are now figuring more prominently in ANT-related educational publications, as are educational policy and the critical studies of assessment practices. Research on digital technology in education has also attracted critical exploration with ANT approaches. This book gathers together articles that address important educational issues while showing creative theoretical and methodological possibilities for ANT studies in education. This book aims to locate these contributions within broader trajectories of inquiry in education and sociomaterial approaches considered worthy of attention, given the challenges facing educators today. It also raises critical questions about what appear to be certain oversights or less helpful ideas in what is emerging in the field.

The History of Accounting has been constructed from 68 items previously published between 1971 and 1998, representing the key works of 72 leading authors. The set is designed for a number of applications which include: a range of readings suitable for graduate and postgraduate courses on accounting history; background literature for courses dealing with particular aspects of accounting; an initial source of reference for students undertaking a doctoral thesis in accounting history, and the initial source of reference for existing members of faculty who decide to develop their research in this area. The set also provides a coverage of accounting history that meets the needs of business historians whose research encompasses financial matters. The set is divided into four separate volumes dealing with the following broad subject areas: * accounting research methods and twentieth century developments in accounting theory * record keeping systems and financial reporting procedures * cost and management accounting * the professionalisation of accounting. A significant feature of the study of accounting history in recent years has been the emergence of a widening range of theoretical approaches. The editor has therefore ensured that writers from these different traditions are fairly represented.

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History presents a single-volume synthesis of research in this expanding field, exploring and analysing accounting from ancient civilisations to the modern day. No longer perceived as the narrow study of how a mysterious technique was used in past, the scope of accounting history has widened substantially. This revised and updated volume moves beyond the history of accounting technologies, accounting theories and practices and the accountants who applied them. Expert contributors from around the world explore the interfaces between accounting and the economy, society, culture and the polity. Accounting history is shown to offer important insights into such disparate phenomena as the evolution of capitalism, control of labour, gender and family relationships, racial exploitation, the operation of religious organisations, and the functioning of the state. Illuminating the foundation and development of accounting systems, this updated, classic book opens the field to a new generation of accounting scholars and historians around the world.

There is growing interest in the history of accounting amongst both accounting practitioners and accounting academics. This interest developed steadily from about 1970 and really 'took off' in the 1990s. However, there is a lack of texts dealing with major aspects of accounting history that can be used in classrooms, to inform new researchers, and to provide a source of reference for established researchers.The great deal of research into cost and management accounting in Britain published in academic journals over the last twenty years-including the authors' own contributions-makes The History of Cost and Management Accounting an essential contribution to the field.

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has enjoyed wide uptake in the social sciences in the past three decades, particularly in science and technology studies, and is increasingly attracting the attention of educational researchers. ANT studies bring to the fore the material - objects of all kinds - and de-centre the human and the social in educational issues. ANT sensibilities are interested in the ways human and non-human elements become interwoven. Since its first introduction, actor-network theory has undergone significant shifts and evolutions and as a result, it is not considered to be a single or coherent theoretical domain, but as developing diversely in response to various challenges.

This book offers an introduction to Actor-Network Theory for educators to consider in three ways. One mode is the introduction of concepts, approaches and debates around Actor-Network Theory as a research approach in education. A second mode showcases educational studies that have employed ANT approaches in classrooms, workplaces and community settings, drawn from the UK, USA, Canada, Europe and Australia. These demonstrate how ANT can operate in highly diverse ways whether it focuses on policy critique, curriculum inquiry, engagements with digital media, change and innovation, issues of accountability, or exploring how knowledge unfolds and becomes materialized in various settings. A third mode looks at recent 'after-ANT' inquiries which open an array of important new approaches. Across these diverse environments and uptakes, the authors trace how learning and practice emerge, show what scales are at play, and demonstrate what this means for educational possibilities.

The partner to Telling Tales, this reader looks at a range of perspectives on a number of key issues emerging from the area of guidance and counselling in education. Questions of ethics, equality and impartiality and their relationship to guidance and counselling in the context of learning are explored. The book also examines the trend towards group work and the role of technology in creating strategies for guidance. Written for a new module on the Open Universitys MA in Education.

The authors provide a variety of perspectives on the conceptualisation of adult learning, drawing on sociology, psychology, adult education and applied research into how adults experience learning. Bringing together a number of major contributions to current debates about what learning during adulthood is for, what motivates learning, and how best it might be developed, the authors address a range of significant issues: What should be the context of learning programmed for adults, and who should decide? What are the implications in general and for women in particular of the current emphasis on learning for work, at work? How do adults learn and how is learning best facilitated? How might learning be used to empower individuals, communities and organisations?

Trusts and Equity, part of the Foundations Series, offers a comprehensive, clear and straightforward account of the law ideal for LLB and GDL students.

The 'learning society' is not a new idea, although its popularity has grown in recent years with the suggestion that lifelong learning is a condition for economic competitiveness in a global economy, replacing the earlier conception of it as a condition for democratic citizenship. This reader, designed to accompany Module E827 of the MA in Education, critically examines the demographic, technological, economic and cultural challenges which have led to interest in the idea of a learning society, and explores their policy and practical implications for lifelong learning. It also explores and evaluates trends in education and training which support the development of a learning society. Overall, the book provides readers with a range of opinions on the learning society within which broad context they can place their own practice.

Making a Difference in Theory brings together original work from an international group of authors on the roles of theory in educational research and practice. The book discusses the different roles theory plays, can play and should play, both from a historical perspective and in light of contemporary discussions and developments. Particular attention is paid to the question of whether there are or should be distinctively educational forms of theory and theorising. The double engagement with the theory question in education and the education question in theory and theorising provides original insights in what theory does, might do or should do in educational research and practice. With contributions from internationally renowned authors in the field of educational theory, research and practice, the book will be of value to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in education.

A History of Corporate Financial Reporting provides an understanding of the procedures and practices which constitute corporate financial reporting in Britain, at different points of time, and how and why those practices changed and became what they are now. Its particular focus is the external financial reporting practices of joint stock companies. This is worth knowing about given the widely held view that Britain (i) pioneered modern financial reporting, and (ii) played a primary role in the development of both capital markets and professional accountancy. The book makes use of a principal and agent framework to study accounting's past, but one where the failure of managers always to supply the information that users' desire is given full recognition. It is shown that corporate financial reporting did not develop into its current state in a straightforward and orderly fashion. Each era produces different environmental conditions and imposes new demands on accounting. A proper understanding of accounting developments therefore requires a careful examination of the interrelationship between accountants and accounting techniques on the one hand and, on the other, the social and economic context within which changes took place. The book's corporate coverage starts with the legendary East India Company, created in 1600, and continues through the heyday of the statutory trading companies founded to build Britain's canals (commencing in the 1770s) and railways (commencing c.1829) to focus, principally, on the limited liability company fashioned by the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 and the Limited Liability Act 1855. The story terminates in 2005 when listed companies were required to prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, thus signalling the effective end of British accounting.

The last fifteen years have seen much conceptual and methodological innovation in research on education and learning across the lifecourse, bringing both fresh insights and new dilemmas. This innovation was initially fuelled by the growing influence of conceptual framings often named as either post-structural or postmodern. The works of Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard have variously found their way into the canons of educational research, and in more recent years, the influence of the work of Deleuze and Guattari has also grown. This work has proved controversial both in the challenges it has raised for the purposes and practices of education and training but also over the assumptions underpinning such work.

As part of and also in response to the influence of post-structuralism and postmodernism in the social sciences, there have emerged and developed a further range of conceptual and methodological framings which are more relational, system and practice-focussed. Several of these framings work with a non-linear understanding of causality and embrace unpredictability in the world and undecidability in our understanding of it. They also challenge any notion of a strong boundary between the social and natural sciences.

This book explores the most significant four of these framings, how they are being taken up in research in education and learning across the lifecourse, as well as their possibilities and limitations:

• complexity science
• cultural historical activity theory (CHAT)
• actor-network theory (ANT)
• spatiality theories.

Illustrated throughout with examples drawn from educational contexts across the life courses, including schooling, post-compulsory education and training, educational policy, workplace and community-based education in North America, the UK, and Australia this vital guide to understanding fresh ways of conducting and understanding educational research will prove essential reading for everyone undertaking educational research in the modern world.

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has enjoyed wide uptake in the social sciences in the past three decades, particularly in science and technology studies, and is increasingly attracting the attention of educational researchers. ANT studies bring to the fore the material - objects of all kinds - and de-centre the human and the social in educational issues. ANT sensibilities are interested in the ways human and non-human elements become interwoven. Since its first introduction, actor-network theory has undergone significant shifts and evolutions and as a result, it is not considered to be a single or coherent theoretical domain, but as developing diversely in response to various challenges.

This book offers an introduction to Actor-Network Theory for educators to consider in three ways. One mode is the introduction of concepts, approaches and debates around Actor-Network Theory as a research approach in education. A second mode showcases educational studies that have employed ANT approaches in classrooms, workplaces and community settings, drawn from the UK, USA, Canada, Europe and Australia. These demonstrate how ANT can operate in highly diverse ways whether it focuses on policy critique, curriculum inquiry, engagements with digital media, change and innovation, issues of accountability, or exploring how knowledge unfolds and becomes materialized in various settings. A third mode looks at recent 'after-ANT' inquiries which open an array of important new approaches. Across these diverse environments and uptakes, the authors trace how learning and practice emerge, show what scales are at play, and demonstrate what this means for educational possibilities.

Now that learning is seen as lifelong and lifewide, what specifically makes a learning context? What are the resultant consequences for teaching practices when working in specific contexts? Drawing upon a variety of academic disciplines, Rethinking Contexts for Learning and Teaching explores some of the different means of understanding teaching and learning, both in and across contexts, the issues they raise and their implications for pedagogy and research. It specifically addresses

Drawing upon practical examples and the UK s TLRP, this book brings together a number of leading researchers to examine the assumptions about context embedded within specific teaching and learning practices. It considers how they might be developed to extend opportunity by drawing upon learning from a range of contexts, including schools, colleges, universities and workplaces.

What's the problem with literacy at college? How might everyday literacy be harnessed for educational ends?

Based on the first major study of literacy practices in colleges in the UK, this book explores the reading and writing associated with learning subjects across the college curriculum. It investigates literacy practices in which students engage outside of college, and teaching and learning strategies through which these can help support the curriculum. With insightful analyses of innovative practices, it considers ways of changing teaching practices to enable students to draw upon their full potential.

Recent research work has challenged the myth of individual student deficit, arguing cogently that people have funds of knowledge from diverse and vibrant cultural roots, and that these have been misguidedly disqualified by the education system. It has claimed that different ways with words can provide valuable resources for learning. However, the empirical exploration of this claim has lagged far behind the theoretical debate. Improving Learning in College resolves this by showing the integrity and richness of the literacy practices of a significant population, not previously the focus of such research: those who take vocational and academic college courses in colleges. It addresses an issue which has not until now been developed within this research tradition: that of how these practices can not only be valued and validated, but mobilised and harnessed to enhance learning in educational settings.

This book will interest all teachers, teacher-educators and researchers concerned with post-compulsory education and vocational education in compulsory schooling.

What's the problem with literacy at college? How might everyday literacy be harnessed for educational ends?

Based on the first major study of literacy practices in colleges in the UK, this book explores the reading and writing associated with learning subjects across the college curriculum. It investigates literacy practices in which students engage outside of college, and teaching and learning strategies through which these can help support the curriculum. With insightful analyses of innovative practices, it considers ways of changing teaching practices to enable students to draw upon their full potential.

Recent research work has challenged the myth of individual student deficit, arguing cogently that people have funds of knowledge from diverse and vibrant cultural roots, and that these have been misguidedly disqualified by the education system. It has claimed that different ways with words can provide valuable resources for learning. However, the empirical exploration of this claim has lagged far behind the theoretical debate. Improving Learning in College resolves this by showing the integrity and richness of the literacy practices of a significant population, not previously the focus of such research: those who take vocational and academic college courses in colleges. It addresses an issue which has not until now been developed within this research tradition: that of how these practices can not only be valued and validated, but mobilised and harnessed to enhance learning in educational settings.

This book will interest all teachers, teacher-educators and researchers concerned with post-compulsory education and vocational education in compulsory schooling.

With different pedagogic practices come different ways of examining them and fresh understandings of their implications and assumptions. It is the examination of these changes and developments that is the subject of this book.

The authors examine a number of questions posed by the rapid march of globalisation, incuding:

• What is the role of the teacher, and how do we teach in the context of globalisation?
• What curriculum is appropriate when people and ideas become more mobile?
• How do the technologies of the internet and mobile phone impact upon what is learnt and by whom?

The second edition of this important book has been fully updated and extended to take account of developments in technology, pedagogy and practice, in particular the growth of distance and e-learning.

With different pedagogic practices come different ways of examining them and fresh understandings of their implications and assumptions. It is the examination of these changes and developments that is the subject of this book.

The authors examine a number of questions posed by the rapid march of globalisation, incuding:

• What is the role of the teacher, and how do we teach in the context of globalisation?
• What curriculum is appropriate when people and ideas become more mobile?
• How do the technologies of the internet and mobile phone impact upon what is learnt and by whom?

The second edition of this important book has been fully updated and extended to take account of developments in technology, pedagogy and practice, in particular the growth of distance and e-learning.

This book weaves together different strands of research in the area of lifelong learning that concentrates particularly on learning in alternative settings and ways, such experiential learning and informal and community learning. Drawing upon international research, the book examines how these strands of research can contribute to each other. The contributions to this book are based on material presented at a conference at the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, UK, and they focus on research into key issues of policy and practice in lifelong learning. Establishing a wider framework for debate about the meaning and significance of lifelong learning, this timely and thought-provoking book provides practitioners in the field with a relevant and current discussion on some very important ideas about non-formal education.

Educational policy is often dismissed as simply rhetoric and a collection of half truths. However, this is to underestimate the power of rhetoric and the ways in which rhetorical strategies are integral to persuasive acts. Through a series of illustrative chapters, this book argues that rather than something to be dismissed, rhetorical analysis offers a rich and deep arena in which to explore and examine educational issues and practices. It adopts an original stance in relation to contemporary debates and will make a significant contribution to educational debates in elucidating and illustrating the pervasiveness of persuasive strategies in educational practices.
Rhetoric and Educational Discourse is a useful resource for postgraduate and research students in education and applied linguistics. The book will also be of interest to academics and researchers in these fields of study and those interested in discursive approaches to research and scholarship.

This volume of the Open University Reader for Supporting Lifelong Learning looks at policy development in lifelong learning at local, regional, national and supra-national levels. Using an international team of contributors, it explores and examines the policy context for lifelong learning, the policies themselves, and their effects when implemented.
The book focuses on the role of lifelong learning policy in relation to issues of competitiveness, technological change and social inclusion. The provision of a range of chapters from around the globe uniquely establishes a comparative basis for the reader. This volume also encourages the student to evaluate lifelong learning as a response to globalising trends and the globalising of educational policy.

A History of Corporate Financial Reporting provides an understanding of the procedures and practices which constitute corporate financial reporting in Britain, at different points of time, and how and why those practices changed and became what they are now. Its particular focus is the external financial reporting practices of joint stock companies. This is worth knowing about given the widely held view that Britain (i) pioneered modern financial reporting, and (ii) played a primary role in the development of both capital markets and professional accountancy. The book makes use of a principal and agent framework to study accounting's past, but one where the failure of managers always to supply the information that users' desire is given full recognition. It is shown that corporate financial reporting did not develop into its current state in a straightforward and orderly fashion. Each era produces different environmental conditions and imposes new demands on accounting. A proper understanding of accounting developments therefore requires a careful examination of the interrelationship between accountants and accounting techniques on the one hand and, on the other, the social and economic context within which changes took place. The book's corporate coverage starts with the legendary East India Company, created in 1600, and continues through the heyday of the statutory trading companies founded to build Britain's canals (commencing in the 1770s) and railways (commencing c.1829) to focus, principally, on the limited liability company fashioned by the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 and the Limited Liability Act 1855. The story terminates in 2005 when listed companies were required to prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, thus signalling the effective end of British accounting.

First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.

The partner to Telling Tales, this reader looks at a range of perspectives on a number of key issues emerging from the area of guidance and counselling in education. Questions of ethics, equality and impartiality and their relationship to guidance and counselling in the context of learning are explored. The book also examines the trend towards group work and the role of technology in creating strategies for guidance.
Written for a new module on the Open Universitys MA in Education.