Showing papers in "Journal of Education Policy in 2015"
TL;DR: By placing Professional Capital into this educational policy landscape, its aims can be more carefully examined as discussed by the authors, which can be read as a reaction to social and political forces that Hargreaves an...
Abstract: By placing Professional Capital into this educational policy landscape, its aims can be more carefully examined. The book can be read as a reaction to social and political forces that Hargreaves an...
285 citations
TL;DR: We are now as Ozga (2008) aptly puts it ‘governed by numbers’, numbers in different aspects of our lives rate, compare and allocate us to categories.
Abstract: We are now as Ozga (2008) aptly puts it ‘governed by numbers’, numbers in different aspects of our lives rate, compare and allocate us to categories. Numbers define our worth, measure our effective...
181 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the current narrowing of early years assessment, along with increased inspection and surveillance, operates as a policy technology leading to an intensification of "school readiness" pressures upon the earliest stage of education.
Abstract: Following the election of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat UK coalition Government in 2010, there has been an urgent intensification and focus upon early years numeracy and literacy and promoting systematic synthetic phonics. This paper argues that the current narrowing of early years assessment, along with increased inspection and surveillance, operates as a policy technology leading to an intensification of ‘school readiness’ pressures upon the earliest stage of education. The paper suggests that this governance has encouraged a functional ‘datafication’ of early years pedagogy so that early years teacher’s work is increasingly constrained by performativity demands to produce ‘appropriate’ data. The article argues that early years high-stakes national assessments act as a ‘meta-policy’, ‘steering’ early years pedagogy ‘from a distance’ and have the power to challenge, disrupt and constrain early years teacher’s deeply held child-centred pedagogical values.
140 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop a theory of recovery that further elaborates the nature and operation of crisis politics in neoliberal education reform, and call for critical educators, social justice advocates, and communities subjected to crises to refuse the neoliberal terms of recovery and to affirm the collective potential to break the cycle of crisis and recovery so intrinsic to capitalist accumulation.
Abstract: Building upon critical education policy studies of crisis, disaster, and reform, this essay develops a theory of recovery that further elaborates the nature and operation of ‘crisis politics’ in neoliberal education reform. Recovery is an integral process in capital accumulation, exploiting material, and subjective vulnerability in order to bridge crisis to crisis. Capitalizing on crises, neoliberal reformers position privatization as the mechanism of recovery. Rather than acknowledge their complicity in creating crises, neoliberals externalize the demands of recovery onto schools, teachers, and students. This essay calls for critical educators, social justice advocates, and communities subjected to crises to refuse the neoliberal terms of recovery and to affirm the collective potential to break the cycle of crisis and recovery so intrinsic to capitalist accumulation. Although this essay emphasizes the dialectic of crisis and recovery in United States education policy, this lens is relevant across a varie...
97 citations
TL;DR: The rankings paradigm is facing growing criticism and resistance, particularly in regions such as Latin America, where the systems are seen as forcing institutions into a costly and high-stakes "academic arms race" at the expense of more pressing development priorities as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In just a decade, the international university rankings have become dominant measures of institutional performance for policy-makers worldwide. Bolstered by the facade of scientific neutrality, these classification systems have reinforced the hegemonic model of higher education – that of the elite, Anglo-Saxon research university – on a global scale. The process is a manifestation of what Bourdieu and Wacquant have termed US “cultural imperialism.” However, the rankings paradigm is facing growing criticism and resistance, particularly in regions such as Latin America, where the systems are seen as forcing institutions into a costly and high-stakes “academic arms race” at the expense of more pressing development priorities. That position, expressed at the recent UNESCO conferences in Buenos Aires, Paris, and Mexico City, shows the degree to which the rankings have become a fundamental element in the contest for cultural hegemony, waged through the prism of higher education.
95 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors placed heavy emphasis on the importance of leadership in bringing about educational reform and improvement, and throughout the period under consideration, in the book, there was a...
Abstract: Successive governments have placed heavy emphasis on the importance of leadership in bringing about educational reform and improvement. Throughout the period under consideration, in the book, there...
93 citations
TL;DR: The role and contribution of consultants and consultancy in public services has grown rapidly and the power of consultants suggests the emergence of a "consultocracy" as mentioned in this paper, and there is a need for more detailed research where they argue for more attention to be given to the political sciences in theorising knowledge exchange processes.
Abstract: The role and contribution of consultants and consultancy in public services has grown rapidly and the power of consultants suggests the emergence of a ‘consultocracy’. We draw on research evidence from the social sciences and critical education policy (CEP) studies to present an examination of the state of the field. We deploy a framework that examines functional, critical and socially critical research and theorising, and we identify the emerging interest in CEP studies. In particular, we identify the potential for consultocracy but acknowledge that there is a need for more detailed research where we argue for more attention to be given to the political sciences in theorising knowledge exchange processes.
92 citations
TL;DR: The authors provides a comparative analysis of national curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA, set against the backdrop of global trends since the 1980s, arguing that reforms since the early 1980s have been driven by global panics about globalisation, equity and market competitiveness.
Abstract: This paper provides a comparative analysis of national curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA, set against the backdrop of global trends since the 1980s. The analysis is driven by an interest in the reconstitution of national policy spaces in global times, and draws particularly upon Stephen Carney’s notion of global policy-scapes as a way of understanding the complex and disjunctive flows of transnational policy ideas and practices. The paper begins by arguing that reforms since the early 1980s have been driven by global panics about globalisation, equity and market competitiveness. These global influences have underpinned parallel reform attempts in each country, including the development of national goals in the late 1980s, failed attempts at national standards in the early 1990s and rejuvenated attempts towards national consistency in the 2000s. Building on this, we argue that despite shared global drivers and broad historical similarities, reforms in each country remain distinct in scope and for...
79 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reveal the array of practices arising from strong policy pressure for improved student results in national literacy and numeracy tests in Australia: the National Assessment Programme in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN).
Abstract: This paper reveals the array of practices arising from strong policy pressure for improved student results in national literacy and numeracy tests in Australia: the National Assessment Programme in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The paper provides an account of a policy context characterised by significant pressure upon teachers and principals to engage in practices to ensure improved outcomes on standardised literacy and numeracy tests, and of teachers and principals’ responses to these policy pressures. Drawing upon Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the article argues that what is described as the ‘field of schooling practices’ has become increasingly dominated by a ‘logic of enumeration’, and that high test results on standardised literacy and numeracy tests are increasingly valued capitals, evident in a strong focus upon teachers meeting, discussing and informing one another about NAPLAN; engaging in curriculum development practices which foreground NAPLAN, and; actively preparing students to sit the te...
77 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how data generated in the compulsory school graduation examination in the Russian Federation connect together different actors within the education system and beyond, and the nature of the relationships so formed.
Abstract: This article is motivated by interest in the deployment of massive numerical information produced by national examinations in the practices of control and steering. It examines how data generated in the compulsory school graduation examination in the Russian Federation connect together different actors within the education system and beyond, and the nature of the relationships so formed. These questions take as their unit of analysis the relations and relationships created and/or re-ordered through numbers, and they unmask who utilizes the numerical data, and for what purpose. The article brings together two major arguments in the existing literature on quantification, and develops them further into a coherent research framework which is then applied to capture and interpret the circulation and application of the examinations data. The first argument suggests that governance by numbers, characteristic of contemporary regulation practices, relies on and promotes the parallel existence of soft and hard regi...
67 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate how these twin processes combine to produce a new modality of state power and intervention; a dominant or organizing principle by which government steer the performance of governors through disciplinary tools of professionalization and inspection, with the aim of achieving the "control of control".
Abstract: Since the 1980s, state schools in England have been required to ensure transparency and accountability through the use of indicators and templates derived from the private sector and, more recently, globally circulating discourses of ‘good governance’ (an appeal to professional standards, technical expertise, and performance evaluation as mechanisms for improving public service delivery). The rise of academies and free schools (‘state-funded independent schools’) has increased demand for good governance, notably as a means by which to discipline schools, in particular school governors – those tasked with the legal responsibility of holding senior leadership to account for the financial and educational performance of schools. A condition and effect of school autonomy, therefore, is increased monitoring and surveillance of all school governing bodies. In this paper, I demonstrate how these twin processes combine to produce a new modality of state power and intervention; a dominant or organizing principle by which government steer the performance of governors through disciplinary tools of professionalization and inspection, with the aim of achieving the ‘control of control’. To explain these trends, I explore how various established and emerging school governing bodies are (re)constituting themselves to meet demands for good governance.
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the take up of Bernstein's concept of the totally pedagogised society (TPS) in the critical policy sociology literature and argued that the pedagogic device may add to this corpus of critical policy scholarship.
Abstract: Critical policy scholars have increasingly turned their attention to: (1) the work of policy actors engaged in globalised and globalising processes of policy formation, (2) the global flows or movements of education policies across multifaceted, hybrid networks of public–private agencies, and (3) the complex politics of global–national policy translation and enactment in local school contexts. Scholars have emphasised firstly, the economic turn in education reform policies, a shift from a social democratic education orientation and secondly, policy convergence towards a dominant neoliberal political agenda. This paper suggests that Bernstein’s concepts of the totally pedagogised society (TPS) and the pedagogic device, as the ensemble of rules for the production, recontextualisation and evaluation of pedagogic discourses may add to this corpus of critical policy scholarship. It does this by firstly reviewing the take up of Bernstein’s concept of the TPS in the critical policy sociology literature, arguing ...
TL;DR: In this article, a survey of students' union officers and a series of focus groups with 86 students and higher education staff in 10 case study institutions in the UK was carried out.
Abstract: Despite profound changes to the higher education sector in the UK over recent years, which have tended to emphasise the role of prospective students as active choosers within a marketplace and encourage higher education institutions (HEIs) to place more emphasis on student engagement and representation as a means of improving the quality of the learning experience, the role of students’ unions has remained largely unexplored. To start to redress this gap, this paper draws on a UK-wide survey of students’ union officers and a series of focus groups with 86 students and higher education staff in 10 case study institutions. It outlines the ways in which students’ unions are believed, by those closely involved with them, to have changed over recent years, focusing on: the shift towards a much greater emphasis on representation in the role and function of the students’ union; the increasing importance of non-elected officers; and the emergence of more cooperative relationships between the students’ union and s...
TL;DR: This article explored the recent emergence of capability in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, and revealed how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen's conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education.
Abstract: Primarily developed as an alternative to narrow measures of well-being such as utility and resources, Amartya Sen’s capability approach places strong emphasis on people’s substantive opportunities. As a broad normative framework, the capability approach has become a valuable tool for understanding and evaluating social arrangements (e.g. education policies and development programmes) in terms of individuals’ effective freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings. This paper explores the recent emergence of ‘capability’ in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. We explore capability as a framing device and reveal how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen’s conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education. The analysis shows that the social justice intent of a capability approach appears to be overtaken in the White Paper by an emphasis on outcomes, performance and functionings that seek to serve the nation’s economic interests more than the interests of students, especially the disadvantaged.
TL;DR: This paper examined the unique and cumulative contribution of children's characteristics, parenting practices and family's socio-economic background to children's educational outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7).
Abstract: Parenting has come to play a pivotal role in breaking intergenerational disadvantage and increasing children’s life chances and social mobility through practices such as parental support with their learning and education. Using a UK representative sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, the present study examined the unique and cumulative contribution of children’s characteristics, parenting practices and family’s socio-economic background to children’s educational outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7). Consistently with previous studies, the findings showed that family’s socio-economic background made a substantive contribution to teacher-rated reading, maths and sciences. Despite much emphasis within family policy on parents as being central in tackling educational inequality, certain aspects of parenting such as involvement with home learning, parental warmth and discipline did not explain a significant amount of variance in teacher- rated reading, maths and sciences. These findings are likely to...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that it is important to avoid mobilising a memory of public educational pasts that do not account for their failings and inequalities, and explore how challenges and contestations surrounding "the public" from multiple standpoints converged in the rise of neoliberalism.
Abstract: This article reflects on the desire to defend and claim public education amidst the educational policy effects of contemporary neoliberal politics. The defence of public education, from schools to higher education, undoubtedly provides a powerful counter-veiling weight to the neoliberal policy logic of education-as-individual-value-accrual. At a time of intense global policy reform centred on marketisation in education, the public education institutions of the post-war welfare state are often characterised as being lost, attacked, encroached upon and dismantled. In this paper, I contend it is important to avoid mobilising a memory of public educational pasts that do not account for their failings and inequalities. Turning to a historical engagement with the emergence of neoliberal politics, the paper explores how challenges and contestations surrounding ‘the public’ from multiple standpoints converged in the rise of neoliberalism. Recognition of these convergences and contestations, I suggest, assists to ...
TL;DR: The authors conducted a policy history of education reform in New Orleans and found that distrust on both sides of the debate arises from decades of racial and political struggles, corrupt public officials, and previous experiences with the state exerting power over locally elected school boards, which disenfranchised African-Americans in particular.
Abstract: As the city with the largest charter-school market share in the United States, New Orleans, Louisiana exemplifies market-oriented models in education. For a city that is so ‘drenched in the past,’ the reform movement in New Orleans typically neglects historical context, often dismissing the education system pre-Katrina as simply corrupt and dysfunctional. This is an incomplete story. While national narratives and news media tend to downplay these features, there is no local consensus on the reforms. There is mistrust on both sides of the debate, and a growing opposition movement, which arises from decades of racial and political struggles, corrupt public officials, and previous experiences with the state exerting power over locally elected school boards, which disenfranchised African-Americans in New Orleans in particular. Although the new, post-Katrina educational system significantly altered political dynamics, it has not eradicated politics altogether. In this paper, I conduct a policy history of educa...
TL;DR: In this paper, a specific part of the actions taken to improve the quality of Swedish education is analyzed, namely the expectations formulated in national policy documents for the quality work that loc...
Abstract: This article analyses a specific part of the actions taken to improve the quality of Swedish education, namely the expectations formulated in national policy documents for the quality work that loc ...
TL;DR: In this paper, concepts drawn from poststructuralist biopolitics and critiques of neoliberal educational managerialism are mobilized in an analysis of recent inclusion policy and award requirements, and the implications of biopolitical orientations for practitioner research are explored with reference to teacher action research.
Abstract: Recent changes to policy directives now require newly appointed Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in UK mainstream schools to be qualified teachers. Training and accreditation through a nationally approved postgraduate award is now mandatory. Concepts drawn from poststructuralist biopolitics and critiques of neoliberal educational managerialism are mobilized in an analysis of recent inclusion policy and award requirements. Resistance to the positioning of SENCOs and pupils within a political narrative of economic priority and productivity is conceptualized as a Deleuzo–Guattarian ‘war machine’. The implications of biopolitical orientations for practitioner research are explored with reference to teacher action research.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; they find a significant mismatch between the policy intent of reengagement programs, and the experiences of the young people themselves.
Abstract: This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democracies – the disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; it finds a significant mismatch between the policy intent of re-engagement programmes, and the experiences of young people themselves. It seems that this is an instance of what might be termed policy deafness, a situation that will likely produce devastating consequences unless corrected.
TL;DR: This article examined a collection of macro factors and explanations for racial disparities in mathematics assessment found in the literature and used Critical Race Theory (CRT) to reinterpret and call out important blind spots.
Abstract: Through the examination of a collection of macro factors and explanations for racial disparities in mathematics assessment found in the literature, this article takes up these accounts and problematizes the factors by unpacking the assumptions and exposing complexities. We do this using Critical Race Theory (CRT) to reinterpret and call out important blind spots. Essential questions that guided our analysis included: what macro factors has the field identified as influencing or explaining racial disparities in mathematics assessments? What assumptions undergird the field’s conversations about racial disparities in mathematics assessments? In what ways can those assumptions be challenged through CRT to highlight the story of race in the US? Our analysis reveals that the factors fall victim to a meritocratic premise that assumes all students are exposed to equivalent forms and amounts of mathematical knowledge. This assumption effectively locates the problem of assessment within students and not the institu...
TL;DR: In this article, the formative role of actors in the policy process is discussed. But little attention is given to the role of non-actors in the process of policy research.
Abstract: Policy research is often done with a focus on texts, principles and practices, and little attention is given to the formative role of actors in the policy process. Or when actors are brought into f...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the discursive shifts of emphasis of school headship since the 1980s in England, and the ways in which the repositioning of head teachers has gradually transformed professional work and relationships in schools via a discourse of management.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the discursive shifts of emphasis of school headship since the 1980s in England, and the ways in which the repositioning of head teachers has gradually transformed professional work and relationships in schools via a discourse of management. Specifically, the paper identifies a ‘trilogy of school headship in England’ to indicate a process by which school headship has been repositioned – from head teacher, to manager, and to leader from the Education Reform Act of 1988 onwards. Drawing primarily on policy texts, the construction, within policy, of a head teacher endowed with power, responsibility and freedom will be detailed. Informed by both Fairclough and Foucault’s conceptions of discourse, this paper concludes that as a policy technology management subjects head teachers to ‘a twin process of autonomization plus responsibilization’ within which they become the linchpin of the delivery chain of policy and play a key role in the formation of ‘performative professionalism’.
TL;DR: Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), the authors exposes the neoliberal ideology of the knowledge-based economy embedded within university policies, specifically those that regulate faculty hiring, promotion, and remuneration in two national contexts: Turkey and Mexico.
Abstract: Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper exposes the neoliberal ideology of the knowledge-based economy embedded within university policies, specifically those that regulate faculty hiring, promotion, and remuneration in two national contexts: Turkey and Mexico. The paper follows four stages of CDA: (1) focus upon a social wrong in its language aspect; (2) identify obstacles to addressing the social wrong; (3) consider whether the social order in a sense ‘needs’ the social wrong; and (4) identify possible ways past the obstacles. The analysis demonstrates that the global, marketized climate of higher education has impacted Turkish and Mexican universities to such a degree that they have become increasingly corporate in their practices of management. The resulting effect is the creation of a performance culture that robs faculty of their professionalism. This paper uncovers this disadvantaged positioning of faculty and posits modest proposals for change.
TL;DR: The authors traces the microphysics of the institution of this rationality, through the fusion of curriculum, assessment and economic policy, and the imposition of a national standards (NS) framework onto curriculum.
Abstract: Following the Tomorrow’s Schools administrative restructuring, a second wave of educational change installed globalised discourses as governmentality policies in Aotearoa New Zealand. Drawing on Foucault’s ‘toolkit’, this genealogical policy chronology traces the transformation of curriculum and assessment into a specific political rationality, unsupported by national standards (NS) or testing. Its inscription into students and teachers through technical-managerial and business-market discourses, sought to remake them as enterprising, industrious and governable within an Enterprise Culture. The paper traces the microphysics of the institution of this rationality, through the fusion of curriculum, assessment and economic policy, and the imposition of a NS accountability framework onto curriculum. Learning discourses encouraged teachers to locally breakdown objectives and activate them as NS to initiate governance by outcomes, targets and results. Reinforcing market relations, this installed the basis of pe...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first draft of this review on 18 December 2014, the evening before academics learn their fate at the hands of the latest "research excellence framework" (this paper).
Abstract: I’m writing the first draft of this review on 18 December 2014, the evening before academics learn their fate at the hands of the latest ‘research excellence framework’ (REF). This 20-year-old, fiv...
TL;DR: This article found that students who responded negatively with regard to the importance of schooling tended to envision future lives and occupations for which they believed school knowledge was unnecessary, and the implications of this research for school, post-compulsory and further education policy are discussed.
Abstract: This paper contributes to conversations about school, post-compulsory and further education policy by reporting findings from a three-year study with disaffected students who have been referred to special ‘behaviour’ schools. Contrary to popular opinion, our research finds that these ‘ignorant yobs’ do value education and know what it is for. They also have aspirations for a secure, productive and fulfilled life, although it may not involve university-level study. Importantly, we found that students who responded negatively with regard to the importance of schooling tended to envision future lives and occupations for which they believed school knowledge was unnecessary. The implications of this research for school, post-compulsory and further education policy are discussed.
TL;DR: In this article, the similarities and differences between state school inspection policies within Sweden and Norway from 2002 to 2012 were explored based on a rigorous, comparative document analysis of 23 policy documents, a particular focus is given to how school inspection adheres to professional-bureaucratic control as a mode of governing and/or details national expectations through performance audit, potentially intervening into school practices.
Abstract: There is growing research interest in school inspection throughout Europe; however, there have been few comparative studies between Swedish and Norwegian school inspectorates. Such a study is necessary since little is known about how inspection policies are shaped through ‘governing modes’ in the two Nordic countries. This paper explores the similarities and differences between state school inspection policies within the two countries from 2002 to 2012. Based on a rigorous, comparative document analysis of 23 policy documents, a particular focus is given to how school inspection adheres to professional-bureaucratic control as a mode of governing and/or details national expectations through performance audit, potentially intervening into school practices. We demonstrate that even if the cases of public administration seem to be somewhat homogenous from the outside, there is substantial evidence of major differences in the inspection policies of these two countries which can be explored by comparative analy...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach to analyze the emergence of civil society within global educational governance and found that civil society has been able to join and modify the structures of education governance.
Abstract: This paper uses Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic approach to analyze the emergence of civil society within global educational governance. The purpose is to understand the intersection of historical structures with global actors and spaces that have accompanied the globalization of education. Based on findings from a study on the impact in Cambodia of the Civil Society Education Fund – sponsored by the Global Campaign for Education – we first identify the relevant sociocultural, political-economic, and governance structures within which the politics of education is embedded in Cambodia. Then, we detail the relational processes through which Cambodian civil society has been able to join and, in so doing, modify the structures of education governance. The value of the morphogenetic approach is its treatment of time – that is, the way that it temporarily separates structure and agency in order to make possible an analysis of the dynamics of global education governance. While this approach is not new, we sugges...
TL;DR: In this paper, a model for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of judicial involvement in educational reforms is proposed, and the model is used to analyze two case studies of court-led educational reforms in the third rail of Israeli politics.
Abstract: This paper offers a model for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of judicial involvement in educational reforms. It uses the model to analyze two case studies of court-led educational reforms in the third rail of Israeli politics – the curricula and the admission policies of ultra-Othodox (Haredi) schools. These case studies are located at the knotty junction of human rights, religion, and politics in education policy, generating concern in many countries. The conclusions demonstrate that even when the courts are cautious, judicial involvement in third rail educational reforms may produce impacts that drive the cogwheels of policy-making in directions that are apt to undermine the interests of the petitioners. Therefore, the choice of courts as a forum for shaping education policy in political third rails should be prudently considered. The paper also demonstrates the need to evaluate litigation by means of a contextual, evidence-based analysis. It highlights that in certain cases, what may appear to...