World Yearbook of Education 2020. Schooling, Governance and Inequalities 9781138362635, 9780429431951

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World Yearbook of Education 2020

A timely contribution to the debate on educational governance and equality, the World Yearbook of Education 2020 documents the significant changes that have occurred in the last 20  years reflecting a widespread shift from government to governance. Considering school context as well as specific school responses around the emergence of particular forms of governance, this book presents and contextualises a clear historical account of governance and accountability within schooling. Organised into three sections covering:  Changing contexts of school governance; stakeholders and ‘responsibilisation’; and radical governance, carefully chosen contributors provide global insights from around the world. They consider educational outcomes and closing the inequality gap and they document radical forms of governance, at local level, which have sought to create more equitable governance, intelligent accountability and greater involvement of key stakeholders such as students. Providing a series of provocations and reminders of the possibilities that remain open to us, the World Yearbook of Education 2020 will be of interest to academics, professionals and policymakers in education and school governance, and any scholars who engage in historical studies of education and debates about educational governance and equality. Julie Allan is Professor of Equity and Inclusion and Head of the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. Valerie Harwood is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology of Education at the University of Sydney, Australia. Clara Rübner Jørgensen is Research Fellow within the Department of Disability, Inclusion and Special Needs at the University of Birmingham, UK.

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World Yearbook of Education Series Series editors: Julie Allan, University of Birmingham, UK. Terri Seddon, La Trobe University, Australia. Gita Steiner-​Khamsi, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.

Examining a different topical subject each year, these fascinating books put ­forward a wide range of perspectives and dialogue from all over the world. With the best and most pivotal work of leading educational thinkers and writers from 1965 to the present day, these essential reference titles provide a complete ­history of the development of education around the globe. Available individually or in library-​ready sets, this is the indispensable atlas of education, mapping ever-​ changing aspects of theory, policy, teaching and learning. Titles in the series: World Yearbook of Education 2016 The Global Education Industry Edited by Antoni Verger, Christopher Lubienski and Gita Steiner-Khamsi World Yearbook of Education 2017 Assessment Inequalities Edited by Julie Allan and Alfredo J. Artiles World Yearbook of Education 2018 Uneven Space-​Times of Education: Historical Sociologies of Concepts, Methods and Practices Edited by Julie McLeod, Noah W. Sobe and Terri Seddon World Yearbook of Education 2019 Comparative Methodology in the Era of Big Data and Global Networks Edited by Radhika Gorur, Sam Sellar and Gita Steiner-​Khamsi World Yearbook of Education 2020 Schooling, Governance and Inequalities Edited by Julie Allan, Valerie Harwood and Clara Rübner Jørgensen For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/​World-​ Yearbook-​of-​Education/​book-​series/​WYBE

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World Yearbook of Education 2020

Schooling, Governance and Inequalities Edited by Julie Allan, Valerie Harwood and Clara Rübner Jørgensen

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First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Julie Allan, Valerie Harwood and Clara Rübner Jørgensen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the Julie Allan, Valerie Harwood and Clara Rübner Jørgensen to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​36263-​5  (hbk) ISBN: 978-​0-​429-​43195-​1  (ebk) Typeset in Minion Pro by Newgen Publishing UK

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Contents

List of contributors  1

Introduction 

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J U L I E A L L A N , VA L E R I E HA RWO O D A N D C L A R A RÜ B N E R J Ø R G E N SE N

PART I

Changing contexts of school governance  2

Can equity survive governance? Politics, accountability and local control in US education 

9 11

A R N O L D F.   SHO B E R

3

New modes of collaborative governance: Governing collaborations in a new school landscape, power, control and communication 

33

JAC Q U E L I N E   BA X T E R

4

Nordic school governance: Networking in broken chains 

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JA N M E R O K PAU L SE N

5

The emergence of evidence-​based governance models in the state-​based education systems of Austria and Germany 

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H E R B E RT A LT R IC H T E R

PART II

Stakeholders and ‘responsibilisation’ 

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6 Technologies in rational self-​management: Interventions in the ‘responsibilisation’ of school governors 

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A N D R EW W I L K I N S

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vi Contents 7 Education governance and the responsibility to include: Teachers as a site of discursive tension 

113

E L I Z A B E T H J.   D O N E

8 Governing inclusion: A school principal and a governor in conversation 

130

M IC HA E L R O D E N A N D J U L I E   A L L A N

9 The micro-​politics of parental involvement in school governance  140 SH U N W I N G N G A N D P O   Y U K   KO

PART III

Radical governance 

159

10 Stronger Smarter: Transformational change for Australian schools with rock-​solid foundations in the Early Years 

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F IO NA B O B O N G I E A N D C AT H Y JAC K S O N

11 Lessons from the AIME approach to the teaching relationship: Valuing biepistemic practice 

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S A M A N T HA M C M A HO N , VA L E R I E HA RWO O D, G AWA IA N B O D K I N - ​A N D R EWS , S A R A H O’ SH E A , A N T HO N Y M C K N IG H T, PAU L C HA N D L E R A N D A M Y P R I E S T LY

12 Is participation a ‘sick word’? New insights into student democratic participation in light of research in Spanish schools 

200

T E R E S A SU SI N O S

13 Democratic alternatives in a neoliberal age? Co-​operation, governance and schooling 

217

T OM   WO O D I N

Afterword: The magic of democracy 

238

J E R RY   M I N T Z

World Yearbook of Education Series – full list of titles  Index 

241 246

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Contributors

Julie Allan is Professor of Equity and Inclusion and Head of the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on inclusive education, disability studies and children’s rights and she has been advisor to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Dutch and Queensland Governments and Council of Europe. Her recent books include Psychopathology at School: Theorising mental disorder in Education (with Valerie Harwood) and the 2017 Routledge World Yearbook in Education  –​Assessment inequalities (with Alfredo Artiles). Herbert Altrichter is Professor of Education and Educational Psychology and Director of Linz School of Education at Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria. He was the founding president of the Austrian Educational Research Association (ÖFEB) and is now member of the Executive Committee of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). His research interests include educational governance studies (school development and system reform), evaluation, action research, teacher education and qualitative research methodology. Jacqueline Baxter is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Management at the Open University Business School, and Director of the Centre for Innovation in Legal and Business Education. Her research focuses on governance and leadership within the public sector and trust and accountability in education. Fiona Bobongie (nee Mann) is a proud Darumbal woman. She also has bloodlines to the Pacific Islands of Tanna, Ambrym and Lifou. Fiona was significant in leading the development and implementation of the inaugural Jarjums Program, also specialising in delivering the Leadership, Workplaces and Specialist Programs. Fiona’s current role is as a Senior Program Officer in SSISTEMIK (Stronger Smarter Institute in Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics Indigenous Knowledges) Pathways within the Research and Impact Team. She has held various roles spanning over 30  years from Teacher Aide, Teacher, Acting Principal to Principal Project Officer for Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives in Schools and Early Childhood in two Queensland regions. Her career highlights include presenting at National

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viii  List of contributors Early Childhood Australia Reconciliation Symposium 2017, NSW Gowrie Conference 2016, Queensland Indigenous Education Conference, 2016, AIATSIS National Conference 2012, National Australian Women’s Conference 2013. Internationally, Fiona spoke at WIPCE the World Indigenous Peoples Conference in Education in Hawaii, 2014 and Toronto, Canada, 2017. She has also presented at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Principals Association and Te Akatea (Maori Principals) Brisbane, 2016 and in Waitangi, Aotearoa in 2018. Gawaian Bodkin-​Andrews is an Aboriginal Australian (D’harawal) scholar whose research engages with Indigenous Research Methodologies, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, and Indigenous Storywork and Storytelling frameworks. Through these methodologies, his research seeks to centre critical Aboriginal Australian standpoints across a diversity of disciplines and topics including racism, identity, mental health, education, mentoring and bullying. Paul Chandler is a Bigjigal man from South East Sydney. Paul completed his Bachelor of Science with Honours in Psychology from Sydney University and a Master of Science in Psychology and PhD in Cognitive Psychology from UNSW. In graduating from his PhD he became the first Aboriginal to gain a PhD from UNSW. He was also awarded an ARC Fellowship and became widely published in cognition and learning. Remaining deeply embedded in the community during his time at UNSW, he co-​Chaired the review that led to the creation of Nura Gili where he opened the education stream of the now famous Nura Gili Winter School. Paul became Head of School at UNSW, before being offered the role of Dean of Education at the University of Wollongong, thus becoming the first Aboriginal to become a Faculty Dean. After accepting an award by the ARC for being one of the ten most valuable scientists in Australia, his research interests opened further into Aboriginal perspectives, Aboriginal education and learning. He was a Founding Director of AIME (the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience) and a host of other companies. He was recently asked by the State Government to act as a Director for the NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA). Paul is currently Professor and is the Pro Vice Chancellor (Inclusion and Outreach) at the University of Wollongong. Elizabeth J.  Done is a Lecturer in the University of Plymouth’s Institute of Education where she specialises in inclusion, poststructuralist theory and critical analysis and supervises doctoral students researching inclusion-​related topics. Elizabeth is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at Exeter University and engaged in research around school exclusion. Elizabeth has published in international journals including, Journal of Education Policy, Gender & Education, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, International Journal of Inclusive Education, Journal of Research of Special Educational Needs and Support for Learning. She has previously taught on postgraduate programmes in north-​east Africa.

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List of contributors ix Valerie Harwood is a Professor of Sociology and Anthropology of Education, Sydney School of Education and Social Work, the University of Sydney, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, and an Honorary Professorial Fellow, Australian Health Services Research Institute (AHSRI), University of Wollongong. Valerie’s research is centred on a social and cultural analysis of participation in educational futures. Her most recent book (with Nyssa Murray) is The Promotion of Education: A Critical Cultural Social Marketing Approach. Cathy Jackson is Head of Research within the Stronger Smarter Institute. Cathy has been with the Institute for 8 years with previous extensive experience in university-​level teaching and learning. At the Institute, she has developed a comprehensive research and evaluation framework for the Institute’s professional development programmes seeking to explore and understand the mechanisms behind implementing the Stronger Smarter Approach in schools. As a non-​Indigenous researcher, Cathy Jackson is passionate about the Stronger Smarter Institute’s work to bring an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lens to education in Australia. Clara Rübner Jørgensen is Research Fellow within the Department for Disability Inclusion and Special Needs at the School of Education, University of Birmingham. She holds a PhD in Education and Ethnic relations from the University of Warwick, where she worked at the Centre for Educational Research before joining the University of Birmingham in 2017. Clara has a background in social anthropology and has carried out ethnographic research in a range of educational settings, including in the UK, Spain and Latin America, where she has explored issues of social inequality, school policy and children and young people’s experiences of schooling. Her work centres on the intersections between migration, ethnicity and special educational needs in a comparative educational context, and the participation of children and other stakeholders in education and health. Po Yuk Ko is Associate Professor at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching in the Education University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include: Education policies, curriculum and instruction, learning study, classroom research, teacher professional development and Chinese language education. Anthony McKnight is an Awabakal, Gumaroi and Yuin Man. Anthony is a father, husband, uncle, son, grandson, brother, cousin, nephew, friend and cultural man. Anthony is currently a lecturer in the School of Education, Faculty of Social Science at the University of Wollongong. Anthony respects Country and values the knowledge that has been taught to him from Country, Elders and teachers from the community(s). He continuously and respectfully incorporates Yuin ways of knowing and learning with a particular interest in contributing to this area to validate Yuin approaches in academia and schools. Anthony has recently completed a PhD called Singing Up Country in Academia: Teacher education academics and pre-​service teachers’ experience with Yuin Country,

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x  List of contributors in the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Wollongong. He holds a Masters of Education (HRD) from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Education, Health and Physical Education from the University of Wollongong. Samantha McMahon’s research interests include sociology of education, medicalisation of child behaviour, pre-​ service teacher epistemology, inclusive education and teacher education. Her work explores how teachers’ engagement with multiple knowledges effects the equity of student experience. Sam’s mainly ethnographic research includes participation in The AIME Research Partnership and NSW public schools. Sam works at the University of Sydney in initial teacher education, teaching units of study in sociology of education, professional research projects and pedagogical approaches in education. Jan Merok Paulsen (PhD) is Associate Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University in Oslo, Norway. His fields of expertise encompass school governance, school leadership and learning and training in educational organisations. His academic work has been published in journals such as International Journal of Educational Management, Leadership and Policy in Schools and Journal of Educational Management, and he has published books targeted for Norwegian system leaders and school leaders. Jan Merok Paulsen has prior work experience as a teacher and school administrator. Jerry Mintz has been a leading voice in the alternative school movement for over 30  years. In addition to his 17  years as a public and independent alternative school principal and teacher, he has also helped found more than 50 public and private alternative schools and organisations. In 1989, he founded the Alternative Education Resource Organization and since then has served as its Director. Jerry was the first executive director of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS), and was a founding member of the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC). Jerry was Editor-​in-​ Chief for the Handbook of Alternative Education (1994, Macmillan), and the Almanac of Education Choices (1995, Macmillan/​Simon and Schuster). He is the author of No Homework and Recess All Day:  How to Have Freedom and Democracy in Education (2003, AERO) and is editor of Turning Points:  35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Story (2010, AERO). Shun Wing Ng is Professor and Co-​ordinator of the Programme of Master of Education of School of Education at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau. He is also Adjunct Professor of the Department of Education Policy and Leadership (EPL) at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). He was formerly Head of EPL, at EdUHK. He has published more than a hundred journal articles and book chapters. His research interests include education policy and leadership, home–​school co-​operation, internationalisation of higher education and citizenship education. Sarah O’Shea is a Professor who has spent nearly 25 years working to effect change within the higher education (HE) sector through research that focuses on the

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List of contributors xi access and participation of students from identified equity groups. Her institutional and nationally funded research studies advance understanding of how under-​represented student cohorts enact success within university, navigate transition into this environment, manage competing identities and negotiate aspirations for self and others. This work is highly regarded for applying diverse conceptual and theoretical lenses to tertiary participation, which incorporate theories of social class, identity work, gender studies and poverty. In 2016, she was awarded an ARC Discovery Project exploring the persistence behaviours of first in family students and she is a 2019 Equity Research Fellow with the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE). Amy Priestly is the Director of Research at The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) and has been with the organisation for eight years. Amy first participated in the AIME Programme as a volunteer mentor while studying at the University of Wollongong. While at university, she completed a research project investigating the impact of the AIME Programme on the volunteer mentors. Through her role at AIME, Amy has continued to investigate the impact of the programme on Indigenous high school students, Indigenous and non-​Indigenous university student mentors, teachers and the wider community through multiple internal and independent research projects as well as co-​ordinating a long-​term collaborative research partnership with researchers at the University of Wollongong and the University of Sydney. Michael Roden is a geography graduate from the University of Manchester. He has held Senior Leadership roles since 1995 and was appointed to his first Headship in 2003 at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys in Birmingham. Michael took up his position in April 2014 as inaugural Principal of the University of Birmingham School –​the first secondary ‘University Training School’ in the country. The School was already one of the most popular secondary institutions in Birmingham when it opened in September 2015 and it continues to work closely with the university on its pioneering approach to character education. Michael retired in August 2018. Arnold F. Shober is an Associate Professor of Government at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA. He is broadly interested in political choice and control in American education. He is the author of In Common No More (2016, Praeger), The Democratic Dilemma of American Education (2014, Westview), and Splintered Accountability:  State Governance in Education Reform (2010, SUNY) as well as chapters and articles on charter schools, teacher quality and federal education policy. Teresa Susinos is Professor of Education at the University of Cantabria, Spain. She is also the co-​ordinator of a research group (inclusionlab.unican.es) whose interests are inclusion in education and participation as a democratic project. The projects she has co-​ordinated have focused on a critical model of ‘voice’ and are based on a participative approach with a focus on innovative methods. She has also developed some biographical-​narrative inquiry about young people’s

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xii  List of contributors social inclusion/​exclusion. All of her research involves a commitment to social justice that entails intensive fieldwork in schools and community entities and close work with educators and students as co-​researchers. Andrew Wilkins is Reader in Education at the University of East London (UEL) where he teaches social research methods to undergraduate and postgraduate students. He is a member of several editorial boards including Journal of Education Policy, Critical Studies in Education and British Journal of Sociology of Education. He is co-​director of the International Centre for Public Pedagogy (ICPUP) at UEL and co-​convenes the British Education Research Association (BERA) Social Theory and Education Special Interest Group. His recent books include Modernising School Governance (2016, Routledge) and Education Governance and Social Theory (2018, Bloomsbury). Tom Woodin is Reader in the social history of education at the UCL Institute of Education. His most recent book is on workers’ writing and community publishing, Working-​Class Writing and Publishing in the Late-​Twentieth Century (2018, Manchester University Press). He has researched and published widely on co-​ operatives and learning, including Community and Mutual Ownership:  A Historical Review for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and edited Co-​operation, Learning and Co-​operative Values (2015, Routledge). He also works on the history of education and, with Gary McCulloch and Steven Cowan, wrote Secondary Education and the Raising of the School Leaving Age –​ Coming of Age? (2013, Palgrave). He is currently co-​writing a history of the Co-​operative College for Palgrave Macmillan. He co-​edits the journal History of Education.

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1  Introduction Julie Allan, Valerie Harwood and Clara Rübner Jørgensen

In the last 20 years education has seen significant changes in the way in which it is governed, reflecting a widespread shift from government to governance. As a consequence, the state has become ‘less hierarchical, less centralised, less d ­ irigiste in character’ (Jessop, 2000, p.  24). Governance, a ‘popular yet imprecise’ term, (Rhodes, 1996, p. 652) is the mechanism whereby a global assimilation of national educational systems has taken place (Tröhler, 2009), creating a standardisation and world institutionalisation of education (Meyer and Ramirez, 2000). Tröhler (2009) argues that the capacity of this globalised governance to impact educational quality has been limited; the more significant effects have been in the form of heightened inequality. This volume of the World Yearbook in Education, Schooling, governance and inequalities, will consider specific school contexts of governance as well as school specific responses to governance. It provides a critical analysis of the consequences of the shifts in governance and of the effects of the intensified search for ‘efficiency dividends’ (Rizvi and Lingard, 2010, p. 116) on schools and those within them. It also documents radical forms of governance, at local level, which have sought to create more equitable governance, ‘intelligent accountability’ (O’Neil, 2013, p. 4) and greater involvement of key stakeholders such as students. Governance has experienced two major waves (Bevir and Rhodes, 2016). The first wave, network governance, can be traced to the dismantling of state bureaucracies through the contracting out of public service delivery and the dispersal of the state through public, private and voluntary organisations. In the second wave, of ‘metagovernance’, governance of government and governance (Daugbjerg and Fawcett, 2015), the state has a new policy role that involves indirect steering of public, private and voluntary stakeholders and controlling them through performance accountability. The altered geometry of state, society and market is, in some contexts, diminishing the role of public education in ensuring social cohesion and socio-​ economic development (UNESCO, 2013). Furthermore, increasingly scarce resources are forcing attention, through governance, on quality and on finding more efficient, though not necessarily more effective, forms of evaluation and accountability. A  reliance on standardised test scores to determine students’,

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2  Julie Allan et al. teachers’ and schools’ performance has been justified on grounds of accountability but has created ‘perverse incentives for schools’ (O’Neill, 2013, p. 16) and generated inequalities for particular groups of students and families (Welner, 2013; Allan and Artiles, 2017; Artiles et al., 2010). The Chief of Staff of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has argued that governance is an important weapon in the battle against inequalities, particularly in education (Hinks, 2017). Schools have experienced the move ‘from the government of a unitary state to governance in and by networks’ (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003, p. 41) in a myriad of ways. New duties, responsibilities and accountabilities and intensified information production requirements (Darling-​Hammond and Adamson, 2010) have repositioned school leaders as technicians of transformation (Ball and Junemann, 2016) with new lines of performance management (Burns and Köster, 2016). Furthermore, the strong incursion into education from the private sector and from philanthropy (Ball and Junemann, 2012) has brought with it new demands. It has also reduced levels of trust between stakeholders within the education system (Cerna, 2014; Burns and Köster, 2016). The shift from government to governance in education has led to new ways of defining the roles of parents and other stakeholders, who are given more influence over the strategic management of schools through involvement on school governing bodies. The concept of ‘responsibilisation’ (Peeters, 2013) is key to this process, as stakeholders are increasingly required to get involved and take responsibility for social change, often in the context of marketisation and limited resources. Olmedo and Wilkins (2017, p. 585), for example, describe how parents are conceptualised as both ‘morally obligated to take action’ and as ‘vehicles or modalities for the expression and reproduction of market rationalities’. Standardised and centralised systems for holding schools and governors to account, however, maintain the role of the state in shaping school policies and may lead to a prioritisation of skills-​based over stakeholder models of governance, as seen recently in England (Wilkins, 2015). The process of involving different stakeholders as governors in education thus raises some important questions about representation, diversity and the ‘governance capital’ of schools (James, 2014). In relation to parent governors, new modes of working in partnership furthermore depend on existing and culturally specific power relationships between parents and school professionals (Heystek, 2006; McNube and Mafore, 2013). Radical governance can be understood as working against these processes of governance and, given the mechanisms of governance and reach, as always situated within these in one way or another. While it may connect with some of the ideas and ideals of de-​schooling (Freire, 1972; Illich, 1970), the focus of radical governance is on issues of governance and governance regimes and this can take a range of forms (and thus is not restricted to de-​schooling). As such, radical governance takes issue with the influences of the plethora of governance practices that now impact education, including for instance ‘metagovernance’ (Daugbjerg and Fawcett, 2015) as well as ‘stealth forms of power’ that impact the micro-​politics of schooling (Taylor Webb, 2008). In the face of these governance formations, the

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Introduction 3 possibilities for radical forms of governance are not only under ever-​increasing pressure; they need also to be flexibly conceived. Accordingly, we put forward the argument that radical processes of governance occur in myriad ways. Radical governance can thus be seen to be inclusive of democratic schools that seek to sit outside of ‘mainstream’ (Fielding, 2014) or the inclusion of students in governance (Brasof, 2015; Carlile, 2012). The latter is one of the ways that radical governance might engage students to challenge hierarchical power structures that preclude them from the governance of schooling. But radical governance can also be engaged with the micro modalities that Lewis (2011) agues are at work in the globalisation of education and the ‘international education industry’ in Aortearoa/​ New Zealand, or in the micro-​politics of parent involvement in schools in Hong Kong (Ng and Yuen, 2015). Micro modalities of radical governance can operate in the interstices and edges throughout the processes of education and schooling. Take for instance the ways in which teachers and students may work to resist, or enact differently, the ‘governance imperative’. A vivid example of such a different enactment is the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) which has involved systematically altering the power relations between teachers and students (McMahon et al., 2016; Chapter  11). Teague’s (2018) work on the ‘curriculum as a site of counter politics’ is instructive for our discussion since it not only reminds us of the micro-​ politics (Foucault, 1980) always at play in the interstices of power relations in the curriculum, but also flags the possibilities for counter-​politics. Teague draws on Butler (1997) in pointing out that ‘it is in this repeated rearticulation of dominant discourses that the opportunity arises to repeat differently’ (Teague, 2018, p. 104). In this example, we might imagine radical governance to be inclusive of micro and even ‘nano’ forms that allows the work of teachers, as Teague (2018) describes, to ‘repeat differently’. Part one of the book considers the changing contexts of governance and accountability within school systems and traces the impetus for the shift from government to governance. It examines the new conditions created by such changes and the consequences for key stakeholders in different world contexts. In Chapter 2, Arnold Shober tracks politics, accountability and local control within the United States Education system, asking if equity can survive the ‘epiphany’ of government-​centric direction driving up educational achievement that occurred to both the Democrats and the Republicans in the 1990s. Jacqueline Baxter, in Chapter  3, details the consequences, within the UK, of moves towards more networked forms of public sector governance. She reports on a research study of Multi-​Academy Trusts, collectives of schools that have come together as a direct consequence of decentralisation, and considers the crucial elements of power, control and communication. Jan Merok Paulsen, in Chapter 4, also examines the shift towards networked governance, but does so in the Nordic context, noting the tendency towards a decoupling of governance forms from the political sphere of local authorities. In Chapter  5, Herbert Altrichter discusses the emergence of evidence-​based governance models in the state-​based education systems of Austria and Germany. These contexts, hitherto prime examples of state-​based

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4  Julie Allan et al. and centralist-​bureaucratic governance of schooling, have seen a move towards an evidence-​based model of governance which has impacted significantly on the work of teachers and schools. Part two examines changes to everyday practices in schools resulting from new systems of governance. This part focuses particularly on the ‘responsibilisation’ of stakeholders, including teachers and parents, to whom governments are passing on increasing responsibility and control, while at the same time introducing heightened accountability measures. Three out of four chapters in this section focus on the English education setting, which is characterised by high reliance on market-​based principles (Ball, 2013) and extensive school diversification (Courtney, 2015) and thus provides a particular context for governance. In Chapter 6, Wilkins discusses changes to school governance in England since the introduction of the Academies Act in 2010, and illustrates the contradictions of this process, which on the one hand has decreased local authority control over schools, but at the same time, increased state-​mandated systems of accountability. In Chapter 7, Done discusses a similar tension between the decentralisation and centralisation of educational governance. Focusing on recent inclusion policy and the role of teachers in England, Europe and Australasia (though with most weight on England), she describes responsibilisation and accountability as key elements of governance and analyses them in relation to the German ordoliberal school of neoliberalism. Chapter 8 also touches upon the theme of responsibilisation, but in relation to head teachers and within the context of free schools in England. The chapter presents a conversation between Michael Roden, former principal at the University of Birmingham School, and Julie Allan, a governor of the school and member of the university. The conversation and its commentary provide a unique insight into the challenges of governance in newly established (free) schools, and some of the, at times, competing interests involved. In Chapter 9, Ng and Ko similarly discuss conflicting interests by analysing diverse patterns of micro-​politics between head teachers, teachers and parents in Hong Kong over the involvement of parents in school governance. The chapter illustrates the link between governance, power and stakeholder relationships, considering not only the political element, but also the cultural context of parent–​teacher dynamics. Part three explores innovative and radical alternative forms of governance, operating either at a local or community level or by mobilising key stakeholder groups such as students. Radical governance, as we described above, can be understood as occurring in numerous ways but what marks out this practice is the concerted and deliberate efforts that it makes at or towards governance. As such, radical governance might be understood as striving to do the governance of things differently in a number of ways. Chapter 10 offers important insight into a form of radical governance that is set outside of the institutional education (the school). In this chapter Bobongie and Jackson share the work from the Stronger Smarter Institute’s Jarjums programme. Stronger Smarter is an Indigenous-​led not-​for-​profit organisation based in Australia. Jarjums, as they explain, ‘is an Aboriginal word for children used in a number of languages on Australia’s eastern coast’ (Bobongie and Jackson, Chapter 10). The authors describe what they term as ‘a layered approach of radical

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Introduction 5 governance where educators are provided with a different way of thinking and a new set of tools based on Australian Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing’ (Martin, 2008, p. 72). Chapter 11, also from Australia, provides insight on forms of radical governance at the interstices of relationships of power between teachers and students. Addressing the issue of ‘power imbalances between teachers and students’, McMahon, Harwood, Bodkin-​Andrews, O’Shea, McKnight, Chandler and Priestly describe biepistemic practice, and explain how this practice is used in AIME with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. Their discussion is framed by Shawn Wilson’s, an Opaskwayak Cree scholar from northern Manitoba, theorisation of Indigenous relationality (2008). McMahon et al.’s chapter offers a way to learn from Indigenous epistemologies, and shows how biepistemic practice can be a pathway to more egalitarian teacher–​student relationships. Chapter  12, by Teresa Susinos, addresses the question of radical governance in terms of student participation in Spanish schools. In this chapter, ‘Is participation a ‘sick’ word? New insights into student democratic participation in the light of research in Spanish schools’, Susinos takes up an argument made by Portugese Academic Boaentura de Sousa, and makes the case that student participation is one of those ‘certain words that ‘become ill’ and lose their capacity to convey unambiguous and clear meaning because of saturation and trivialisation’. This concept of student participation as one of those words that have ‘become ill’ is certainly a provocation for the very idea of forms of radical governance that hinge on student participation. The consequence, as Susinos argues, is that this term (as well as terms such as ‘student voice’) has become ‘evanescent’. Susinos responds to this problematic by drawing on over ten years of research on student participation and what she and her colleagues in this long-​term project call the ‘inclusive participation cycle’. Chapter 13 by Tom Woodin, ‘Democratic alternatives in a neoliberal age? Co-​operation, governance and schooling’, provides an insightful discussion of co-​operative schools in England. Based on research that draws from ‘immersion’ in the co-​operative schools movement, the chapter brings in-​depth qualitative accounts from both school leadership as well as ‘network bodies such as the Co-​ operative College, Co-​operative Group and Schools Co-​operative Society’. In this sense, this chapter provides a fascinating insight into co-​operative schools and the co-​operative schools movement at a time of heightened neoliberal pressure that places considerable demands on the existence of these forms of radical governance. The book closes with an Afterword, ‘The Magic of Democracy’, contributed by Jerry Mintz, a US-​based author and leader in the alternative school movement. This chapter draws our attention back to the ‘magic of democracy’ and ‘democratic power in the hands of children’. Radical governance, in this sense, can be thought through in terms of the democratic decision making in schools by children. Mintz calls into question certain assumptions about children and schools –​ that they don’t like school or ‘don’t want to go to classes’. Against this, Mintz argues that children are always learning, that they are ‘natural learners’. Mintz picks up on a wariness people may have of a democratic school –​explaining the benefits for parents of visiting a democratic school –​and experiencing it in action. As he states, ‘When people haven’t experienced freedom they are often afraid of what

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6  Julie Allan et al. they might do if they have freedom’. Perhaps this issue is a key problematic for proposals of radical governance –​and as such, flags the need not only to continually engage with thought experiments (Youdell, Harwood and Lindley, 2018) of its possibilities, but to actively pursue opportunities to feel and experience learning and education that is differently governed. The chapters in this book provide us with a series of provocations and reminders of the possibilities that remain open to us. Rhodes (2007) reminds us of the power of collecting and analysing stories of governance, of the kind we have in part one of this volume. These, he argues, are the best way to challenge contingent and contested narratives of governance, to talk back to the organised doubt that Herbert Altrichter (Chapter 5) speaks of and to help to advocate for responsible government. As Kjær (2011) points out, however, we do not know enough about the tensions and dilemmas that exist between old and new structures of governance and how they interact with socio-​economic and political contexts. The intensification of educational governance  –​with its increased stealth and enhanced opportunities for capture through mechanisms such as responsibilisation –​places even greater pressures on schools and the professionals within them. Calls for greater resilience among professionals reflect not a heightened benevolence and regard for their welfare but a further extension of an obligating imperative. Professionals need, not resilience, but an enhanced governance literacy and capability. This would enable them to gain a better understanding of the way in which they are compelled to engage in extreme complexity and would equip them with skills of adapting, balancing and negotiating. The possibilities for radical governance are immense. At a basic level, models of radical governance, such as the Stronger Smarter Programme described by Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson (Chapter  10), allow for a resetting of the norms and values within educational settings so as to reorientate learning around the strengths of the learners themselves. At its most transformative, radical governance invites what Susinos (Chapter 12) calls a ‘resemantisation’ of concepts that have become ‘ill’ with excessive and inappropriate use. Such ‘resemantisation’ (Susinos, Chapter 12) offers to both heighten awareness of inequalities and reveal ways of reducing or removing them.

References Allan, J. & Artiles, A. (2017). Introduction. In:  Allan, J. & Artiles, A. (eds.) The World Yearbook in Education: Assessment Inequalities. London: Routledge. Artiles, A.J., Kozleski, E., Trent, S., Osher, D. & Ortiz, A. (2010). Justifying and explaining disproportionality, 1968–​2008:  A critique of underlying views of culture. Exceptional Children, 76(3), 279–​299. Ball, S.J. (2013). The Education Debate. Bristol: Policy Press. Ball, S. & Junemann, C. (2012). Networks, New Governance and Education. Bristol: Policy Press. Ball, S & Junemann, C. (2016). Educational governance in England. In Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W. (eds.) Rethinking Governance:  Ruling, Rationalities and Resistance. London: Routledge.

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Introduction 7 Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W. (2003). Interpreting British Governance. Hove: Psychology Press. Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W. (eds.) (2016). Rethinking Governance: Ruling, Rationalities and Resistance. London: Routledge. Brasof, M. (2015). Student Voice and School Governance: Distributing Leadership to Youth and Adults. New York: Routledge. Burns, T & Köster, F. (2016). Modern Governance Challenges in Education. Governing Education in a Complex World. Paris: OECD, https://​doi.org/​10.1787/​9789264255364-​ en [Accessed 15/​04/​19]. Butler, J. (1997). The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjectification. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Carlile, A. (2012). ‘Critical bureaucracy’ in action:  Embedding student voice into school governance. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 20(3), 393–​412. Cerna, L. (2014). Trust: What it is and why it matters for governance and education. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 108. Paris:  OECD Publishing, www.oecd-​ilibrary. org/​education/​trust-​what-​it-​is-​and-​why-​it-​matters-​for-​governance-​and-​education_​ 5jxswcg0t6wl-​en [Accessed 15/​04/​19]. Courtney, S.J. (2015). Mapping school types in England. Oxford Review of Education, 41, 799–​818. Darling-​Hammond, L. & Adamson, F. (2010). Beyond Basic Skills: The Role of Performance Assessment in Achieving 21st Century Standards of Learning. https://​doc.uments.com/​ s-​beyond-​basic-​skills-​the-​role-​of-​performance-​assessment-​in-​achieving.pdf [Accessed 15/​04/​19]. Daugbjerg, C. & Fawcett, P. (2015). Metagovernance, network structure and legitimacy: Developing a heuristic for comparative governance analysis. Administration and Society, 49(9), 1223–​1245. Fielding. M. (2014). Bringing freedom to education: Colin Ward, Alex Bloom and the possibility of radical democratic schoos. In: Burke, C. & Jones, K. (eds.) Education, Childhood and Anarchism, Talking Colin Ward. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 86–​98. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/​ Knowledge:  Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Heystek, J. (2006). School governing bodies in South Africa:  Relationships between principals and parent governors—​ a question of trust? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 34, 473–​486. Hinks, G. (2017). OECD:  Governance a weapon in the battle against inequality. https://​ boardagenda.com/​2017/​01/​13/​oecd-​governance-​weapon-​battle-​inequality [Accessed 15/​04/​19]. Illich, I. (1970). Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars. James, C. (2014). Trends in the governance and governing of schools in England. Local Government Studies, 40(6), 893–​909. Jessop, B. (2000). Governance failure. In: Stoker, G. (ed.) The New Politics of British Local Government. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11–​32. Kjær, A.M. (2011). Rhodes’ contribution to governance theory:  Praise, criticism and the future governance debate. Public Administration, 89(1), 101–​113. Lewis, N. (2011). Political projects and micro-​practices of globalising education: Building an international education industry in New Zealand. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(2), 225–​246. Martin, K.L. (2008). Please Knock Before You Enter: Aboriginal Regulation of Outsiders and the Implications for Researchers. Teneriffe, QLD: Post Pressed.

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8  Julie Allan et al. McMahon, S., Harwood, V., Bodkin-​Andrews, G., O’Shea, S., McNight, A., Chandler, P. & Priestley, A. (2016). Lessons from the AIME approach to the teaching relationship: Valuing biepistemic practice. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 25(1), 43–​58. McNube, V. & Mafore, P. (2013). School governing bodies in strengthening democracy and social justice : Parents as partners? Anthropologist, 15(1), 13–​23. Meyer, J.W. & Ramirez, F.O. (2000). The world institutionalization of education. In:  Schriewer, J. (ed.) Discourse Formation in Comparative Education. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang Publishing, pp. 111–​132. Ng, S.-​W. & Yuen, W.K.G. (2015). The micro-​politics of parental involvement in school education in Hong Kong: Ethnocentrism, utilitarianism or policy rhetoric! Educational Review, 67(2), 253–​271. O’Neill, O. (2013). Intelligent accountability in education. Oxford Review of Education, 39(1),  4–​16. Olmedo, A. & Wilkins, A. (2017). Governing through parents : A genealogical enquiry of education policy and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in England. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(4), 573–​589. Peeters, R. (2013). Responsibilisation on government’s terms: New welfare and the governance of responsibility and solidarity. Social Policy and Society, 12(4), 583–​595. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996). The new governance:  Governing without government. Political Studies, XLIV, 652–​667. Rhodes, R.A.W. (2007). Understanding governance:  Ten years on. Organization Studies, 28(8), 1243–​1264. Rizvi, F. & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing Education Policy. Abingdon: Routledge. Taylor Webb, P. (2008). Re‐mapping power in educational micropolitics. Critical Studies in Education, 49(2), 127–​142. Tröhler, D. (2009). Harmonizing the educational globe. World polity, cultural features and the challenges to educational research. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(1),  5–​17. Teague, L. (2018). The curriculum as a site of counter politics: Theorising the ‘domain of the sayable’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(1), 92–​106. UNESCO (2013). Rethinking education in a changing world. Retrieved on 3 January from http://​unesdoc.unesco.org/​images/​0022/​002247/​224743e.pdf [Accessed 15/​04/​19]. Welner, K.G. (2013). Consequential validity and the transformation of tests from measurement tools to policy tools. Teachers College Record, 115(9), 1–​6. Wilkins, A. (2015). Professionalizing school governance: The disciplinary effects of school autonomy and inspection on the changing role of school governors. Journal of Education Policy, 30(2), 182–​200. Wilson, S. (2008). Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Black Point: Fernwood Publishing. Youdell, D., Harwood, V. & Lindley, M. (2018). Biological sciences, social sciences and the languages of stress. Discourse:  Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(2), 219–​241.

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Part I

Changing contexts of school governance

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2  Can equity survive governance? Politics, accountability and local control in US education Arnold F. Shober

Introduction For 60 years, US federal education policy was driven by the suspicion that local governance was inept, ineffective and inequitable, a view held especially strongly by federal judges. In Congress, Democrats embraced federal spending to address poverty, race and education whereas Republicans, while they sought to support state governments, were wary of ceding power or money to urban areas, school districts and teachers’ groups. Then, in the 1990s, both parties experienced an epiphany: Federal government policy could boost academic achievement in pursuit of educational equity through government-​centric direction. This epiphany also drove the parties to embrace accountability in return for spending, a fundamental redirection of federal priorities. At the time, Republicans and Democrats differed on exactly what the government should measure, but neither questioned the propriety of the federal government’s role in setting rules on teaching and learning. Polls showed that the public saw both parties fairly even on education. When Republican Governor George W. Bush touted his credentials as an ‘education governor’ on the campaign trail to succeed the outgoing Democratic ‘education president’ Bill Clinton, it was easy to believe him. The comity between the parties was genuine. Through the 1990s, the Democrats had pushed for ‘opportunity-​to-​learn’ standards with an eye to guaranteeing increased funding to school districts where those standards were not met. When those standards proved politically contentious, the party shifted to support academic standards broadly. On the part of Republicans, pressure from suburban ‘soccer moms’ concerned about curriculum and from business interests worried about educational outcomes led the party to embrace academic accountability (McGuinn, 2006). When these political coalitions emerged, it was clear that politicians’ beliefs about US education policy had undergone a sea-​change. No longer was spending alone an indicator of improving equity, but no longer could policymakers avoid uncomfortable questions about the equity effects of government-​led policy. This approach was markedly different from both historic federal policy and Civil Rights-​era federal policy. After World War II, US federal education policy had taken a low-​profile approach to educational equity, privileging long-​standing

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12  Arnold F. Shober local governance arrangements. President Dwight D. Eisenhower confided to his diary in 1953 that ‘race relations … will be healthy and sound only if it starts locally. I do not believe that prejudices … will succumb to compulsion’ (Patterson, 2001, p. 81). When the US Supreme Court held that school segregation was unconstitutional in 1954, it accommodated Eisenhower. The court left open the question of how school desegregation should proceed; this appeared to be the best strategy to persuade reluctant states and school districts. Although some states made strides towards equalising resources between segregated schools in the 1950s, the ensuing decade showed how adept states and districts had become at delay and defiance, reflecting local mores and preferences (O’Brien, 1999). Initially, most segregated school districts engaged in token desegregation, and then only when prodded by local court decisions. Some states and governors engaged in outright defiance or creative school choice proposals that ratified existing segregation. Georgia banned spending state funds on desegregated schools. Virginia and Mississippi encouraged private academies that could retain race barriers. Alabama allowed school districts to create pupil admission standards that for all intents and purposes maintained segregation (Patterson, 2001). For advocates of racial equity, governance had had its day, and the results were not encouraging. The result was that, by 1965, neither the Supreme Court nor African Americans nor white liberals were in any mood to trust local government or local associations. Nor should they have:  Not only was their loyalty to educational equity suspect, their resources for improving equity were scarce. The Supreme Court countered the situation with a series of decisions including Green v.  New Kent County (1968) in which it ordered a Virginia school district to eliminate racial discrimination ‘root and branch’ (US Supreme Court, 1968, p.  438). The liberal Democratic majorities in Congress wrote legislation that assumed that federal direction would ameliorate the yawning inequities in American schools. They chose a distinctly government-​led approach, minimising input and squelching discretion whenever possible, at least as to how funds were to be spent. In this view, supported by their recent observations, localities –​and the teachers and schools within them –​were likely to perpetuate inequity. The remedy was to increase federal educational spending and hasten desegregation through federal power. The legislation that emerged from this milieu was the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). Not only were ESEA’s funds tied to racial desegregation, but it provided a pot of money to compel state bureaucracy to monitor equity (Halperin, 1975; Murphy, 1974). Lawmakers seemed justified given the stark results of the next year’s discouraging Coleman Report (Coleman et al., 1966). The report found stark differences in social and educational resources among racial and ethnic groups; spending on school resources could not but help increase equity. Yet, despite the government-​centric definition of the policy problem, ESEA left local educational decision making intact. The view that educational inequities were primarily the result of maldistributed resources was, in effect, a vote of confidence in the teachers and schools. Whatever those practitioners did, they should do more of it, the federal government said. Schools, school boards

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Can equity survive governance? 13 and teachers were asked to improve equity through federally-​supported governance. But equity itself remained undefined; teachers were not asked to solve any particular problem, and they certainly were not held to a particular standard of teaching. By the 1990s, it was painfully apparent that opening the federal spigot had done little to close one form of educational inequity: Educational achievement (Jencks and Phillips, 1998). In addition, state-​level litigation that had significantly boosted educational spending in many states, sometimes astronomically, showed little promise (Hanushek and Lindseth, 2009). This evidence troubled both parties. Republicans argued that the spending was fiscally reckless, and Democrats worried that some Latinos and African Americans whose children were in persistently low-​performing schools would abandon them if they simply touted more spending (McGuinn, 2006, p. 480). But it was also troubling for advocates of educational equity. If schools with more resources had done little to close the gap, maybe the focus of the school system was at fault. This seemed to call for a more centralised government-​based solution. The breakthrough came when Republicans and Democrats tied standards and accountability together in the late 1990s. Republicans would support additional funding for education if schools and districts were transparent about meeting standards. Democrats would acquiesce to robust testing in return for attention on low-​income, non-​white groups who would benefit from much of the spending. Both parties agreed that performance would be the marker of educational equity, and they agreed that teachers were the agents of change. Spending, though still a large part of the equation, would be secondary. Lawmakers make this theory of action explicit in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), a mammoth, bipartisan reauthorisation of the long-​standing ESEA. For the last 20  years, US education policy has been shaped at the state and local level by embracing, resisting and reforming the strictures of NCLB. Yet, in the 20 years since the parties first unveiled their proposals for NCLB, the government-​based consensus that animated NCLB disintegrated as school organisations, teachers’ unions, partisans and parents bristled at the national effort at uniformity. They all lauded equity, but the very persons who were central to the equity effort resisted being labelled the sole technicians of change. They accepted the responsibility but not the simplistic accountability that accompanied the government-​based view. Instead, they sought a return to a more co-​ operative, governance-​based approach to schooling. The successor to NCLB, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA), did not give up on government-​based solutions, but it did surrender the field. Governance would return to the field. It is an open question whether the movement to governance in the US will help or hinder equity. The government-​based NCLB and its follow-​on reforms, the Race to the Top (RTTT) and the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI), assumed that uniformity of standards and assessment would highlight inequity –​and they did, in stark relief. But NCLB and its ilk did little to reduce inequity. Governance, with all its local discretion and historical inequities, may in fact bolster buy-​in by teachers and parents, spurring local efforts to improve the

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14  Arnold F. Shober learning of the most disadvantaged. This chapter traces the trajectory from NCLB to ESSA. It begins with an overview of NCLB’s government-​based theory of action, implementation and early evaluation before recounting the strong reaction to that regime by practitioners, partisans and parents. It then reviews the governance-​ based reforms enacted in ESSA before arguing that governance may, in fact, aid teachers and schools to be the technicians of change that NCLB assumed they would be even as it undercut them.

NCLB and government-​driven accountability When ESEA came up for reauthorisation in 2001, policymakers on the left and right jointly called for changes. On the left, the Democratic Party boasted a large contingent of pragmatic ‘third way’ Democrats who openly toyed with public school choice and high national standards to overcome glacial changes at the local level, even if those changes threatened one of the party’s most loyal constituencies, the national teachers’ unions. On the right, Republicans yielded to the political reality that its middle-​class suburban base was deeply concerned about educational quality while retaining a low-​tax ideology. Congressional Republicans proposed the ‘Academic Achievement for All Act’ (‘Straight A’s’ for short), the first time the modern Republican Party had ever formally proposed using the federal government for educational equity (McGuinn, 2006). These twin currents combined to create the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). In line with ESEA’s long-​standing commitments, NCLB sought to minimise educational inequality among racial and economic groups, but, unlike the original bill, the Act adopted an agnostic view on how that inequity should be reduced. The bill loosened the rules on spending, but clamped states and schools into an accountability regime. Students  –​aggregated into schools and districts  –​would have to show measurable progress on state-​selected achievement tests until, in 2013–​2014, all students could show they were proficient in reading and mathematics. Districts or schools that failed to meet these criteria would face federally-​ specified penalties, including ‘reconstitution’ in which all staff would be fired and replaced. Students were also required to have a Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT). In effect, NCLB’s theory of action was that schools were a black box that defied a legislative solution. Instead, external pressure would force schools in general and teachers in particular to give priority to reading and mathematics. From one perspective, the enactment of NCLB marked the peak of the federal government’s involvement in one of the US’s most local public policies, K–​12 education. NCLB’s approach to student achievement was emblematic of this theory. Federal rules were meant to specify the outputs but leave the details to a governance-​like arrangement with the states. States had substantial leeway in designing or purchasing exams to measure students’ mathematics and reading abilities. Further, NCLB only required simple measurements of achievement –​below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. States could set cut-​scores for students; and states could also call on a number of statistical provisions to cushion year-​to-​year changes common in small samples (Carey, 2006).

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Can equity survive governance? 15 NCLB’s teacher training was similar. Widespread research suggested that teachers were one of the few factors that governments could influence to bolster equity and Linda Darling-​Hammond noted that teacher licensure was the ‘one lever’ that governments could use to improve teaching (Archer, 2001). This in itself was a shift from ESEA’s older assumptions that resource disparities were the root cause of educational inequities, but it was an inequity that was hard to ignore. Scholarship showed that teachers contributed more to learning than virtually any other school-​based intervention, and both teachers’ content knowledge and their classroom instruction are significantly related to students’ academic learning regardless of pay or professional development (Hanushek and Lindseth, 2009; Staiger, Gordon and Kane, 2006; Wenglinsky, 2000), yet surveys of teacher quality found bleak differences even in credentials. One report found that only 54  percent of maths teachers in majority non-​white schools had majored in maths in college, compared with 86 percent in majority white schools (National Commission for Teaching and America’s Future, 1996). NCLB’s authors sought to overcome these inequities by requiring teachers to have a bachelor’s degree, full state certification and some measure of subject matter competency. Initially, the US Department of Education interpreted this to mean subject-​specific competency (e.g. ‘geometry’ rather than ‘mathematics’). To minimise disruption to the existing 2.9 million teachers, however, NCLB provided an alternative. States could certify that existing teachers met a state-​designed High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation, known as HOUSSE. The states set the standards, but the federal government called the tune. Supporters across the political spectrum were ‘dreaming the impossible dream’: high standards combined with meaningful accountability (Finn Jr, Julian and Petrilli, 2006). But others –​notably teachers and schools, whose co-​operation federal policymakers needed most  –​saw this as a nightmare (Sawchuk, 2009; Sawchuk and Heitin, 2014). Teachers were asked to be both technicians and producers of improved equity despite considerable ambiguity about how they were to do either. Despite NCLB’s intentions, none of the HQT, HOUSSE or state tests initiatives substantially improved inequities in teaching or learning, in part due to strong pushback from local lawmakers, teachers’ unions and state departments of education. Because NCLB only required student scores to be classified into bins, setting the cut-​scores on state tests created a powerful temptation to inflate ‘proficiency’. And indeed, that is what happened. The US Department of Education has administered a nationwide National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) since 1969, and the exam categorises student performance into the same four categories as NCLB-​ mandated exams. In a series of reports, the federal government found that only one state’s ‘proficient’ cut point was close to that of NAEP (Massachusetts), while eight states considered students proficient if they met only NAEP’s ‘below basic’ standard. The standards for the rest were near NAEP’s ‘basic’ standard (Bandeira de Mello, 2011). Although NAEP and state exams have different purposes, the very low bar most states set up did little but mask the underlying inequities in test results. The gap between white and non-​white students in Colorado might appear

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16  Arnold F. Shober to be small, but the same test results in Massachusetts or California would indicate a yawning gulf (Dahlin and Cronin, 2010). Defenders of the states might have suggested that state tests were somehow ‘harder’ than the NAEP exams, but this defence rang hollow as well. In the decade before the advent of the Common Core State Standards, content-​matter experts from the Fordham Institute regularly evaluated state standards. Although some states had consistently rigorous standards –​that is, students receiving top honours were few and test content was neither trivial nor superficial –​Fordham’s experts found that most states’ standards were vague, simplistic, and often repetitive (Petrilli and Finn, 2006). The low quality and wide variation of standards was consistent with the states’ low proficiency bar. NCLB’s faith in public reporting as a means to overcome inequality was misplaced. For teachers, the implementation of HQT and HOUSSE scarcely got off the ground. As measures, HQT and HOUSSE did not take teachers’ own practice into account; they were merely a measure of credentials. For their part, states treated HOUSSE as an invitation to write standards that were nearly impossible to fail. New York allowed teachers to claim competency if they had a bachelor’s degree and had supervised a student teacher. California, Michigan and West Virginia counted an application for National Board Certification  –​even if the teacher failed to be certified. In Oklahoma, teachers could meet standards if any of their students won first, second, or third place in academic competitions (Tracy and Walsh, 2004). HQT standards overall were likewise loose: Wisconsin claimed that 99.5 percent of its core academic classes were taught by highly-​qualified teachers; Montana, 99.4 percent; and Connecticut, 98.9 percent (Carey, 2006). Yet, by 2007, high-​poverty and non-​white schools still employed markedly less-​experienced, less-​credentialed teachers (Birman et  al., 2007). When the National Education Association objected to tightening HOUSSE requirements in 2006, the department relented and instead tried to shame states into higher standards with a letter (Spellings, 2006). By all accounts, HQT had failed; this government-​driven solution could not generate higher-​quality teaching.

Revising and retooling NCLB But perhaps simplistic, low-​quality standards could still produce equity benefits. Schools still had to meet requirements, and schools did fall foul of even these standards. Unfortunately, NCLB’s top-​down, government-​led reforms seem to have had little impact, at least as measured by NAEP. In 1999, the gap in NAEP reading scores between 13-​year-​old white students and Latino students was 23 points; between white and black students the gap was 29. In 2008, those numbers were 26 and 21, respectively. For mathematics, the gaps were 24 and 32 in 1999 versus 23 and 28 in 2008. In these numbers, there was some improvement and some regression. More nuanced analysis was even less sanguine. Some found that NCLB’s accountability measures actually sanctioned non-​white schools at higher rates than otherwise similar schools, reducing the ability of schools to improve equity (Miller, Kerr

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Can equity survive governance? 17 and Ritter, 2008). Others found decidedly mixed results, such as improvements in maths scores but worsening reading scores, or even few statistically significant changes at all (Dee and Jacob, 2009; Reardon, Greenberg, Kalogrides, Shores and Valentino, 2013). More damning, however, was a study that suggested that any improvements accruing to disadvantaged or non-​white students were independent of standards, accountability, or NCLB-​required measures (Lee and Reeves, 2012). In short, these studies suggested that NCLB’s top-​down government measures did little to improve equity in schools and may have harmed it. Yet even these scholars, and ones like them, pointed to evidence that bridging these gaps was possible with district-​specific, school-​driven policies (Boykin and Noguera, 2011; Lee and Reeves, 2012; Superville, 2016). Combined with lacklustre results, federal policy had, by 2009, created perhaps the worst outcome:  cursory lip-​service to high-​quality teaching combined with scarcely concealed contempt for the federal process. Despite a strong political endorsement from the National Education Association, President Barack Obama and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, doubled down on government-​ led standards in 2009. For RTTT, the policy problem was not so much that NCLB’s government-​centric approach was flawed as it was that it was hamstrung by measurement error. As had other education reformers in the outgoing Bush Administration, Obama argued that unequal standards were the contemporary equivalent of the ‘separate and unequal’ school systems that Brown found unconstitutional. He and Duncan sought to lift the fog of negativity in the education community surrounding NCLB, and they started right from the title:  Race to the Top. Although it appeared more conciliatory to governance, RTTT was still driven by a top-​down ethos. ‘This competition will not be based on politics or ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group’, Obama said when introducing RTTT. ‘Instead, it will be based on a simple principle –​whether a state is ready to do what works’ (McNeil, 2009b). What ‘worked’ was written into the legislation. This included increasing charter school access, creating longitudinal student tracking, implementing teacher assessment and adopting high quality standards. RTTT offered states $4.35 billion of federal money in return for these specific, tangible policy changes that NCLB had failed to elicit. Unlike NCLB, though, RTTT was not law; states had to opt-​in and submit an application to have a shot at the money. Forty-​six states did so.1 The applications were short on specifics and long on promises, but, in a genius move, the US Department of Education adopted a point system that favoured states where there was actual legislation supporting RTTT’s goals and which had demonstrated local support, giving RTTT the patina of governance. Tennessee’s letter of application was particularly instructive: ‘This application includes a letter of support from all seven Democrat and Republican candidates for governor  –​ a show of bipartisan support that ensures our application will be carried out no matter who holds the governor’s office’ (State of Tennessee, 2010, p. 12). Despite the state’s limited action under NCLB, New York eliminated an implementation delay for RTTT-​inspired teacher-​assessment standards. Governor Andrew Cuomo

18

18  Arnold F. Shober instead called for them to be in place in six months. ‘We need a legitimate evaluation system’, he said. The existing system ‘lacks objectivity and [does not] factor in classroom effectiveness, performance, or need’ (Cuomo, 2011). NCLB had threatened slow-​moving schools, only to be ignored; RTTT prompted states to rush through legislation to comply. RTTT unquestionably improved data collection and measurement, and it also overcame another glaring weakness in NCLB, namely variable state standards. Although the federal government did not create academic standards, RTTT all but required states to adopt the newly developed Common Core State Standards. An employee of the Department of Education was at the initial meeting of the Common Core Consortium, and US Department of Education reviewers for RTTT applications had instructions to grade against non-​Common Core states (McNeil, 2009a; US Department of Education, 2010). A second-​round RTTT competition required adoption of ‘common college-​and career-​ready standards by August 2, 2010’ (US Department of Education, 2012). Thirty-​one states did. The Common Core State Standards were a multi-​state effort to build limited, rigorous standards to guide textbook publishers, test makers, teachers and school boards. Civil rights groups, like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Council of La Raza, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) were strongly supportive of both testing and standards (Education Trust, 2015; Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 2011). These groups were well aware of the practice of school districts shunting low-​performing students into special education classes; uniform standards and testing could be seen as one remedy to the problem. If NCLB’s threats could not prompt states and schools to take action to close academic gaps, perhaps RTTT financial incentives could. For all the noise about standards, economic competition and teacher evaluation, equity was never far below the surface. Unfortunately for proponents of the federal government, government had failed equity.

The collapse of NCLB Even before RTTT’s funding ended, cracks appeared in the Obama Administration’s commitment to a government-​ centric approach. The more ​ upbeat labelling and generous federal funding did little to quell anger from teachers and other practitioners, reduce widespread suspicion of the Common Core by Republicans, or allay concerns of parents in suburban school districts. The general malaise undercut the most promising elements of RTTT and laid the groundwork for its dissolution when ESEA was finally reauthorised in late 2015. These stresses also weakened RTTT’s most far-​reaching achievement, the near-​universal adoption of the Common Core State Standards. The strongest challenge to the government-​ centric approach came from American teachers’ unions. Although the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), its smaller, more urban cousin, strongly supported federal funding to schools and teacher development

 19

Can equity survive governance? 19 programmes, they also held a consistent belief in the freedom of individual teachers from standardised oversight and (as they saw it) arbitrary dismissal. Both unions have long been suspicious of student testing because those numbers are frequently linked to teacher performance, fairly or not. NCLB and RTTT undercut these core values. NCLB’s threats to unions were, in the main, more rhetorical than real. Although Secretary of Education Rod Paige had called teachers’ unions ‘terrorist organizations’ in 2004 for resisting NCLB’s implementation, NCLB did little to change the rules or requirements for teachers themselves  –​especially as states made HOUSSE standards generous (Robelen, 2004). They were also opposed to the testing regimen that NCLB required, but its implementation made this a toothless threat. Unions were most directly affected by the law’s provision allowing a district to fire all school personnel if a school did not meet minimal standards (Rice and Malen, 2010). About 6 percent of US schools were in ‘restructuring’ by 2011, but work by the US Government Accountability Office suggested that only 27 percent of restructured schools replaced staff (US Government Accountability Office, 2007). RTTT, however, was another matter. In 2010, the NEA passed a resolution saying it had ‘no confidence’ in the Race to the Top. The author of the resolution said RTTT would ‘brutalize our children with standardized tests’ (Sawchuk, 2010b). In 2011, the NEA passed a resolution condemning Secretary Duncan for his support of teacher teaching, standardised tests, charter schools and competitive grants –​in short, all of the major elements in RTTT. According to the union, the Secretary ‘disrespect[ed] and fail[ed] to honour the professionalism of educators across this country’ (Sawchuk, 2011b) He did not repent, and, in 2014, the union blasted the Department of Education’s ‘failed education agenda’ and called for Duncan to resign. The AFT was less vocal, but Federation President Randi Weingarten could ‘understand [the] sentiment’ of the larger union (Loewus, 2014b). The strongest union opposition grew from RTTT’s deliberate emphasis on quantitative measurement of education, and especially of teachers. RTTT assumed with NCLB that the exposure of academic outputs would provide sufficient public pressure to root out inequity. This theory of action assumed too much. It assumed that ‘what works’ was known. RTTT assumed that teachers were technicians rather than professionals, and that they could overcome glaring social, familial and economic disparities through some apt technical solutions in a single school year. If not, it assumed that teachers could co-​ordinate across time and space as students moved between schools, districts and states. For the unions, teaching was a ‘craft’ rather than a product. In this view, teaching is tailored to unique interactions between students and teachers –​somewhat like that between lawyers and clients  –​and therefore can neither be standardised into a measurement nor compared among teachers. For teachers, improved data collection and processing threatened the ‘craft’ model of teaching –​was student learning somehow a ‘product’ of teaching that could be measured? The unions’ fears, however, were that teachers could be blamed for poor student learning despite causes outside teachers’ control. Researchers in 1966 had reported that ‘the

20

20  Arnold F. Shober quality of teachers shows a stronger relationship to pupil achievement [than school materials], … [but] the results are not at all conclusive regarding the specific characteristics of teachers’ (Coleman et al., 1966, p. 22). By 2009, that process was still poorly understood, but policymakers had strong incentives to simply dismiss poor teachers whatever the reason rather than help them improve their teaching (Borman and Kimball, 2005; Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain, 2005). That fear was not speculative. Arne Duncan’s successor at the US Department of Education, John King, had explicitly faulted teachers in his home New  York State: ‘It’s the fault of all the adults that we have a system that leaves 65 percent of students who start ninth grade unprepared’, he said (Waldman, 2013). Further, the most prominent teacher-​evaluation system in the country, in Washington, DC, used student scores for half of its teacher evaluation. About 15 percent of teachers in the city district who are terminated or resign do so due to low scores (Education Consortium for Research and Evaluation, 2014). Unions were not averse to promoting student equity, but they were opposed to linking teachers’ work directly to student outcomes. Teachers unions could not easily abandon the view that ‘what teachers want is what children need’ nor that teaching was a craft. When policymakers, including liberal Democratic policymakers, embraced teaching as an equity issue, teachers’ organisations had little recourse except to attack the measurement tool: The standardised tests. And they did. Not to be caught opposing quality teaching, the AFT’s Weingarten offered support to student testing for teacher evaluation, but only if they were part of a much larger assessment package and only if the scores were drawn from ‘valid and reliable assessments’ (Mellon, 2010). The NEA reluctantly came along in 2011 but only if tests were ‘developmentally appropriate, scientifically valid, and reliable for the purpose of measuring both student learning and a teacher’s performance’ (Sawchuk, 2011a). The NEA said no test then existing met that standard, but one ‘possibly’ could be developed. Even this concession was temporary. By 2014, the NEA elected to wage a campaign against ‘toxic testing’; in 2015, the union actively supported parents who were ‘opting-​out’ their students from state tests so long as those tests were used, in part, to evaluate teachers (Loewus, 2014a; Sawchuk, 2015). Tests delivered by government –​even state governments –​were non-​starters with the union. The second threat to the NCLB government strategy came from the increasingly bitter partisanship surrounding the Common Core State Standards. These standards, although adopted by the states, were not written by them; indeed, three states adopted them before the draft standards were complete.2 And they came amidst a simmering partisan battle between Republicans in the states and a Democratic president in the White House. The CCSSI grew out of the frustration US state governors felt with previous efforts to bolster educational equity and educational excellence in their schools (Shober, 2016). Like NCLB, the urge to create state standards, let alone common national standards, was driven by a desire for equity and the distrust of local governance. By the late 1980s, a general fear that American education was falling behind not only for long-​disadvantaged groups but also for the general school

 21

Can equity survive governance? 21 population led governors to fully embrace the title ‘education governor’ (Henig, 2013). An unprecedented report by the National Governors Association (NGA) in 1986 called for something like national academic standards. In 1989, Governor Bill Clinton was clear: ‘National goals will allow us to plan effectively, to set priorities, and to establish clear lines of authority’ (Vinovskis, 1999, p. 40). Teachers were just as distrusted to handle professional decisions in this framework as under NCLB’s later prescriptions. A bruising fight and loss over national standards in 1994 set these dreams back, but several former governors, including Richard Riley of South Carolina, James B. Hunt of North Carolina, and Bob Wise of West Virginia, persevered. By the mid-​ 2000s, they and others had arranged some quiet meetings with other governors and policymakers to sell national standards again. Unlike the earlier NGA and Clinton versions, these standards would be explicitly state-​led, tied to economic competitiveness, and would guarantee basic educational equity no matter where a student went to school (Rothman, 2011). When CCSSI was formed in 2009, the effort was the fulfillment of a long-​time dream of the NGA. The CCSSI would write common standards at the behest of its state members. By late spring, CCSSI had hired a group of state bureaucrats, professors, foundation personnel, and a handful of teachers to write ‘fewer, higher, better’ standards.3 When Massachusetts adopted the standards, its state education commissioner said, ‘This is a watershed moment, a historical moment for Massachusetts. It’s a decision that’s good for students, good for equity, [and] good for education’ (Sawchuk, 2010a, p. 8). But then Democrat Barack Obama came to office in January 2009 and, with fellow Democrats in Congress, enacted RTTT through a controversial economic stimulus package that alienated Republicans. RTTT seemed to co-​opt the state-​led standards because it included explicit directions to participate in a ‘consortium developing high-​quality standards’ (US Department of Education, 2009, p. 2). The perception was widely shared, and the leader of a national organisation of state education chiefs noted that the president and education secretary had ‘drive[n]‌ state practices’ (Layton, 2012). Obama claimed full credit in his 2013 State of the Union address: ‘We … convinced almost every state to develop smarter curricula and higher standards’ (Obama, 2013). In 2010, it was clear that the federal RTTT was prompting some grumbling about federal overreach, but anger burst in to full view after the president and his education secretary took responsibility. To Republicans, the standards looked like a Democratic project supported by dubious evidence adopted over their opposition. While boosters of the standards frequently talked about ‘international benchmarking’ and ‘evidence-​ based’, even ambivalent critics noted that for the Common Core, this seemed to mean ‘borrowing some attractive ideas’ rather than providing rigorous, empirical comparisons (Hess, 2014). The combination of Democratic cheerleading and overdrawn comparisons led many Republicans to dub the standards ‘ObamaCore’ (recalling a controversial health insurance bill’s moniker, ObamaCare) and play up the CCSSI’s alleged top-​down design and implementation. In 2013, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer issued an executive order that ‘no standards [could] be imposed on Arizona by the federal government’ (Fischer, 2013). In 2014, Republican Gov.

22

22  Arnold F. Shober Bobby Jindal called them ‘centralized planning’ reminiscent of the Soviet Union (Jindal, 2014). Other Republican governors, and other Republicans, adopted the same language. It was a government mandate; Republicans were calling for a governance solution –​or at least one led by a Republican. Regardless, the bipartisan détente seemed over. The government-​centric solutions found in RTTT and NCLB suffered a third blow from controversy surrounding the Common Core-​associated tests. Parents and teachers decried the ‘testing culture’ that seemed to follow the Common Core’s rollout in 2014 and 2015. Although the tests were explicitly not the Common Core, they were a key part of the fewer-​higher-​better equation. What good would standards be if schools could not document where students were struggling and which student groups systematically trailed their peers? In a telling promotion, a key architect of the Common Core moved to a top post at the College Board, the organisation that produced the SAT and other college-​ admissions tests. Although organised foes of testing long predated NCLB or RTTT, the central place of tests galvanised their opposition —​and made it a mainstream political issue.4 These critics were not without evidence. A study of Ohio testing found that tests developed to measure Common Core outcomes took 10 to 13 hours to administer, almost double the number of hours before the state adopted the standards (and the exam) (Boss, 2014). Others, like well-​known public-​education supporter Diane Ravitch, argued that tests would be the ‘death’ of American schools because they squelched ‘innovation, inquiry, imagination, and dissent’ (Ravitch, 2010, p. 226). In response, parents in New Jersey, New York, Florida, Colorado, and elsewhere ‘opted out’ of taking standardised tests. In a handful of schools, so many students failed to take the exam that school officials worried that they would lose access to federal funding (Camera, 2015a). Even advocates for equity fumed at the tests because they seemed to misdirect the other tenet of federal involvement, spending. Teachers were indeed central to education, but so were simple resources, in their view. One prominent civil rights activist claimed that the tests were a Babel-​like affront to the disadvantaged. Carol Burris wrote in the Washington Post that ‘the problem [with Common Core testing] is one of vanity. But it is not the vanity of suburban moms who think too highly of their children. Instead, the problem may be the vanity of those who refuse to admit that they may not be the civil rights heroes they believe themselves to be’ (Burris, 2013). The resistance to federal authority has had a curious political outcome: Educators on the political left and right now both seek local control of education. Over the last 20 years, apparent overreach at the federal level generated renewed interest in shared governance, with the state, parents, teachers and outside groups collaborating and contesting what American education should be. In an ironic turn, lawmakers whose forebears saw local control as the bulwark of inequity turned to localities to remedy systemic inequality. These local strategies have included intensive monitoring of individual student progress by teachers, co-​teaching with lead teachers, and ‘performance contracts’ that students sign (Superville, 2016).

 23

Can equity survive governance? 23 Equity, it seemed, was to be found in neither equal standards nor equal test results. By 2015, it was clear that government-​centric policymaking was politically untenable. ESEA was reauthorised again, now under the name Every Student Succeeds Act. Not only did this act eliminate most of the onerous NCLB testing provisions, but it also explicitly forbade national curriculum standards and encouraged locally-​developed social wellness measures.

The return of governance As 2015 drew to a close, the US Congress enacted a long-​overdue reauthorisation of ESEA, called the Every Student Succeeds Act. While it retained that legislation’s historic commitment to equity, the hard-​nosed spirit of assessment that infused NCLB was gone. Indeed, even the title of the bill noted it –​no longer could children be ‘left behind’, they would simply ‘succeed’. And it was a dramatic change for a piece of legislation that had been pervasively suspicious of states’ and schools’ commitment to equity. Briefly, ESSA maintained NCLB’s commitment to regular academic testing; states must still have annual exams for those in third-​to eighth-​grade and once again before graduation, and states must set achievement goals for schools to meet. If schools fail to meet state standards, either the school or the district is required to take corrective action of some kind. Different from NCLB’s prescriptions, however, state governments decide how to measure and identify low-​performing schools, meaning that schools may be given a score, a grade letter or –​as California did –​a dashboard of multiple indicators. Although a school did not need to be given a single, comprehensive score, states had to be able to identify individual schools that failed to meet standards (Klein, 2018c). ESSA also required states to use at least one non-​test-​based indicator for school quality (something like school climate), although academic indicators must remain the most influential metrics. The Act continued to require state accountability plans to be approved by the US Department of Education, but ESSA explicitly banned the federal government from prescribing any set of curriculum or curricular standards like the Common Core. In a major success for teachers’ unions, the Act also formally ended the NCLB’s (and RTTT’s) monitoring of teacher standards and teacher evaluation. Long-​time critics of the US Department of Education were pleased, and no one more so than Sen. Lamar Alexander. ‘Local school boards, classroom teachers in states, had gotten tired of the US Department of Education telling them so much about what to do … the Department of Education had become a national school board’, he lectured Education Secretary John King in a hearing in 2016 (Alexander, 2016). Alexander, a former Secretary of Education himself, had complained about the ‘national school board’ for over 40  years, and he turned back criticism that ESSA gave states too much leeway (Klein, 2018a; Miller, 1992). ‘The federal government has defined power under this law’, he told governors. ‘States have numerous and infinite power’ (Burnette II, 2016, p. 1). This interpretation was difficult for equity advocates to swallow. For them, ESSA’s apparent retreat from uniform accountability would provide schools and

24

24  Arnold F. Shober districts with opportunities to ignore low-​performing non-​white and non-​Asian students. Indeed, they had fought with teachers’ unions and Republicans to boost reporting requirements for all student sub-​groups. Unions argued that the requirements would continue the ‘narrow and punitive’ measures in NCLB, but civil rights groups said that without sub-​group accountability, equity would suffer. Instead, they faulted the union for trying to ‘free their members of the responsibilities of improving outcomes for the most vulnerable children’ (Camera, 2015b). Although their desired standard of accountability did not make it into ESSA, almost immediately after passage, Obama’s Department of Education used the federal rule-​making process to strengthen the law’s academic components. The proposed rule required that all student sub-​groups meet the state’s academic measures rather than simply meeting some overall standard. The Obama Administration argued that the rules would ‘balance flexibility with strong civil rights guardrails’ (Ujifusa, 2016). Many civil rights groups, including the Education Trust and the Alliance for Excellent Education, were proponents of this tight focus, as were top Democrats in Congress (Klein, 2016). Rep. Bobby Scott praised the pushback on flexibility because the rules ‘fulfill[ed] the federal obligation to protect and promote equity, ensuring that ESSA implementation will uphold the civil rights legacy of the law’ (Ujifusa, 2016). As might be expected, the rules rankled some educators who valued local flexibility, including school boards’ and school administrators’ associations. AFT President Randi Weingarten had praised ESSA not for its commitment to equity but because it asked states to engage in governance. ‘If we want robust and innovative accountability measures that really work, and that encompass more than test scores,’ she said, ‘[w]‌e need to engage the people on the ground who educate students every day’ (Ferlazzo, 2016). The rules also drew the ire of supporters of high-​quality accountability systems. NCLB’s one-​size-​fits-​all accountability rules had drawn scorn from across the educational spectrum, and the rules appeared to double down on that approach. Should not a school be credited for civic preparation, ‘grit’ or other laudable non-​test-​based goal? ESSA allowed for these, but the rules clearly suborned them to academic, test-​based measures (Petrilli, 2016). The Department of Education’s attempt to place a government model on ESSA had worn thin. NCLB became law in 2002 after dividing both Democratic support and Republican support. The ESSA rules divided Democratic support but drew strong, unified Republican opposition. Sen. Alexander’s attempts to stop the rules failed, but Donald Trump’s surprise presidential win that fall provided an avenue to a different strategy. In March 2017, the US Congress invoked the Congressional Review Act to overturn 14 sets of Obama-​era regulations. This Act, which had been used successfully only once before, voided regulations from multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Education’s ESSA rules. Because the law provided that no ‘substantially similar’ rules could be issued unless Congress gave explicit permission, Congress guaranteed a stronger governance focus than civil rights groups preferred (5 US Code §801(b)(2)). The states, and now Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, would have to ensure that the ‘civil rights guardrails’ remained in place through their ESSA plans. And she was an advocate

 25

Can equity survive governance? 25 of governance: ‘One of the most important things we can do is really encourage … states to actually push a lot of flexibility and autonomy down to the local level, for states to foster the kind of creativity and innovation we really need to see’ (Klein, 2018b). Although civil rights groups were concerned about changes at the department, states were quite hesitant to use the law’s flexibility. ESSA required academic indicators to rate schools, and every state dutifully planned to use academic performance and academic growth. Of greater interest was the potential for enhanced governance with the ‘school quality’ indicator ESSA required. Neither the law, nor the abortive regulations, were particularly prescriptive about this item, and states had a genuine opportunity to embrace more collaborative measures. Few did. Table 2.1 shows the states’ choices for school quality where four or more states chose a particular metric. (The remaining measures chosen by few states included physical education participation, number of students in remediation and test participation rates.) Of all the possibilities, only one, school climate, is at all collaborative; the rest are either administrative data or merely another facet of test-​based performance. (For example, many states using the college-​or-​career readiness metric use scores on advanced placement or ACT tests.) School climate measures can hold promise for governance. US teachers’ unions thought so; the AFT thought these measures ‘extraordinary’, and the NEA was ‘encouraged’ (García, 2015; Weingarten, 2015). School climate metrics were typically measured by means of a survey given to students, teachers and sometimes parents. New Mexico’s ‘opportunity-​to-​learn’ indicator was derived from a 10-​question survey to students and parents; Maryland’s school climate survey is designed to measure students’ and teachers’ perceptions of relationships, safety, environment, and student engagement (Maryland State Department of Education, Table 2.1 ESSA school quality indicators used by four or more states Indicator

Count

States

Chronic absenteeism

26

Advanced coursework

24

College and career-​ready

16

AL AK CO CT DE DC HI IL ME MD MA MI NE NV NJ NY OH OK OR PA RI SD TN VA WA WI AL AR CA DC FL GA ID IN MA MI MN MT NV NH NC OH OK RI SC TX UT WA WV WY AL AZ CA CT DE ID IA KY MN NV NH NM NY ND PA VT AR ID IL IA MA MD MT NM ND CT DE IL FL NV OR WA WV DC GA IN MN MO MT NM WV CO LA MA OR SD TN KY MS NH WY CT GA IL MI CA OH RI TN CT GA MI VT

School climate On track for graduation Attendance Drop-​out rate Closing achievement gaps Fine arts indicator Suspensions and discipline Post-​secondary outcomes

9 8 8 6 4 4 4 4

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26  Arnold F. Shober 2018, p.  27; New Mexico Public Education Department, 2017, p.  84). But these measures are clearly second place to the continued overwhelming focus on academic achievement and school completion. If these approaches merely replicated NCLB’s technocratic, government-​led focus, the process by which states designed their ESSA plans was distinctly collaborative. Although the Department of Education and ESSA asked for such collaboration (itself a change), some states took exceptional measures to consult stakeholders. States as diverse as Alabama, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York and Oregon provided extensive information about the processes they used to determine the academic measures and school quality indicators, including flyers, handouts and stakeholder letters of support. For these states and others like them, not only were many non-​governmental organisations included in the deliberations but they represented disadvantaged students. This approach was not universal; states like Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin provided the Department of Education with little evidence beyond a few perfunctory paragraphs indicating that the governor’s office and stakeholder groups had been consulted. In the end, this might be the best compromise in contemporary US politics. Equity advocates can point to public reporting for each of many student demographic categories and a limit on alternate testing for special education, while teachers’ unions and state-​level advocates won up-​front collaboration and a roll-​ back of questionable uses of statistics for causal purposes. This might be a win for both.

Conclusion: Can equity survive governance? ESSA continued to expect genuine learning improvements to occur in the classroom through the efforts of teachers as technicians of learning, but teachers gained greater freedom to structure their work. Although ESSA did not embrace thoroughgoing governance, it did make meaningful gestures to the teachers, schools and parents who support each child’s learning. States engaged many stakeholders as they wrote ESSA plans, teachers’ unions participated broadly, and civil rights organisations had a place at the table. Still, teachers’ and schools’ work continues to be monitored by blunt assessment instruments:  Can student equity improve through state-​defined, test-​monitored metrics? US equity policy can be framed in two lights. Equity among students may be best helped by relatively uniform government standards evenly applied across districts, schools and classrooms. In theory, this will ensure that teachers and students in all classrooms will, someday, meet the same standards no matter their backgrounds, and no matter the local funding or staffing situation. This is a government-​based solution, highlighted by NCLB and RTTT. Alternatively, if teachers and schools are given liberty from uniform standards and are allowed to tailor instruction to the distinct needs of their very diverse student populations  –​diverse in family background, income and ethnicity –​they could ensure equitable outcomes if not identical education. Secretary DeVos’ approach to ESSA has at least permitted this approach.

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Can equity survive governance? 27 It is an open question whether American education’s demands for governance can support equity. At the very least, state-​and district-​specific learning measures mean that teachers cannot rely on the experience or advice of colleagues in other parts of the country. More perniciously, the very diversity that governance allows may yield non-​comparable measures of learning, allowing schools to mask genuine learning gaps in the name of local control and collaboration. Teachers already have significant discretion in placing students for special education services, and the NEA’s own guidance to teachers is ambiguous about when that should happen (Rhim and Lancet, 2018; National Education Association, 2007). It is a hard decision. Moving students to differential instruction need not be seen as intentional discrimination on the part of teachers, but it may have the same aggregate effect. Increasing governance only increases the opportunity for differential treatment; if not in the same school, across school districts and states. Yet equity can survive renewed calls for governance. It will do if there are clear and uniform standards for all students; for all its political missteps and self-​regard, the Common Core State Standards were such standards. If students cannot read well or manipulate numbers, there is little hope that they can engage in meaningful scientific, political or civic exercises. To the extent that governance allows dozens or hundreds of approaches to meeting standards, ESSA and its ilk can transform American education, empower teachers and improve school–​family connections. It does not have to be ‘drill and kill’, as wags labelled NCLB. But to the extent that governance allows dozens or hundreds of educational standards, equity will suffer. Even under NCLB, the states showed great willingness to overlook quite poor performance in order to present a passing grade. If the states set unequal finish lines in school, no amount of training will enable all students to compete as productive, thoughtful citizens. ESSA seems to tilt towards the former: Value non-​academic indicators, incorporate stakeholders, count the costs, but above all, hold fast to the faith that all students can meet high standards.

Notes 1 2 3 4

Alaska, North Dakota, Texas, and Vermont did not apply. The states were Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The words come from an influential white paper, Coleman & Zimba (2008). See, for example, National Center for Fair and Open Testing (2013).

References Alexander, L. (2016). ESSA Oversight Hearing: Full Transcript, Washington, DC: Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. http://​edexcellence.net/​articles/​essa-​ oversight-​hearing-​full-​transcript [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Archer, J. (2001). Foundation stirs debate with report questioning research on licensure. Education Week (17 October). Bandeira de Mello, V. (2011). Mapping State Proficiency Standards onto the NAEP Scales (No. NCES 2011–​458). Washington, DC:  National Center for Education Statistics. http://​nces.ed.gov/​nationsreportcard/​pdf/​studies/​2011458.pdf [Accessed 05/​04/​19].

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28  Arnold F. Shober Birman, B.F., Le Floch, K.C., Klekotka, A., Ludwig, M., Taylor, J., Walters, K., Wayne, A., Yoon, K.-​S. (2007). State and Local Implementation of the ‘No Child Left Behind Act.’ Volume II–​Teacher Quality under ‘NCLB’: Interim Report. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Borman, G. & Kimball, S. (2005). Teacher quality and educational equality:  Do teachers with higher standards‐based evaluation ratings close student achievement gaps? The Elementary School Journal, 106(1), 3–​20. https://​doi.org/​10.1086/​496904. Boss, C. (2014). Common Core stirs fear of too many tests. The Columbus Dispatch, 2 November. Boykin, A.W. & Noguera, P. (2011). Creating the opportunity to learn moving from research to practice to close the achievement gap. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Burnette II, D. (2016). States rush to retool accountability following ESSA passage. Education     Week,      www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/03/16/states-rush-to-retoolaccountability-following-essa.html[Accessed 05/04/19].  Burris, C. (2013). Who are the ‘enemies’ of Common Core? The Washington Post, 18 November. Camera, L. (2015a). States seek guidance in face of ‘opt out’ push. Education Week. www. edweek.org/​e w/​articles/​2015/​04/​01/​states-​s eek-​guidance-​in-​face-​of-​opt-​out.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19). Camera, L. (2015b). Civil Rights Groups, Teachers’ Union Spar Over Accountability Amendment. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​campaign-​k-​12/​2015/​07/​civil_​rights_​ groups_​teachers_​u.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Carey, K. (2006). Hot air: How states inflate their educational progress under NCLB. The Education Sector. http://​educationpolicy.air.org/​sites/​default/​files/​publications/​Hot_​ Air_​NCLB.pdf. Coleman, D. & Zimba, J. (2008). Math and Science Standards That Are Fewer, Clearer, Higher to Raise Achievement at All Levels. Carnegie-​IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education. Coleman, J.S., Campbell, E.Q., Hobson, C.J., McPartland, J., Mood, A.M., Weinfield, F.D. & York, R.L. (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity (No. OE-​38001). Washington, DC: US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education. Cuomo, A. (2011). Governor Cuomo Announces Bill Expediting Plans to Implement Objective Performance-​Based Criteria for Teacher Evaluation. www.governor.ny.gov/​ news/​ g overnor- ​ c uomo- ​ a nnounces- ​ bill- ​ e xpediting- ​ p lans- ​ i mplement- ​ o bjective-​ performance-​based-​criteria [Accessed 17/​04/​19]. Dahlin, M. & Cronin, J. (2010). Achievement Gaps and the Proficiency Trap. Northwest Evaluation Association. https://​eric.ed.gov/​?id=ED521963 [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Dee, T. & Jacob, B. (2009). The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Student Achievement (Working Paper No. 15531). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://​doi.org/​ 10.3386/​w15531 [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Education Consortium for Research and Evaluation (2014). Trends in Teacher Effectiveness in the District of Columbia Public Schools. Washington, DC: George Washington University. Retrieved from www.dcauditor.org/​sites/​default/​files/​DCA202014.pdf. Education Trust (2015). More Than 25 Civil Rights Groups and Education Advocates Release Principles for ESEA Reauthorization: ‘The Federal Role Must Be Honored and Maintained’. https://​civilrights.org/​2015/​01/​30/​27-​civil-​rights-​groups-​and-​education-​ advocates- ​ release-​ principles-​ for-​ e sea-​ reauthorization-​ t he-​ federal-​ role-​ must-​ b e-​ honored-​and-​maintained/​ [Accessed 05/​04/​19].

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Can equity survive governance? 29 Ferlazzo, L. (2016). Response:  There Is ‘Hope That ESSA Will Bring Positive Change To Classrooms’. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​teachers/​classroom_​qa_​with_​larry_​ferlazzo/​ 2016/​ 1 0/​ r esponse_​ t here_​ i s_​ h ope_​ t hat_​ e ssa_​ w ill_ ​ b ring_ ​ p ositive_ ​ c hange_ ​ t o_​ classrooms.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Finn Jr, C.E., Julian, L. & Petrilli, M.J. (2006). To dream the impossible dream:  Four approaches to national standards and tests for America’s schools. Thomas B. Fordham Foundation & Institute. http://​eric.ed.gov/​?id=ED493854 [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Fischer, H. (2013). Common core name changes, standards remain. Arizona Daily Star, 21 September. Retrieved from http://​tucson.com/​news/​local/​education/​common-​core-​ name-​changes-​standards-​remain/​article_​7a97e40c-​b dbf-​579f-​960c-​cbad2db9e9c4. html. García, L.E. (2015). NEA president supports the Every Student Succeeds Act. https://​ region1.weac.org/​2015/​12/​01/​nea-​president-​supports-​every-​student-​succeeds-​act/​ [Accessed 05/​09/​15]. Halperin, S. (1975). Essays on Federal Education Policy. Washington, DC:  Institute for Educational Leadership, George Washington University. Hanushek, E.A. & Lindseth, A.A. (2009). Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Henig, J.R. (2013). The End of Exceptionalism in American Education: The Changing Politics of School Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Hess, F.M. (2014). Common Core’s Five Big Half-​Truths. www.nationalreview.com/​article/​ 386911/​common-​cores-​five-​big-​half-​truths-​frederick-​m-​hess [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Jencks, C.L. & Phillips, M. (eds.) (1998). The Black-​White Test Score Gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Jindal, B. (2014). Gov. Jindal: Leave education to local control. www.usatoday.com/​story/​ opinion/​2014/​04/​23/​common-​core-​louisiana-​gov-​bobby-​jindal-​editorials-​debates/​ 8071863/​[Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Klein, A. (2016). Advocates, educators offer Ed. Dept. conflicting advice on regulating ESSA. Education Week. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​campaign-​k-​12/​2016/​01/​advocates_​ educators_​offer_​ed_​d.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Klein, A. (2018a). Democrats say DeVos is flouting ESSA. She says no way. Let’s unpack the debate. Education Week. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​campaign-​k-​12/​2018/​02/​ essa_​subgroups_​devos_​flout_​democrats.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Klein, A. (2018b). Betsy DeVos:  Outsider status has been ‘asset’ in first year on the job. Education Week. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​campaign-​k-​12/​2018/​02/​betsy_​ devos_​first_​year_​essa_​choice_​rethink.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Klein, A. (2018c). Florida, California revamp ESSA plans in quest for federal OK. Education Week. www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2018/​05/​02/​florida-​california-​revamp-​essa-​plans-​ in-​quest.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Layton, L. (2012). Rethinking the classroom:  Obama’s overhaul of public education. The Washington Post, 20 September. www.washingtonpost.com/​gdpr-​consent/​?destinatio n=%2flocal%2feducation%2frethinking-​the-​classroom-​obamas-​overhaul-​of-​public-​ education%2f2012%2f09%2f20%2fa5459346-​e171-​11e1-​ae7f-​d2a13e249eb2_​story. html%3f&utm_​term=.8ddec553f864 [Accessed 17/​04/​19]. Lee, J. & Reeves, T. (2012). Revisiting the impact of NCLB high-​stakes school accountability, capacity, and resources:  State NAEP 1990–​2009 reading and math achievement gaps and trends. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34(2), 209–​231. https://​doi.org/​ 10.3102/​0162373711431604.

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30  Arnold F. Shober Loewus, L.H. (2014a). Emerging themes at NEA:  ‘toxic testing’ and union threats. Education Week. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​teacherbeat/​2014/​07/​emerging_​ nea_​theme_​toxic_​testing.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Loewus, L.H. (2014b). NEA calls for Secretary Duncan’s resignation. Education Week (4 July). http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​teacherbeat/​2014/​07/​nea_​calls_​for_​sec_​ duncans_​resi.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Maryland State Department of Education (2018). Maryland Every Student Succeeds Act Consolidated State Plan. Baltimore, MD: Maryland State Department of Education. McGuinn, P.J. (2006). No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–​2005. Lawrence, KS: The University Press of Kansas. McNeil, M. (2009a). NGA, CCSSO launch common standards drive. Education Week. Retrieved from www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2009/​04/​16/​29standards.h28.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. McNeil, M. (2009b). States scramble for coveted dollars. Education Week. www.edweek.org/​ ew/​articles/​2009/​07/​24/​37racereact.h28.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Mellon, E. (2010). Grier responds to teachers’ fears; national union prez responds. (14 January). Retrieved 12 December 2018, from https://​blog.chron.com/​k12zone/​2010/​01/​ grier-​responds-​to-​teachers-​fears-​national-​union-​prez-​responds/​. Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (2011). Maldef calls on community leaders, parents to advocate for equity in implementation of common core state standards. www.maldef.org/​news/​releases/​common_​core/​ [Accessed 14/​08/​15]. Miller, J.A. (1992). Reform measure dies–​except as campaign issue? Education Week. www. edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​1992/​10/​07/​05omni.h12.html [Accessed 14/​08/​15]. Miller, W.H., Kerr, B. & Ritter, G. (2008). School performance measurement: Politics and equity. The American Review of Public Administration, 38(1), 100–​117. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1177/​0275074007304387. Murphy, J.T. (1974). State Education Agencies and Discretionary Funds. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. National Center for Fair and Open Testing (2013). Common core assessment myths and realities: Moratorium needed from more tests, costs, stress. Fairtest, 3 September. http://​ fairtest.org/​common-​core-​assessments-​factsheet [Accessed 27/​04/​15]. National Commission for Teaching and America’s Future (1996). What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future. Woodbridge, VA: Author. National Education Association (2007). Truth in Labeling:  Disproportionality in Special Education. Washington, DC:  National Education Association. www.spanadvocacy. org/​sites/​default/​f iles/​f iles/​Truth%20in%20Labeling-​Disproportionality%20in%20 Special%20Education_​0.pdf [Accessed 17/​04/​19]. New Mexico Public Education Department (2017). New Mexico Rising: New Mexico’s State Plan for the Every Students Succeeds Act. Santa Fe, NM: New Mexico Public Education Department. Obama, B. (2013). Remarks by the President in the State of the Union Address. Washington, DC. https://​obamawhitehouse.archives.gov [Accessed 17/​04/​19]. O’Brien, T.V. (1999). The Politics of Race and Schooling: Public Education in Georgia, 1900 to 1961. Lanham, MA: Lexington Books. Patterson, J.T. (2001). Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Petrilli, M. & Finn, C.E. (2006). The State of State Standards. Washington, DC:  Thomas B.  Fordham Institute. http://​edex.s3-​us-​west-​2.amazonaws.com/​publication/​pdfs/​ State%20of%20State%20Standards2006FINAL_​9.pdf [Accessed 05/​04/​19].

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Can equity survive governance? 31 Petrilli, M.J. (2016). The proposed ESSA regulations:  Return of the bureaucrats. https://​ edexcellence.net/​articles/​the-​proposed-​essa-​regulations-​return-​of-​the-​bureaucrats [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Ravitch, D. (2010). The Death and Life of the Great American School System. New  York, NY: Basic Books. Reardon, S.F., Greenberg, E.H., Kalogrides, D., Shores, K.A. & Valentino, R.A. (2013). Left Behind? The Effect of No Child Left Behind on Academic Achievement Gaps. Redwood, CA: Stanford University, Center for Education Policy Analysis. Rhim, L.M & Lancet, S. (2018). The federal government is letting down students with disabilities. States must step up. Education Week (3 October). www.edweek.org/​ew/​ articles/​2018/​10/​03/​the-​federal-​government-​is-​letting-​down-​students.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Rice, J.K. & Malen, B. (2010). School Reconstitution as an Education Reform Strategy. Washington, DC: National Education Association. Rivkin, S.G., Hanushek, E.A. & Kain, J.F. (2005). Teachers, schools, and academic achievement. Econometrica, 73(2), 417–​458. Robelen, E.W. (2004). Furor lingers over Paige’s union remark. Education Week. www. edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2004/​03/​03/​25paige.h23.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Rothman, R. (2011). Something in Common:  The Common Core Standards and the Next Chapter in American Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Sawchuk, S. (2009). NEA at odds with Obama Team over ‘race to the top’ criteria. Education Week. www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2009/​08/​25/​02nea.h29.html. Sawchuk, S. (2010a). More than two-​thirds of states adopt core standards. Education Week. www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2010/​08/​06/​37standards.h29.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Sawchuk, S. (2010b). NEA’s delegates vote ‘no confidence’ in race to the top. http://​blogs. edweek.org/​edweek/​teacherbeat/​2010/​07/​neas_​delegates_​vote_​no_​confide_​2.html [Accessed 12/​12/​18]. Sawchuk, S. (2011a). NEA relaxes evaluation policy, endorses Obama. Education Week. www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2011/​07/​13/​36nea.h30.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Sawchuk, S. (2011b). Thirteen things NEA hates about Arne Duncan? Education Week. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​teacherbeat/​2011/​07/​ra_​day_​1_​thirteen_​things_​nea_​ h_​1.html [Accessed 12/​12/​18]. Sawchuk, S. (2015). NEA to support opt-​out, oppose common-​core testing. Education Week. http://​blogs.edweek.org/​edweek/​teacherbeat/​2015/​07/​nea_​to_​support_​opt-​out_​ oppose_​.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Sawchuk, S. & Heitin, L. (2014). AFT, NEA agendas converge amid external, internal pressure. Education Week. www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2014/​07/​25/​37unions.h33.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Shober, A.F. (2016). In Common No More: The Politics of the Common Core State Standards. Boulder, CO: Praeger Publishers. Spellings, M. (2006). Letter to Chief State School Officers regarding efforts to ensure that all core academic subjects are taught by highly qualified and experienced teachers, and encouraging states to eliminate use of HOUSSE procedures. Letters (Correspondence). www2.ed.gov/​policy/​elsec/​guid/​secletter/​060905.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Staiger, D.O., Gordon, R. & Kane, T.J. (2006). Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. State of Tennessee (2010). Race to the Top Application for Initial Funding. www2.ed.gov/​ programs/​racetothetop/​phase1-​applications/​tennessee.pdf [Accessed 05/​04/​19].

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32  Arnold F. Shober Superville, D.R. (2016). Assuring needy groups of students aren’t overlooked. Education Week, 36(6), 10, 12–​ 14. www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2016/​09/​28/​assuring-​needy-​ groups-​of-​students-​arent-​overlooked.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Tracy, C.O. & Walsh, K. (2004). Necessary and Insufficient:  Resisting a Full Measure of Teacher Quality. NCTQ Reports, Spring 2004. Washington, D.C:  National Council on Teacher Quality. Ujifusa, A. (2016). Proposed ESSA rules aim to walk fine line on accountability. Education Week, 35(32). Retrieved from www.edweek.org/​ew/​articles/​2016/​06/​01/​proposed-​essa-​ rules-​aim-​to-​walk-​fine.html [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. US Department of Education (2009). Technical Review Form. Washington, DC:  US Department of Education. US Department of Education (2010). Reviewer Comments on Virginia Race to the Top Application. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/​programs/​racetothetop/​phase1-​applications/​ comments/​virginia.pdf [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. US Department of Education (2012). States’ Applications for Phase 2  –​Race to the Top Fund (15 February) [Programs; Reports; Reference Materials; Pamphlets]. www2. ed.gov/​programs/​racetothetop/​phase2-​applications/​index.html [Accessed 05/​08/​15]. US Government Accountability Office (2007). No Child Left Behind Act: Education Should Clarify Guidance and Address Potential Compliance Issues for Schools in Corrective Action and Restructuring Status, (GAO-​07-​1035). www.gao.gov/​products/​GAO-​07-​ 1035 [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. US Supreme Court. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 US 430 (1968). www.law.cornell.edu/​supremecourt/​text/​391/​430 [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Vinovskis, M.A. (1999). The Road to Charlottesville. Washington, DC: National Education Goals Panel. Waldman, S. (2013). Test anxiety grips students, teachers. Times Union, 17 April. www. timesunion.com/ ​ l ocal/ ​ article/ ​ Test- ​ anxiety- ​ g rips-​ students-​ teachers-​ 4 439906.php [Accessed 05/​04/​19]. Wenglinsky, H. (2000). How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back into Discussions of Teacher Quality. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Weingarten, R. (2015). AFT on House Passage of ESSA Education Bill (2 December). Retrieved 4 December 2015 from www.aft.org/​press-​release/​aft-​house-​passage-​essa-​ education-​bill [Accessed 05/​04/​19].

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3  New modes of collaborative governance Governing collaborations in a new school landscape, power, control and communication Jacqueline Baxter

Introduction Over the last three decades, many governments around the globe have progressively decentralised their education policy. While primarily aimed at improving the quality of education, decentralisation has also been perceived as a way to increase efficiency, encourage innovation and combat social inequality and segregation in education (Waslander, 2010). Such profound and far-​reaching changes have, as one would expect, exerted considerable influence on the public service of education and its governance. These influences have challenged and changed institutions and accountabilities in England, established since the Post-​ War Consensus. Internationally, bureaucratic forms of governing have shifted to new forms of networked governance in which public services are governed ‘at arm’s length’ by a complex amalgam of targets, high-​stakes inspection and forms of management derived from the new public management techniques of the mid-​ 1980s. There has also been considerable emphasis on collaboration in the public sector with public services provided by a mixture of third sector organisations, private companies and state-​subsidised contractors. In the case of English education, this trend has manifested in rapid and, many argue, unsustainable changes to the system, (see for example FORUM Editorial Board, 2016) leading it to being anecdotally nicknamed ‘the educational lab of Europe’. The so-​called reforms, publicly premised on the idea of increasing public value in education, have consisted of the removal of power from many local authorities (LAs) (Lawn et  al., 2014), increasing school freedoms in the shape of free schools and academies (Hopkins and Higham, 2007) and raising the bar in the high-​stakes inspection and regulation of schools (Baxter, Grek and Segerholm, 2014). Proponents of these reforms claim that: Relying more on market mechanisms results in higher quality, more efficiency and more demand sensitivity; while opponents stress the danger of schools with increasingly unequal quality, unequal access to high quality schools and,

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34  Jacqueline Baxter as a consequence, segregation; they also stress the negative consequences for social cohesion if students no longer go to similar schools. (Waslander, 2010, p. 10) Decentralisation of education has also meant more control of education by local non-​governmental actors, e.g., state-​dependent private schools and/​or school governing boards (Hooge, Burns and Wilkoszewski, 2012; Lauglo, 1995). The OECD term, ‘deconcentration’ assumes that officials, governors, managers and professionals, who are closest to schools, are best positioned to make decisions and ‘should be given incentives to take initiatives and control and to exercise discretionary power’ (OECD, 2010, p. 10). The introduction of the Academies programme, under the Blair administration (1997–​2007), originally offered freedom from LA control (both financial and curricular) for failing schools in the London region (Brighouse and Woods, 2015). The programme was so successful that it was extended to other schools, at first on a meritocratic basis –​only successful schools could apply –​but, following the Academies Act in 2010, the programme was intensified and schools were offered substantial financial incentives to convert (Parliament, 2010). Over time this began to radically change the educational landscape as more schools were either incentivised or, in the case of failing schools, coerced into conversion following unfavourable judgements by Ofsted  –​the school standards regulator (Easton, 2009). Ofsted’s remit was increased to incorporate inspection of whole Education Authorities, a good number of which were also found to be failing (Paton, 2013). Academy growth has not only been driven by the need to provide a more joined-​up approach between phases of schooling –​upper, middle and lower schools (Chapman and Muijs, 2016) –​but in many cases has resulted from policies deriving from the persistent will of government to impose market ideology on public services. This was particularly so under Education Secretary Michael Gove (2010–​2014), who used Ofsted to drive his political agenda to undermine the power of local government (Baxter, 2016). This, combined with a dramatic reduction in LA funding, justified by austerity policies, has in some cases effectively undermined LA capacity to offer the traditionally wide range of services to schools remaining under their control. This chapter examines how deconcentration policies in education, resulting in the development of Multi-​Academy Trust schools (MATs) in England, are posing new challenges for the governance and accountability of education. In so doing it focuses on three key questions:

• • •

What is the relationship between local and central boards? How is accountability being enacted in MATs? What are the implications of this for the governance and accountability of collaborations in education and more broadly?

The chapter begins with an explanation of what collaboration between organisations means in practice, and explores the rationale behind collaborations in education

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New modes of collaborative governance 35 and more broadly. The following part examines the meaning of accountability and analyses the meaning of school governance in the context of governance more widely, before considering MAT governing structures. The next section outlines the methodology for the project and the ways in which the data were analysed. The final section outlines the findings before moving on to the conclusion.

A note on terminology Research into Multi-​Academy Trusts is very new and the language and the terminology is constantly evolving. For the purposes of this chapter we use the following terms to refer to different types of ‘board’ member at different levels within a MAT: Trustees (TBMs): board members at the apex of the organisation with overall responsibility for the governance of the MAT; Academy Board Members (ABMs): these are members of local boards with delegated powers from the trustee board which vary in scope and range according to the MAT’s scheme of delegation; some MATs also establish cluster committees which have certain delegated powers for a group of schools in the MAT (see Figure 3.1).

Collaboration between organisations in education Huxham and Vangen (2013) describe collaborations within the third sector as either achieving what they term ‘collaborative advantage’, the hallmark of successful collaborations, or lapsing into ‘collaborative inertia’, in which the collaboration ceases to work well and achieve any form of collaborative advantage. In so doing they ‘capture a fundamental and practical tension between what is aimed for in collaboration and the challenges of achieving this in practice’ (Huxham and Vangen, 2013, p.  10). In the case of schools, there is little doubt that there are advantages, both pedagogical and organisational, to be gained by collaboration, but, as a recent government report pointed out (HMSO, 2017), there is a real risk that the collaboration will end in inertia, causing the failure of the organisation and endangering the future of schools within it. Reasons for failure include financial ineptitude, too rapid expansion and failure to improve schools within the organisation (HMSO, 2017). The sheer number of instances in which MATs have failed to improve schools within their organisations or have experienced financial difficulties suggests that these collaborations are no easier in the education sector than they are elsewhere, for example in public, private or third sectors (HCEC, 2014–​15). One of the key challenges for these large and complex organisations lies in their governance, not least designing a scheme of delegation that ensures that schools within the organisation act as part of it, while also contributing their own unique community knowledge and skills to the organisation as a whole. Widmer and Houchin (1999, p. 29), writing about the third sector, point out that collaborative organisations often experience a tension between the need for greater efficiency and centralisation and the need for ‘representation of local interests’. The representation of local interests on MAT boards has recently been undermined by government in their drive to recruit board members on a skills

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36  Jacqueline Baxter basis; this has meant that the democratic representative role of the board member may not necessarily be considered to be a core element within MAT boards. This can lead to an erosion of local accountability, and a failure to cater for the needs of local parents and children. Although David Cameron, UK Prime Minister (2010–​ 2016), argued that schools are locally accountable by virtue of the fact that parents have a stake in schools, this statement completely disregarded the fact that schools in the new landscape might be governed by boards acting at some distance from schools. It also assumes that parents have a voice in their children’s education. This is a greatly contested notion given the recent government report into MATs which reported that: We were told by parents that MATs are not sufficiently accountable to their local community and they feel disconnected from decision making at Trustee Board level. There is too much emphasis on ‘upward accountability’ and not enough on local engagement (paragraph 46). (HMSO, 2017) The same report also questioned the speed at which MATs had expanded and the extent of their expansion, arguing that MAT investment should seek schools geographically located close to one another as this was more likely to succeed as a strategy (paragraph 54). The Department for Education (DfE) propose to introduce a MAT ‘growth check’ to evaluate why and how effectively MAT growth is operating. However, at present there are also grave concerns as to how and why MATs grow, considering the wide variations in the performance of trusts (Baxter, 2018). Academies are state schools directly funded by the government. Each one is part of an academy trust. Trusts can be single academy trusts responsible for one academy or Multi-​Academy Trusts responsible for a group of academies. There were over 20,100 state-​funded schools in England on 01 November 2017. Of these 6,100 were academies, of which 1,668 were stand-​alone academies and 4,432 schools were in MATs. Compared to 2016 there has been a decrease in the number of state-​funded schools (from around 21,500) and an increase in the number of academies that were both stand-​alone academies (from 1,618) and those in MATs (from 4,140). In some cases, the MATs can be part of a wider sponsor arrangement where the sponsor oversees multiple MATs. They may be small, numbering three to five schools, or far larger, encompassing over 50 schools (DfE, 2018). The National Governance Association offers some perspective with regard to MAT size and shape. This is shown in Table 3.1, along with approximate numbers of students.

MAT governance structures and power Governance of single schools that are maintained by local authorities looks and feels very different to that in a single MAT. It is based on democratic ideals that were firmly established by the Taylor Report in 1977; this report opened up governance to the community and ensured that parents, local education authorities and representatives of the community were given a place on the board (Sallis,

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New modes of collaborative governance 37 Table 3.1 Size of MATs according to descriptor Descriptor

Size of MAT

Maximum number of students

Small Medium Large Very large

1–​5 6–​15 16–​30 30+

1,200 5,000 12,000 12,000+

Source: The National Governance Association 2019: www.nga.org.uk/​Home.aspx

1988). This form of governance is still practised in Wales which has no academy system and in Northern Ireland. Academy governance, however, is primarily a skills-​based model akin to that of the third sector. Board members are recruited for particular skills and, because of this, may well live outside the school catchment area. Although the government backed off from proposals to remove the need for parent members on academy boards, (Baxter, 2017a), the parent voice has undoubtedly been marginalised in favour of people with professional skills –​for example in business, HR or accounting. Whatever their size and scope, MATs possess hierarchical structures of governance with skills-​based trustees at the apex of the board and a range of committees beneath this. As Figure 3.1 indicates, the board of trustees is supplemented by a number of governing committees overseeing finance, standards and resources. In very large MATs with wide geographical dispersion, there are further levels of governance, including cluster committees and a cluster CEO (or head teacher). These committees are responsible for schools located in geographical proximity to one another. As MATs take on schools that join either because they want to or because they have been asked to by the Regional Schools Commissioner, they appear to be adopting two structures. This largely appears to depend upon whether schools are seen as strong (in terms of their last inspection by Ofsted) or relatively weak. Strong schools will have certain powers, delegated by the board of trustees, which will vary in their scope and range depending on the particular board but may designate the school as the MAT sponsor. Weak schools will have individual school boards, generally known as academy boards and with far fewer delegated powers. These arrangements are set out in a formal scheme of delegation which schools are mandated by DfE to display on their website (Baxter, 2017b). My previous project work in this area indicates that boards are certainly looking to make sense of the governance challenges presented within MATs. Research in the North of England (Baxter, 2016) indicates that information on school communities is often challenging to obtain, given the dispersed nature of some MATS. It also indicated that information often appears to follow a hierarchical top-​down approach rather than feeding up through the organisation from the individual schools and their communities. Dissatisfaction was voiced by boards situated in individual schools that expressed the opinion that information was imposed upon them from above rather than being a ‘two-​way’ flow.

38

38  Jacqueline Baxter

Members of Trust – guardians of governance, Trustees are accountable to Members

Trustees – responsible for general control and performance of MAT

Standards Committee – all aspects of educational related issues

EITHER

Executive CEO – Operational Head of Trust

Resources – all aspects of finance, staffing and premises

Audit Committee – in cases where income exceeds £50 million per annum

Cluster Committees – delegated powers for all schools within geographical cluster

Cluster CEO – Head Teacher responsible for all schools in cluster

Academy Committee – delegated powers from Trustees

Academy Head Teacher

OR

Academy Council – no decision-making or financial powers

Figure 3.1 Structure of governance in MATs Source: Adapted from Baxter (2018)

Accountability Researchers in the area of educational accountability argue that the term can be understood as:

• • • •

A set of relationships between actors where someone (either an individual or organisation) is holding someone else to account for something. A specific type of measure or intervention by which people and/​or organisations are held to account (e.g. high-​stakes testing or school inspections). A well-​functioning bureaucracy or system which ensures transparency and enforces moral behaviour. A way in which these measures and systems make organisations/​people more accountable or answerable for their actions or performance (accountability as an outcome in itself (Ehren, Baxter and Patterson, 2018)).

School accountability has been considered as core to school improvement since the early 1990s. This is premised on the assumption that holding schools accountable for attaining high standards will produce better results. The OECD identifies two types of accountability mechanisms: Vertical and horizontal. Vertical accountability is described as top-​down and hierarchical, enforcing compliance with laws

 39

New modes of collaborative governance 39 and regulation and holding schools accountable for the quality of education they provide. Horizontal accountability presupposes non-​ hierarchical relationships relating to professional standards and transparency of decision making. These are illustrated in Table 3.2. School governance emerges as a hybrid between vertical/​regulatory accountability and horizontal accountability which involves students, parents, communities and other stakeholders. It also engages with performance accountability in terms of its remit to hold senior leadership to account for performance standards. It is therefore central to English educational accountability. Understandings of the ways in which school governors form part of the overall accountability of schools have changed and evolved along with political conceptualisations of the function of schools and what is required from them, in both societal and political terms. The notion of school governance as enhancing local accountability through a stakeholder or representative model that includes the election and appointment of different constituents to the governing body, namely parents, staff, local councillors and members of the wider community, has, as Wilkins (2016) points out, failed to fully materialise. One reason for this is that, historically, local, working-​class parents have been unable to commit to the role of governor compared with their more materially comfortable, time-​rich, middle-​ class counterparts (Deem, Brehony and Heath, 1995). As Figure 3.2 illustrates, the system of accountability has become increasingly complex, diluted and fragmented. This is partly due to the way in which the English system has borrowed from other systems:  For example, the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) role is borrowed from the US (Education Committee of the States, 2018). In the US, School Commissioners have a policy implementation but also a policy informing role, reporting on education in their state. In the UK, although they do have a policy informing role, a considerable amount of their Table 3.2 Types of school accountability Types of school accountability Vertical

Horizontal

Regulatory School Accountability: Compliance with laws and regulations. Focus on inputs and processes within the school. Mechanism: Reporting to higher levels of school authority. School Performance Accountability: Periodic school evaluations. Mechanisms include: (1) standardised student testing, (2) public reporting of school performance and (3) rewards or sanctions (Rosenkvist, 2010; Levin, 1974). Professional School Accountability: Professional standards for teachers and other educational staff. Mechanisms: Credible, useful standards and the creation of professional learning communities (Levitt et al., 2008). Multiple School Accountability: Involving students, parents, communities and other stakeholders in formulating strategies, decision making and evaluation (Levin, 1974).

Source: Adapted from Hooge, Burns & Wilkoszewski (2012, p. 9)

40

40  Jacqueline Baxter time is taken up with brokering and rebrokering schools, finding sponsors and dealing with free-​school applications. They answer directly to the National Schools Commissioner, who in turn answers to Parliament (Parliament, 2016). Their remit is very wide and as there are few of them (eight) the extent to which they can monitor individual schools and MATs is very limited, as a recent report indicated (Parliament, 2016). The job of brokering –​finding MATs and sponsors to support academies –​is particularly time consuming, given the number of high profile MAT failures that have occurred within the last 5 years (HMSO, 2017). In such cases, MATs have either suffered from gross financial mismanagement, as in the case of the Wakefield Academy Trust (Rhodes, 2018), or complete failure to improve learning outcomes (HMSO, 2017). This is despite their rapid acquisition of new schools, taken on with the understanding that the MAT would improve standards. The 2017 report by the Education Select Committee challenged this on the basis of evidence from head teachers, stating that, ‘Heads tell us that frameworks used by RSCs are unclear and that differences in frameworks used by their Trust, Ofsted and RSC can create conflicting expectations around which areas schools need to improve on’ (HMSO, 2017, p. 13). Ofsted has up until now played a key part in holding schools to account. The agency, which was established in 1992, was set up along with other quangos (quasi non-​governmental agencies) at a time of government dissatisfaction in the performance of public services. Premised on the basis of the public sector as a market (Clarke, 2013) and widespread suspicion of teachers (Baxter and Ozga, 2013), the agency’s model of inspection is widely regarded as one of the most punitive and high-​stakes models in the world (Ozga, Baxter, Clarke, Grek and Lawn, 2013). However, changes to the school system and legislation have left it struggling to find a place in England’s new mixed-​model approach. This is largely because, although it is tasked with the inspection of schools, it is not, at the time of writing (and despite regular depositions by Ofsted to reverse this), able to inspect MATs as a whole. This means that it can inspect individual schools within a MAT but is not able to inspect the central trustee board or executive. This is rather nonsensical in accountability terms, since the executive and trustee board are responsible for the overall strategy, management and financial oversight of trusts (Baxter, 2018). In addition to this, the inspectorate has had its budget cut considerably due to the Conservative administration’s ongoing policy of austerity (Buti and Pench, 2012). This has meant that their resources have, since 2010, been spread very thin. It is also the case that they are one of the only quangos set up in the 1990s that continues to survive. The pressure on good MATs to expand is enormous. Regional Schools Commissioners are under a great deal of pressure to rebroker (find a new sponsor) for poor schools, and, as local educational authorities are increasingly unable to cope with the many demands placed on them, schools turn to MATS for support (Baxter, 2018). In addition to this, due to the complex multi-​level governance structures within MATs, they are having difficulty ensuring that they are in touch with their school communities.

 41

newgenrtpdf

Key

Accountable to

Prime Minister Education Secretary

Elected (E)

Parliament

Appointed (A)

Schools Minister

Children Minister

Higher Education Minister

School Standards Minister

National Schools Commissioner Regional Schools Commissioners – 8

Multi Academy Trusts

Academies within MAT

Academies (stand alone)

Figure 3.2 Accountability in English education Source: Baxter, Floyd & Cornforth (2018)

Accountable to

EFA Education Funding Agency

Accountable to

Deputy Directors for each region (2 in each)

Free schools

Advise Regional Schools Commissioners

Head Teacher boards (MATS and academies only) (E and A)

House of Commons Select Committee - Education

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools

OFSTED Inspectorate for schools

Accountable to

Further Education and Skills Minister

Accountable to

Early Years Minister

Accountable to

Accountable to

Department for Education (DFE)

Qualifications Chief Regulator (OfQUAL)

Exam boards

Local Authorities

Maintained schools (non academies)

42

42  Jacqueline Baxter Managing and governing collaborative organisations is challenging in a number of ways. Literature on collaborations in the third and private sector reports that communication, reporting structures, trust and leadership of collaborations can be problematic and require considerable resource directed at establishing and maintaining effective practices and procedures in order to sustain these elements (see, for example, Vangen, Hayes and Cornforth, 2015). Even when all of the collaborating organisations are keen for it to work, challenges include the creation of a coherent organisational identity, ensuring that the tension between conformity and autonomy of organisations within the group is well managed and ensuring that internal as well as external accountability is clear and productive and works towards the organisational mission and not against it.

Method and sample The study draws on interviews with trustees and academy board members along with a detailed analysis of six schemes of delegation; the anonymised sample is outlined in Table 3.3. The table shows the number of schools in the MAT, along with the maturity of the organisation. This is helpful in ascertaining how far along each organisation is in terms of its expansion and planning. There are a number of challenges involved in collecting data from MATs. MATs whose schools are not making good progress are reluctant to permit access to researchers; in addition, board members within MATs (at both academy and trust level) need permission from gatekeepers (normally the chair of the trust or CEO), who have the power to (and often do) restrict interviews to central board level only. Interviews were drawn from an opportunity sample of six MATS which were selected using existing contacts. Data were gathered from 30 semi-​ structured qualitative interviews with board members over the period 2016–​2018. Participants included (a) trustees –​ board members at the apex of the organisation with overall responsibility for the governance of the MAT, (b) academy board members –​located in individual schools and who possess delegated powers from the trustee board which vary in scope and range according to the MAT’s scheme of delegation and (c) trust CEOs, sometimes called executive head teachers, who have overall leadership/​management responsibility for all schools in the MAT. This particular chapter does not include head teachers of individual schools that were interviewed as part of the funded project. This is because it is aimed specifically at an analysis of governance, with a focus on the perceptions of volunteer board members. CEOs were included in the interviews in order to give background information on schemes of delegation. Their opinions do not feature in the findings of this paper in any other way. This evidence is combined with documentary analysis of formal reports and schemes of delegation. The sample includes interviews drawn from four trusts in the North of England and two in the South. Six out of the seven MATs covered primary, middle and secondary phases of education, and one was solely focused on primary provision. The interviewees were self-​selecting and this accounts for the diversity in terms of the number of respondents at each MAT. Interviewees were recruited

 43

New modes of collaborative governance 43 Table 3.3 MAT sample and interviewees MAT

Interview participants and numbers

Printed data analysis

Area spread

MAT 01-​South

TBM* Scheme of (CHAIR) (1) delegation TBM (2) ABM** (2) CEO*** (1) TBM Scheme of (CHAIR) (1) delegation TBM (2) ABM and parent (1) TBM (2) Scheme of ABM delegation (CHAIR) (1) TBM (2).

Confined to one town

4

2015

Confined to one town

5

2012

Confined to 7 one town with two schools in rural areas Spread over 6 three towns

2010

Confined to one town

5

2015

Spread 12 over one town and outlying rural areas, in two regions

2015

MAT 02-​South

MAT 03-​North

MAT 04-​North

MAT 05 North MAT 06 North

ABM (2) Scheme of TBM (2) delegation Elected Parent Board Member (ABM) (1) Chair (TBM) (1) Scheme of ABM (1) delegation CEO (1) CEO (1) Scheme of TBM (4) delegation ABM (2) Strategic plan

Number Maturity: of schools Date established

2013

*  TBM = Trustee Board Member (MAT central Board) **  ABM = Academy Board Member ***  CEO = Chief Executive Officer (head teacher of the whole MAT)

via governor support agencies, school support organisations and executive head teachers. The interviews followed a semi-​structured qualitative approach and were analysed using NVivo software to draw out the key themes emerging from the data. These were then examined in greater detail and in relation to the challenges which emerged.

Data analysis Data analysis considered key themes emerging from both documentary analysis and interview data which were analysed in relation to the research questions. In

44

44  Jacqueline Baxter order to examine the responsibilities of local boards in relation to trustee boards, the schemes of delegation were examined, and a table of responsibilities compiled. This was helpful in outlining actual powers of boards in relation to one another. It was also useful in highlighting areas in which trustee and academy level boards were attempting to communicate with communities. The interviews were used to examine perceptions of accountabilities and hierarchies and to examine how relationships between local and central boards were working in practice and to explore if and where problems were occurring, and how organisations were attempting to mitigate these. This permitted the researchers to build up a picture of the challenges inherent within the subject under scrutiny, while also revealing the ways in which boards are attempting to meet them.

Accountability enacted in MATS: The relationship between local and central boards The six schemes of delegation were analysed firstly in terms of common powers mentioned within them. They were not uniform in this respect but there was a set of core powers that featured in all of the schemes. These were then examined in terms of how much decision-​making power was allocated to local boards, and how much was retained by trustees. As Table 3.4 reflects, the powers accorded to local boards varied considerably between MATs. Fundamental powers such as agreement about the length of the academy day and enrichment/​extended services were, on the whole, solely decided upon by trustees. Freedom to set the academy’s own admission policy was also a power that was centrally controlled, without any consultation with local boards in all but one case. All boards were required to produce reports on their schools, for trust board meetings, indicating a certain amount of accountability to central boards. In terms of communicating with parents, in all but one MAT, local boards were delegated the power to engage with local academy stakeholders, and in all but one MAT they had the power to support and agree on a strategy to promote parent, pupil and local stakeholder voice. In all but one case, they were also permitted to implement and monitor the mission and vision for individual academies. This was not the case for MAT 03. In the case of MAT 04 academy boards were permitted to support the implementation of the MAT mission and vision. It is not clear whether this means that they work alongside MAT trustees in this work or whether this is totally centrally controlled, in which case the local board would have no input into core values upon which the trust is premised. Previous work in this area also reflected that some MATs impose a very high level of uniformity upon their schools that leaves schools devoid of any freedom to innovate. Some schools accept this as one of the consequences of joining a MAT, while others bitterly resist and oppose this level of control, arguing that it affects their core identity as an organisation whilst also impacting negatively on their relationship with the community. It also appears, on close analysis of the data from this project, that some MATs do not appear to have a particular rationale for their expansion

 45

Table 3.4 Powers accorded to Academy Level Boards ACADEMY LEVEL POWERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Agree academy year and day Agree strategy to promote parent and stakeholder voice Implement trust strategy for parent and pupil voice Agree sex education policy Agree special needs policy for academy Decide local level health and safety procedure in line with trust policy Implement trust ICT strategy to prioritise pupil well-​being and efficiency Control of significant planned expenditure on capital maintenance Freedom to set own admission policy Ensure reports are available for trust board and committee meetings Implement and monitor vision for individual academies Engage with academy stakeholders Remove academy head Handle appeals on admissions Input into strategic plan Carry out annual self-​review Agree annual schedule of business for board Appoint /​remove exec leadership Performance manage academy head Agree academy staffing structure Agree local financial delegation for academy Manage own budget Agree top slice rate for academies Monitor local financial procedures Monitor value of being part of MAT KEY * Not principal ^ Academy level only $ Without trustee input YT = In collaboration with trustee board Y = Yes N = No AO = Approval only MO = Monitor only

MATS 1 Y Y

2 N N

3 4 5 YT N N YT AO Y

6 N Y

N

Y

YT AO Y

N

Y Y Y

N N N

N N N

N N AO N AO Y

N N Y

N

N

YT AO Y

Y

N

N

N

S

N

AO

N Y

N Y

YT N YT Y

N Y

N Y

Y

Y

N

AO Y

Y

Y N N AO Y AO Y Y AO N MO N Y N

Y N AO Y Y N Y* Y N YN Y N Y N

YT N YT N YT N N YT YT YT YT N YT N

AO AO YT Y^ Y N N N Y Y N N Y N

Y N YT Y$ Y YT Y YT Y N N Y N N

Y N Y Y^ Y$ Y$ Y Y$ Y$ Y Y N Y Y

46

46  Jacqueline Baxter other than just wanting to acquire schools in order to avoid being taken over or rebrokered (absorbed into other MATs) (Baxter and Floyd, 2018). The data revealed that all local boards under scrutiny were responsible for carrying out an annual self-​review; however, in all but two cases, they were not permitted to agree an annual schedule of business for their own board. This is concerning in view of the degree of flexibility they may have to consider matters of vital importance for the individual school. There may be some flexibility built into this, but the analysis in Table 3.4 illustrates that in the case of one MAT, local boards were not even permitted to monitor their own school budget, yet the same scheme of delegation indicated they were permitted to devise and implement their own strategic plan. This seems to be a contradiction: If they are not given the power to monitor their own budget, how can they be expected to devise a coherent and cost-​effective way forward for the school? Nor were boards permitted, in any instance, to control significant financial expenditure, particularly capital expenditure, which was totally under the control of trust boards (see Table 3.4). The rate of top slice of school budgets fell almost exclusively under the control of trust boards, apart from MAT 06 which permitted some input from regional cluster boards (sub-​committees of the trustee board, focusing on one region only, only set up in the case of MATs dispersed over several regions). One category that does not appear on this table, as it only appeared in the scheme of delegation for one MAT, is ‘Evaluate value for money of the Trust as a whole’. This is clearly a responsibility that should be taken on by the trust board, but surely, if accountability is to be effective, schools that joined the trust in good faith and that have their finances determined by it should have a say in whether the trust is providing value for money to its students? In terms of performance management of the head, the picture is mixed. MAT 05, for example, can performance manage their head without trustee intervention, while MAT 03 has powers to do this only alongside a trustee. In MAT 02, local boards have the power to performance manage all staff except the principal, who is performance managed by the CEO in collaboration with a trustee. This very mixed picture was also reflected in powers to appoint and remove executive leadership, while the power to remove an academy head was not a feature of any of the MATs except one, which was allowed to remove a head only in collaboration with a trust board. The qualitative data analysis revealed two key themes around multi-​level governance:  power and communication. The data also revealed several, sometimes contradictory, trends. Members of trustee boards were acutely aware that they were not only accountable for the performance of schools within the trust, but also of boards. But, as the schemes of delegation reflect, some academy boards have more delegated power than others. There was a feeling among some trustee boards that academy boards were not really aware of how little power they actually possess, as this trustee pointed out: Essentially my experience is that it boils down to them [Academy Board Members], thinking they are still in charge, that they still have the same

 47

New modes of collaborative governance 47 powers and recondites, and we have to spell out that they are not really governors anymore. (Trustee, MAT 02) This appeared to be particularly prevalent in cases where schools had been taken into the MAT along with their boards, who previously possessed far more power as stand-​alone academies. As this academy board member points out: ‘It has been hard, in some ways you feel, what am I  for, what am I  doing this for?’ (ABM, MAT 04). The issue of who is accountable to whom also came into play, particularly as several members (people who set up the MAT), who are supposed to hold trustees to account, also sit on trustee bodies. Similarly, four out of six of the MATs under scrutiny had trustees that also served as chairs on academy level boards. As this trustee put it, ‘So the Members are holding Trustees to account, and the Trustees are holding local governors [ABMs] to account, but you’re all the same people’ (MAT 05). But there did appear to be a problem in terms of an expectation in some MATs that trustees would sit on local boards and this created some issues in terms of the sheer amount of time that the activities and meetings took up, as this trustee reported: We had a meeting and, every Board that we know now couldn’t exist if you didn’t double your hat … sometimes triple it by acting on Boards at different levels. (TBM, MAT 05) In addition to this, in many cases, when schools are taken into the trust due to financial or performance issues, the original governing body is dismissed and replaced with interim members. Some trustees were particularly concerned that academy level boards knew very little about the MAT, as this trustee pointed out: We had consultants in recently and they picked up on important issues … the governors at Academy Level did not really understand the bigger picture journey or purpose, or for that matter, what the MAT was all about. And that raises all sorts of questions for education and engagement planning. (TBM, MAT 06) This was not felt across the board, as two of the MATs did delegate more powers to ABMs. In these boards, members seemed confident of their duties, probably because (a) They had been brought on board along with the school and (b) Their powers had changed relatively little since joining the MAT. In one of the organisations, staff members from the sponsoring organisation also joined academy level boards, and this appeared to provide at least one person with an overview of the whole MAT, serving at local level. This model deserves more investigation as it develops. Communication appeared as a major theme in relation to both the power and the governance of these collaborations. This also appears as a leitmotif in the

48

48  Jacqueline Baxter literature on the governance of collaborations more broadly (see, for example, Huxham and Vangen, 2013, Vangen et al., 2015). The issues around communication are illustrated in Figure 3.3. The most prevalent theme throughout the interviews both from trustees and ABMs was the issue of communication between layers of governance. Background interviews with CEOs indicated that communication and reporting strategies between layers of management were established in all six MATs, but that they had not considered communication plans for their boards. There are reporting measures in place for all six schools, in terms of reporting to the trust board, but there is no indication of what arrangements there are for communication between boards on other matters. This is concerning, as the reports are, according to the interview data, largely made up of formal issues and offer little opportunity for academy boards to report on local issues. The interview data gave useful insights into this phenomenon. One of these was the gradual realisation by DfE that the accountability mechanisms mentioned earlier are not appropriate because of common practices of trustees also being members of academy boards, and members very often also acting as trustees. This trustee summed up the issue: We currently do [have good communications with our Academy Boards] but it’s going to get harder because the DfE are really pushing the issue of strict delineation between Boards. (TBM, MAT 02)

Direction of communication (too top down)

Within Boards

Between Levels

Between management and Governance

With Parents

Communication

Reluctance of Senior Management Teams to engage with communication issues between Boards

Figure 3.3 Key issues with communication

Lack of overall communication plan or strategy – an assumption that coms would work without one

With Stakeholders (other than parents)

 49

New modes of collaborative governance 49 There was a general concern for all trustees interviewed around how they would remain in touch with local issues and local concerns and also about keeping ABMs fully informed about trust strategy and direction, as this trustee pointed out: We are asking ourselves how we will keep the coms open, I feel as if many of the local governors are disconnected from us [the Trust], we need to get them in, keep them informed because they are supportive of where we want to go. It’s wrong to make them feel out of the loop. (TBM, MAT 03) There were mixed feelings about using clerks for communication between boards, as some MATs did, as this trustee explained:  ‘What we found basically, contractually the clerk pops her head above the parapet a couple of weeks before a meeting … comes, clerk then disappears’ (TBM, MAT 06). Two of the MATs had appointed Governance Managers, with a specific brief to ensure communication between layers. This is an area of research that will form the next phase of the project upon which this chapter is based and will be part of the evolution of these collaborative organisations. Some trustees had concerns that communication was too top-​down. These concerns were echoed at local level where some ABMs also felt that this was a problem. However, others liked and accepted this form of communication. They tended to be members that had been recruited after the school joined the trust, rather than individuals who had made up previous independent governing bodies. This is an important finding in terms of the ways in which MATs are attempting to create an organisational identity and is explored in depth elsewhere (Baxter, Floyd and Cornforth, 2018). The background interviews with CEOs, along with the interviews with ABMs and TBMs, revealed a reluctance on the part of CEOs and head teachers to engage with the construction of formal communication plans as part of strategic growth. Trustees, particularly Chairs of trustee boards, found it very frustrating that their CEOs were primarily interested in collaboration between management layers, while governance communications were relatively low priority, as this trustee reported:  ‘I think as a Board we are excluded, primarily because those sorts of conversations seem to go on with the executive … executive heads and CEOs’ (TBM, MAT 06). This also reflects the fact that while trustee boards are part of the senior leadership of the organisation, there is still some resistance to fully incorporating what has been a radical shift in education. While the literature from third sector trustee boards is replete with references to tensions between CEOs and Chairs of trustee boards, there is little suggestion that these boards have such an issue asserting their authority. However, as in other categories within this section, the results were far from homogenous, and one board was in the process of formalising a communication plan for the board. Governance Managers, appointed at two of the organisations, apparently have this as part of their remit. A very pressing area of concern for all boards was the ways in which information from parents, local communities and other stakeholders could be drawn upon

50

50  Jacqueline Baxter in order to ensure that MATs were serving their communities in the best possible way. There were also concerns around communication within boards; this is an area that has been explored extensively in the governance literature (Cornforth and Edwards, 1999; Heystek, 2004; Scanlon, Earley and Evans, 1999) but needs more exploration via detailed case study work within collaborative organisations.

Conclusion This chapter set out to investigate three key questions:  What is the relationship between local and central boards; how is accountability being enacted in MATS; and what are the implications of this for the governance and accountability of collaborations in education and more broadly? The findings suggest that accountability is being enacted in MATs through formal systems of delegation which delineate the powers and remit of particular boards. On paper this appears to be an efficient formal manner of managing governance. But this research has revealed that there are some issues that are impeding the smooth running of these systems and leaving a very substantial question mark over whether horizontal accountability/​multiple school accountability as described in Table 3.2 is really operational. The substantial issues on communication are not unusual in collaborations, particularly in the literature around knowledge sharing in organisations (Cricelli and Grimaldi, 2010), however its impact on governance arrangements, particularly in the public sector, is not well developed. The findings have shown that communication and power are inextricably linked, again a leitmotif throughout literature on collaborations in the third sector (Vangen et al., 2015, Huxham and Vangen, 2013). The clear issues around information sharing between boards appear to compound issues of information sharing between management and governance that are historically prevalent in the governance literature (See Baxter, 2016, Vangen, Hayes and Cornforth, 2015, James et al., 2012). Although boards appear to be going some way in their attempts to resolve this, there are substantial barriers to overcome in getting buy-​in from CEOs and head teachers, communication between the operational members of the organisation taking precedence over those governing it. Whether this is a matter of lack of time and resources, or whether this is a deliberate attempt to undermine the power of governing boards, is not clear from this study and would need further research in this particular area. Whatever the cause, it is concerning from an accountability perspective, as boards may well lack the information that they need in order to fulfil their function effectively. There is also a clear need for all boards to understand their remit. Although this is outlined in the scheme of delegation, it was clear from the interviews that in the case of some MATs, academy level boards are still not clear about their exact remit and limits to their power. Feelings of disempowerment by ABMs were largely tied up with communication, but also emanated from a lack of clarity about what exactly their bottom line responsibilities are. Some MATs identify ‘support’ for many of the functions of academy level boards, but breaking down what is meant by this at operational level is not easy, particularly when trying to explain to a new ABM what their duties will be and how much time they are likely to spend in

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New modes of collaborative governance 51 fulfilling them. The representative and consultative role of ABMs is not clear at all from this research. Their remit is to link with individual school communities, but how they do this and how effective it is, is not obvious. The fact that the integrity of vertical hierarchical accountability between layers of governance (see Table 3.2), is being compromised by the same people sitting on several boards comes across very strongly in the research, as do the concerns about how this will impact on communication as the DfE presses on with its drive to ensure the separation and accountability integrity of each layer. For the boards in this study this mechanism was a key form of ensuring information flow between layers of governance and trustees were clearly very concerned about the possibility of losing this. Cornforth, Hayes and Vangen (2015) argue that the governance of collaborations can most effectively be carried out by examining structures, processes (ways of communicating, sharing responsibility and taking decisions) and the actions of individual actors (the actions of individuals with enough power and know-​how) (Cornforth, Hayes and Vangen, 2015). This study has highlighted that these elements are important but are bound up with power and perceptions of efficiency of the organisation as a whole. What came over quite strongly in some of the interviews were the feelings of disconnect between individual schools and their MATs. Although trustees assumed that values and strategy were shared with individual schools, in all but one case, this study did not find much evidence to suggest a coherent strategy that involved an all-​through approach. The research carried out by Cornforth et al. (2015) found that some processes ‘clearly encourage partners to share information and develop a common understanding of issue whereas others hinder active communication’ (Cornforth, Hayes and Vangen, 2015). This is apparent within this research and there is certainly a case for examining what opportunities ABMs and TBMs have to get together and achieve a common understanding of problems facing the MAT. How MAT boards co-​ordinate a joint approach to problems is not yet clear (or even if they see this as necessary). Certainly, from the data upon which this chapter is based, there is little to suggest that some trustee boards see it as necessary to involve or engage local boards in this activity. This chapter contributes to the knowledge on the governance of collaborations in revealing that while structures, processes and the actions of individual actors are important, accountability can be compromised by the perceptions of unequal power amongst boards caused by a lack of information sharing, which in turn may lead to a lack of real accountability and effective decision making across the organisation as a whole.

References Academies Act 2010 (c. 32). London: HMSO. www.legislation.gov.uk/​ukpga/​2010/​32/​pdfs/​ ukpga_​20100032_​en.pdf [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Baxter, J. (2016). School Governing: Politics, Policy and Practices. Bristol: Policy Press. Baxter, J. (2017a). Why it is a huge mistake to get rid of parent governors on school Boards. http://​theconversation.com/​why-​it-​is-​a-​huge-​mistake-​to-​get-​rid-​of-​parent-​governors-​ on-​school-​Boards-​56700 [Accessed 10/​04/​19].

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52  Jacqueline Baxter Baxter, J. (ed.) (2017b). School Inspectors: Operational Challenges in National Policy Contexts. Vol. 2, London: Springer. Baxter, J. (2018). Keynote Speech:  MAT Accountability:  Challenges and Opportunities for Inspectors and School Leaders. Paper presented at the Inside Government Conference: Raising Standards through Multi Academy Trust Inspections, Tuesday 19 June 2018, London: Holborn Bars. Baxter, J., Grek, S. & Segerholm, C. (2014). Regulatory frameworks: Shifting frameworks, shifting criteria. In:  Grek, S. & Lindgren, J. (eds.) Governing by Inspection. Abingdon: Routledge. Baxter, J., Floyd, A. & Cornforth, C. (2018). Creating an Organizational Identity:  School Collaborations in Education. Paper presented at the ECER 2019 Hamburg. Baxter, J. & Ozga, J. (2013). Working Knowledge: Governing by Inspection in England and Scotland. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Conference Brighton, England. Brighouse, T. & Woods, D. (2015). The Story of the London Challenge. London: The London Leadership Strategy. Buti, M. & Pench, L.R. (2012). Fiscal austerity and policy credibility. In: Corsetti, G. (ed.) Austerity: Too Much of a Good Thing? p. 45–​54. https://​voxeu.org/​sites/​default/​files/​file/​ austerity_​ecollection.pdf [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Chapman, C. & Muijs, D. (2016). Does school to school collaboration promote school improvement? A study of the impact of school federations on student outcomes. School Effectiveness & School Improvement, 25(3), 351–​393. Clarke, J. (2013). What is Public in Public Policy: Embodying the Public Interest: The Case of School Inspection. Paper presented at the International Conference in Public Policy, Grenoble. Cornforth, C. & Edwards, C. (1999). Board roles in the strategic management of non‐profit organisations:  Theory and practice. Corporate Governance:  An International Review, 7(4), 346–​362. Cornforth, C., Hayes, J.P. & Vangen, S. (2015). Nonprofit–​public collaborations: Understa nding governance dynamics. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 44(4), 775–​795. Cricelli, L. & Grimaldi, M. (2010). Knowledge-​based inter-​organizational collaborations. Journal of Knowledge Management, 14(3), 348–​358. Deem, R., Brehony, K. & Heath, S. (1995). Active Citizenship and the Governing of Schools. Buckingham: Open University Press. Department for Education (DfE) (2018). Official Statistics: Multi-​academy Trust performance measures: England, 2016 to 2017. https://​assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/​government/​uploads/​system/​uploads/​attachment_​data/​f ile/​684244/​SFR02_​2018_​text.pdf [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Easton, G. (2009). Failing schools to be academies:  Gove speech to the Tory Party Conference. BBC. http://​news.bbc.co.uk/​1/​hi/​education/​8294444.stm [Accessed 10/​04/​ 19]. Education Committee of the States (2018). Role of Education Commissioners. Denver, US, www.ecs.org/​wp-​content/​uploads/​RoleofaCommissioner.pdf [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Ehren, M., Baxter, J. & Patterson, A. (2018). Trust, capacity and accountability as conditions for education system development: The case of South Africa. www.jet.org. za/​accountability-​in-​education/​conceptual-​paper_​revised-​1.pdf [Accessed 08/​07/​19]. FORUM Editorial Board (2016). Education excellence everywhere: FORUM’s response to the white paper. FORUM, 58(2).

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New modes of collaborative governance 53 HCEC (2014–​2015). House of Commons Education Committee:  Academies and Free Schools. www.publications.parliament.uk/​pa/​cm201415/​cmselect/​cmeduc/​258/​258.pdf [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Heystek, J. (2004). School governing bodies –​the principal’s burden or the light of his/​her life? South African Journal of Education, 24(4), 308–​312. HMSO (2017). Multi-​ Academy Trusts:  Seventh Report of Session 2016–​ 17. https://​ publications.parliament.uk/​pa/​cm201617/​cmselect/​cmeduc/​204/​204.pdf [Accessed 10/​ 04/​19]. Hooge, E., Burns, T. & Wilkoszewski, H. (2012). Looking beyond the numbers: Stakeholders and multiple school accountability. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 85. www. oecd-​ilibrary.org/​education/​looking-​beyond-​the-​numbers-​stakeholders-​and-​multiple-​ school-​accountability_​5k91dl7ct6q6-​en [Accessed 08/​07/​19]. Hopkins, D. & Higham, R. (2007). System leadership:  Mapping the landscape. School Leadership and Management, 27 (2), 147–​166. Huxham, C. & Vangen, S. (2013). Managing to Collaborate:  The Theory and Practice of Collaborative Advantage. Abingdon: Routledge. James, C., Brammer, S., Connolly, M., Fertig, M., James, J. & Jones, J. (2012). The Hidden Givers:  A Study of School Governing Bodies in England. Reading:  CfBT Education Trust. Lawn, M., Baxter, J., Grek, S. & Segerholm, C. (2014). The new local system shifts and school inspection. In:  Grek, S. & Lindgren, J. (eds.), Governing by Inspection. London: Routledge. Lauglo, J. (1995). Forms of decentralisation and their implications for education. Comparative Education, 31(1), 5–​30. Levin, H.M. (1974) Measuring efficiency in educational production. Public Finance Review, 2(1),  3–​24. Levitt, R., Janta, B. & Wgrich, K. (2008) Accountability of teachers:  Literature review. https://​dera.ioe.ac.uk/​14020/​1/​1009_​Accountability_​of_​teachers_​Literature_​review.pdf [Accessed 09/​07/​19]. OECD (2010). Education at a glance. www.oecd-​ilibrary.org/​docserver/​eag_​highlights-​ 2010-​en.pdf?expires=1562593654&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=213E5F552D82 C7A224F35EACC7BF7DE1 [Accessed 08/​07/​19] Ozga, J., Baxter, J., Clarke, J., Grek, S. & Lawn, M. (2013). The politics of educational change: Governance and school inspection in England and Scotland. Swiss Journal of Sociology, 39(2), 37–​55. Parliament (2016). Role of Regional Schools Commissioners Inquiry (HC 401). www.parliament.uk/​business/​committees/​committees-​a-​z/​commons-​select/​education-​committee/​ inquiries/​parliament-​2015/​regional-​schools-​15-​16/​ [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Paton, G. (2013). Ofsted:  Failing education authorities should be sacked. The Telegraph, www.telegraph.co.uk/​education/​educationnews/​9809061/​Ofsted-​failing-​education-​ authorities-​should-​be-​sacked.html [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Rhodes, D. (2018). Wakefield City Academies Trust spent £1m sacking staff. www.bbc.com/​ news/​uk-​england-​leeds-​43920990 [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. Rosenkvist, M.A. (2010) Using student test results for accountability and improvement: A literature review. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 54. Paris: OECD. Sallis, J. (1988). Schools, Parents and Governors:  A New Approach to Accountability. London: Routledge. Scanlon, M., Earley, P. & Evans, J. (1999). Improving the Effectiveness of School Governing Bodies. London: Department for Education and Employment.

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54  Jacqueline Baxter Vangen, S., Hayes, J.P. & Cornforth, C. (2015). Governing cross-​sector, inter-​organizational collaborations. Public Management Review, 17(9), 1237–​1260. Waslander, S. (2010). Markets in Education: An Analytical Review of Empirical Research on Market Mechanisms in Education. Tilburg, Netherlands: OECD. Widmer, C.H. & Houchin, S. (1999). Governance of National Federated Organizations. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Wilkins, A. (2016). Modernising School Governance:  Corporate Planning and Expert Handling in State Education. Abingdon: Routledge.

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4  Nordic school governance Networking in broken chains Jan Merok Paulsen

Introduction During the last decade we have seen a shift from the traditional political and administrative government structures towards a more complex governance model in the Nordic countries (Moos, Nihlfors and Paulsen, 2016a). One aspect of this development has been the increasing influence on national and local school policies from transnational bodies such as OECD, not least through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings of national school systems based on student achievements (Meyer and Benavot, 2013). In theoretical terms, it is fair to interpret OECD as having created a soft governance discourse, enacted through international comparisons, ranking of national systems and benchmarking of ‘best practices’ (Moos, Nihlfors and Paulsen, 2016a). Another aspect of the route towards a more complex model of school governance in the Nordic countries is the conjoint development of national quality assurance systems together with delegation of powers and authorities to the municipality sector, a twin-​strategy of centralisation and decentralisation (Møller and Skedsmo, 2013) or a blend of tight and loose couplings between the state and the municipalities (Paulsen et al., 2014). In the Nordic countries municipalities constitute the intermediate level of the governing system and the most important arena for local democracy and participation in school development. Primary and secondary education is institutionalised as an important constituent of the local communities, and local voters are typically engaged in school policy issues through a range of channels (Kofod et al., 2016). Analysis of political cultures in education shows that the strongest values in the Nordic school systems are ‘decentralism’ paired with ‘openness’ (Kofod et al., 2016), denoting that municipalities play an important role in adapting central aims to local preconditions for schooling as well as ensuring legitimate access for a great number of actors to take part in the educational discourse (Ekholm, 2012). A  research project during 2009–​2016, conducted by a Nordic group of researchers, collected data on local school governance in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway through three joint surveys: Superintendent survey (2009), school board survey (2011) and school leader survey (2013). Instruments were developed in the research group and adapted slightly to fit the national contexts (Moos et al., 2016a). Analyses pointed to an increasing tendency from the state’s

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56  Jan Merok Paulsen side, with the exception of Finland, to bypass the municipality level through direct initiatives towards schools and school principals (Johansson et al., 2016). This trend, strongest in Sweden, adds significant complexity to the school governance chain. In a similar vein, we found that professional bodies at state level, such as Directorates and inspectorates, have increased their direct interactions with schools, creating broken chains in the traditional hierarchical line of the Nordic governance systems. At the municipal level, attempts to repair broken chains are made by the school superintendent by means of a range of mediator roles (Paulsen, 2014). Throughout most of the municipality sector in the Nordic countries the school superintendent is a middle-​level manager in the municipal administrative hierarchy who is responsible for all education or a sector of education within the entire municipality. The person holding this position is furthermore subordinated to the top manager of the municipality and head of the principals. Thus, the school superintendent leads the interface between the top management and the principals in a chain of command. In most cases, the superintendent is also a permanent member of the senior management team at the top apex of the municipality. Finally, the superintendent is directly subordinated to a municipal political committee or board responsible for public education (Johansson et al., 2011). Added to this formal structure of authority, network engagement has been an important practice of superintendents, chapter leadership in the Nordic municipalities (Paulsen et al., 2016). The changes described above can be interpreted in the light of governance theory, emphasising multiple players at the local level in policy formation, political strategy, leadership and management from district level (Paulsen and Moos, 2014). Moreover, network engagements based on mutual trust and social capital seem to be a more central mechanism through which local school development processes are enacted. Changes in the mode of school governing are discussed in the subsequent sections in the light of three illustrative cases drawn from the Nordic context.

Background School governing in the Nordic countries is based on a hierarchical multi-​level model embedded in liberal representative democracy and structured by means of clear demarcations between service sectors and between policy making and public administration (Olsen, 1988). The role of the civil servant, such as the municipal school superintendent, is to serve as a bureaucrat and policy advisor for the elected or appointed politicians. The traditional model through which state schools have been governed in the Nordic countries is furthermore characterised by an architecture of legal, administrative and financial interdependence between levels of jurisdiction (state, municipalities, schools) within a distinct policy domain (e.g. compulsory education). Over the last decades, this traditional model has been supplemented by the institutionalisation of new forms of governing practices (Tranøy and Østerud, 2001). When analysing the findings from the Nordic research project undertaken in 2009–​2016, it was necessary to take into account

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Nordic school governance 57 the increased influences of transnational bodies and professional agencies (at different levels of the hierarchy) on the local level, for the purpose of mapping the more complex picture of how schools actually were governed, as illustrated in Figure 4.1. The superintendent is the administrative school manager at the municipal/​local level in the model. In relation to the political school board1 the superintendent has an advisory role. As noted, the superintendent is coupled directly to the top apex of the municipality and the school principals through a line structure of authority: ‘The school superintendent leads the interface between the CEO and the principals in a chain of command’ (Johansson et al., 2011, p. 703). In all Nordic countries, municipalities have played an important role in the development and up-​scaling of the unified public-​school system, which has been a cornerstone in the Nordic welfare model. This means by implication that municipalities, through school boards and municipal councils, have enjoyed a certain degree of freedom in educational areas. Running through all four Nordic systems are emerging trends of openness for multiple players in the form of network engagement as a supplemental form of co-​ordination. However, there are significant differences across the Nordic systems, which manifest in the ways through which influences from transnational agencies are transformed into national policy processes. Despite its status as ‘superpower’ in the PISA rankings, Finland has to

Trans-national level Actors: OECD, EU and interest groups Tasks: Affecting national states through the method of open coordination

National level Actors: Parliament, Government, Ministry of Education, Directorate Tasks: Determine overall objectives and framework conditions for schools, implement legislation

District level Actors: Regional county manager and staff Tasks: Supervision and guidance based on the quality assurance system

Municipal/local level Actors: Municipal Council and Board, School Board, Administration Tasks: Responsible for schools, determine local objectives and framework conditions

School level Actors : Principals, middle leaders and teachers Tasks : Administrative and pedagogical responsibility, determining the principles for operating the schools

Figure 4.1 A model of the Nordic school governance system

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58  Jan Merok Paulsen a limited extent been influenced by the global reform movement characterised by accountability, devolution and the import of solutions from the corporate sector (Sahlberg, 2011). In Finland, local autonomy for municipalities and schools has been a stable feature of national curriculum policy, which means that broad national frameworks are adapted and developed towards practice by local actors. Specifically, Finnish municipalities, backed by their national association, have resisted the implementation of national evaluations and tests that could be used as ranking lists (Silander and Välijärvi, 2013). Moreover, although Finland has maintained a national quality assurance system, it is only loosely coupled with the municipal school authorities’ decision-​making processes and the work in the schools. This pattern was formed during the deep recession in Finland in the 1990s, simply because strong local autonomy, with extraordinary degrees of freedom to govern service production in accordance with hard local priorities, was a necessary condition for municipalities to master the budget cutdowns that accompanied the severe economic problems: ‘It is thus obvious that the radical process of municipal autonomy, which was spurred on and deepened by the recession of the 1990s, was one of the factors that buffered the implementation and technical development of an effective QAE [Quality Assurance and Evaluation] system in Finnish comprehensive schooling’ (Simola, Varjo and Rinne, 2015, p. 243). Turning to Sweden on the other pole of this axis, there is a growing tendency that the state, through national Directorates and the state inspection, bypasses municipalities by addressing schools directly by formal regulations. As noted: ‘The government addresses both the political and the professional arenas. We call this a bypass of policy from the national level to schools. Around and within these levels and actors, there are different interest groups that mediate and affect the processes’ (Johansson et al., 2016, p. 146). These trends occur alongside the empowerment of school principals as site-​based managers, which creates a pressure towards local school politicians and superintendents in financial affairs. Bypassing is also associated with a mistrust problem in the Swedish governance chain (Johansson et al., 2016).

The concept of governance The term governance was adopted in the 1990s to capture the changing nature of policy processes. These manifested as a shift from the hierarchical bureaucracy model towards a more complex model (of public administration) where network actors at the outside of the hierarchical line also were found to be influential players (Rhodes, 1997). As argued by Montin and Amnå (2000) the concept of governance means by implication that no single actor, public or private, has the knowledge, the resource capacity or authority to tackle policy problems unilaterally. Rather, ‘local society contains a number of different self-​organising networks and the role of formal political leadership should be to identify these networks and their willingness and capacity to collaborate in handling and solving local policy problems’ (Montin and Amnå, 2000, p. 20). Montin and Amnå’s radical claim implies that within public policy areas, no central or local government authority occupies a

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Nordic school governance 59 position of superiority. This implies that professional networks embedded in a certain level of mutual trust are important constituents of the governance process, a line of reasoning that found resonance in our study of Nordic school governance. According to Rhodes (1997), governance signifies a change in the meaning of government. It refers to a new process, whereby policies are defined and implemented within different kinds of networks, rather than within hierarchies or markets, and whereby actors and institutions gain power by blending their resources, skills and purposes in long-​term coalitions that are kept viable in networks. It means that the capacity to get things done does not entirely rest on the power of government to command and use authority, but also depends on the capacity to use new tools and forms to steer and guide. Hierarchy and network can therefore be conceived as interdependent ‘twin-​concepts’ that should be analysed simultaneously to capture the full picture of the governance processes.

Hierarchy and networks Hierarchy and network are not divergent to each other, but rather overlapping and complementary because networks in organisations typically cross two or more levels of analysis, e.g. individual to group and organisation (Katz et  al., 2004). Moreover, they are also supplemental forms of co-​ordination and the exercise of power (Powell, 1990). A hierarchy has the shape of a pyramid with several layers of authority bound together in a span of control, a system of superiors and subordinates, functional specialisation in separate units, downwards delegation and upwards reporting (Blau and Scott, 2003). According to institutional theorist W.R. Powell, a hierarchical structure is characterised by ‘clear departmental boundaries, clear uses of authority, detailed reporting mechanisms, and formal decision making procedures’ (Powell, 1990, p. 302). The most common principles of the hierarchy are: (1) administrative efficiency is sought by specialisation of the tasks of the members of a functional unit, (2) efficiency is sought by arranging the members of a group in a determinate hierarchy of authority and (3) efficiency is sought by limiting the span of control at any point in the hierarchy to a small number. A social network, complementary to hierarchy, is generally defined as a set of nodes (or actors), and it is ‘the ties that represent the relationship, or lack of relationship, between the nodes’ (Brass et  al., 2004, p. 795). Collaboration does not occur through administrative command but rather through relationships between people with a minimum of reciprocal actions that are mutually supportive. The characteristics and differences between hierarchy and network as mechanisms of co-​ordination and collaboration are summarised in Table 4.1. The content of the social relationship between network members is most frequently theorised through the conceptual pair of weak versus strong ties (Granovetter, 1973). The strength of a social tie is defined as the function of the ‘amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confidence), and the reciprocal services that characterize the tie’ (Granovetter, 1973, p. 1361). The strength is seen in practice by the frequency of interaction, close proximity and the

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60  Jan Merok Paulsen Table 4.1 Key features of hierarchy and network Key features

Normative basis Means of communication Methods of conflict resolution Degree of flexibility Amount of commitment among the partners Tone or climate

Organisational forms Hierarchy

Network

Employment relationship Routines Administrative fiat –​ supervision Low Medium to high

Complementary strengths Relations Norm of reciprocity –​ reputational concerns Medium Medium to high

Formal bureaucratic

Open-​ended Mutual benefits

Source: Adapted from Powell (1990)

density of the partnership, in terms of the amounts of tasks, activities or projects the collaboration is based on. There is evidently a trust-​based component in social networks, where trust is defined as ‘a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviour of another’ (Rousseau et al., 1998, p. 395). As a function of trust, relations between the actors tend to be informal and long-​term in nature and sustainable despite changes in organisational affiliations. Arguably, organisational trust represents an alternative to outer control mechanisms both internal and external to the organisation and co-​temporal or retrospective to the event (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995). Simultaneously, actors in a trusting co-​operation are influenced by some kind of self-​obligation. Such self-​obligation includes not engaging in activities that may betray the mutual trust relationships that characterise co-​operation (Gambetta, 1988). Notably, trust-​based network ties between actors must be based on the actors’ shared perception that the collaboration is relatively risk-​free. On the contrary, if an actor perceives risk in collaborations with other network partners, one will most probably either leave the network or close or downplay the interactions.

System of innovation approach as a theoretical lens A regional system-​of-​innovation approach is well-​known from business research (Lund Vinding, 2002; Nielsen and Lundvall, 2007), underscoring how knowledge institutions play an important role by bringing into the innovation scene research expertise, in this case data analysis as well as management support. Yet, as innovation research highlights, a network-​oriented mode of governing organisations within a region is dependent on social capital and mutual trust between the actors (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Powell, 1990). According to Edquist, Eriksson and Sjögren (2002, p.  563–​564), system-​of-​innovation approaches have some characteristics in common: ‘1) They place innovation and other learning processes

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Nordic school governance 61 at the centre focus; 2)  they adopt a holistic and inter-​disciplinary perspective; 3) they consider innovation processes to be evolutionary; 4) they emphasize the interdependence between actors in the sense of ‘players;’ 5) they stress development and diffusion of knowledge and 6) they are based on conceptual framework rather than formal theories.’

Three illustrative cases Case A – Networks in school governing: Superintendents as players in hierarchy and networks The Nordic study of school superintendents’ work, their relations to school boards and school leaders, and the avenues through which they exerted their influences suggested that superintendents are frequent players in internal and external networks (Paulsen and Høyer, 2016b). Moreover, network engagement was utilised by school superintendents in order to fill gaps in the hierarchical structure that were perceived as problematic (Paulsen, 2014). The structure of the superintendent’s network is illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2 Network structure of superintendents Bold lines indicate stronger ties (more frequent interactions) whereas broken lines indicate weaker ties between actors.

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62  Jan Merok Paulsen Superintendents in the Nordic countries are connected to school boards through formal subordination (Moos and Paulsen, 2014); additionally, our analysis revealed strong personal ties to the chair of the board. This dualism of hierarchical position and personal ties is also found in the relationship between the superintendent and the top manager, municipal director of the municipal hierarchy. On the one hand, the superintendent is affiliated to the municipal director through membership in the senior leadership team at the top apex; on the other, this position is supplemented with personal ties between the superintendent and its superior manager. The content of the latter relationship is generally about leadership issues and seldom educational specialism, as shown in the Norwegian case (Paulsen and Høyer, 2016b). In the downwards relationship to school principals and school leaders, formal forums are supplemented with strong ties, as exposed in the Danish case. Whereas the formal meetings embedded in the hierarchy are important for co-​ordination and joint decision making, the network ties are even more important, from the school leaders’ perspective, for discussion of pedagogical development, strategy formation, coaching and mutual sparring of ideas (Moos, Kofod and Brinkkjær, 2016). Two peer networks are mentioned most often in the Danish case:  The superintendent association and the superintendents in the region. Here they obtain professional development, inspiration, sparring, knowledge sharing, and community and opportunities to meet the politicians and discuss political issues. In a wider sense, networking with peers offers opportunities for superintendents to scan, map and construct a picture of the environments, including predicting future trouble spots or potential allies. The analysis also revealed that superintendents in all Nordic countries were horizontal network players in two distinct arenas: firstly, through project participation internally in the municipal organisation; and secondly, by forming personal ties to peer superintendents in other municipalities. Superintendents formed and maintained relationships also to trade unions and parental groups, but the analysis of perceived influence and frequency of engagement suggests that these ties were weaker and of less importance for decision making. Hierarchy and network, therefore, are complementary analytical tools that are useful for capturing the full picture of the social avenues through which superintendents seek to exert influence. In order to improve theoretical understanding of contemporary leadership at school district level and how the inherent power relationships are played out in practice, network analysis should be included in conceptual models and analytical frameworks (see Song and Miskel, 2005). Case B – A regional model of collaborative school governance in Norway Norwegian local government is based on a two-​tier structure consisting of 429 municipalities and 18 counties. Both tiers have directly-​elected councils and their own administration. Generally, they have separate functions:  Municipalities are responsible for compulsory primary and lower secondary education (grade 1–​10), whereas the counties provide upper secondary education  –​academic schooling

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Nordic school governance 63 or vocational training (grade 11–​13). The municipalities range in size from Oslo with 666,000 inhabitants to Utsira with its 201 (Source: Statistic Norway2). Approximately half of the Norwegian municipalities have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. In addition to upper secondary education, the 18 counties are responsible for school transportation and some areas of industrial research and development and innovation at the regional level. Hedmark is one of 18 counties and is situated in the eastern part of Norway. The area covers 27,397 km2, and the population numbered 196,190 in January 2018 (Source:  Statistic Norway). The county is divided into four lower regions with a total of 22 municipalities responsible for 120 primary and lower secondary schools. Within a county, regions and municipalities are intertwined through the coupling between lower and upper secondary education. Student cohort analyses during the last two decades have revealed that school achievement in lower secondary school is the most significant factor, behind socio-​economic status (SES), in explaining variance in completion and dropout of upper secondary education. Reduction of school dropout in upper secondary education has been at the forefront of Norwegian school policy for a decade, and the interdependence between the municipal system of primary and lower secondary schooling and the counties’ upper secondary schools is critical for progress in this target area. Hedmark county has for a long period of time been among the lowest-​ performing districts in Norway in a range of educational outcomes:  Grades in lower secondary education, test scores in basic subjects and completion of upper secondary education (16–​19 year old students) (Myhr, 2018). In 2016, a project labelled ‘Culture for learning’ was formed to raise the quality of primary and secondary education in all the 22 municipalities of Hedmark through a series of joint efforts. Project objectives for the period 2016–​2020 are to raise learning achievements for the region’s pupils in primary and lower secondary schools (in order to prepare them for working life in the 21st century and enable democratic and societal participation), to raise the level of completion in upper secondary education (to prevent dropout and early leaving) and to improve the competence of teachers, school leaders and municipal school owners through collective and co-​ordinated learning in professional learning communities. In order to accomplish these ambitious goals, the Regional Director3 of Hedmark county initiated the project, and all the 22 municipalities decided to join. The Center for Studies of Educational Practice (SePU),4 an institute of the Inland University of Applied Sciences, was given the mandate to co-​ordinate project activities and to establish a project database of assessment data, instructional materials, electronic lectures and other working materials. SePU is also the organiser of the seminars and conferences of the project (Myhr, 2018). The project network structure is illustrated in Figure  4.3. The county school owner is responsible for the eight upper secondary schools in Hedmark, and, as such, is not integrated into the project activities. But, as noted, the strong correlation between the pupils’ lower secondary achievements (grade 10) and their subsequent completion of upper secondary schooling is evident and has motivated the county school owner to join as a player in the project. The 22 municipalities

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64  Jan Merok Paulsen

Figure 4.3 The ‘culture for learning’ project network structure

have signed the commitment contract for the project and they participate with teachers, school leaders and the municipal school administration. Furthermore, the role of the central actor of the network is performed by the research centre with a group of researchers, including two PhD candidates. The project illustrates a school improvement process played out in a network structure, where multiple players are involved. This does not mean that the local authorities are decoupled from the process; rather, they have chosen a different role, where external control and quality assurance are delegated. These properties, corresponding with a system of innovation approach, adds supplementary conceptual understanding of school governance through the illumination of a research centre taking the role as the central actor in the network. Specifically, a shift in the power relations between school districts and schools emerges from looser couplings and a great number of horizontal relationships involved in decision-​ making processes. Case C –​New partnerships in school principal training Background The National School Principal Training Programme in Norway was initiated in 2009 by the National Directorate of Education and Training.5 The programme is state-​funded and is open to applications from principals, deputy principals and

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Nordic school governance 65 middle leaders in schools. Seven universities are currently selected and certified for providing the programme after open competitions in the form of public bids in 2009 and 2014. The backdrop for the formation of a nationwide standard principal training programme was a growing concern among Norwegian policymakers about the quality of school leadership in general, paired with a similar assumption that the preparation of school leaders was insufficient for facing the complexity and challenges of public schooling in the 21st century. Underpinning this concern were the findings from the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) survey in 2008, showing that Norwegian participating teachers expected their school leaders to provide feedback on their teaching, supervision, guidance and day-​to-​day support in pedagogical matters. Moreover, the TALIS report showed uniformly that teachers perceived a ‘surplus-​ deficit’ related to their demands (Vibe, Aamodt and Carlsen, 2008). Specifically, the OECD’s Teaching and Learning Survey found that Norway scored lower on instructional leadership than most other countries. The TALIS report also indicated a propensity among Norwegian school leaders to avoid conflicts (with their teachers) when weaknesses in pedagogical practices were exposed. The Directorate developed a framework for the programme, built around five curriculum themes: Students’ learning, management and administration, professional co-​operation, organisational development and change, and work with the participants’ individual leadership role. As the programme has evolved, more research-​informed emphasis is put on instructional leadership and distributed leadership along with leading professional learning communities of the school organisation. Also informed by international research on effective school principal training programmes, the Directorate decided on a tight coupling between teaching and practice-​learning during sessions, accompanied by experimental learning efforts in the home leadership context of the participants (Darling-​ Hammond et al., 2010). The programme setup: Partnership with consultants Obviously reluctant to create another purely academic school leadership programme, the Directorate demanded a programme setup where university providers were expected to be joined by a consultancy group in order to ensure the practical and developmental sides of the training programme were covered. As a consequence, management and leadership consultants were included in the training programme as partners (Carlsten et  al., 2014). In the second period of the programme, the inclusion of a consultant or a consultancy group was not a part of the agreement, yet most of the providers continued with the consultant partnership from the first period. Table 4.2 shows a model of tools for the participants to enhance their understanding of leadership practices (Aas, 2017), based on a theory of expansive learning cycles. Table 4.2 illustrates how several components in Huber’s (2011) framework are integrated:  360-​degree analysis, individual reflection, trial-​and error efforts, coaching and observation (‘school walk’).

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66  Jan Merok Paulsen Table 4.2 Overview of learning activities in one of the programmes Learning step

Phases in the expansive circle

Reflections related to the tensions

Step one: 360-​degree interviews. Mapping leadership expectations

(1) Questioning

Different expectations from the superintendent and the teachers

Step two: Group coaching. Issue for coaching: Investigating own leadership practice related to the teachers’ critique Step three: Research-​based knowledge. Literature about governing

(2) Empirical and historical Results-​oriented versus investigation pedagogical expectations

Step four: New action. New leadership practice according to the ‘school walks’ project

(4) Critical investigations of the new practice in relation to the theory (5) Implementing the new leadership action

(3) Modelling a new leadership practice

Too kind and resilient leadership practice versus making decisions and following up with teachers (e.g. deadlines) Relational versus systemic focus In governing, there is a systemic tension between control and trust; it is not about shaming and blaming

(6) New implemented practice

Some teachers have a positive attitude, while others have a negative attitude towards the ‘school walk’ project

(7) Consolidation of the new practice

A discussion with the teachers about control and trust, which should be held ahead of the project, is a training exercise in dealing with the critical voices

Source: Aas (2017, p. 445)

A small number of Norwegian university providers have built separate staff capacity in leadership coaching, whereas most of the universities have built strategic alliances with consultancy companies. The provision of coaching, observation of practice and 360-​degree interviews are not standard repertoires of Norwegian university programmes, which means by implication that some of the providers have sought allies outside the academic world. In cases where consultants are involved in the practical training, trust-​based networking relationships (between universities

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Nordic school governance 67 and consultancy) then become critical parts of the programmes. Moreover, the Directorate has, since the start of the national training programme, initiated compulsory participation in providers’ forums twice a year, in order to firmly promote inter-​organisational learning among the providers. Since 2015, a formal collaboration between the Norwegian and the Swedish Directorates has been formed and developed, which means that providers of principal training in the two countries meet regularly. Moreover, these two state agencies initiated a collaborative learning programme labelled ‘Bench-​Learning’. The aim of the programme is to empower the participants to develop leadership practices and school environments that are more innovative, inspired by the two OECD reports Innovative Learning Environments (OECD, 2013a) and Leadership for 21st Century Learning (OECD, 2013b). The design of the programme includes theoretical inputs, sharing experiences, school visits and training in new leadership practices (Aas and Roald, 2016). The latter properties seem close to a system-​ of-​innovation approach to the field of school leadership training, which offers a complementary case for understanding the many avenues, supplementing hierarchical governing, through which contemporary school governance works. In formal terms, management and leadership training is the responsibility of the municipalities, but the case illustrates that in order to master the complexities of tasks involved in effective training, the state Directorate has re-​centralised this area of responsibility. Moreover, to further develop school leadership training towards international standards, a cross-​national collaborative project was formed, which puts the municipalities at an even greater arms-​length distance from this core activity.

Discussion As indicated in the previous sections, school governance in the Nordic countries is characterised by an increased influence from transnational bodies such as OECD, as seen in the increased use of ‘soft governance’ through social technologies operating ‘in a depoliticized, marketplace context in which priorities are based on bench-​marks, performance indicators, and rankings’ (Paulsen and Moos, 2014, p. 267). On the other hand, a governing line characterised as ‘a broken chain’ is apparent (Moos, Nihlfors and Paulsen, 2016b; Paulsen and Moos, 2014), which means that actors residing at different levels of the regulatory school institution tend to be loosely coupled to each other. This is most evidently the case in Finland, where the state’s quality assurance system (CAE) is partly decoupled from the local curriculum development enacted in a local network of superintendents, school leaders and teachers (Simola et  al., 2015). In Norway, Sweden and Denmark, ‘broken chains’ are seen in loose couplings between school politicians and school professionals and through initiatives from the state that bypass intermediate levels within the chain. Two distinct implications for system leadership at the municipal level are discernable from the previous case presentation. First, network engagement seems to be a more potent source of exerting influence as complementary to a hierarchical position. Second, this brings the capacity of system leaders to cultivate trust in formal and informal relationships to the forefront.

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68  Jan Merok Paulsen The illustrative cases provide a portrait of school governance and school improvement efforts enacted in local and regional fields and open for multiple players. Whereas the first case exposes a social network structure involving superintendents as central actors and connected with school politicians, school leaders, managers at the upper echelon of the municipal organisation, external peers and management colleagues in the municipal organisation, the second case shows an important aspect of network governance played out as capacity building at the regional level. The elements linked together in the Norwegian ‘Culture for learning’ project combine hierarchy and network in a regional system of innovation, where a research institute plays the role of central actor. The glue that binds the elements together is a shared perception among the actors about the severe educational problems that must be dealt with, alongside a shared commitment to a distinct learning strategy (Myhr, 2018). Through a joint commitment and an ownership exerted by the Regional Governor, couplings to the governing hierarchy are visible and can easily be activated. The third case, school principal training in Norway, shows a governance perspective enacted in a setting where universities lack some elements of the knowledge required by the mandatory, and which is resolved by forming partnerships to consultants. The case also exposes how the Norwegian-​Swedish ‘Bench-​Learning’ project has evolved towards a boundary-​crossing system of innovation. Taken together, the three cases illustrate from different angles that network governance can work as a fruitful concept for understanding the educational discourse at the local level. A visible implication of these cases is the value of governance as a theoretical perspective for understanding the mechanisms through which schools are steered and governed. Governance in its origin refers to a theoretical perspective for understanding changing processes of governing towards a blend of hierarchy and networking and the analysis shows hierarchical structures and networking co-​existing at the regional and local levels. March and Olsen (1995) take this reasoning a step further in their institutional perspective on governance, arguing that collective actions within a system is based on shared identities and rules of what shapes appropriate behaviours through learning and mutual adaptation (March and Olsen, 1995). Their argument concurs with an underestimated point in social network theory, that is, the importance of mutual trust as a crucial building-​block for networks to flourish. All three cases point to, but to varying degrees, the importance of cultivating trust in local and regional governance. The second theoretical point emerging from the analysis is the relevance of a system of innovation approach, extensively in use in non-​educational sectors for decades (Edquist et al., 2002). The crucial point is the need for a coherent system where resources are mobilised and shared within geographical boundaries, and which is also capable of utilising both networks and regulatory hierarchies.

Does the state hierarchy strike back? At the same time as networks emerge as a critical component of governance in the local school systems in the Nordic countries, it is evident that the national

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Nordic school governance 69 quality assurance systems, most visible in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, open up for different modes of external control downwards through the hierarchical levels of authority (Paulsen and Høyer, 2016a). External control can easily be enacted through devices such as state inspection (Sweden) and state supervision (Norway) paired with quality reporting (Denmark) in a coherent system. All devices have curriculum alignment as their purpose. Moreover, as exposed in the Norwegian case, the state exerts control through the National Directorate’s national training programme, which defines appropriate practices and preferred competences for school principals and middle leaders. This form can be understood as normative control exerted by the state (Paulsen and Høyer, 2016a). These strong tendencies underscore the viability of hierarchical structures in contemporary school governance.

Notes 1 School board members in Norway are not elected directly by the voters in local elections (every fourth year); instead, they are appointed indirectly by the municipal council (Paulsen & Strand, 2014). 2 www.ssb.no/​befolkning/​statistikker/​folkemengde/​aar-​per-​1-​januar/​#relatert-​tabell-​1 3 See website: www.fylkesmannen.no/​en/​Hedmark/​ 4 The primary goal of the Centre for Studies of Educational Practice (SePU) is to initiate and carry out research and development work in connection with compulsory education. 5 See website: www.udir.no/​in-​english/​

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70  Jan Merok Paulsen Gambetta, D. (1988). Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. Oxford: Blackwell. Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–​1380. Huber, S.G. (2011). Leadership for learning –​learning for leadership: The impact of professional development. In: Townsend, T. & McBeath, J. (eds.) International Handbook of Leadership for Learning. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 635–​652. Johansson, O., Moos, L., Nihlfors, E., Paulsen, J.M. & Risku, M. (2011). The Nordic superintendents’ leadership roles:  cross national comparisons. In:  Townsend, T. & McBeath, J. (eds.) International Handbook on Leadership for Learning. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 695–​725. Johansson, O., Nihlfors, E., Steen, L.J. & Karlsson, S. (2016). Superintendents in Sweden: Structures, cultural relations and leadership. In: Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.) Nordic Superintendents:  Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrect:  Springer, pp. 207–​232. Katz, N., Lazer, D., Arrow, H. & Contractor, N. (2004). Network theory and small groups. Small Group Research, 35(3), 307–​332. Kofod, K.K., Johansson, O., Paulsen, J.M. & Risku, M. (2016). Political cultures. In: Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.) Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrect: Springer, pp. 233–​264. Lund Vinding, A. (2002). Interorganizational Diffusion and the Transformation of Knowledge in the Process of Product Innovation. (Doctoral degree Doctoral dissertation) Aalborg: Aalborg University. March, J.G. & Olsen, J.P. (1995). Democratic Governance. New York: Free Press. Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. & Schoorman, F.D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709–​734. Meyer, H.-​D. & Benavot, A. (2013). PISA and the globalization: Some puzzles and problems. In: Meyer, H.-​D. & Benavot, A. (eds.) PISA, Power and Policy. The Emergence of Global Educational Governance. Oxford: Symposium Books. Montin, S. & Amnå, E. (2000). Towards a New Concept of Local Self-​ Government. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Moos, L., Kofod, K. & Brinkkjær, U. (2016). Danish superintendents are players in multiple networks. In: Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.) Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrect: Springer, pp. 207–​232. Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (2016a). Directions for our investigation of the chain of governance and the agents. In: Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.) Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrect: Springer, pp. 1–​24. Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (2016b). Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrecht: Springer. Moos, L. & Paulsen, J.M. (2014). School Boards in the Governance Process. Dordrecht: Springer. Myhr, L.A. (2018). Kultur for læring i Hedmark (Culture for learning in Hedmark). Paideia, 15,  18–​29. Møller, J. & Skedsmo, G. (2013). Norway:  Centralisation and decentralisation as twin reform strategies. In: L. Moos (ed.), Transnational Influences on Values and Practices in Nordic Educational Leadership –​Is there a Nordic Model? Dordrecht: Springer. Nahapiet, J. & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242–​266. Nielsen, P. & Lundvall, B.Å. (2007). Innovation, Learning Organizations and Industrial Relations. Druid Working Paper, No. 7. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitet.

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Nordic school governance 71 OECD (2013a). Innovative Learning Environments. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD (2013b). Leadership for 21st Century Learning, Educational Research and Innovation. Paris: OECD. Olsen, J.P. (1988). Statsstyre og Institusjonsutforming (State Governing and Institution Building). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Paulsen, J.M. (2014). Norwegian superintendents as mediators of change initiatives. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 13, 407–​423. Paulsen, J.M. & Høyer, H.C. (2016a). External control and professional trust in Norwegian school governing: Synthesis from a Nordic research project. Nordic Studies in Education, 36(2), 86–​102. Paulsen, J.M. & Høyer, H.C. (2016b). Norwegian superintendents are mediators in the governance chain. In:  Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.) Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrect: Springer, pp. 99–​138. Paulsen, J.M., Johansson, O., Nihlfors, E., Moos, L. & Risku, M. (2014). Superintendent leadership under shifting governance regimes. International Journal of Educational Management, 28(7), 812–​822. Paulsen, J.M. & Moos, L. (2014). Globalisation and Europeanisation of Nordic governance. In Moos, L. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.), School Boards in the Governance Process. Dordrecht: Springer. Paulsen, J.M., Nihlfors, E., Brinkkjær, U. & Risku, M. (2016). Superintendent leadership in hierarchy and network. In Moos, L., Nihlfors, E. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.) Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrect: Springer, pp. 207–​232. Paulsen, J.M. & Strand, M. (2014). School boards in Norway. In: Moos, L. & Paulsen, J.M. (eds.), School Boards in the Governance Process. Dordrecht: Springer. Powell, W.W. (1990). Neither market nor hierarchy:  Network forms of organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 295–​336. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1997). Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability. Milton Keynes: Open Univesity Press. Rousseau, D.M., Sitkin, S.B., Burt, R.S. & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-​discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23, 393–​404. Sahlberg, P. (2011). The fourth way of Finland. Journal of Education Change, 12, 173–​185. Silander, T. & Välijärvi, J. (2013). The theory and practice of building pedagogical skills in Finnish teacher education. In: Meyer, H.-​D. & Benavot, A. (eds.) PISA, Power and Policy. The Emergence of Global Educational Governance. Oxford: Symposium Books. Simola, H., Varjo, J. & Rinne, R. (2015). Against the flow: Path dependence, convergence and contingency in understanding the Finnish QAE model. In:  Simola, H. (ed.) The Finnish Education Mystery. Historical and Sociological Essays on Schooling in Finland. New York: Routledge. Song, M. & Miskel, C.G. (2005). Who are the influentials? A cross-​state social network analysis of the reading policy domain. Educational Administration Quarterly, 41(2), 7–​48. Tranøy, B.S. & Østerud, Ø. (2001). En fragmentert stat? (A fragmented state?). In: Tranøy, B.S. & Østerud, Ø. (eds.) Den Fragmenterte Staten:  Reformer, Makt og Styring (the Fragmented State. Reforms, Power and Governing). Oslo: Gyldendal. Vibe, N., Aamodt, P.O. & Carlsen, T.C. (2008). Å være ungdomsskolelærer i Norge. Resultater fra OECD’s internasjonale studie av undervisning og læring (TALIS) (On how to be a teacher of lower secondary school in Norway. Results from the OECD study (TALIS)). Oslo: NIFU STEP.

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5  The emergence of evidence-​based governance models in the state-​based education systems of Austria and Germany Herbert Altrichter Introduction The school systems in Austria  –​and similarly in the German Bundesländer  –​ have been considered as prime examples of firmly state-​based and centralist-​ bureaucratic governance of schooling. Over the last 25 years, these school systems, as in many European countries, have attempted to ‘modernise’ the governance of their education systems. After explaining the special approach to governance phenomena used in German-​speaking social sciences, this chapter examines policy changes and school reforms and argues that a so-​called evidence-​based governance model has been introduced in a number of steps. It then spells out the mechanisms which are implied in this governance model and summarises empirical findings on the impact of evidence-​based governance instruments on teachers’ and schools’ work. It is argued that there have been different reform phases which may be characterised by new actors and by changing co-​ordination principles. The analytic perspective is provided by educational governance research (Schimank, 2007; Altrichter, Brüsemeister and Wissinger, 2007), a conceptual framework developed in German social science (Benz, 2004; Mayntz, 2009; Lange and Schimank, 2004). In this perspective, studying governance means analysing ‘the formation of social order … and social performance … from the perspective of action coordination between various social actors in complex multi-​level systems’ (Altrichter and Maag Merki, 2016, p. 8). In this view, reforms are attempts to change the regulation or co-​ordination between the actors in a multi-​level system and, in consequence, their working practices (Spillane, 2012). Reforms are initiated by actors who try to establish new rules (legal or social norms) and a changed distribution of resources. Reforms only become socially relevant when they are perceived (at least partially), accepted and ‘recontextualised’ by a critical mass of relevant actors at different levels of the educational system, i.e. translated into practices and structures that correspond to the logic of action of the respective level and are suitable for sustaining co-​ordinated action in the longer term (Fend, 2006a). As a consequence, reforms, if they are taken up at all, are usually transformed and changed in the course of recontextualisation. The analysis of reforms does not primarily focus on short-​term changes, individual actors or accidental constellations, but on the ‘repetitive, recognizable

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Evidence-based governance models 73 pattern of interdependent actions, involving multiple actors’ (Spillane, 2012, p.  116), on the ways of establishing new routines and transforming existing ones, and on ‘standard ways of doing things’ (Spillane, 2012, p. 117). Thus, governance analysis searches for the dominant ‘co-​ordination mechanisms’ which have been established in the process of appropriating reform elements and of recontextualising them for everyday practice in schools and which regularly and routinely structure interaction at a specific place and time. Educational reform is reflected by the fact that social actors act in different ways. As a consequence, our analysis considers whether new actors emerge or become more important and whether others disappear or become less important. It also considers the governance mechanisms dominant in and descriptive of the system, i.e. the rules that the actors (explicitly or implicitly) accept and use in their decisions and actions. To explain recent changes, five governance mechanisms, suggested by Schimank (2007; following Clark, 1997), will be used. These are: State input regulation, external output control, professional self-​regulation of teachers, co-​ordination by internal management and competition, and are discussed in more detail in the next section.

Governance changes For a long time, Austria was considered as a prime example of firmly state-​based and bureaucratic governance of schooling. The central ‘federal ministry’ was responsible for overseeing and organising virtually all areas of school organisation, classroom teaching and learning as well as remuneration and retirement of educational staff. In specific matters laid down in the constitution, the federation set the legal framework, while detailed legislation was implemented by provincial parliaments (Eurydice, 2018). Schools were seen as the last link in a bureaucratic chain with not much room for manoeuvre for developing different educational offers or different ways of organising their work. This resulted in a legalistic, stable, not very dynamic system which was characterised by two main governance mechanisms. On the one hand, there was strong input regulation by the state (e.g. central legal requirements for assessment and certification, content specification of curricula, setting of standards for teaching material and textbooks, central funding, central teacher assignment; see Fend, 2001, p. 41). On the other hand, input regulation was traditionally coupled with a high level of professional self-​regulation (or teacher autonomy) in classroom teaching. Thereby a characteristic hybrid pattern of governance emerges, which: establishes a ‘dual regulation’ in the sense of an ‘antagonistic cooperation’ between the state and teachers. … The profession flourishes in the shadow of a bureaucratic state governance and does not have its own rights over substantial, operational and strategic decisions. From the point of view of the teacher profession, once the teacher closes the classroom door and starts teaching, the state cannot have a say in this area. (Brüsemeister, 2004, p. 5; see also Maroy and van Zantén, 2009)1

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74  Herbert Altrichter This governance pattern of ‘dual regulation’ was also characteristic of the school systems of the German Bundesländer. Its features are reflected by the attempt of Windzio et al. (2005) to develop an empirical typology of educational systems by using OECD indicators (OECD, 2002a; 2002b) in a cluster analysis. The procedure yields six types of education governance. Austria and Germany are part of the ‘state-​based governance’ type which also includes France, Turkey, Ireland, Mexico and Switzerland. In comparison to other governance types (e.g. Anglo-​Saxon, Eastern-​European, East-​Asian governance) the private sector and private money spent on education have low importance for system governance. Autonomy of individual schools and individualisation of teaching are low, while discipline and performance pressure are comparatively high. Average performance is low, while social class reproduction is the second highest of all six types (Windzio et al., 2005). According to Kerckhoff (2001), the Austrian and German school systems were to be characterised as highly stratified, highly standardised, with much vocational specificity and little student choice. The following argument will focus on governance changes in Austria and some references will be made to similar reforms in the German Bundesländer without claiming to do full justice to developments in Germany. School autonomy The Austrian system of school governance has certainly been criticised, for example for its mediocre results in international student assessments, for not using the energy and ingenuity of teachers for more autonomous school development, responsive to its constituency’s needs, and for its administrative inefficiency resulting from the split of responsibilities between central state and provinces. (Lassnigg and Vogtenhuber, 2015). Over the last 25 years, the authorities –​as in many European countries –​have attempted to ‘modernise’ the governance of their education system (Altrichter, Brüsemeiste and Heinrich, 2005). In Austria  –​and very similarly in the education systems of the German Bundesländer (Rürup, 2007) –​the process of ‘school modernisation’ started in the early 1990s with school autonomy policies which were characterised by concepts such as decentralisation, deregulation and widening in-​school room for manoeuvre (Marx and van Ojen, 1993). The main idea was to expand the individual school’s scope for action and its right to make decisions, in order to make it more responsive to the potentials and needs of its environment, which in turn was meant to increase the quality and efficiency of school work. At that time, decentralisation and deregulation were also popular modernisation strategies at the level of general politics. Imported to education, more rights of decision making for individual schools were sought. In Austria, it was first and foremost curricular rights: Schools were allowed (but were not obliged) to shape 5–​10  percent of their curriculum according to their own ideas; they were also allowed to expand, reduce or merge existing subjects and to include new subjects in their ‘school-​autonomous curriculum’. Additionally, new rights for decisions on the length of the school day, internal organisation, finances and internal staffing

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Evidence-based governance models 75 (but not on personnel recruitment) were gradually given to schools in the following years (Posch and Altrichter, 1993; Schratz and Hartmann, 2009; Altrichter et al., 2016a). Turning to our analytic questions: What is the impact of this reform on actors in the field? While the individual school had been perceived previously as the last link in a bureaucratic chain, as an externally located appendix to the administrative hierarchy, it is now the main addressee of this first wave of reform: A virtually new actor with its own rights had entered the stage of educational governance. While most political parties agreed with giving schools more ‘autonomy’, there was considerable disagreement with respect to further steps (Sertl, 1993). Thus, a more precise definition of this new actor –​whether it was meant to be a new type of state-​oriented school, a parent-​responsive school or a teacher-​dominated school –​was still open. The dominant theme of the first phase of school modernisation was widening the options for ‘autonomous’ decisions on the level of individual schools, thereby enabling schools to make more rapid and more ‘rational’ development decisions in the face of local demands and resources. In essence, it was a normative reform:  Decision-​making powers were newly created and redistributed which transformed the co-​ordination of action and the constellation of the actors involved: By writing ‘school-​autonomous curricula’ schools were able to develop attractive profiles which put them in competition for student numbers with neighbouring schools. In order to make use of the new decision rights, the management of individual schools had to initiate and manage ‘school improvement’ processes, i.e. to ensure the participation of a critical mass of teachers, to develop a reasonably co-​ordinated approach and to provide certain co-​ordination services by the school management. The curricula were decided in a school partnership committee with the participation of parent representatives but did not require prior approval by the regional school administration. What is the impact on governance mechanisms? The main idea of this reform phase is to decrease state input control, which is one of the pillars of the bureaucratic-​professional dual regulation pattern. In the Austrian case, this exerted some pressure on the second pillar of the dual regulation pattern, on professional self-​regulation. The promise of the reform was not a promise of individual autonomy, but of institutional room for manoeuvre. Embarking on initiatives of school improvement could also imply increasing co-​ordination of goals and offers within the school. For teachers this could have implied being asked to do additional work and losing some individual autonomy in the classroom, but could also relate to work organisation. The reform also exerted some pressure on school leaders and school management who were commissioned to make their school use the new options and were thereby faced with quantitatively and qualitatively new requirements with regard to the internal co-​ordination of the school. This has led to increased conflict among staff (Bachmann et al., 1996). The decrease of state input regulation allowed schools to develop some variation of curricula and profiles and thus increased the difference between schools. This resulted in increased efforts of schools to attract more, and more attractive,

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76  Herbert Altrichter students. As a consequence, co-​ ordination through competition and market processes became a more important governance mechanism than before in the Austrian school system (Altrichter, Heinrich and Soukup-​Altrichter, 2014). School management The first phase of governance reforms was intended to open the scope for individual school improvement. Inspired by the then new research on school quality and the ethos of good schools, the idea was to stimulate and use the energy and quality potential of the individual school and its staff. This approach, however, was also criticised for biases such as uncontrolled growth (without co-​ordination), focus on processes (with no reference to results) and focus on teacher interests (with no critical look at the quality of teaching; see Steffens and Bargel, 2016). The reforms in the second half of the 1990s seemed to react to some of these criticisms: On the one hand, the capacities and rights of the management of individual schools were strengthened and instruments for internal management were introduced (Altrichter et al., 2005). School development plans were meant to formulate a common goal orientation and lay down binding work programmes for all staff. In-​house quality management was to provide feedback on development efforts and to stimulate internal co-​ordination of actions. Spelling out programme goals and evaluation criteria was largely left to schools and teachers. Criteria were only rudimentary, for example schools were asked to address six broad fields in school development plans and evaluations: Teaching, extra-​curricular school life, school management, professionalism and personnel development, school partnership and external relations (BMBWK, 1998). On the other hand, central and regional administrative authorities in German-​speaking school systems began to search for starting points in order to ‘orchestrate the variety’ which school autonomy policies had apparently produced (EDK, 2000). Ideas for system monitoring and new forms of school supervision were discussed. Set assessment tasks for all schools and benchmarking were recommended in some countries and made compulsory in other countries. In our analysis, all these measures are –​from the vantage point of today –​rather mild forms of co-​ordination through ‘observation’ (as schools and staff were encouraged to develop their own goals and performance criteria through observation of examples provided by the authorities or by other schools). In this phase, school leaders seemed to emerge as central new actors. There had been principals before in the German and Austrian school systems (but not in many Swiss cantons). However, their tasks were usually restricted to administrative duties and external contact with parents and authorities, while they were not to interfere with classroom teaching, but remain in a primus inter pares role. By improving the legal status, the training and the management instruments of school leaders (to a varying degree in different systems), their role was accentuated according to the guiding image of initiative and entrepreneurial managers who can stimulate and control developments with the help of management tools such as development plans and quality evaluation. Thereby, the individual school which had emerged as a new actor in the previous phase was accentuated by the

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Evidence-based governance models 77 phase 2 reforms, slowly moving away from the possible images of a teacher-​led or community-​led school to a school characterised by managerialism and enterprise-​ type structures. This was reflected by changing governance mechanisms: ‘Coordination by internal management’ became more important in the mix of school governance mechanisms. More hierarchical control within individual schools also put some pressure on the co-​ordination principle ‘self-​regulation of teachers’; thus, some resistance by the teaching profession was to be expected. At the same time, there were initial and, at first, very ‘mild’ approaches in various German-​speaking school systems to build up fairly new governance structures. By introducing comparative assessment tasks and proclaiming goals for school improvement the authorities established early elements of external co-​ordination by specifying objectives and by output evaluation. The PISA shock and the establishment of evidence-​based governance structures The PISA shock hit Germany in 2001 and Austria only in 2004 (due to flawed sampling in the first round). The political and media debate in its wake provided the essential impulse for a new phase: In the face of a proclaimed crisis, governments had to show leadership and initiate changes (Tillmann et al., 2008). Compared to the previous phases, three aspects became the centre of attention:

• • •

The concern for system-​wide quality (which had been difficult to address only by –​usually diverse –​quality work at individual school level). The question of quality criteria (while criteria for school improvement were largely left to individual schools in the previous phases, student learning outcomes –​and to a lesser degree, social equity –​were increasingly regarded as central quality criteria). The question of teaching quality (teaching quality was increasingly considered to be a central element of school improvement).

The authorities in the Austrian and German school systems responded to the challenges by implementing some variety of an ‘evidence-​ based governance’ model. Its most important incarnations included a policy of performance standards, standard-​based comparative student assessment and data feedback (Maag Merki, 2016; Altrichter, Moosbrugger and Zuber, 2016b) and a system of school inspections and quality audits (Altrichter and Kemethofer, 2016). These were accompanied by a range of other new features, for example establishing state institutes for educational measurement, commissioning national education reports (Rürup, Fuchs and Weishaupt, 2016). The reforms of this phase express some central strategic answers to the challenges mentioned above (Altrichter and Gamsjäger, 2017):

•

Increasing standardisation and evaluation of objectives and criteria: Replacing the broad goals of the existing syllabi and the call on schools to embark on

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• •

•

school improvement according to their own aims, the idea of comparable goals (‘standards’) for all schools and equal measurement of results became dominant for policymakers. Focus on teaching and performance outcomes: The centrally formulated objectives should complement or replace the prevalent teacher-​centred perspective (school as a workplace, improving the work situation of teachers) with a focus on students’ learning and performance results. Increasing standardisation and externalisation of methods: Methods of self-​ evaluation were increasingly supplemented by external forms of comparative evaluation. These instruments, which were completely new in the Austrian and German schools systems, were meant to provide comparable results in order to provide both taxpayers and actors on all system levels (from the education minister to school management, teachers, and parents) with insights into the performance of the system units. In turn, this data feedback was meant to stimulate and orientate a quicker, more concerted and more rational improvement of individual schools and other system elements (Altrichter and Maag Merki, 2016). Involving stakeholders: Comparative results and inspection reports were meant to have some potential for stimulating stakeholders to attend to the school’s work and exert some influence (be it through voice, choice, or exit) on the educational professionals’ decisions in school.

The reforms of this phase aimed to tie the co-​ordination of actions both at the overall systemic as well as at the individual school level more strongly to student achievement results prescribed by the central level. What is the impact on the constellation of actors? Central education politics and administration became more important actors in this phase. Their work was supported by a group of numerous, fairly new actors, including external educational experts, for example for performance measurement, school improvement, development of teaching material etc. These individuals claimed to possess special knowledge for the improvement of schools which professional teachers and school leaders did not have. They were usually drawn from the respective university disciplines which, in general, were split by these reforms. Some university professors were actively engaged in the development of new instruments and strategies and also acted publicly as promoters. Other members of academia were critical of competence-​based teaching and comparative testing because they felt that the broad educational goals of schools (‘Bildung’) were restricted to a narrower range of measurable competencies. The role of parents is not clear in this scenario:  Their chance to participate in inter-​school and cross-​level co-​ordination will decrease because increasing ‘expertisation’ reduces the chances of lay influence. On the other hand, they receive little, but comparable, information about system performance that they can use for buying decisions and for exercising in-​school ‘voice’. In addition, they can build some influence through public opinion and media. Pressure on the teaching profession will increase because it is potentially subject to externally specified and

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Evidence-based governance models 79 externally measured performance criteria for the first time. Although the authorities have frequently stated that performance data will not be used for teacher evaluation, some of the widespread teacher scepticism may be attributed to fears that such data will be used for singling out low-​performing classes and teachers. In contrast with teachers, individual schools are evaluated and differential performance is available to the authorities. This presents quite new challenges for school leaders: They must translate the system pressure on the school and their teachers into meaningful developmental energy. They are no longer free to set their own goals for school development because external objectives are clearly communicated and cannot be (easily) avoided or ignored due to newly established measurement and increased public attention. Clear goals and performance data may give them additional instruments for motivating and orienting teachers’ classroom and school improvement. At the same time, they have to constantly observe and improve their school’s performance to avoid being singled out as an ‘underperforming school’ and subjected to special treatment. This has actually been the case recently: 150 primary and non-​academic secondary schools (out of the total number of 4,352 schools in 2016/​17; see Statistik Austria, 2018) have been identified by performance-​standard data as having a comparatively high number of low-​performing students (value-​added data; the number of schools subject to special treatment is to be increased to 500 during the coming years). Their names are not officially published, but they will receive additional support from in-​service training institutions and are expected to boost student performance (BMB, 2017). The changes of this phase aim for closer co-​ordination in the system and for binding co-​ordination to performance results. This is meant to boost system performance, reduce blatant differences between individual schools, and improve learning conditions for specific student groups (e.g. low SES and migrant students; see Altrichter and Kanape-​Willingshofer, 2012). The strategy is to establish an ‘evidence-​based governance model’ by which a comparatively new co-​ordination mechanism is introduced: External state output control. Schools and other actors are expected to base their decisions on performance standards and performance data. The co-​ordination principle ‘state input regulation’ has been weakened to some extent during the previous phases. However, it is still here and somewhat strengthened as the (input) definition of educational goals has been made more consequential through performance measurement. As long as performance data of individual schools are not published (as has been promised by the authorities), this need not directly fuel co-​ordination through ‘competition’. However, the availability of more and better information about the activities of schools and their public visibility due to political attention may indirectly increase competition between schools. ‘Professional self-​regulation of teachers’ is weakened as a co-​ordination principle, since teachers’ work is more closely tied to central state guidelines, in particular, through school performance evaluation and performance tests (even if they are not used for teacher evaluation). Teacher autonomy is narrowed to ‘freedom of method’ (Heid, 2003), while goals are set and achievements are measured centrally. ‘Co-​ordination by internal management’ will become more important since school leaders have to orientate

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80  Herbert Altrichter teachers’ work to performance standards and stimulate improvement work in order to avoid becoming visible as a low-​performing school. Phase 4: What comes next? Are we still in this third phase of school modernisation or are there new tendencies to change the co-​ordination characteristics of the Austrian and German education systems? The programme of evidence-​based school development has unfolded over the last 15 years and led to significant changes in the discourse on education: Educational standards and competency models have offered a new normative framework for discussions on education which tends to be reduced to competence outcomes. The search for indicators for education system performance has raised the awareness about what one should (not) look for when trying to improve the quality of education; measurement of these indicators has certainly increased the transparency of educational activities. The evidence-​based programme has also contributed to changes in public and media attention and has firmly established some themes in public discourse on education such as human capital, international competition in education, risk groups, immigration, and the cost of poor education in terms of the welfare state, regional disparities and educational justice (Maritzen, 2018). The evidence-​based programme has also led to changes in the structures and the working principles of the Austrian school system (which are in many aspects also applicable to the school systems of the German Länder). The most important and striking feature is the quick introduction of a system of nationwide standardised performance testing, which is also used for data feedback and system monitoring purposes (Altrichter and Gamsjäger, 2017). Additionally, teachers have been offered diagnostic tests and teaching material based on the same standards and competency models. For test development, administration and material production, a corresponding infrastructure, a National Institute for research and development in education (BIFIE), had to be built up. Every third year, national education reports were produced for discussion in Parliament. New school inspections, based on fixed criteria and visits from teams of evaluators (Altrichter and Kemethofer, 2016), have been institutionalised in most German federal states, while in Austria experimental regional models of new inspection were replaced by a new nationwide quality management system (SQA). It is based on performance contracts and claims to put more trust in the schools’ and teachers’ professional capacities for evaluation and development than inspection models (Altrichter, 2017). The private school sector is comparatively small in German-​speaking countries: 2.5 percent of Austrian and 6.4 percent of German students are learning in government-​dependent private schools, and 1.5 percent and 0.5 percent respectively in government-​ independent private schools (OECD 2016b, WebTables II.4.7). Competition between the academic ‘Gymnasium’ and non-​ academic secondary schools traditionally exists in German-​speaking school systems and competitive system features have expanded due to policies of developing specific curricular profiles (Altrichter, Heinrich and Soukup-​Altrichter, 2014) and of

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Evidence-based governance models 81 opening up school catchment areas (Altrichter et al., 2011). However, at present, there are no major societal forces arguing for extensive privatisation of the school system and for full competition between schools, other than in a few statements of industrialists’ associations, foundations or individual researchers (Wößmann, 2007; FDP Landesverband Bayern, 2018). On the contrary, the growth of private schooling since the mid-​2000s has been accompanied by critical debate (e.g. Wrase and Helbig, 2016). Despite this abundance of reform measures in the last decade, some persistent weaknesses are to be noted (Maritzen, 2018; Fend, 2018; Nusche et  al., 2016). The expansion of empirical research remained relatively ‘modest’ with no robust financial support structures in Austria (educational research has progressed more rapidly in Germany). More than ever before, state research contracts were absorbed by the state educational research institute (BIFIE), leaving university and freelance researchers with less access to the system. In sum, the evidence-​ based policy certainly brought massive changes to educational practices and discourses. It meant increased central control over goals and outcomes, while options and responsibility for school-​based decision making about the processes for achieving these outcomes were extended as a continuation of the school autonomy policy. However, there is also some disillusionment, increasing criticism and partial dismantling of newly established governance instruments in German-​speaking countries (e.g. Bellmann, 2016; see OECD 2016a and 2016b for international tendencies). This may be connected with the fact that the policy itself is fraught with some intrinsic tensions which it tends to import into the practices and discourses it proposes to change. There are at least four critical elements of evidence-​based governance and improvement strategies which are crucial for both understanding the policy itself and the problems which arise when it is implemented: These are contradictory attitudes towards teacher and leadership professionalism, cost efficiency, irredeemable promises of rationality and unclear and simplistic concepts of application and use. Contradictory attitudes towards educational professionalism The most blatant tension in the evidence-​based strategy is probably embodied in its stance towards teacher professionalism. On the one hand, the evidence-​based strategy was partly born out of the doubt that the teacher-​centred and school-​based development strategy of phases 1 and 2 would address the right goals and would rapidly pursue them. Central objectives and specific directions for improvement were to replace lengthy and insecure negotiation processes at school sites. At the same time, however, the evidence-​based strategy cannot be put into practice other than by a certain professionalism. Professionalism is needed from teachers who must show enough competence and initiative to draw appropriate consequences from educational standards and data feedback and from schools who must be ready to take on responsibility for their students’ results and to put energy into further development (see Altrichter and Geisler, 2012).

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82  Herbert Altrichter This fundamental tension between organised doubting of professional competence and the transfer of complex additional tasks to the profession is substantiated by many examples. The requirements and expectations for school self-​evaluation are increasing while at the same time external evaluation measures are expanding. Central school-​leaving examinations have been introduced in order to make grades and certification comparable. At the same time, these teachers (who were criticised for not awarding comparable grades before) are now to prepare students equally for final examinations. The dual goal of educational quality and educational justice is officially proclaimed again and again, while external testing takes little account of equity issues and in-​school quality assurance and development receives little support. Inclusion in the education system (which is already well advanced in some Austrian provinces) is mandated without developing important supporting structures (Feyerer and Altrichter, 2018). For the German Bundesländer, the cutback in teacher education was noted as another factor (Steffens and Haenisch, forthcoming). Cost efficiency The evidence-​based strategy teaches actors to look at the output and gauge whether or not the energy and resources invested have yielded appropriate results. For establishing the most prominent instruments of evidence-​based governance –​new inspections and performance-​standard measurement and feedback  –​comparatively high investments are needed which, as critics claim, do not go directly into the processes of education but are rather spent on a meta-​level of infrastructure. According to the evidence-​based philosophy such investments should be well-​ founded by previous research or at least justified by evaluation results. In the case of inspections and standard testing, the former strategy was difficult because there had not been such institutions in the state-​based systems of Germany and Austria before and reference to research in other education systems (for example in the Anglo-​Saxon systems) seemed problematic in the light of arguments relating to ‘travelling policies’ (Ozga and Jones, 2006). Early experiences did not fully support the latter strategy: School inspections seemed to be more effective through communicating normative expectations to schools rather than through the feedback they provide (Gustafsson et al., 2015). Data feedback from the national comparative performance tests rarely stimulated classroom improvement beyond superficial changes or re-​teaching (Maier and Kuper, 2012, Altrichter et al., 2016b). No wonder that criticism thrived and some of the comparatively new governance instruments were dismantled again. The most striking example in this respect is the ‘new inspections’. They had been fairly quickly introduced as a core element of the new governance models in virtually all German Bundesländer (Kotthoff, Böttcher and Nikel, 2016). In recent years some Inspectorates have been abolished again (e.g. by Schleswig-​Holstein in 2010 and by Rhineland-​Palatinate in 2016), but even in pioneering school systems such as Lower Saxony, there have been changes in inspection procedures (in 2013), which seem to revolve around two aspects: Cost cuts and consideration of teacher

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Evidence-based governance models 83 professionalism. The risk-​based inspection model (Ehren and Honingh, 2012) gives well-​performing schools more scope for devising their own evaluation and improvement while it focuses expensive full inspections on ‘weak schools’. The new Lower Saxonian inspection approach aspires to be more process-​oriented and ‘dialogical’ and, thus, seems to build on teacher professionalism more than before. Cost and professionalism are probably critical issues that do not emerge by accident in these changes. The ambivalent attitude towards teacher professionalism has been addressed before. The cost argument suggests that measurement and feedback of quality indicators and other evidence-​based strategies do not suffice unless they pay off in the form of tangible system improvement. Promises of rationality A central message of the evidence-​ based strategy is that decisions  –​be it decisions on the macro-​level of policy or the micro-​level of classroom teaching and learning  –​should be grounded in the best evidence available from scientific research and professional evaluation. The frequent invocation of the need for evidence-​based decisions at all levels was, to some degree, successful in de-​ legitimising ‘pure opinions’ in German-​speaking countries (Maritzen, 2018); however, it did not spell out a workable model for educational policy decisions purely based on well-​proven evidence (Tillmann et  al., 2008). Evidence-​based development is itself a ‘normatively charged promise’ (Maritzen, 2018). It is not a strategy that elevates all educational decisions (both of politics or school actors) beyond ‘mere opinions’ and ‘political inclinations’ into a sphere of evidence-​ saturated rationality that no longer allows for reasonable contradiction while guaranteeing predictable results. Evidence-​ based reasoning may help to see options and consequences more clearly (which is significant), but it does certainly not render contradiction, discourses on value and contested political decisions unnecessary. As long as one does not argue for an expertocracy-​type of decision making (of carefully and politically selected experts), decision making and implementation will not become easier and more straightforward under ‘evidence-​ based circumstances’. Unclear and simplistic concepts of application and use The model of evidence-​based development is attractive, as it builds on rationality and scientific knowledge. It is attractive because it postulates the popular and widely convincing image of the ‘feedback loop’ as its main mechanism for dynamising the system: Actors will want to improve if they only know about discrepancies between goals and actual results. And it is attractive since it assumes in a ‘democratic gesture’ that actors on all levels of the education system should work in a similar style, attending to goals and results, and draw evidence ​based decisions for action. In the meantime we have become more aware that the often used metaphors of transfer of scientific knowledge to practical action, for example of using evidence

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84  Herbert Altrichter to improve classroom learning, have obscured the fact that the ‘use’ of data and research knowledge for practical decisions and actions is a cognitively and socially challenging process. This is a process which must be based on the close observation and assessment of specific local conditions which itself cannot be rendered obsolete by the production of better general knowledge (Maritzen, 2018). We are just beginning to learn what impact evidence-​based instruments have on teachers’ work and what work conditions may be needed for using evidence for enhancing students’ development. In the concluding sections of this chapter we will turn to these issues. Even if criticism of the evidence-​based strategy has significantly increased in recent years and even if there is some weakening of its groundwork, we cannot speak of a new development phase at present. No new comprehensive paradigm that can replace evidence-​based control is to be seen in the educational discourse in German-​speaking countries and the idea of evidence-​based governance seems to continue to govern education policy. In parallel to Kuhn’s (1976) argument on scientific revolutions one may argue that an existing paradigm does not leave the stage blank, but must be replaced by an alternative. Such an alternative policy for education governance is not in sight despite all the disillusionment.

How are schools and teachers coping with evidence-​based reforms? Evidence-​based policies which have been introduced in phase 3 are meant to improve the outcomes of schooling by (partially) changing the work processes in schools. As yet, we know too little about the micro-​processes of reform –​how the new governance policies are perceived and appropriated at school and classroom level, how these instruments are noticed and interpreted, and how consequences are constructed (Coburn and Turner, 2011). We will turn to this question in the following section. At first, the logics of action underlying the performance standard policy (which is taken as an example of an evidence-​based policy) on school level are analysed. Afterwards, some empirical results of a longitudinal study on the reception of this policy at school level are reported. The performance standard policy and its logics of action Performance standard policies are a major practical embodiment of evidence-​ based governance in education. Performance standards were introduced into the Austrian education system in 2008. The central concepts and instruments of the Austrian legislation were influenced by a German expert (Klieme et  al., 2007). The policy includes performance standards for the primary cycle of schooling (students aged 10  years) in Maths and German (language of instruction) and for the lower secondary cycle (students aged 14  years) in Maths, German and English (main foreign language). Classroom material, diagnostic tests and sample test items were offered alongside other publications and workshops in order to support the full implementation of the new standards and competence-​based teaching in classrooms. Nationwide comparative standard testing for students was

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Evidence-based governance models 85

Figure 5.1 Conceptual model of the Austrian performance standard policy Source: Altrichter & Gamsjäger (2017, p. 14)

administered for the first time in May 2012, and performance results were fed back to students, parents, teachers, school leaders and administrators. What are teachers and schools meant to do in a performance standard policy? In order to reconstruct the assumptions underpinning this reform, official policy documents and teaching material were analysed following a procedure proposed by Leeuw (2003). Its results are ‘normative’ in that they highlight the processes which the policy is meant to stimulate (see Altrichter and Gamsjäger, 2017). What intentions are connected with the ‘performance standard policy’? The main goals of the policy are improved student competencies. The policy also claims to contribute to equity and justice in education, although this is less clear and only secondary in ministerial texts. These goals are to be met through developing a practice of competence-​oriented teaching which is guided by performance standards and data feedback. In order to achieve this, some new instruments have been introduced which are meant to stimulate the processes shown in Figure 5.1. Setting expectations By formulating performance standards in a language of measurable competencies, the normative aspirations of the education system are communicated more clearly than before. The policy will ‘work’ if actors on different levels of schooling

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86  Herbert Altrichter attend to their normative messages when they are making educational decisions. In particular, the clarification of output goals will influence the lesson planning of teachers and other school-​based decisions. The mechanism of setting expectations can be explained by neo-​institutional theories which assume that decisions in organisations are not taken primarily with regard to efficiency criteria; actors also seek legitimacy from their environment by fulfilling relevant normative expectations (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Scott, 2001). Stimulating improvement through data feedback The results of teaching and learning processes are measured by national comparative tests and they are fed back  –​in different aggregated versions  –​to students, teachers, school leaders, regional and central administrators. Actors are supposed to notice and interpret data feedback and construct conclusions from it. Since the Austrian governance system is usually considered to be low stake and does not apply much accountability pressure upon actors (Altrichter and Kemethofer, 2015; similarly, for Germany: Maier, 2010), the main dynamics for improvement are to be derived from cognitive insight into the discrepancies between goals and achievement. These discrepancies have a dual function: They provide motivational stimulation to embark on improvement processes in the first place, and they are indicators for the fields which are in need of classroom and/​or school development (SchUG-​Novelle, 2008). If teachers reflect on these discrepancies, they will change their lesson planning and classroom teaching in a way which will reinforce competence-​oriented and result-​oriented teaching and individualised support. A  theoretical basis for this co-​ordination mechanism is offered by theories of performance feedback and goal setting (Visscher and Coe, 2002). Actors adapt their actions and/​or their perception of the situation according to their interpretation of the feedback information provided by their environment. Alignment by support The implementation of the standard policy is accompanied by a support structure consisting of teaching material, exemplary assignments, test items, diagnostic tests, informational leaflets, web pages, in-​service offers etc. Such support measures do not only signal normative messages (as in the process of setting expectations) but are closer to school-​level action: They operationally spell out how these expectations are to be translated into concrete actions and structures on school and classroom level. They offer to take over (part of) teachers’ recontextualisation work by providing practical solutions for different aspects of competence-​oriented teaching. This type of support may also be conceptualised by neo-​institutionalist theories. Support may be a very effective means of steering a reform; however, it may also de-​professionalise teachers since it strips them of the professional task of translating educational goals into concrete educational arrangements.

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Evidence-based governance models 87 Involving stakeholders The Austrian standard policy also includes representatives of school stakeholders (regional administrators, parent and student representatives) in the discussion of data feedback. The idea seems to be that involvement of school partners will help determine development foci which are for the common good of all school partners and that external observation by non-​professionals will motivate schools to undertake more rigorous and continuous development. According to theories of social coordination and of governance (e.g. Schimank, 2002; de Boer, Enders and Schimank, 2007) the inclusion of a third party will reinforce normative expectations and make it more likely that schools respond to them. Alignment by in-​school co-​ordination The standard policy also is to increase in-​school co-​ordination of teachers in their lesson planning, teaching and assessment, and alignment of different processes in the subject groups and in the whole school. Again, the theoretical underpinning lies in the tenets of governance theories, for which co-​ordination is an essential condition for reforms to take root in an organisation and to become part of its normal operation. The conceptual model proposed here is compatible with Coburn and Turners’ (2011) model for data use but extends it to processes which happen before data use. The co-​ordinating mechanisms resonate with the findings by Ehren et al. (2013) for European inspections arrangements. In our view, this makes sense because recurring elements may point to underlying functional patterns which are characteristic of evidence-​based governance arrangements, of which both inspections and standard policies are incarnations.

The performance standard policy and the work in schools These five processes are the core of what the performance standard policy claims to trigger at schools. Are these processes really happening at schools? A three-​year longitudinal research project based on qualitative interview data, documentary analyses and comparative analyses of six cases studied how primary and secondary teachers and schools cope with the performance standards policy and in what way this changes their teaching and reasoning at school. While the design of the study does not allow for generalisation across all Austrian schools, the results highlight some of the processes by which teachers and schools react to this innovation. In sum, the processes of appropriating the performance standard policy in the three secondary and three primary schools studied here are considered below (Gamsjäger, Altrichter and Steiner, 2018; Plaimauer, Prammer-​ Semmler and Altrichter, 2019). The performance standard policy seems to stimulate changes in the teaching of the subjects tested. These changes include what have been described by Maier and Kuper (2012) as superficial changes: New assessment formats (which reflect

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88  Herbert Altrichter items in the national standard tests), re-​teaching, shifts and re-​balancing of content. In a few cases, however, new competence-​oriented learning sequences (e.g. focusing on logical reasoning in Maths) that had not been given much attention before were introduced and are suggested by performance standards, competence models and test assignments. The depth and type of implementation seems to be associated with the teachers’ idea of the profession (in particular, with their concept of learning, their evaluation of the relevance of competence orientation and educational standards; see Asbrand et al., 2012) and contextual factors (e.g. leadership style, experience of the reform as pressure or support). It is striking that in many schools these changes are mainly dealt with individually by subject teachers or via informal contact between them, but not through existing structures (such as the subject faculty) or through co-​ordinated initiatives pushed forward by the school leaders or larger groups. School improvement which goes beyond the teaching of individual teachers can be clearly found in just one case where the leader of a secondary school prepares development measures to improve the school climate which was indicated as being below average by data feedback. The idea that performance standards may also contribute to increasing justice in education (which appears in official goal descriptions) hardly plays any role in the thinking about performance standards in the six schools documented here. On the contrary, in cases where issues of equity are addressed, teachers in a primary and in a secondary school express their concern that the assessment tasks of standard testing may be too challenging for weak students. With respect to the five processes expected by the reform’s logics of action, the six case studies yield the following findings:  The standard reform seems to be setting expectations2 about goals and forms of teaching and learning; in particular those teachers whose classes are facing standard testing seem to review and partly change their teaching practices. These changes seem to materialise through the teaching to the test-​mechanism (Au, 2007). Teachers try to prepare their students for the standard assessment by adapting the content of their teaching, the learning assignments and the assessment formats to the demands of the standard policy. However, as has been outlined before, the results range from superficial adaptations to the considerate inclusion of more complex competencies which are likely to enhance student experience. Alignment by support also seems to have some impact. Many elements of the support structure for standard implementation, in particular the competence-​ oriented teaching material and diagnostic tests, are well received and seem to clarify the task for the teachers and school leaders involved (see also Zuber, 2018; Wacker, 2008). They have some potential for guiding the process of perceiving and implementing the performance standard reform, although this happened more often in the primary than in the secondary schools of our study. The process of receiving and interpreting data feedback seems to have little influence on changes in teaching. While interviews unearthed some plausible deliberations on the data and a few ideas for development measures, it was striking that the messages of the data feedback were only noted in a very general way. There was no evidence in our material (apart from a school climate initiative

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Evidence-based governance models 89 of the academic secondary school leader) that co-​ordinated efforts of school and teaching improvement were stimulated by data feedback and put into practice. This must be disappointing for the proponents of evidence-​based policies since standard assessment and data feedback play a central role in their governance models and in their idea of stimulating ‘rational and well-​focused improvement’. In the course of our longitudinal data, the teachers’ scepticism towards external testing apparently decreased, most likely due to the experience that no negative consequences from the authorities were connected with performance results in the Austrian low stake system. However, time did not seem to change the fact that the messages of the data feedback were not analysed in detail. The schools’ scores in the assessments were checked to see if they were within (or above) the expectancy range (which is calculated according to social characteristics). In the positive case, no further analysis of information details and no development measures were considered necessary in most schools. The only exception was to be found in an academic secondary school. In view of comparatively low school climate figures the school leader launched an improvement project. A ‘rationalisation’ of teaching improvement through better evidence, as claimed by the evidence-​based model, was scarcely to be seen in the cases examined. Existing formats for in-​ school co-​ordination were also used for implementing the standard policy and seemed to suffice for the professionals interviewed. In general, the implementation of competence-​based teaching, but above all the processing of data feedback, often seemed to be delegated to individual teachers. Only in a single primary school was the head using the reform as an opportunity to call for more co-​ordination between teachers in the fourth year classes. Probably due to late data feedback but perhaps also because of the distance Austrian schools traditionally maintain in relation to parents, the process of involving stakeholders did not have much potential for implementing the performance standard reform. What are the messages for the evidence-​based governance model and its rationale for implementation? First of all, it is a favourable message for the proponents of the performance standard reform that the professionals in the schools do not complain about interferences with other current reform projects. School leaders in the schools studied who (mostly) agree to the reform more than their staff, showed little initiative for initiating and encouraging co-​ordinated development measures upon receipt of performance standards and data feedback. Rather, they seemed to categorise it as a ‘teaching innovation’ which is to be carried out by individual teachers in whose autonomous work they do not want to intervene. If (as suggested by the cases) the implementation of this policy reform works in the (traditional) way of setting normative expectations rather than through the more modern mechanism of stimulating development through feedback, the advocates of evidence-​based governance will be disappointed. Standard testing and data feedback seem to have less impact on the development of classroom teaching than impending tests and preparation for them. However, this result is not surprising, since, for example, Ehren et al. (2015) found analogous results for school inspections in six European countries and this may be explained by neo-​ institutionalist arguments. Reasonably good and developmentally active schools

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90  Herbert Altrichter will act proactively in challenging situations and prepare for being tested. Then, the results will usually include no surprises for them and do not trigger systematic development. ‘Failing schools’ will have difficulties with goal-​oriented development before being tested. They cannot easily switch into a development mode after test results have been made available to them. Rather, productive development is even more unlikely, because unfavourable data feedback has increased the pressure. In situations of high pressure it is more likely that a school will turn to quick-​fix solutions, rather than engaging in sober data analysis and systematic planning of improvement strategies. This seems to bring us back to the evidence-​ based policy’s stance towards teacher professionalism and school capacities.

Summary and outlook This chapter aimed to portray and analyse recent governance reforms in the school systems of Austria and the German Bundesländer. The argument points to different reform phases with changing attention foci. In the course of these phases new actors appear on the stage of school governance, while some existing actors are transformed in terms of their rights and responsibilities. It is also shown that the co-​ordination principles which characterise the state of governance are slowly transformed. While co-​ordination by state input regulation and by professional self-​regulation of teachers is indicative of early stages of development, co-​ordination by external output control, by internal management and by competition become more and more important in subsequent phases. These governance reforms culminated in the determined implementation of evidence-​based policies after the PISA shock. Some of their intrinsic tensions, such as their ambiguous stance towards teacher professionalism and towards the role of values in decision making may have contributed to increasing criticism of evidence-​based approaches. However, no well-​developed alternative paradigm has succeeded in attracting equal attention within educational politics. The chapter turned to the question: Are evidence-​based policies stimulating the processes they purport to do? Drawing on the data of longitudinal case studies, some hypotheses about adoption processes by schools are proposed. By setting expectations and alignment through support these reforms seem to have some impact on classroom teaching and learning. However, the results come in varying quality, from superficial adaptations to considerate inclusion of more complex competencies which are likely to enhance student experiences. The processes of involving stakeholders, alignment by in-​school co-​ordination and stimulating by data feedback do not seem to have much impact on teaching development in the schools studied. The last finding particularly calls one of the basic tenets of evidence-​based development into question. German-​speaking education systems have seen a quick succession of reforms –​ unprecedented since the reconstruction phase after World War II (Fend, 2006b) –​ with profound implications for system governance. In parallel, governance studies in education, both macro policy analyses of governance changes and research on the micro-​processes, conditions and effects of these reforms, have recently

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Evidence-based governance models 91 thrived in German educational research. The main book series on this topic has yielded 45 volumes during the last decade, including conceptual discussions (Kussau and Brüsemeister, 2007; Rürup and Bormann, 2013), historical analyses of school reforms (Imlig, Lehmann and Manz, 2018), empirical studies of contemporary governance issues such as assessment reforms (Holmeier, Maag Merki and Hirt, 2017), whole-​day schooling (Bloße, 2019) and school closure and restructuring (Kann, 2017). PhD theses on governance issues are increasingly written at German-​speaking universities, and a major publisher has announced its intention to produce a scholarly journal. The chapter aimed to give initial insights in both governance reforms and the reasoning about them. Its implicit argument is that, for understanding governance changes, policy analyses on the macro-​level have to be complemented by more detailed analyses of micro-​structure of governance on different levels. In this regard, the analysis of teachers’ and schools’ responses to the Austrian performance standard policy in the last section of this paper may be understood as a high-​ resolution image of the co-​ordination constellations of phase 3.

Notes 1 Initial capital letters are used to refer to the processes in the conceptual model (Figure 5.1). 2 Quotations from German sources have been translated by the author.

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Evidence-based governance models 95 Schimank, U. (2007). Die Governance-​Perspektive: Analytisches Potenzial und anstehende konzeptionelle Fragen. In:  Altrichter, H., Brüsemeister, T. & Wissinger, J. (eds.) Educational Governance. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 231–​260. Schratz, M. & Hartmann, M. (2009). Schulautonomie in Österreich: Bilanz und Perspektiven für eine eigenverantwortliche Schule. In:  Specht, W. (eds.) Nationaler Bildungsbericht Österreich 2009. Band 2. Graz: Leykam, pp. 323–​340. SchUG-​Novelle (2008). Vorblatt und Erläuterungen zum BGBl. I  Nr. 117/​2008. [Online] Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes. www.ris.bka.gv.at/​Dokumente/​Begut/​BEGUT_​ COO_​2026_​100_​2_​434752/​COO_​2026_​100_​2_​434762.html [Accessed 14/​11/​16]. Scott, W.R. (2001). Institutions and organizations. London: Sage. Sertl, M. (1993). Kurze Geschichte der Autonomiediskussion in Österreich. In: Posch, P. & Altrichter, H. (eds.) Schulautonomie in Österreich. Wien: BMUK, pp. 88–​124. Spillane, J.P. (2012). Data in practice:  Conceptualizing data-​based decision-​making phenomena. American Journal of Education, 118(2), 113–​141. Statistik Austria (2018). Schulen im Schuljahr 2016/​17 nach dem Schulerhalter. [Online] www.statistik.at/​web_​de/​statistiken/​menschen_​und_​gesellschaft/​bildung_​und_​kultur/​ formales_​bildungswesen/​schulen_​schulbesuch/​index.html [Accessed 23/​11/​18]. Steffens, U. & Bargel, T. (eds.) (2016). Schulqualität  –​ Bilanz und Perspektiven. Münster: Waxmann. Steffens, U. & Haenisch, H. (forthcoming). Das Schulprogramm als Instrument der Schulentwicklung  –​Konzeptionelle Grundlagen und Gelingensbedingungen. In: Steffens, U. & Posch, P. (eds.) Lehrerprofessionalität und Schulqualität –​ Grundlagen der Qualität von Schule 4. Münster: Waxmann. Tillmann, K.-​J., Dedering, K., Kneuper, D., Kuhlmann, C. & Nessel, I. (2008). PISA als Bildungspolitisches Ereignis. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Visscher, A.J. & Coe, R. (2002). School Improvement Through Performance Feedback. London: Routledge. Wacker, A. (2008). Bildungsstandards als Steuerungselemente der Bildungsplanung. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Windzio, M., Sackmann, R. & Martens, K. (2005). Types of Governance in Education  –​ A Quantitative Analysis. TranState Working Papers No.25, Bremen, University. [Online] Available from www.econstor.eu/​bitstream/​10419/​28275/​1/​501321926.PDF [Accessed 13/​11/​18]. Wößmann, L. (2007). Letzte Chance für Gute Schulen. München: Zabert-​Sandmann. Wrase, M. & Helbig, M. (2016). Das missachtete Verfassungsgebot  –​Wie das Sonderungsverbot nach Art. 7 IV 3 GG unterlaufen wird. Neue Zeitschrift für Verwaltungsrecht, 35(22), 1591–​1598. Zuber, J. (2018). Einstellungsbildung als Gelingensbedingung für die Umsetzung einer Bildungsstandardpolitik? In:  Zuber, J., Altrichter, H. & Heinrich, M. (eds.) Bildungsstandards Zwischen Politik und Schulischem Alltag. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 105–​127.

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Part II

Stakeholders and ‘responsibilisation’

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6  Technologies in rational self-​management Interventions in the ‘responsibilisation’ of school governors Andrew Wilkins Introduction Since 2010, the education system in England has been reformed to help bring about significant changes to the way schools are governed. A key driver of these reforms has been the academies programme –​a flagship policy of Blair’s Labour government in 2000 that was later adopted and developed by the coalition government (a co-​operation between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties) in 2010. Like many education reforms that have been rolled out by national and federal governments across the globe, the academies programme aims to facilitate school autonomy and devolved management through removing the necessity for traditional structures of government, specifically local government involvement in premises management, human-​resource management, funding allocation and support services. Similar trends in education management reform can be traced to South Africa (Bush and Heystek, 2003), Australia (Gobby, 2013), New Zealand (Jacobs, 2000) and the United States (Keddie, 2016), albeit the speed and scale of these reforms varies between countries due to the sensitivity of their geographical divisions of administrative–​political rule and their historical path as nation states bound to specific cultural and political ideals. In the United States, for example, school autonomy and devolved management as envisioned through the charter school movement has given way to rampant privatisation and commodification of public education in which private companies receive government subsidies to run schools on a for-​profit basis (Keddie, 2016). In contrast, schools in England run by businesses, universities and charities are permitted to run publicly-​funded schools only as private limited companies on a non-​profit basis which means that any surplus or ‘profit’ is returned to the school budget rather than paid as dividends to shareholders (Wilkins, 2016). A driving philosophy of the academies programme in England since 2010 has been to ‘create a school system which is more effectively self-​improving’ (DfE, 2010, p. 73) and where schools ‘operate in strong, resilient structures that work to drive up standards’ (DfE, 2016, p. 16), primarily through shared management structures and improved economies of scale enabled through school clusters, networks and chains. To support this vision of a self-​improving schools system, the legal framework underpinning the academies programme makes it possible

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100  Andrew Wilkins for schools to take control of their finances, curriculum, admissions policy (subject to the admissions code), and conditions of employment, among other strategic-​management priorities. But the academies programme entails more than a legal or technical redefinition of schools. Organisationally and culturally, the process of converting to an academy can mean displacing or appropriating certain structures and practices to make way for new forms of alternative development that are not always consistent with, and in some cases undermine, democratic principles of stakeholder governance (Wilkins, 2017; 2019) –​a model of school governance ‘designed to ensure representation of key stakeholders’ (DfES, 2005, p. 7) through a focus on ‘community cohesion’ (Education and Inspections Act, 2006: Part 3, Section 38). The dramatic shift from a stakeholder model of school governance to a skills-​ based model of governance (Wilkins, 2016; Young, 2016) is both a condition and consequence of the reforms. As more schools operate as academies with wide discretion over finances, purchasing and staff pay and conditions, the external pressure on schools to reconstitute and depoliticise their governing bodies (with appointments subject to skills and competency assessments) has been overwhelmingly successful in diminishing the agonistic character of school governance with its focus on proportional representation and community participation. In some cases, local governing bodies have been removed completely to make way for Multi-​Academy Trusts in which a single board of trustees are responsible for running multiple schools: The growth of MATs will improve the quality of governance –​meaning that the best governing boards will take responsibility for more schools. As fewer, more highly skilled boards take more strategic oversight of the trust’s schools, MAT boards will increasingly use professionals to hold individual school-​ level heads to account for educational standards and the professional management of the school. (DfE, 2016, p. 50) As Rayner, Courtney and Gunter (2018, p. 143) argue, the academies programme is a form of ‘system redesign’ that not only challenges the role of local democratic accountability as a framing for governance legitimacy, but also introduces and celebrates new cultures of professionalism, managerialism and leadership against which local government bureaucracy is increasingly judged to be too political, unresponsive or inefficient. According to the coalition government in 2010, the academies programme helps to facilitate innovation and organisational responsiveness through alleviating the need for ‘automatic compliance’ (DfE, 2010, p. 13) and ‘the approach of trying to control improvement from the centre’ (DfE, 2010, p. 73). Yet, as this chapter will show, the realities of ‘academisation’ as experienced by many school governors is rational self-​management in the shadow of the state. The academies programme can be accurately described as an expression of ‘decentralised centralism’ (Karlsen, 2000, p. 525) since it shifts power away from traditional structures of government and disperses it outwards and downwards

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Technologies in rational self-management 101 towards schools and communities, but then compels those same schools and communities to adhere rigorously to centrally-​mandated rules, regulations and laws. Rational self-​management, therefore, is not something organisations and actors enter into spontaneously or independently. Rather, organisations and actors are trained and enjoined by way of structural incentives, ethical injunctions and rule setting/​enforcement imposed by different configurations and species of state (and non-​state) intervention. Foucault (1982, p. 790) characterised ‘government’ as ‘modes of action, more or less considered or calculated, which were destined to act upon the possibilities of action of other people’. The suggestion here, among others, is that the exercise of state power is not strictly coercive nor is it confined to the actions of specific organisations and agents or traceable to discrete ‘events’, ‘structures’ and ‘cultures’. Rather, the exercise of modern state power, according to Foucault (1997, p. 82), functions through ‘techniques and procedures for directing human behaviour’ which ‘seek to purport ‘truths’ about who we are or what we should be’ (McKee, 2009, p. 468). Following this line of argument, this chapter explores the ways in which government and para-​government organisations and actors intervene to shape the conduct of school governors through perfecting the design of technologies of rational self-​management. These technologies, as evidenced and discussed in the sections that follow, function at three interrelated levels. On one level, they seek to carve out professional spaces that limit participation to those school governors who can satisfy narrowly bounded judgements about ‘educational excellence’ and ‘good governance’ and who can consolidate and manage the ever-​deepening marketisation of education and its consequences. On another level and viewed from a different perspective, these technologies function to produce school governors that are more knowable and predictable from the perspective of external authorities. Technologies of rational self-​management are pre-​emptive tools designed to mitigate the worst excesses of unregulated markets and moral hazard. Finally, these technologies establish a convergence of interest between political authorities and the strategies of school governors, in effect strengthening relations of accountability between schools and central government. Technologies of rational self-​management therefore constitute ‘key fidelity techniques in new strategies of government’ (Rose, 1999, p. 152). In what follows, I  examine the increasingly technical and bureaucratic role of school governors as custodians of public accountability. Specifically, I outline the criteria and evidentiary requirements against which persons are judged to be effective school governors, the multitude of responsibilities to which school governors are bound as a condition of their role, and the variety of evaluation tools and bodies of expert knowledge through which school governors are guided to carry out their role and make their actions defensible. In the final section, I pull together these observations and arguments to reflect on some of the contradictions of school governance, namely a movement that liberates school governors from certain externalities and accountability infrastructures, specifically those linked to local government structures, while simultaneously implicating them in new forms of institutional reflexivity that contribute to the realisation of certain policy aims,

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102  Andrew Wilkins key among them being ‘a general regulation of society by the market’ (Foucault, 2008, p. 145).

The academies revolution Alongside Chile, the US and Sweden, England has long been considered one of the leading countries in market education experimentation (Ginsberg et al., 2010; Lubienski, 2013; Lundahl, et al., 2013; Wilkins, 2016). For almost 40 years, successive governments in England have introduced a system of incentives and punishments designed to compel schools, teachers and parents to make decisions about the welfare and education of children on the basis of explicit economic models which include, but are not limited to, a narrow, rational, instrumental focus on data and datatification (Bradbury and Roberts-​Holmes, 2017; Williamson, 2017), performance efficiency and performativity (Ball, 2003; Perryman, 2006). Like many education systems around the globe, parents in England are encouraged to navigate the education system as consumers by using league table results and performance indicators as framings for their school choice while schools, as transparent, publicly accountable organisations, are expected to organise themselves in response to such demands through improved systems of internal monitoring, self-​evaluation and impression management (Wilkins, 2012). The application of economic theories to previously non-​economic domains and practices are nowhere more evident or widespread than in the field of national and global education policy where market techniques operate as guiding principles for education governance (see Gobby, Keddie and Blackmore, 2017; Grimaldi and Serpieri, 2014; Hangartner and Svaton, 2013; Ozga, 2009; Ranson, 2010). The formation of the coalition government in England in 2010 not only signalled a continuation of these trends in market education experimentation but represented something far more seismic in terms of scale and reach. Up until 2010 the bulk of publicly funded schools in England were governed under the authority of local government with only a handful of schools operating as ‘state-​funded independent schools’ or academies. Introduced by Blair’s Labour government in 2000, the academies programme made it possible for interested charities and private companies to sponsor publicly funded schools pursuant to a contract with the Secretary of State. Between 1997 and 2010 the Labour government under Blair and Brown authorised the opening of 203 academies on the condition that these were under-​performing schools that would benefit from a different management model. Not dissimilar to the legal setup of City Technology Colleges (CTCs) introduced under the terms of the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Local Management of Schools, the academy model entails transferring non-​executive powers to a separate legal entity known as an academy trust made up of a board of trustees who act as principal manager of the school’s assets. In 2010, the formation of the coalition government brought new impetus to these reforms with the introduction of the Academies Act 2010 which made it possible for all ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools (and, for the first time, primary and special schools) to apply to the DfE to convert to academy status. Statistics released

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Technologies in rational self-management 103 by the DfE (2018) indicate that at the time of writing there are 7,317 open academies representing 30 percent of the total number of primary, secondary, special and alternative provision schools in England. The reasons for these conversions vary, but key motivating factors include a desire to change the school leadership, to reconstitute the school governing body and to gain control over budget spending and improve economies of scale through increased efficiency savings (DfE, 2017). In addition, many schools wishing to remain local-​government-​controlled have converted to academy status on the advice of their local government. Due to cuts to local government spending and the restructuring and outsourcing of traded services to social enterprises, businesses and community organisations, many schools can no longer rely on local government to take responsibility for their back-​office functions, support services and management overheads. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, schools in such circumstances typically form their own MAT by way of pooling resources, jointly buying-​in services, sharing expertise, and building collaboration and shared vision through cross-​school committees (Wilkins, 2016), sometimes through co-​operative structures and practices (Davidge, Facer and Schostak, 2015). The outsourcing of traditional state functions to citizens and communities is not unique to school governance and should be read as part of a wider economic and political movement in many advanced liberal countries seeking to redefine the role of the state as ‘moderator and activator’ (Rosol, 2012, p. 241). Grek (2013, p. 696) usefully describes these developments as soft forms of governing that operate through ‘attraction’, in other words by ‘drawing people in to take part in processes of mediation, brokering and ‘translation’, and embedding self-​governance and steering at a distance through these processes and relations’.

Implications for school governance Academies typically retain both a board of trustees and a school governing body. However, the role of school governors varies according to the scheme of delegation devised by the board of trustees. For example, in a ‘converter academy’, sometimes called a stand-​alone academy, the difference between the school governing body and the board of trustees is less apparent as members of the board of trustees also act as school governors and vice versa. Converter academies are schools which have converted to academy status by choice, usually on the basis that they are academically high-​performing schools that wish to acquire greater control over their finances and non-​executive powers to enter into contracts and employ staff. In contrast, ‘sponsored academies’ are previously local government-​run schools that have been deemed by the national inspectorate, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), to be eligible for takeover by a sponsor such as a business, university, other school, faith group or voluntary group. In circumstances where a school is forcibly removed from local government control to become a sponsored academy within a chain of schools managed by a large foundation called a MAT, the school is typically stripped of its assets and any legal entitlement to self-​determination (NCTL, 2014). The decision-​making powers of

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104  Andrew Wilkins school governors –​assuming the MAT wishes to retain their voluntary services after the takeover  –​diminishes significantly in these contexts as non-​executive powers are concentrated among the board of trustees. In the interests of efficiency and economies of scale, the MAT anchors its schools to a prescriptive command and control governance setup that requires them to adhere to standard operational procedures in terms of teaching, learning and assessment (Stewart, 2016). A government survey of 326 Multi-​Academy Trusts in 2017 revealed that just 7 percent of academies in trusts of more than 11 schools have full control over their teaching and learning (DfE, 2017). In most cases, however, schools operating within a MAT are typically comprised of two or three academies, sometimes called a soft federation or ‘collaborative trust’, in which schools retain their own governing body while strategic-​management priorities and decision-​making powers are dispersed equitably through the creation of joint, cross-​school committees (Salokangas and Chapman, 2014). The impact of these education reforms is various from the perspective of macro-​and micro-​level operations and functions. From a macro-​level perspective, school funding is no longer funnelled through local government to be distributed to schools but instead is channelled directly to the school and its board of trustees. Moreover, the hollowing out of local government has produced a regulation gap or ‘missing middle’ (Hill, 2012) coupled with growing public concern over a democratic deficit (Unison, 2010). From a micro-​level perspective, namely at the level of the school, the implications of ‘academisation’ suggest fundamental changes to the way schools organise themselves in terms of making a pragmatic adjustment to the conditions and requirements of devolved management or rational self-​ management. These changes –​what Hatcher (2006, p. 599) describes as a process of ‘re-​agenting’ –​include increased ‘professionalisation’ of the school governing body through a focus on expert administration, audit rituals and performance evaluation practised by suitably qualified, skilled, experienced individuals (Wilkins, 2016). Increasingly, school governors face huge pressures to ‘modernise’ their practices in response to calls for ‘professional governance to move beyond the current ‘amateurish’ approach to overseeing schools’ (Wilshaw quoted in Cross, 2014) and for ‘more business people coming forward to become governors’ (Nash quoted in GOV.UK, 2013; also see Burns, 2018), preferably people with the ‘right skills’ (Morgan quoted in GOV.UK, 2015), and a focus on ‘quality’ rather than ‘democratic accountability’ (Graham Stuart, quoted in Stuart, 2014).

Expert administration In 2010, the Ministerial Working Group on School Governance (DCSF, 2010, p. 3) put forward the ‘requirement that all governing bodies have the necessary skills to carry out their tasks’ and ‘follow a defined set of principles for good governance’. Building on these recommendations, in 2012 the coalition government (DfE, 2012) produced a 200-​page document specifying the role and responsibilities of school governors, this time emphasising the strategic role of school governors in overseeing the educational and financial performance of the school. Later, in 2013,

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Technologies in rational self-management 105 the DfE (2013, p. 6) further characterised the role and responsibilities of school governors as ‘[e]‌nsuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction’, ‘[h]olding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils’ and ‘[o]verseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent’. Ofsted (2011, p. 4) provides a similar characterisation of the role by designating the importance of school governors to ‘the school’s self-​ evaluation’ and ‘shaping its strategic direction’. While the role of school governance in England has remained consistent in lots of ways, with a core emphasis on having a group of elected and appointed volunteers attest to the ‘quality’ of education provision on behalf of the community it serves (see Sallis, 1988), the new demands placed on school governors have challenged the feasibility of maintaining a stakeholder model of school governance (Wilkins, 2016). A further design and implication of this narrowing  –​or ‘professionalisation’ (Wilkins, 2016) –​of the role is that the actions and decisions of school governors can be judged against specific criteria and evidentiary demands. This has made school governors more amenable to external scrutiny and the requirements of various accountability measures, from ‘corporate/​contract accountability’ to ‘performance accountability’ and ‘consumer accountability’ (Ranson, 2010, pp. 467–​ 473). These accountability measures are reflected in the various responsibilities to which school governors are bound as custodians of public accountability. Their responsibilities include succession and strategic planning, pupil behaviour and attendance monitoring, admissions arrangements, risk assessment, school-​to-​ school brokering and generating business links and sponsorship, target setting, budget spending, performance evaluation and self-​evaluation, skills audit, compliance checking, digital evaluation tools to monitor performance and foster competition, premises management, and purchasing goods and services through competitive tendering, among other responsibilities (see Wilkins, 2016). Yet despite their legal status as academies and administratively self-​governing entities, schools are also required to comply with certain laws and guidance on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions as well as adhere to rules for charity status as companies limited by guarantee (academy proprietors constitute exempt charities, for example). Moreover, school governors must provide the ‘Memorandum’ or ‘Articles of Association’ outlining the rules for their own internal regulation and management to the DfE and anyone who requests it under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. They must also provide statutory accounts that include an income and expenditure account, a statement of financial activities and a balance sheet. In this sense, the ‘responsibilisation’ of school governors as agents of effective governance is provisionally secured through the alignment of freedom and obligation, where the freedom to govern is morally and ethically bound up with obligations to compliance and evaluation. As Peeters (2013, p. 585) argues, ‘government does not make citizens ‘responsible’, in the sense that the state steps back and lets citizens deal with societal problems themselves, but rather aims to obligate citizens, to make them ‘responsible’’. A consequence of these wide-​ranging responsibilities is that school governing bodies are compelled to engage with new forms of self-​evaluation and increase

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106  Andrew Wilkins the stock of their technical-​administrative knowledge to cope with the ever-​ growing demands for improved ‘quality of school governance’ (DfE, 2016, p. 50). Increasingly school governors are making use of new digital evaluation tools called ‘data dashboards’, specifically the DfE School Comparison Tool and Analyse School Performance (ASP), to meet ever-​growing demands for improved transparency, accountability and efficiency. School governors use these digital evaluation tools not only to improve their performance monitoring as overseers and appraisers of the educational and financial performance of the school, but to enhance the transparency of the internal operation of the school to others and to make themselves accountable as persons effective in this role. Rhodes (1996, p. 655) has argued that the transformation of the public sector involves ‘less government’ (or less rowing) but ‘more governance’ (or more steering)’. The changing role and responsibilities of school governors is a good illustration of this transformation  –​or what Swyngedouw (2005, p.  1992) calls ‘governance-​beyond-​the-​state’. Education policies that promote ‘state retreat’ naturally give way to wider concerns about ‘governance failure’ and the desire for improved performance management and ‘risk-​based regulation’ (Hutter, 2005). Governance failure can be characterised in a number of ways but primarily it refers to structures or processes that impede the efficiency and effectiveness of the internal operation of an organisation. In the case of school governance, governance failure occurs when there is improper and ineffective internal monitoring of the school’s financial and educational performance or where there is evidence of statutory non-​compliance, lack of challenge and support to school leaders, related party transactions and nominated supplier corruption, and financial mismanagement or scandal (see Boffey, 2013; Mansell, 2016; Perraudin, 2017). Governance-​beyond-​the-​state therefore aims to create a system of rules, regulations and laws designed to compel certain ‘professional’ or moral behaviours that sustain practices of ‘good governance’ among different actors and organisations in the absence of direct government intervention. The suggestion here is that, despite new trends in school governance that emphasise school autonomy, devolved management and self-​management, the state is no less active in ‘setting rules and establishing an enforcement mechanism designed to control the operation of the system’s constituent institutions, instruments and markets’ (Spotton, 1999, p. 971; also see Levi-​Faur, 2005). The emphasis on schools slimming down their governing bodies, professionalising existing school governors through suitable induction and training and appointing only suitably qualified, skilled school governors, preferably those from the business and financial sectors, has been a key driver of policy rhetoric and policy recommendations following the Academies Act 2010. In their 2011 report, Carmichael and Wild (2011, p. 13) recommended that government should actively recruit governors from the business sector and stressed that ‘governors should be appointed on the breadth of skills and experience they would bring’. Echoing this, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools Lord Nash said: ‘Running a school is in many ways like running a business, so we need more business people coming forward to become governors’ (Nash quoted

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Technologies in rational self-management 107 in GOV.UK, 2013). From this perspective, a vital responsibility of school governors is the smooth bureaucratic management of schools as ‘high-​reliability’ organisations or businesses. More recently the then Education Secretary Nicky Morgan remarked: What that doesn’t necessarily mean is a stakeholder model of school governance, and I  should be clear now that I  intend to look further into how we can move away from that model over this Parliament –​because what makes your contribution so important isn’t the particular group you represent, it’s the skills, expertise and wisdom you bring to the running of a school. (GOV.UK, 2015) The direction of travel outlined above suggests that a stakeholder model of school governance envisioned by previous governments (see DfES, 2005) has been displaced or undermined in favour of new arrangements to ‘professionalise’ or ‘modernise’ school governing bodies in order to enhance expert administration and quality control of the internal operation of schools in line with the requirements of external regulators and funders. However, the vulnerabilities and insecurities attached to micro-​systems of devolvement management does not necessarily mean that proportional representation on governing bodies or a focus on community involvement and civic training as a focus governance is no longer feasible among schools. While the scope of school governance has certainly changed dramatically under reforms to make it more specialised and juridified, there is evidence in England of schools working through co-​operative means and structures to ‘provide a real alternative to state, private and corporate sponsorship of competition as the only approach to the organisation of the mainstream school system’ (Davidge, Facer and Schostak, 2015, p.  61). In what follows I  reflect on how the changing responsibilities of school governors already discussed help to illuminate the contradictory logic at the heart of school governance.

The contraction and expansion of state power Since 2010, the importance of school governance to education in England has steadily increased as large numbers of schools choose to become academies or, due to poor academic performance, are deemed eligible for takeover by a new management structure operated by large academy trust or MAT. The insecurities and risks attached to these reforms mean that government and non-​government actors and organisations, from secretaries of state for education and governance consultants to business leaders and national leaders of governance, have intervened as a matter of priority or opportunity to influence the way schools govern themselves, primarily through technologies of rational self-​management. Rational self-​management (broadly conceived) is a condition for ‘good governance’ since it aims to foster the adaptive capacities of subjects to navigate and calculate new risk environments as administratively self-​governing management groups or leadership teams. At the same time, rational self-​management tends to

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108  Andrew Wilkins cohere around poles of efficient/​inefficient, professional/​amateur, active/​passive –​ what Foucault (2000, p.  326) calls ‘dividing practices’. Technologies of rational self-​management rely on these dividing practices to compel certain behaviours and attitudes defined as acceptable or ‘normal’, preferably those that are amenable to audit and ‘modes of objectification’ (Foucault, 2000, p. 326). These modes of objectification then make it possible for the self to be externally assessed, sorted and ranked according to which behaviour is performed, thus providing unique opportunities for external authorities, in this case government and para-​ government organisations, to assess and guide how public organisations govern themselves  –​what Cooper (1998, p.  12) calls ‘governing at a distance’. Rational self-​management, therefore, can be considered both a technology of government and a technology of the self since it ‘implicates citizens as co-​operators of political will formation’ (Peeters, 2013, p. 589). These modes of intervention or ‘governance-​beyond-​the-​state’ (Swyngedouw, 2005, p. 1992) are designed to establish vital albeit ‘fragile relays’ (Rose, 1999, p. 50) that help to connect the formally autonomous operations of school governors with the political will of the government, in effect opening up spaces for ‘linking political objectives and personal conduct’ (Rose, 1999, p. 149). To fully understand the responsibilities of school governors, therefore, means looking beyond what government mandates school governors to do and instead conceiving responsibility as a spectrum or modality that is negotiated at the intersection of national government policy imperatives and locally situated dilemmas and normative commitments. A key priority of government and non-​government organisations and actors is to develop strategies and tools for ‘coping with complexity’ (Jessop, 2003, p. 3). Audit cultures (Power, 1997), performativity regimes (Ball, 2003) and other related techniques of government, namely inspection, managerial deference and high-​ stakes testing, are central to such complex management, albeit requiring local actors like school governors to implement them. Superficially and provisionally, these technologies of rational self-​management help to produce schools that are amenable to capture from meta-​analyses and systems and relations of ‘commensurability, equivalence and comparative performance’ (Lingard, Martino and Rezai-​Rashti, 2016, p.  542). The idea here is that all schools, regardless of their specific social arrangements and value structures, can be subject to like-​for-​like comparisons using ‘impersonal market reasoning’ (Dean, 2015, p. 139) to determine their transparency, accountability and efficiency. The development of education policies like school autonomy and devolved management, epitomised by the academies programme, has meant that schools to varying degrees have been both liberated from and ensnared by different hierarchies of knowledge, regulatory frameworks and modes of governance. A  key consequence of this shift towards greater school autonomy and devolved management has been what Peck (2010, p. 23) calls ‘an explosion of ‘market conforming’ regulatory incursions’. This is especially evident among the work performed by school governors whose primary responsibilities now include maintaining the financial integrity of the school as a competitive business, providing a strategic

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Technologies in rational self-management 109 role in future-​proofing the school against multitudinous risks and governance failure, and making the internal operation of the school amenable to scrutiny and appraisal by external regulators. From this perspective, school governance can be regarded as a self-​contradictory movement that flits between modulated social adjustment based on a pragmatic acceptance of state authority and creative appeals to spontaneous, intuitive self-​organisation.

References Ball, S.J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–​228. Boffey, D. (2013). Academy chain under fire following revelation of payments made to bosses. The Guardian, 20 July. www.theguardian.com/​education/​2013/​jul/​20/​education-​ school-​academies-​michael-​gove [Accessed 09/​08/​18]. Bradbury, A. & Roberts-​Holmes, G. (2017). The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education. Routledge: London and New York. Burns, J. (2018). Business Leaders Urged to Help Run Schools. 8 June. www.bbc.co.uk/​ news/​uk-​politics-​44413896 [Accessed 06/​08/​18]. Bush, T. & Heystek, J. (2003). School governance in the new South Africa. Compare:  A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 33(2), 127–​138. Carmichael, N. & Wild, E. (2011). Who Governs the Governors? London: Wild Search. Cooper, D. (1998). Governing Out of Order:  Space, Law and the Politics of Belonging. London: Rivers Oram Press. Cross, L. (2014). Effective governing bodies are not just made up of lawyers and accountants. Times Education Supplement (TES), 14 July. http://​news.tes.co.uk/​b/​opinion/​2014/​07/​ 14/​39-​effective-​governing-​bodies-​are-​not-​just-​made-​up-​of-​lawyers-​and-​accountants-​ 39.aspx [Accessed 25/​04/​18]. Davidge, G., Facer, K. & Schostak, J. (2015). Co-​ operatives, democracy and education: A critical reflection. In: T. Woodin (ed.) Co-​operation, Learning and Co-​operative values: Contemporary Issues in Education. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 57–​73. Dean, J. (2015). Volunteering, the market, and neoliberalism. People, Place and Policy, 9(2), 139–​148. Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) (2010). A report from the Ministerial Working Group on School Governance. The 21st Century School: Implications and Challenges for Governing Bodies. London: HMSO. Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2005). Higher Standards, Better Schools for All. London: HMSO. Department for Education (DfE) (2010). The Importance of Teaching. London:  Crown Copyright. Department for Education (DfE) (2012). The Governors’ Guide to the Law. London: Crown Copyright. Department for Education (DfE) (2013). Governors’ Handbook. London: Crown Copyright. Department for Education (DfE) (2016). Educational Excellence Everywhere. London: Crown Copyright. Department for Education (DfE) (2017). Academy trust survey 2017:  A research report. Crown Copyright. https://​assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/​government/​uploads/​ system/ ​ uploads/ ​ attachment_ ​ d ata/ ​ f ile/ ​ 6 29779/ ​ Academy_ ​ Trust_ ​ Survey_ ​ 2 017.pdf [Accessed 26/​07/​18].

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110  Andrew Wilkins Department for Education (DfE) (2018). Open Academies and Academy Projects in Development. Last updated 17 May 2018. www.gov.uk/​government/​publications/​open-​ academies-​and-​academy-​projects-​in-​development [Accessed 26/​07/​18]. Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–​795. Foucault, M. (1997). Ethics:  Subjectivity and Truth. Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–​1984. Vol. 1, New York: New Press. Foucault, M. (2000). Power. Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–​1984. Hurley, R. & Faubion, J.D. (Trans.) Vol. 3, New York Press: New York. Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics:  Lectures at the Collége de Franc, 1978–​79. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Ginsberg, M., Espinoza, O. Popa, S., Terano, M. (2010). Privatisation, domestic marketisation and international commercialisation of higher education: Vulnerabilities and opportunities for Chile and Romania within the framework of WTO/​GATS. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1(3), 413–​445. Gobby, B. (2013). Principal self-​government and subjectification: The exercise of principal autonomy in the Western Australian Independent Public Schools programme. Critical Studies in Education, 54(3): 273–​285. Gobby, B., Keedie, A. & Blackmore, J. (2017). Professionalism and competing responsibilities: Moderating competitive performativity in school autonomy reform. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 50(3) 159–​173. GOV.UK (2013). Speech Delivered at the Independent Academies Association (IAA) National Conference by Lord Nash, 8 July. www.gov.uk/​government/​speeches/​lord-​ nash- ​speaks- ​to-​ t he-​ independent-​ a cademies-​ association-​i aa-​national-​conference [Accessed 25/​04/​18]. GOV.UK (2015). Nicky Morgan speaks about the importance of school governance, 27 June. Retrieved from: www.gov.uk/​government/​speeches/​nicky-​morgan-​speaks-​about-​ the-​importance-​of-​school-​governance [Accessed 25/​04/​18]. Grek, S. (2013). Expert moves: International comparative testing and the rise of expertocracy. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 695–​709. Grimaldi, E. & Serpieri, R. (2014). Italian education beyond hierarchy: Governance, evaluation and headship. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 42(4S), 119–​138. Hangartner, J. & Svaton, C.J. (2013). From autonomy to quality management: NPM impacts on school governance in Switzerland. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 45(4), 354–​369. Hatcher, R. (2006). Privatisation and sponsorship: The re-​agenting of the school system in England. Journal of Education Policy, 21(5), 599–​619. Hill, R. (2012). The Missing Middle: The Case for School Commissioners. London: RSA. Hutter, B.M. (2005). The attractions of risk-​based regulation: Accounting for the emergence of risk ideas in regulation. ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation. Discussion Paper No. 33. Available at www.lse.ac.uk/​accounting/​Assets/​CARR/​documents/​D-​P/​ Disspaper33.pdf [Accessed 25/​04/​18]. Jacobs, K. (2000). Devolved management in New Zealand schools. In: Arnott, M.A. & Raab, C.D. (eds.) The Governance of Schooling: Comparative Studies of Devolved Management. London and New York: Routledge Falmer, pp. 180–​197. Jessop, B. (2003). Governance, Governance Failure, and Meta-​Governance. Paper presented at International Seminar Polices, Governance and Innovation for Rural Areas, Universitá della Calabria, 21–​23 November. Available at www.ceses.cuni.cz/​CESES-​136-​version1-​ 3B_​Governance_​requisite_​variety_​Jessop_​2002.pdf.

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Technologies in rational self-management 111 Karlsen, G.E. (2000). Decentralized centralism: Framework for a better understanding of governance in the field of education. Journal of Education Policy, 15(50), 525–​538. Keddie, A. (2016). Maintaining the integrity of public education: A comparative analysis of school autonomy in the United States and Australia. Comparative Education Review, 60(2), 249–​270. Levi-​Faur, D. (2005). The global diffusion of regulatory capitalism. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 598(1), 12–​32. Lingard, B., Martino, W. & Rezai-​Rashti, G. (2016). Testing regimes, accountabilities and education policy:  Commensurate global and national developments. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 539–​556. Lubienski, C. (2013). Privatising form or function? Equity, outcomes and influence in American charter schools. Oxford Review of Education, 39(4), 498–​513. Lundahl, l., Arreman, I.E., Holm, A-​S. & Lundström, U. (2013). Educational marketization the Swedish way. Education Inquiry, 4(3), 497–​517. Mansell, W. (2016). Academies:  Autonomy, Accountability, Quality and Evidence (CPRT Research Survey 9). York: Cambridge Primary Review Trust. McKee, K. (2009). Post-​Foucauldian governmentality:  What does it offer critical social policy analysis? Critical Social Policy, 29(3), 465–​486. National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) (2014). Governance in multi-​ academy trusts. Crown. www.gov.uk/​government/​uploads/​system/​uploads/​attachment_​ data/​file/​458632/​governance-​in-​multi-​academy-​trusts_​Sept2015.pdf [Accessed 25/​04/​ 18]. Ofsted (2011). School Governance –​ Learning from the Best. London: Ofsted. Ozga, J. (2009). Governing education through data in England:  From regulation to self-​ evaluation. Journal of Education Policy, 24(2), 149–​163. Peck, J. (2010). Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peeters, R. (2013). Responsibilisation on government’s terms: New welfare and the governance of responsibility and solidarity. Social Policy and Society, 12(4), 583–​595. Perraudin, F. (2017). Collapsing academy trust ‘asset-​stripped its schools of millions’. The Guardian, 21 October. www.theguardian.com/​education/​2017/​oct/​21/​collapsing-​ wakefield-​city-​academies-​trust-​asset-​stripped-​schools-​millions-​say-​furious-​parents [Accessed 09/​08/​18]. Perryman, J. (2006). Panoptic performativity and school inspection regimes: Disciplinary mechanisms and life under special measures. Journal of Education Policy, 21(2), 147–​161. Power, M. (1997). The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ranson, S. (2010). Public accountability in the age of neo-​liberal governance. Journal of Education Policy, 18(5), 459–​480. Rayner, S.M., Courtney, S. & Gunter, H. (2018). Theorising systemic change:  Learning from the academisation project in England. Journal of Education Policy, 33(1), 143–​162. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996). The New Governance:  Governing without Government. Political Studies, 44(4), 652–​667. Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosol, M. (2012). Community volunteering as neoliberal strategy? Green space production in Berlin. Antipode, 44(1), 239–​257. Sallis, J. (1988). Schools, Parents and Governors:  A New Approach to Accountability. London: Routledge.

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112  Andrew Wilkins Salokangas, M. & Chapman, C. (2014). Exploring governance in two chains of academy schools:  A comparative case study. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 42(3), 372–​386. Spotton, B. (1999). Regulation and deregulation:  Financial. In:  O’Hara, P.A. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Political Economy. London: Routledge, pp. 971–​974. Stewart, W. (2016). The appeal of autonomy is all academic, now. Times Educational Supplement (TES), 6 February. www.tes.com/​news/​tes-​magazine/​tes-​magazine/​ appealautonomy-​all-​academic-​now [Accessed 25/​04/​18]. Stuart, G. (2014). A new world of school governance. BELMAS/​NGA Conference, 1 November. https://​audioboom.com/​posts/​2650269-​graham-​stuart-​mp[Accessed 25/​04/​18]. Swyngedouw, E. (2005). Governance innovation and the citizen:  The Janus face of governance-​beyond-​the-​State. Urban Studies, 42(11), 1991–​2006. Unison (2010). Academies. Defend Your School, Defend Your Community. London: Unison. Williamson, B. (2017). Big Data in Education:  The Digital Future of Learning, Policy and Practice. London: Sage. Wilkins, A. (2012). School choice and the commodification of education: A visual approach to school brochures and websites. Critical Social Policy, 32(1), 70–​87. Wilkins, A. (2016). Modernising school governance: Corporate planning and expert handling in state education. London and New York: Routledge. Wilkins, A. (2017). Rescaling the local: Multi-​academy trusts, private monopoly and statecraft in England. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49(2), 171–​185. Wilkins, A. (2019). Wither democracy? The rise of epistocracy and monopoly in school governance. In:  Riddle, S. & Apple, M. (eds.) Re-​imagining Education for Democracy. London and New York: Routledge. Young, H. (2016). Asking the ‘right’ questions: The constitution of school governing bodies as apolitical. Journal of Education Policy, 31(2), 161–​177.

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7  Education governance and the responsibility to include Teachers as a site of discursive tension Elizabeth J. Done

Introduction In social theory, the concept of governance describes changes in the relationship between state, economy and civil society which have occurred in recent decades. Throughout Europe and much of the Western world, such changes are summarised as a process of neoliberalisation. However, this concept lacks the specificity needed to analyse concomitant developments in educational inclusion and their implications for teachers. In historical terms, the political discourse of educational ‘inclusion’ or ‘inclusive education’ is a relatively recent development. It gained traction in the 1980s and 1990s, at the same time as changes connected to neoliberal restructuring accelerated. These changes included the importation of business sector practices into public sector management, the marketisation of education and the recasting of citizens as consumers of marketised public provision. The concept of governance is, therefore, an appropriate lens through which to chart developments in the field of educational inclusion. The potential drawback of this analytical strategy, however, is that it focuses attention on very recent empirical events rather than on the identification of broader historical continuities in the state’s management of the excluded and the role of education in that management. A related danger is that the novelty of governance as a technology of government (Wilkins and Olmedo, 2018) or modality of power (Ball and Junemann, 2011) is over-​emphasised. By contrast, Kröger (2009) and Peters (2007) have argued that governance signifies, respectively, a modernisation of the European social model and an extension of the European social market economy. Both are informed by ordoliberal variants of neoliberal economic theory and prescribe a distinctive relationship between economy, state, and social and educational policy, in which the market order is prioritised and the state supports its functioning while maintaining social cohesion. These variants differ in their view of the market order as intrinsically ethical or otherwise (Peters, 2007). They can be linked to divergent policy developments in educational inclusion which have involved teachers in discourses associated with marketisation and the market order, social cohesion, social and educational inclusion, and what Biebricher (2011) dubs the ‘health’ of the social body. This chapter seeks to illuminate the resultant inherent tension between the

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114  Elizabeth J. Done dominant discourses affecting teachers and educational inclusion, exploring this in relation to ordoliberal thought, as discussed by Biebricher (2011), Foucault (1982; 2007), Kröger (2009) and Peters (2007). Ball and Junemann (2011) conceptualise a key characteristic of governance as a dynamic comprising two contradictory but mutually reinforcing tendencies, one towards centralised state control and another towards decentralisation. Recent political initiatives such as the participation of multiple stakeholders in educational inclusion policy formation imply decentralisation, while legislation affecting all teachers qualifies as a form of centralisation. A  key argument presented in the chapter is that the decentralising and purportedly democratising aspect of governance is a ‘symbolic politics’ and a form of state control that relies heavily on responsibilisation. For teachers, this aspect of governance implies a tension between the state-​imposed discourse of performance management and public accountability, and their responsibilisation which ostensibly transfers and diminishes the power of the state. For those who are to be included, inclusion may be little more than participation in accountability practices linked to national economic objectives. The desegregation and marketisation, or ‘quasi’ marketisation (Hall, Gunter and Bragg, 2013) of education has resulted in a proliferation of the discourses directed towards, and intended to organise and manage, teachers and schools. As Hall et al. (2013, p. 173) argue, teachers must negotiate state interventions designed to ‘re-​ model’ their professional identities. They confront a complex array of discourses, many of which derive from business management theory and focus on performance management. Governance relies on the capacity of dominant discourses to effect such re-​modelling and responsibilisation is integral to such identity work (Foucault, 1982). The responsibilisation of individual teachers works to obscure wider issues of inadequate state expenditure to support inclusion and insufficient economic investment in teachers (Done and Murphy, 2018). Relatedly, workforce reform proposed in educational inclusion policy discursively constructs inclusion as simply a matter of raising teacher confidence through training to enable their early identification of pupil needs and suitable ameliorative interventions (DfE, 2014). Analysing educational inclusion through the lens of ordoliberal thought serves to highlight current policy developments, including moves to include pupils with ‘special’ needs in competitively individualistic data-​driven school cultures (Graham, 2015). Following Hall et  al. (2013), prevailing discourses are overlaid by newer ones. This explains why attitudes towards segregation are becoming increasingly ambivalent (Slee, 2013). Discourses around pastoral care (Thompson and Cook, 2014) and child-​centredness (UNESCO, 1994) persist but rest uneasily with a form of governance that fosters data-​centredness. In England, it has been suggested that some schools are now resorting to ‘off-​rolling’ whereby pupils with ‘special’ needs or diagnosed conditions are disproportionately removed from school rolls through informal mechanisms (Roberts, 2018; Office for Standards in Education [Ofsted], 2019) in order to preserve the ‘health’ of school performance statistics. Analysis of the inherent tensions in discourses affecting teachers is

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Governance and responsibility to include 115 thus timely, and illustrates one of the ways in which education policy has come to function as a component of economic policy (Peters, 2007, p. 172).

Policy enactment Statutory guidance in England (Department of Health and Department for Education [DoH/​DfE], 2015) insists that inclusion as participation in mainstream schooling is achievable through ‘universal high quality inclusive teaching’ or ‘Quality First Teaching’. This guidance followed legislation (DfE, 2013; HMSO, 2014) which enabled parents to place children with multiple complex needs into mainstream settings. Both were preceded by a familiar political discourse about poor quality teaching. An Ofsted (2010) report typified this discourse by assuming that the relatively poor performance of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) signified poor teaching practice. Such assumptions about the quality of teaching functioned as a political rationale for workforce reform. This had begun with the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ policy on personalised learning (DfCSF. 2008) and was taken up in initial teacher training as part of the government’s strategy to raise standards. The more recent statutory guidance makes all class teachers individually responsible for pupils with designated SEND or awaiting diagnosis (DoH/​DfE, 2015). This responsibilisation of teachers has been facilitated by another discourse that renders teachers as agents of social change and assumes a decentralised state in which such agency is viable. Teachers and trainee teachers are charged with practising inclusively in order to eventually transform social norms (Florian and Graham, 2014) in a conflation of social change and inclusion policy enactment (Ball et al., 2011). The discursive construction of poor or inappropriate teaching practice as the key obstacle to inclusion responsibilises teachers who then become both the problem and the solution. Teachers may find it difficult to question training or continuing professional development that assumes their subscription to social justice objectives. Indeed, the state subjects teachers to a strategy which, in Foucault’s (1982, p. 783) terms, could be dubbed a manipulation of ‘conscience’. Moore and Clarke (2016, p. 666) refer to this strategy as the instilling of a ‘cruel optimism’ as it encourages teachers to accept less palatable short-​term policies by presenting them as necessary stages in a longer-​term process of meeting valued objectives. The assumption that teachers can initiate and embed socio-​political change by changing their professional identities, values and practices is evidenced in Florian and Graham (2014); here, the problem of inclusion is presented as one of insufficient ‘critical self-​awareness’ on the part of teachers which should be addressed through reflexive contemplation. Failure to effect the desired normative shift becomes, by implication, a matter of personalised professional failure. Teachers must now negotiate an uneasy co-​existence of differing versions of neoliberalism and strive to enact them at practice level regardless of the contradictions which they generate. Discourses around austerity arising after the global financial crisis and initiatives at the European level have complicated this situation. The European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, for example, has

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116  Elizabeth J. Done produced numerous resources, including a school self-​review tool that is premised on the principle that ‘it is possible to have both equity and excellence within national systems’ (EADSNE, 2017, p. 10), and an inclusive teacher profile which specifies the ‘essential skills, knowledge and understanding, attitudes and values needed by everyone entering the teaching profession’ (EADSNE, 2012, p. 5).

Governance, inclusion and teachers Governance combines hard and soft law, and in England and Europe both are mobilised to affect the workforce and structural reforms prescribed in recent social and educational policy, and in the marketisation of education. Unlike judicial law, soft law describes a continuum that primarily operates as a normative framework; norms may be legally binding or non-​binding, and some non-​binding norms have ‘legal relevance’ while others do not (Terpan, 2015, p. 7–​8). The move within Europe towards ‘soft’ law as a feature of governance is evidenced by the Lisbon Strategy (Dawson, 2011); the stated objective of the strategy was to achieve a ‘competitive and dynamic knowledge-​based economy capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ (European Council, 2000). Reliance on soft law is attributable to the socio-​economic diversity of European Union member states. It was intended to facilitate the co-​ordination and convergence of national economic and social policies through practices such as the issuing of guidelines and quantified targets, benchmarking and sharing of best practice. At national level, soft law is a vehicle for the national workforce reform that is integral to neoliberal restructuring (Ball and Junemann, 2011). It is an aspect of governance that is now well established in the education sector and the field of educational inclusion. The discourse through which such governance practices are promoted derives from business management theory. The sharing of ‘best’ practice is intended to create transformational opportunities for ‘bottom-​ up’ learning; however, this process occurs against a backdrop of centrally issued targets which neglect local context and so how ‘best’ practice is defined remains problematic (Kröger, 2009, p.  7). Hard law operates to ensure that the normative frameworks of soft law are acted upon. Hence, in England, the Children and Families Act (2014) grants parents access to a tribunal system where they can contest decisions relating to school placement or additional funding. A further feature of governance is the involvement of primary and multiple stakeholders in policy formation and the UK’s adoption of this model of ‘partnership’ has been noteworthy (Ragkousis, 2012). This apparent trend towards democratisation and decentralisation of state power has been evidenced in the development of inclusion-​related policy in England. The Children and Families Act (2014) was preceded by extensive and prolonged stakeholder participation that included children and parents in policy formation, resulting in a government Green Paper entitled ‘Support and Aspiration’ (DfE, 2012). Green Papers in the UK are preliminary reports of government proposals that precede legislation. The ensuing statutory guidance granted schools the freedom to develop their

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Governance and responsibility to include 117 own inclusion policies while simultaneously stipulating that all teachers must take individual responsibility for children with learning difficulties and disabilities in their classroom (DoH/​DfE, 2015). Although, in England, the role of the local state or local authorities has been diminished through an academisation programme whereby schools report directly to central government, LAs retain a legal responsibility to ensure compliance to this statutory guidance in all schools within their geographical remit. Recent investigation suggests that some LAs are publishing misleading information to deter parents and teachers from seeking the additional support to which children with SEND are entitled (Hewitson, 2017) even as they concurrently ‘support’ schools to negotiate the SEND-​related performance monitoring practices mandated by central government. Governance comprises two mutually reinforcing trends in which discourses promising decentralisation are accompanied by tighter centralised control (Ball and Junemann, 2011). In England, the structural reforms required to marketise the educational domain have been accompanied by neoliberal educational discourses emphasising the freedom of parents to select their child’s school as consumers of educational services, including the choice of a special school or mainstream setting. For teachers, however, this freedom has dictated involvement in school league tables, competition for funding, the subjection of pupils to intensive testing regimes and the rating of school performance against externally imposed criteria (Moore and Clarke, 2016). Marketisation has required teachers to negotiate and implement numerous policy initiatives, including policies linked to political discourses around social justice which acknowledge varied obstacles to free and fair competition. Furthermore, concerns about compliance, centrally issued targets and the onerous nature of centralised accountability procedures related to inclusion and academic attainment (DfE, 2018) are likely to limit the scope for organisational learning and democratically-​engineered innovation at school level. The performance of pupils categorised as having SEND is intensively monitored through comparison to national data alongside similar monitoring of the academic performance of all pupils. This suggests that teachers are subject to increased state control through such accountability procedures. It can be argued that the decentralising trend within governance, evidenced in the reliance on soft law in teacher workforce reform and the participation of primary stakeholders in policy formation, works to obscure the extent of central and local state intervention in relation to inclusion and the responsibilisation of teachers. Kröger (2009) notes that the lack of transparency in governance practices constitutes a ‘democratic deficit’ and suggests that participatory initiatives are merely ‘executive politics in disguise’ (p. 6) or a ‘symbolic politics’ (p. 4). It is questionable, for example, how many of the primary stakeholders that participated in research towards the ‘Support and Aspiration’ Green Paper were aware that the state sought to reduce what was regarded as an unaffordable over-​identification of SEND by teachers (DfE, 2012; Done, Murphy and Knowler, 2015). In England, the National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN) was a key stakeholder consulted in the development of the revised inclusion

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118  Elizabeth J. Done policy and statutory guidance that shifted responsibility for pupils designated as having SEN to all classroom teachers. This body was also charged with vetting an initially limited number of providers of a new mandatory award for SEN Coordinators (SENCos) introduced a decade ago. NASEN was afforded considerable control of syllabi and learning outcomes even though many of these courses are university-​based. Course content tends to be dominated by material related to government policy, compliance, performance monitoring and management, leaving minimal time for the introduction of critical perspectives. SENCos are effectively charged with ensuring the ‘health’ of the school population (defined according to state regulated inclusion criteria) and delivering teaching colleagues that are suitably responsibilised (Done, Murphy and Knowler, 2015; Done and Murphy, 2018).

Ordoliberalism If neoliberalism is understood as entailing marketisation with a diminished role for the state, or as merely a discourse of market fundamentalism, the high level of central state intervention in educational inclusion that the proposed concept of governance implies becomes problematic. A  diminished role for the state is associated with the American school of neoliberal economic theory (Foucault, 2008; Peters, 2007). By contrast, a privileging of the market that is supported by an integration of economic and social policy (with a concomitant emphasis on greater individual responsibility) is more suggestive of the German school of neoliberal theory referred to as ordoliberalism. The German ordoliberal school of neoliberal thought emphasises freedom and envisages a state which is kept in check by reliance on market mechanisms as opposed to a state which curbs market-​driven excesses (Goldschmidt and Rauchenschwandtner, 2007). The ‘European social model’ or social market economy (Peters, 2007, p. 168) proposed in ordoliberal theory rejects laissez-​faire market fundamentalism, and insists on state regulation as a condition of sound market functioning. Foucault (2008) attributes this distinctive ordoliberal proposition, of a state that regulates markets but relies on those same markets to limit its own power, to the proponents’ experience of European fascism in the 1930s and 1940s. This experience explains why ordoliberal concern with the market order was accompanied by an explicit biopolitical interest in population regulation and the ‘health’ of the social body. The state must ensure that conditions, such as a lack of social cohesion in which fascism might arise, are addressed, while the power of the state must be limited to pre-​empt exploitation of such conditions for its own purposes (Biebricher, 2011). The latter accounts for the proliferation of bodies that are formally independent of the state but that influence inclusion policy and practice. The former is suggestive of school activities directed towards the wider community in areas of socio-​economic deprivation (Done, Knowler and Murphy, 2015). Biebricher (2011, p.  171) identifies a distinctly ‘illiberal’ tendency in the ordoliberal thought of Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow, who both

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Governance and responsibility to include 119 expressed fears around social degeneration, the health of society’s gene pool and risk of ‘retardation’ of the child population. Such fears led Rüstow (1963, cited in Biebricher, 2011) to support prohibiting women from employment and Röpke (1957, p.  248 cited in Biebricher, 2011, p.  186) to voice concerns about differential birth rates and argue against incentivising those of lower socio-​economic status to reproduce through welfare provision. Biebricher (2011) attributes this illiberalism to post-​WWII concerns around social stability and social integration. These themes continue to be evidenced in recent inclusion-​related legislation. Hence, in Australia, teachers have acquired responsibility for parental involvement (Department of Education: Education Queensland, 2004; DoH/​DfE, 2015); and in England, teachers increasingly organise community services that are outside their education remit including the provision of debt counselling for parents (Done, Murphy and Knowler, 2015). The social integration of SEND-​designated children is constructed in political discourse as economic integration made possible by appropriate social and educational inclusion policy. At the same time, however, teachers are implicated in state efforts around population management and addressing deviations from a ‘normal and healthy mean’ (Biebricher, 2011, p. 181). Biebricher (2011) does not mention teachers but refers to Rüstow’s promotion of equal educational opportunity for disadvantaged children so they are not penalised for their parents’ deviation from a prescriptive form of parenthood. For Foucault (1977; 2006), teachers have always functioned as a relay for government policy and they are now charged with closing the achievement gap between varied groups of pupils whose progress is closely, and centrally, monitored. Here, the tension between ordoliberal marketisation and educational policy is marked, evoking Kröger’s (2009) suggestion that the European social model relies on a symbolic politics and calling into question just how integrated economic, social and educational policy actually is when implemented. The marketisation of England’s education system has produced many mainstream schools in areas of high social deprivation where over one third of pupils are SEND-​designated. This confirms Exley and Ball’s (2011) finding that marketisation and policies ostensibly designed to include, in practice, work to sustain or exacerbate social and educational disadvantage. Performance league tables incentivise schools to maintain their market position and when inequities are identified it is frequently teachers who are blamed. LAs blame teachers for ‘off-​rolling’ (Office of the Schools Adjudicator, 2017) even as LAs themselves are criticised for failing to secure school placements for thousands of children with special needs. Such unintended consequences of marketisation are indicative of a failure of governance. Biebricher (2011) warned of a resurgence of ordoliberal thought following the global economic crisis and, specifically, of the illiberal strand of ordoliberal theory. An alternative view is that an ordoliberal relation of state and economy has, in fact, prevailed in Europe and beyond (e.g. Australian and New Zealand) since the post-​WWII period (Peters, 2007). Indeed, Kröger (2009) construes the Lisbon Strategy (European Council, 2000) as a strategy to conserve the European social market economy through its modernisation.

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Responsibilisation Foucault’s (2008) theory of the neoliberal state is pertinent to analyses of governance and its decentralising aspect as it insists that government is not limited to familiar political institutions. Neoliberal discourses promote a conception of freedom found in classical liberalism (of a pre-​existent self-​determining subject) in order to sustain the ‘truth’ that we are responsible for our own choices and their consequences. An instilled sense of personal freedom functions as a condition of the biopolitical process of ‘responsibilisation’ (Foucault, 1978; Rose, 2006). The choices available to us may, in actuality, be highly circumscribed but a sense of autonomy or self-​government and of responsibility for our choices is integral to the decentralising tendency within governance and neoliberal practices of governmentality; as a power technology it is, in part, how the ordoliberal state governs (Foucault, 1978; 1982; 2008). The responsibilisation of teachers involves a two-​ fold process:  Increasing demands on teachers as marketisation and decentralisation transforms the state’s role; and the government of individualisation (Foucault, 1982) as a practice, or constellation of power technologies, through which the state secures support for, and minimises resistance to, its policies. Responsibilisation does not imply that teachers are passive recipients and enactors of policies, as a power relation only functions as such if the potential for resistance exists (Foucault, 1982). Power relations do, however, act to limit or condition the range of actions available within historically-​specific social arrangements (Foucault, 1982). Hence, teachers who reject neoliberal discursive constructions of professionalism face the prospect of being perceived as unprofessional (Moore and Clarke, 2016). Similarly, teachers who insist that authentic educational inclusivity is only realisable through radically altered socio-​political priorities risk being perceived as obstructing progressive initiatives designed to further a social justice agenda. An ironic feature of ordoliberal theory and the modernised European social model today is that more central state intervention is required to ensure that individuals take greater personal responsibility (Kröger, 2009). The conflicting but mutually reinforcing tendencies to centralisation and decentralisation that comprise governance can be linked to two variants within ordoliberal theory.

Ordoliberalism(s) Ordoliberalism, like governance, remains a form of governmentality that relies on familiar practices of biopolitical power, i.e. the government of individualisation and population control (Foucault, 1982). Peters (2007) contrasts two strands in ordoliberal thought which are suggestive of the inclusion-​related governmental imperatives that teachers must now negotiate. The first strand, ‘the Freiburg school’, presents the market order as a ‘nondiscriminating, privilege-​free order of competition’ which is ‘in and by itself an ethical order’ (Vanberg, 2004, p. 2 cited in Peters, 2007, p. 170). The second strand, proposed by Müller-​Armack (1978), takes

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Governance and responsibility to include 121 the market order to be the ‘most economically efficient order’ but lacking ‘inherent ethical qualities’; an ethical dimension must be supplied through supplementary social provisions and policies which may, or may not, ‘conflict with the privilege-​ free nature of the rules of the game of the market’ (Vanberg, 2004, p. 2 cited in Peters, 2007, pp. 170–​171). The allocation of additional funding to disadvantaged or SEND-​designated pupils on ethical grounds rests uneasily with the concept of free competition in an educational market characterised by competitive individualism. Hence Kröger’s (2009) argument that the more recent aspiration of the European social model to an unproblematic integration of social and educational policy with marketisation is misplaced. From a Freiburg school perspective, social and educational policies which recognise that some children are privileged while others lack social capital constitute interference in the market order. The first strand of ordoliberal thought identified by Peters (2007) is illustrated by the discourse of inclusion as participation in high-​stakes testing. This discourse, outlined by Graham (2015), constructs inclusion as the right to participate, or freely compete, in marketised educational cultures that are characterised by high-​ stakes testing, school league tables and heightened performativity. Graham (2015) tentatively endorses a Department of Education and Communities (New South Wales) policy that links funding for additional student support with ‘inclusion’ in standardised assessment practices. Graham (2015) suggests that schools will be incentivised to raise the performance of previously excluded school students if they are required to include such students in the high-​stakes testing associated with neoliberal and ordoliberal marketisation. This introduces another moral economy of worth. Children with SEND are to be ranked according to their capacity to ‘participate’ in funding-​linked testing regimes as well as their eventual capacity for economic productivity (Done, Murphy and Knowler, 2015). It also tacitly condones high-​stakes testing regimes at a time when others argue that they are damaging to all children (Slee, 2000; 2013). Thompson and Cook (2014) maintain that competition for funding threatens the pastoral dimension of teaching and reduces both pupils and teachers to contributors of data for centralised monitoring. The potentially negative consequences of reliance on the market order have been highlighted in research by Exley and Ball (2011); teachers in areas of high socio-​economic deprivation find that marketisation results in disproportionately high numbers of SEND-​designated children in their schools within a context of diminished social funding and external support. The second strand of ordoliberal thought, which intensifies state intervention, implicates teachers directly as they are required by the state to implement policies providing ethical supplementation. This is precisely how the neoliberal idealised abstraction of a reduced state is sustained even as contemporary governance simultaneously increases centralised control. Historically, the socially-​funded segregation of pupils into ‘special schools’ constituted an ethical supplement linked to the social market economy. Many of these schools were closed in England, following legislation and statutory guidance that promoted inclusion as participation in ‘mainstream’ education. Instead, the professional identities, practices and knowledge of mainstream teachers have come to function as that ethical

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122  Elizabeth J. Done supplement. Norwich (2014) has identified a very recent increase in attendance at ‘special schools’ in England and this suggests that there is a growing reluctance amongst parents to subject their children to highly competitive marketised educational environments which involve intensive high-​stakes testing. Despite this development, however, the responsibilisation of mainstream teachers in the area of inclusion remains marked. The shift from ‘professional responsibility’ towards ‘professional accountability’ (Englund, 2011, p.  197) is a radical redefining of what professional responsibility entails that transcends the acquisition of neo-​ liberalised vocabularies associated with performativity. Teachers become agents of social cohesion, dictated by a modernised European social model, rather than agents of longer-​term socio-​political change.

Education governance Wilkins and Olmedo (2018) consider criticisms of both the market and the state as instruments of education planning, policy formation and service delivery. Respectively, the market order is criticised for failing to deliver social mobility while centralised government is criticised for inhibiting organisational innovation. The notion that contemporary education governance is novel is premised on its political discursive construction as avoiding an exclusive reliance on one or the other (Wilkins and Olmedo, 2018). This construction ignores the tensions generated by governance within ordoliberal social market economies. Such inherent tensions are obscured by the ‘overlaying’ of varied discourses related to inclusion and the teaching role (Thompson and Cook, 2014, p. 129). The solution in ordoliberal theory is to privilege the market order while explicitly recognising obstacles to free and fair competition. The failure of educational policies linked to social justice have led to an intensified individualisation and responsibilisation of teachers accompanied by greater centralised control. A more recent discourse of change agency and innovation simply provides a rhetoric to be mobilised when economic ‘efficiencies’ become necessary. Political declarations of commitment to inclusive schooling (e.g. UNESCO, 1994) were qualified by ‘economic expedience’ just as global economic trends were threatening the sustainability of the welfare state, and the global financial crisis has reinforced such expediency. The theme of economic efficiency is repeatedly evidenced in SEND-​related legislation (HMSO, 2014) which, despite its demands on teachers, allows schools to limit the participation of all pupils in all school activities on grounds of economic inefficiency (Done, Murphy and Knowler, 2015). Fallout from the fiscal crisis also includes suggestions that teachers who are SENCos show greater ‘resilience’ and ‘imagination’ (Pearson et al., 2015, p. 55), thereby individualising strategies for coping within a wider context over which they have little control, including inadequate funding and external support, and complex student needs. Such suggestions render imagination as integral to the self-​governance which is required by a political discourse of economic realism. Reducing the bureaucratic workload associated with their role as ‘managed and managing professionals’ within a neoliberal educational context (Herr, 2015, p.  4) to a question of imagination

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Governance and responsibility to include 123 obscures the issue of unsustainable accountability practices and diminished resources. Responses to unsustainable bureaucratised workloads are characteristically individualising. Individual teachers are invited to re-​invent themselves and address personal deficits in areas such as time-​management, efficiency, innovation and leadership (DfE, 2018). Graham (2015) dismisses suggestions that inclusion as participation represents neoliberal buck-​passing. Yet, in England, the ‘graduated approach’ (DoH/​DfE, 2015), which requires teachers to provide escalating levels of support and evidence the need for additional resources, was explicitly formulated by the UK’s coalition government (2010–​2015) as addressing an unaffordable over-​identification of learning difficulties in English schools (Done, Murphy and Knowler, 2015). The ‘good teacher’ (Thompson and Cook, 2014, p.  129) or professional teacher (Moore and Clarke, 2016) is now discursively constructed as a mainstream teacher who not only delivers quantifiable improvement in all pupils (in competition for limited funding) but also acquires expertise in diagnosable conditions in order to accurately identify and address conditions which adversely affect pupil and school performance. The proliferation of non-​state inclusion-​related bodies may, like stakeholder ‘participation’, reflect the purportedly democratising tendency within governance. However, such decentralisation is combined with a diminished local state in England and under-​capacity in once readily available external services. This means that teachers are increasingly reliant on charitable and non-​state bodies to secure training in specific diagnosable conditions. Constraints on school budgets have been exacerbated by the latest changes to school funding nationally (Coughlan, 2018) and will reinforce this trend. Additionally, a political discourse around mental health has facilitated the filling of this void by organisations which offer schools systematised ameliorative programmes, reinforcing the changing nature of pastoral care identified by Thompson and Cook (2014). Central government now constructs caring as a practice to be evidenced by the quantification of mental or psycho-​emotional health (DfE, 1978)  where the objective is management of a potentially unmanageable student sub-​population. Teachers must provide this care but also quantified evidence of ‘effective’ caring within a context of diminished resources. SENCos are obliged to demonstrate awareness of the cost implications of any interventions they recommend, introduce and manage. Consequently, interventions are now selected according to their cost-​effectiveness not their effectiveness. A  commonly used Education Endowment Foundation online teaching and learning ‘tool kit’ (EEF, 2018) categorically rates varied pedagogic practices and interventions according to their impact, cost and the strength of the evidential base for these ratings. It is explained that experienced teachers may achieve, on average, twice the effect of teaching assistants but that using qualified teachers is excessively costly (EEF, 2018). Budgetary constraints prevent schools from utilising the expertise of teachers to optimise the progress of SEND-​designated students despite statutory guidance and a dominant political discourse of inclusive education that requires schools to do precisely that.

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124  Elizabeth J. Done Gunter (2012) and Hall et al. (2013) note the importation of concepts and terminology from business management theory into educational discourse. In the context of inclusion, a change management discourse has been mobilised that invites teachers to identify with, and invest in, an image of themselves as key players in processes of socio-​political and educational change. A  collegial and democratic process is implied, rather than dispassionate technical professionalism, as this discourse invariably emphasises ‘bottom-​up learning’ in relation to stakeholder participation (Kröger, 2009). Despite its apparently democratic and decentralising import, this discourse obscures the role of the SENCo as an agent of governance and political control; change is a matter of compliance with statutory guidance and schools become microcosms of governance. In Foucault’s (2006, p. 248) terms, the school functions as ‘a sort of inquisitorial space or grid’ based on a two-​fold epistemic conviction associated with biopolitical power: ‘Truth is everywhere and awaits us everywhere, at any place and at any time’ (p.  246), combined with an ‘opposite process’ that establishes ‘the rarity of this truth of anywhere and anytime’ (p. 247). Given their ‘supervision’ (Foucault, 2006, p. 80) by bodies which, in England, include Ofsted and the Department for Education, SENCos must provide a ‘technology of demonstrable truth’ (Foucault, 2006, p. 240). The objective is to show a trend towards school inclusiveness and identify obstacles to its achievement such as inadequately trained colleagues. SENCos are positioned as teachers whose training and commitment to inclusion equips them to uncover the truth about their school’s level of inclusiveness for centralised monitoring purposes, and their colleagues’ capacity to deliver it as dictated by centralised demands for workforce reform. Assessments of colleagues can be conceived as ‘dividing practices’ (Foucault, 1982, p.  777) or ‘systems of differentiation’ (p.  792) and they are technologies of power. Questions about the type of educational system that we are striving to include young people in (Graham and Slee, 2008) are pre-​empted when a politics of blame (Herr, 2015), locally or nationally, is aligned with a commercial discourse of change management. Together they imply that educational cultures are radically changeable if only teachers would change themselves and their practice. Innovation here implies a suitably individualised and responsibilised teacher who readily delivers creative solutions to problems arising in the implementation of government policy. Teachers may avoid overt criticism of this apparatus of power by electing for less contentious arguments about workload but this risks reinforcing the same discourses through which teachers are subjected (Moore and Clarke, 2016). Hence, effective time-​management forms feature in the seductive discourse of professionalism. Improvement in individual time-​management is proposed by the DfE (2018) in response to grievances around teacher workload. Discourses relating to professionalism and change agency are discursive strategies which avert or complicate resistance to centralised control (Foucault, 1982); they will, therefore, remain prominent in the responsibilisation process that is so characteristic of governance.

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Conclusion Governance in education across much of the Western world can be conceptualised as a modernised European social model derived from German ordoliberal economic and social theory. Foucault’s (2008) analysis of neoliberal variants explains why conflicting discursive demands on teachers have proliferated despite a political discourse which links marketisation with a diminished state role. While American neoliberal theory promises a reduced state, ordoliberal theory envisages a state that is constrained through a privileging of the market but which introduces social and educational policies designed to support the market order and ensure social cohesion. The concept of inclusion as participation in high-​stakes testing and competition for funding can be aligned to the Freiburg school which deemed the market order to be intrinsically ethical. Other ordoliberal theorists demanded social and educational policies to ensure an ethical supplement to the market order. The argument presented in this chapter is that teachers are now required to function as that supplement. Social order and cohesion continue to preoccupy policymakers, leading to a confused policy landscape; hence, teachers in England are charged with introducing suitable ameliorative interventions (DfE, 2014) while Ofsted (2017) appears to discourage such interventions in favour of increased levels of whole-​class transmissional instruction. Conflicting policy recommendations relating to inclusion are indicative of the discursive tensions that confront teachers. On Ball and Junemann’s (2011) account, such confusion reflects the tension between the centralising and decentralising tendencies that comprise governance; and it is compounded by the symbolic politics that the modernised European social model relies on (Kröger, 2009). Foucault’s (1978) concept of responsibilisation describes the complex processes through which teachers come to identify with specific national policy objectives, and the discursive strategies through which tensions are managed when some policy objectives are difficult to reconcile with others. A sense of personal responsibility for educational outcomes is fostered despite factors which should be considered as ‘non-​school’ (Ball, 2010, p. 155) in the differential performance of students and schools. Teachers have always functioned as a vehicle or relay for state-​initiated social intervention (Foucault, 1982; 2007) and this role was expanded in the ordoliberal post-​war European social model (Peters, 2007). Every ordoliberal policy relating to inclusion implies techniques of power and management of difference (Watson, 2010); the included are those rendered manageable through ascription of fixed social identities or needs defined as ‘special’ (Watson, 2010, p. 94). Such ‘dividing practices’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 777) are now also applied to teachers in assessments of their conformity to inclusion policy and fitness to include. The decentralising aspect of education governance is premised on a ‘government of individualization’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 781) and the responsibilisation of

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126  Elizabeth J. Done individual teachers. A discourse of change management in the inclusive educational literature (e.g. Lloyd, 2002; Graham. 2015) translates into a discursive invitation to teachers to change themselves in order to change society. Paradoxically, this construction involves bringing about socio-​political change by becoming more like the individual demanded by the existing neoliberal and ordoliberal market order. Teachers must negotiate an inherent tension between a dominant discourse that prioritises quantified academic progress and attainment, school league table status and competition for funding, and varied discourses which speak to matters of social justice, caring and compassion, and professional judgement.

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Governance and responsibility to include 129 UNESCO (1994). The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Paris: UNESCO. Vanberg, V. (2004). Market and state: The perspective of constitutional economy. Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics, 4(10). Watson, C. (2010). Educational policy in Scotland:  inclusion and the control society. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 31, 93–​104. Wilkins, A. & Olmedo, A. (2018). Education Governance and Social Theory: Interdisciplinary Approaches. London: Bloomsbury.

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8  Governing inclusion A school principal and a governor in conversation Michael Roden and Julie Allan

Introduction In September 2015, the University of Birmingham School, the only Secondary University Training School in the UK, opened its doors to students. The University of Cambridge School, a primary school, is the only other school in the UK that is designated as a training school and both schools aspire to promote the learning of adults and of student teachers through formal and non-​formal teacher education. Michael Roden, former Head of King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys in Birmingham and recognised as one of the most outstanding school leaders in the country, was appointed as the first Principal of the school. After three and a half years, and with 716 students on roll, Michael reflects, in conversation with Julie Allan, a governor1 of the school and the Head of the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, on the journey so far. Their conversation highlights some of the challenges of setting up an effective governance structure in a newly established school and managing a significant turnover of staff and engaging with governors, many of whom were new to this role. It also shows the effects of the accountability visited upon the principal within the governance context of free schools, which may be understood as a kind of ‘responsibilisation’ (Peeters, 2013, p. 583). This is a new kind of state intervention in civic processes which involves ‘enticing, persuading and nudging citizens to ‘take responsibility’ in producing public value’ (ibid) and has been labelled as ‘positive welfare’ (Giddens, 1998) or ‘enabling welfare’ (Gilbert, 2002). Several authors (Rose et al., 2006; Pierson, 2004; Peeters, 2013) have drawn parallels with this form of governance and Foucault’s (2007) governmentality in exposing techniques of management which work on the individual’s propensity to self regulate and to align this with the interests of the state. Peeters (2013) suggests that the consequences of responsibilisation, whereby citizens are implicated as ‘co-​ operators of political will formation’ (p. 593), are potentially positive, in the form of improved governance of challenging social problems, but are at the expense of political concern and state interference in individuals’ private lives. The University of Birmingham School, set up under the Academies Act 2010, was established as a free school, which means it is not under local authority control and this allows it to make its own decisions about the curriculum, the length of the school day, who to employ as teachers and the salaries and conditions of service of

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Governing inclusion 131 teachers. The motivation of the then Conservative–​Liberal Democrat government to set up free schools was to create competition, choice and innovation (Wiborg et  al., 2018). Free schools were also intended to improve attainment, especially among socially disadvantaged young people: For too long in our country, exercising choice to escape poor schools has been available to the richest, who could just opt out and go private, or to the middle classes who could move house to a better area, but the poorest have had to take what they’re given. Not anymore. (David Cameron, 29 January 2011, quoted in Doward, 2011) However, evidence of improved educational outcomes of academies in England (of which free schools are a subset), charter schools in the US and Swedish free schools is mixed (OECD, 2010; Hatcher, 2011) and their social impact has been widely debated. Furthermore, Wiborg et al. (2018) argue that free schools have remained conservative, constrained by parents and Ofsted2 and have remained relatively isolated from other schools. While they find free schools to be rather similar to state schools in terms of (the lack of) innovation, they also identify some innovation in the governance of free schools, noting parallels with the charter schools in the US and free schools in Sweden. The changes mainly came in the form of the adoption of organisational and management approaches used in business, also noted by Cirin (2014). However, Wiborg et  al. (2018) note that although some schools were experimenting with governance and financial management, much of the governance was rather modest and was confined to employment practices. The University of Birmingham School has sought to be innovative by being inclusive and comprehensive, achieved by a number of means. The school’s architecture and design is open and light to offer opportunities for interaction between students and staff, accessibility, visibility and safety. The admissions policy of the school draws students from across four ‘nodes’ of the city, creating a highly diverse pupil profile in terms of ethnicity and social mix. Priority is furthermore given to looked-​after pupils3 and to pupils with an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) –​a legal document issued for children with significant special educational needs. Mixed ability class organisation, a comprehensive programme of character education and extended enrichment activities seek to ensure that all children interact and thrive at the school.

The governance of free schools As a University Training School, the University of Birmingham School has a unique governance structure. The school is both a separate charitable company, limited by guarantee, and a subsidiary of the university. As such, it provides both a broad and balanced curriculum as a school and Initial Teacher Education for the university, as well as further advanced training for teachers from the School and in the future will extend this to teachers from further afield. School governors are, constitutionally, both Charity Trustees and Company Directors and the University

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132  Michael Roden and Julie Allan of Birmingham School Governing Body currently includes five members of the university, two parent governors, three members of staff, two representatives of industry/​business and three members of the local community. The Principal and Head of School are in attendance. The governing body is responsible for overseeing the financial performance of the school, holding the principal to account for the educational performance of the school and ensuring that there is clarity in the vision, ethos and strategic direction of the school. The government has underlined the important role of governors and has made the lines of accountability clear: The role of the governing body has changed beyond recognition over the past twenty years. With the introduction of local management of schools and further reforms, governing bodies have become the strategic leaders of schools. They are rightly responsible and accountable in law and in practice for major decisions about the school and its future. Governing bodies are equal partners in leadership with the head teacher and senior management team. We want to see them taking a full part in driving the improvement and culture of the school. (DfES, 2004, p. 2) The distribution of responsibilities across governors is determined locally but in the University of Birmingham School each governor has designated subject areas of responsibility and is expected to make regular visits to the school to oversee these areas. Governors also serve on sub-​committees and some have additional responsibilities for areas such as inclusion or pastoral care. The status as a University Training School brings benefits to students and teachers at the school, student teachers and lecturers at the university and the wider university community. Students from the school make visits to the university for a range of educational, sporting and cultural activities; student teachers observe and interact with classes in state-​of-​the-​art laboratories and classrooms; teachers at the school engage in knowledge exchange and continuing professional development activities together with university staff; and the school provides a location for both the sharing and generation of research. University staff offer lectures at the school and contribute to the school’s enrichment programme and regular Rush Hour Research events ensure a lively exchange of ideas. The Principal of the school, Michael Roden, was in post for over a year before the school opened, enabling him to develop structures and policies to facilitate inclusion. In 2018, the school received its first Ofsted inspection and was judged to be Good4. In this discussion Julie Allan encourages Michael Roden to overcome any modesty about his achievements and to explore the successes and challenges of the governance of this unique educational endeavour.

A governance conversation Julie Allan: Can we start by talking about the start up of the school? You, of course, were appointed after the school application had been agreed and were in post, I think,

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Governing inclusion 133 one year before the school opened and we both joined the University of Birmingham around the same time. What appealed to you about opening a new school? Michael Roden: First of all, I had never expected to be applying for any other jobs. I was very happy in the post that I was in. But I remember when the idea was first mooted, I came to the university for a consultation meeting along with other local head teachers. And I thought the concept of a university school was a very interesting initiative along with the robust intention, from the outset, of having a socially mixed school, with a target of 40 percent of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM). At the time, the [local] grammar (selective) schools were facing funding issues due to their social exclusivity because relatively few pupils with FSM were able to successfully gain admission to these sought after schools. So, it was interesting to see that a new school would start with that objective. As someone who received FSM as a pupil myself, I was in favour of this approach. Under the current funding pattern schools needed to have at least 1000 pupils to be financially viable (my previous school had only just over 700). The University of Birmingham School was planned to have a capacity of 1100 of which some 400 were to be in the Sixth Form. Friends and head teacher colleagues were clear: ‘you’d be stupid [not to take the job] –​why wouldn’t you?’ And the opportunity to establish my own school was extremely appealing. It became clear to me that there was to be real freedom available in the leadership of this new venture which was highly attractive, but, looking back, the responsibility that ensued meant that it was also quite scary! Julie Allan: What ambitions did you have for the school? Michael Roden: My career began in independent education quite fortuitously as this was the post being advertised in Birmingham which allowed me to settle here and get married. Forty years or so ago, this meant that subsequently it was almost impossible then to gain employment in the comprehensive sector. The vast majority of pupils in my early schools were very successful academically. The free school movement which began under the last Conservative government allowed independence from the local authority and this was hugely attractive. I  am not against independent schools; I am not against grammar schools, but if all other schools were as good as they could be, then perhaps independents and grammars wouldn’t dominate the sector. So, this was my chance. And it was right at the time of Trojan Horse5. I had been in Birmingham for 25 years and the whole series of events seemed at the time to come together to say that this was an opportunity to allow me to develop a marvellous new school for the city, where my children have grown up and in which I have had a wonderful career. Julie Allan: So, it was an opportunity to give something back, but it was also the structure of the free school, which gave you some freedoms that you didn’t have in the existing maintained sector? Michael Roden: I always tried to contribute within the local authority and went to the local authority consortia meetings, even though there was often little of any relevance to my existing grammar (selective) school. If we could help other institutions we would do that, but many people clearly objected to the selective system. The new school represented an opportunity for me, personally, to make

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134  Michael Roden and Julie Allan a contribution for all children in the city. This was facilitated by the proposed admissions system, one developed with the local authority to meet the needs of a growing city by admitting pupils from four different areas (thus ensuring a very diverse intake). Julie Allan:  How was the governance structure established, especially as a University School, and how has that evolved? Michael Roden: The first task I had to do was to develop the governance structure. I obviously had to rely on my experience of working with a school that had outstanding contributions from governors who worked in a very established model. The University of Birmingham School, as the currently only secondary ‘University Training School’ was a new type of school and as such it was important that the structure allowed the university to exercise control. After all, it was their reputation that was at risk from any future poor performance. The governors from university backgrounds had limited experience of school governance but they were clearly very able people who were committed to this new venture. As a result, I was particularly delighted that, in the space of only three years, this new school achieved Good for ‘leadership and governance’ during the school’s first Ofsted inspection (in May 2018). While the ability of the governors that have been recruited has been fantastic, the nature of recruiting such talented individuals meant that there was a regular turnover as people moved on for individual career development opportunities. It was interesting from my point of view that the DfE wanted the governing body to be small (no more than ten people). They were obviously concerned initially with this new type of institution that there may be a potential conflict of interest with the university. But I can see why the university needed to exercise a level of control. I think that my issue with the governance is that most people become governors because they’ve got time to do it and, in hindsight, I think some of the individuals serving the school found the time needed extremely difficult to commit to. Therefore perhaps, the governing body should have been larger, because people didn’t have the time that it required to develop this innovative educational establishment. Julie Allan: Yes, and I think it has been a bit of a challenge for some people to give the commitment that was required. I came on to the governing body a bit later, in 2017. And, I have to say that it is one of the most satisfying that I’ve ever done. I was new to the whole idea of governance as encompassing managerial aspects, enhancing the school effectiveness, the localising of decision making and the democratising elements of representing the community (Dean et al., 2007). But I really took to the idea that as a governor, I was responsible for holding you and the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to account on achievement, the vision and on the finances. I undertook all the training with enthusiasm, and it has been a really interesting role to be in, but I have never been quite sure that I have been effective as a governor. It is something I still feel that I need to learn and get better at and so, being candid, what do you think about the competence of the governors? Michael Roden: I don’t think it is an issue of competence or ability. Until governors get the experience, then they are not going to feel confident in their role.

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Governing inclusion 135 And the awkward thing about that is that then you’ve got a school, because it is new, of very inexperienced people, it is looking to the governors for wisdom. Of course, my role was to be in between, doing as much work trying to support the governors and also trying to reassure the staff that ‘it’s fine’. The turnover and the small number of governors means that when some people are not able to be on committees, others have to do more to compensate. Nationally there is a significant shortage of governors so in comparison the new school has been comparatively fortunate in the support and quality of contribution all individuals have been able to make. When ‘academy status’ first came in, what a lot of governors were worried about was their financial liability in these new ‘state independent schools’. The amount of financial liability was limited by the government. The biggest worry about governance is that making wrong decisions has the potential for lifelong consequences for staff and for pupils and their parents. Julie Allan: Absolutely, I have come across some writings about the whole idea of governance. Rik Peeters (2013), referring to the Dutch system, talks about a process of responsibilisation, which is the state putting it back to the key players, in this case to the governors, but also to you as Principal, and that we collectively become both the problem and the solution. I’m just wondering what you think about that, as a way of understanding the position of governors and what is asked of them? Michael Roden: It is interesting, isn’t it? I suppose it is part of me getting older. I was not a great fan of the local authority (LA). If you were heading an LA school, you were reliant on their support. It wasn’t ultimately the principal’s responsibility. And even with governors, you would have local authority approved governors and community governors, but when an issue arose it was expected that the LA would resolve matters. That to me was also a negative, because then people didn’t take the ultimate responsibility or were subservient. That worked as a model, particularly in large LAs like Birmingham because they had the financial resources to make sure things were okay. Now with years of government cuts they haven’t and that’s maybe why now we are seeing real issues about the performance of some governing bodies. On the responsibilisation, if you think what is actually happening now, governors are probably, if they are taking it seriously, closer to what it is like to be a head teacher than ever before. You can deal with all the problems, but you can’t implement solutions. All this marketisation hasn’t worked. The government and the free school movement have made a strong overall contribution to the education sector, but because it has also taken place at a time of economic recession, this success has not been realised by every new school. Obviously, over the last few months, having retired, I’ve been looking back and have tried to evaluate whether my efforts have been successful. I think I enjoyed the freedom available to me in this venture and I was able to pass on to my successor a financially viable and very popular school. Some tensions centred on the recruitment of Sixth Formers and their subsequent performance in their A  levels. The difficulties of establishing a Sixth Form in a very competitive environment in Birmingham at a time of the

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136  Michael Roden and Julie Allan introduction of new specifications was a real challenge. I was also aware that for the youngsters involved the school would improve over time but even so the first cohorts did well. Julie Allan: Yes, and it does strike me that the school is in a really exposed position, because of the university gaze on it, on top of the usual governance processes. Yet, as you say, you really were successful and also took up a very particular leadership style where you were so very present amongst the students and the staff. And I’m wondering how you worked out that this was the kind of leader you wanted to be? Michael Roden:  In my previous job, I  have always contributed by coaching a variety of sports. The fact that I was a rugby coach for 30 odd years, meant that I was at school often six days a week. So, I have always been highly visible. And it is only years down the line that you see that actually it makes a massive difference to the pupils as a head or even deputy head and to staff. But also there was a part of me as a leader that questioned why I would ask someone to do something if I wasn’t prepared to do it myself. Looking back over the last four and a half years I realised that in this new venture I had a huge responsibility to ensure that all the people (parents and staff) who had made a commitment to the vision I had developed were not disappointed. My approach to leadership, in all that I have been involved with, was to be authentic. I was just being me, passionate about the importance of teaching, committed to consistency in the treatment of people and trusting them to do a great job. I think people came to the school because it was different. They believed, or I was able to convince them, that I was a man of honour. I behaved instinctively based upon the values I have just articulated. I have benefited enormously from my educational experience and I believe that all children deserve the opportunity to develop their characters so that they can go on to make a difference to the lives of others. I hope that all of those I have met feel that I in some small way have been successful in doing so myself. Julie Allan: And of course, the inspectors called –​Ofsted visited –​probably earlier than we expected. My sense was that we were fully prepared, and that the ‘Good’ judgement was easily earned and was well justified. How was it for you? Michael Roden: With the Ofsted judgement that was Good, under the new framework6, many aspects would be outstanding. Under the complexity of establishing this innovative new school I think we were ultimately all relieved (and happy) that the judgements of the inspection team met our own evaluation of the progress we have made in the three years since opening. Julie Allan: For governors there was this expectation that academic achievement would be on a continuous upwards trajectory. And yet, the values that were driving the school, its inclusiveness and character education, were just as important. Michael Roden: Yes, and I suppose from within the school in the SLT and others there has been a significant tension. Academic outcomes for the university and indeed all the staff are important, but ultimately the real test will be what will happen at A level for the first cohort recruited at Year 7. For me, though, while this is a key quantitative measure, the biggest long-​term success will be what kind

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Governing inclusion 137 of contribution the University of Birmingham pupils make to improving the local, regional and national communities as citizens of good character. Julie Allan:  Certainly, for me coming in as governor, the inclusiveness and the diversity is a huge part of its appeal. And the students seem to really like and value that. Michael Roden: I think that for me the diversity of our intake in a city often segregated by geographical location has presented unique challenges as we have developed but is a major reason for the popularity of the school. Our admissions system has received a significant amount of interest from schools that want to develop a community that represents the wider area in which they are located. In the article (and podcast) featured recently in the Guardian I must admit I was very proud of the pupils involved. One of our initial marketing statements was ‘A new school for Birmingham’ and that is exactly what has been delivered. Julie Allan: Absolutely, and you mentioned DfE [the government] a moment ago and their attempts to influence the size of the governing body. How else would you characterise the relationship with them? I was in some of the meetings with you and I think I was experiencing the usual shifting of positions, depending on who turned up. What would you say? Michael Roden: Apart from satisfying the requirements of the DfE and Regional School’s Commissioner prior to opening, the main impact has been through our DfE Advisor. He has maintained his commitment to the school and he did have a part in the Ofsted inspection. He probably knew as much about the school as any governor because he had been there from the initial submission of the project and had visited termly after opening. As a former successful and experienced head teacher I respected his opinion and valued his support and challenge. There was pressure on both the DfE and the university as I took up the post and I remember what our DfE advisor said the first time we met: ‘you’ve got to get the university to make a real contribution and impact’. I think that has been achieved and was recognised in the Ofsted Report and importantly was appreciated by the school community. Julie Allan: Of course, the other part of the ambition was to set up a University Training School. What are your thoughts on what that meant at the time? Michael Roden: I think that I sensed that at the university there were a number of people who objected to it and to my appointment (from a selective school background) as Principal. When looking at the philosophy of the department and the social inequality, you can understand that there was a tension there. I think that because there were only two University Training Schools opened this really didn’t receive any attention from the DfE. In the university the opening of the school occurred at the same time as pressure from the DfE to have school-​led training of teachers and a failure to recruit to target over the last few years nationally. I believe that in our first three years we have established good relationships with the School of Education and university departments that have aided recruitment to teacher training and made the University of Birmingham School an attractive place to work. The role of a University Training School will continue to evolve as the school achieves full capacity and I hope that through initiatives such as Rush

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138  Michael Roden and Julie Allan Hour Research we can make a wider contribution to teacher development in the city as a whole. Julie Allan: This has been a truly fascinating look at educational governance from the inside. Is there anything else you want to say about governance? Michael Roden: I  think every business or institution benefits from stability. Effective governance also benefits from the quality of recruitment and retention of its members. Terms of office are normally for four years so perhaps it might have been best if the first Ofsted occurred after the fourth year, because that might have given the first governing body the opportunity to make a bigger difference. Julie Allan:  You make a really important point here. I  don’t imagine the new Ofsted Inspection framework will allow governing bodies to take the time to become embedded and to make a difference. But I guess time will tell. Michael Roden: You are right of course because as we know the pupils only get one chance –​perhaps the greatest challenge facing new schools is to get as much right as possible from the start.

Notes 1 All schools in England are required by law to have a Governing Body consisting of its key stakeholders (members of staff, parents and representatives of the community, business and industry). Governors are elected and serve for a term of four years. Whilst their responsibilities are considered to have gradually increased (Dean et  al., 2007; DfES, 2004), governors’ core responsibilities remain concerned with educational achievement, finance and the overall vision for the school. 2 Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It is a non-​ ministerial UK government department that inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people, and services providing education and skills for learners of all ages. Ofsted reports directly to Parliament and is independent and impartial. 3 A looked-​after child is a child who is (a) in the care of the local authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a local authority in their exercise of their social services functions (see the definition in Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989). Previously looked-​after children are those who have been adopted or have become subject to a child arrangement or special guardianship order. 4 Ofsted undertakes inspections of schools under Section 5 of the Education Act 2005 and follows a ‘Common inspection framework’ (Ofsted, August 2015; www.gov.uk/​ government/​publications/​common-​inspection-​framework-​education-​skills-​and-​early-​ years-​from-​september-​2015). Inspectors’ judgements are based on overall effectiveness, effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development, behaviour and welfare; and outcomes for pupils. Grades are 1:  Outstanding; 2:  Good; 3:  Requires Improvement and 4:  Inadequate. The grade of Good, given to the University of Birmingham School, means that ‘the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is at least good’ and ‘all other key judgements are likely to be good or outstanding … Deliberate and effective action is taken to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and their physical well-​being … safeguarding is effective.’ (Ofsted Inspection Handbook, 2018). 5 Trojan Horse was the name given to an alleged conspiracy, between 2014 and 2015, involving Islamists and Salafists, to promote the ‘Islamisation’ of schools within the city

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Governing inclusion 139 of Birmingham, UK. The title comes from an anonymous letter alleged to have been written (by a former chairman of an educational trust which ran three schools) and which set out how to achieve Islamisation. The government, through Ofsted, responded by inspecting the targeted schools and at one point claimed that there was evidence of an organised campaign to target certain schools and to impose a ‘narrow and faith based ideology.’ A local authority investigation found no evidence of extremism but identified problems with governance, a conclusion also reached by a government enquiry. 6 Ofsted proposed a new Inspection framework for introduction in September 2019 and put this out to consultation https://​assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/​government/​ uploads/​system/​uploads/​attachment_​data/​file/​770924/​Proposed_​education_​inspection_​framework_​draft_​for_​consultation_​140119.pdf. The new framework promises longer inspections for ‘good’ rated schools, less notice of inspection (with inspectors potentially arriving two and a half hours after notification of inspection) and an expressed intention to take a more holistic approach.

References Cirin, R. (2014). Are Free Schools Using Innovative Approaches? Research report, London: Department for Education. Dean, C., Dyson, A., Gallanaugh, F., Howes, A. & Raffo, A. (2007). Schools, Governors and Disadvantage. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Department for Education and Science (DfES) (2004). Governing the School of the Future. London: DfES. Doward, J. (2011). Government gives go-​ahead to first eight ‘free schools’. The Guardian, January 29. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France, 1977–​ 1978. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Giddens, A. (1998). The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Cambridge: Polity  Press. Gilbert, N. (2002). Transformations of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hatcher, R. (2011). The Conservative-​Liberal Democratic coalition government’s ‘free schools’ in England. Educational Review, 63(4), 485–​503. Ofsted (2018). School inspection handbook: Handbook for inspecting schools in England under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. https://​assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/​government/​uploads/​system/​uploads/​attachment_​data/​file/​730127/​School_​inspection_​ handbook_​section_​5_​270718.pdf [Accessed 10/​04/​19]. OECD (2010). PISA 2009 results: Executive Summary. Paris: OECD. Peeters, R. (2013). Responsibilisation on government’s terms: New welfare and the governance of responsibility and solidarity. Social Policy and Society, 12(4), 583–​595. Pierson, P. (2004). Politics in Time:  History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rose, N., O’Malley, P., Valverde, M. (2006). Governmentality. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 2, 83–​104. Wiborg, S., Green, F., Taylor-​Goodby, P. & Wilde, R. (2018). Free schools in England: ‘Not unlike other schools?’ Journal of Social Policy, 47(1), 117–​137.

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9  The micro-​politics of parental involvement in school governance Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko

Introduction A global neoliberal orientation has, for the last two decades, underpinned education policy shifts in the assessment of school performance (Cheng, Cheung and Ng, 2016; Rizvi and Lingard, 2010), and school-​based management (SBM) reforms have emphasised the significance of transparency and accountability to the public (Ng, Chan and Yuen, 2017; Skerrett and Hargreaves, 2008). In Hong Kong, the return of sovereignty from Britain to China in 1997 has led to a political movement for democratisation in a representative government system. This has had a significant impact on education reforms, where the quest for decentralisation of power, accountability, transparency and participatory management has become prevalent in reforms implementing SBM (Ng, 2017). The innovation of SBM carries the message that parents, teachers and external professionals are to be invited to participate in school governance (Beare, Caldwell and Millikan, 2018; Ng, 2013). The reform of SBM in Hong Kong emphasises democratisation in school management and acknowledges the significant role of parents as clients as well as school partners in the process of parental involvement in children’s education. Parent–​ school partnerships have been recognised by inviting parent representatives to participate in managing schools through legislation. The official inclusion of parent representatives in school governance in primary and secondary schools was passed as an Education Ordinance in 2004. All schools have since been required to set up Incorporated Management Committees, and representatives of parents, teachers and alumni have legally been included as school governors since 2011. To prepare for parents’ involvement in school governance, many school professionals have started investigating ways to better involve parents in school operations by attending workshops on home–​school co-​operation. Consequently, parents’ roles have evolved from effectively communicating with school professionals, volunteering in school, to participating in school management. Beare, Caldwell and Millikan (2018) and Ng and Lee (2015) have argued that empowering parents to play a role in SBM is one of the most crucial innovations in accomplishing school improvement and effectiveness. The aim of empowering parents to be involved in children’s education is to develop a partnership (Esptein,

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 141 2012), whereby partners work together as equals to accomplish a common mission –​the success of all children in school. Nevertheless, parent empowerment is a political process (Ng, 2007a) and parents, principals and teachers have faced new challenges as a result of redefining their roles and responsibilities. As Vincent (2000) highlights, for example, parental involvement in school governance carries the notion of parent empowerment which signifies that power given to a subordinate group (parents) is ultimately lost by the former power-​holder (school professionals). Drawing on the analysis of power from the Italian neo-​Marxist Antonio Gramsci and theories of micro-​politics in school organisations, this chapter explores the parent–​school relationships arising from increased parental involvement at various levels of school operation through a qualitative case study of two primary schools. The findings provide empirical evidence for conceptualisation of the micro-​political relationships between parents and school professionals in times of reform in Hong Kong. From the data collected, four propositions of micro-​political relationships are conceptualised as a matter of power and manipulation. The first proposition signifies ‘parents as policy-​followers’ in which the attitude of protectionism towards parents prevails among school professionals. The second proposition is dominated by the notion of pragmatism whereby parents are being utilised as ‘instruments of school initiatives’. In the third proposition, parents are marginalised by the school body even though they are granted the power of school management, and the notion of ‘parents-​as-​governors’ thus becomes one of ‘pseudo partners’. Lastly, the study asserts that ‘parents-​as-​partners’ is a theoretical ideal, as school professionals are not willing to disperse actual powers to parents. Their participation in school governance is spurious. The findings of this study contribute to illuminating the subtlety of micro-​politics in the triadic relationships between parents, teachers and principals during the reform of involving parents in school governance in Hong Kong.

School governance as a dynamic process for power decentralisation and redistribution School governance refers to the efforts of actors and institutions, such as the state, municipal education committees, opposition parties, school owners, school principals, teachers, parents, students and pressure groups, to govern and influence matters like school policy, education, school climate and school safety (Hanburger et al., 2016). School governance has been a hallmark of school systems in many places for years and decentralisation of school governance through SBM is one of the recent educational innovations in the world (Cheng, 2013; Cranston, 2002). Generally speaking, the success of school reform lies in the redistribution of decision-​making power (Leithwood and Hallinger, 2002). In addition, Leithwood (2000) has argued, that ‘when decentralization of decision making is used for purposes of increasing accountability, one of its central aims is often to increase the voice of those who are not heard, or at least not much listened to, in the context of typical school governance structures’ (p. 4). Therefore, school governance is

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142  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko a dynamic process involving various social and political stakeholders (Pierre and Peters, 2000). In the US and England, pressures to reform governance arrangements initially arose from dissatisfaction with insufficient voices from different stakeholders in school. In South Africa, election of parents and teachers onto school governing bodies has been the core of the school reform strategy. Opportunities for South African parents, learners and educators to participate in school governance occurred parallel to a shift from authoritarian rule, coupled with racial division and an uneven socio-​economic landscape, to an atmosphere of democracy (Brown and Duku, 2008). While school governance can help enhance democratisation as well as ensure effective financial management, the key objective of the South African government’s approach to school governance was to secure improvements in pupil attainment (Heystek, 2006). In a number of other countries, governments have also made a conscious decision to create more places for school governors from various social sectors. This development has in part been driven by a neoliberal and market-​oriented ideology, which assumes that increased competition will generate a notion of accountability and incentives that will improve school outcomes (Connolly and James, 2011; Ng, 2013). In England, there has been a reduction in the role of local government, while seeking to increase the role of the ‘community’. In a study of Israeli schools with different modes of governance, Addi-​Raccah and Ainhoren (2009) found that schools with professional and bureaucratic modes of governance were characterised by ambivalent attitudes towards parent involvement, whereas positive attitudes were found in schools with partnership governance. This illustrates that the participatory mode of school governance is a promising step towards a community-​oriented approach.

Micro-​politics of parental involvement in school governance To help realise the practice of parental involvement in school governance, scholars have conceptualised various frameworks on the basis of empirical evidence (e.g. Bastiani, 1989; Epstein, 2012; Ng, 1999; Ng and Lee, 2015). In Britain, Bastiani (1989) has introduced a framework of eight levels to describe how schools can work with families, ranging from ‘communication’ to ‘participation in decision making’. In the US, Epstein (2012) has identified six types of school activities for family, school and community collaboration, namely ‘communication’, ‘parenting’, ‘learning at home’, ‘volunteering’, ‘decision-​making’ and ‘collaboration with the community’. In accordance with the educational context of Hong Kong, Ng (1999) and Ng and Lee (2015) have also theorised a six-​level ‘Model of Home-​School Cooperation’ in which parents are encouraged to participate in children’s education through three levels of involvement outside school: ‘communicating with school’, ‘helping actual learning of individual children’, ‘taking part in parent programmes and organisations’ and another three levels of involvement inside school: ‘assisting in school operation’, ‘helping decision making’ and ‘participating in decision making’. Research conducted in the US demonstrates that parental involvement in

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 143 school can help enhance positive development of children’s self-​esteem and contribute to school improvement and effectiveness (Amatea, 2007; Epstein, 2001). Motivated by the positive evidence in many research findings with regards to getting parents involved, the Hong Kong government has initiated measures to gradually involve parents in mutual communication and school governance. Restructuring involves a redefinition of roles and relationships in schools and a redistribution of power (Bauch and Goldring, 2000), and Ball (2012) argues that micro-​politics in terms of value conflicts among stakeholders exist everywhere in schools, especially when external initiatives are imposed in schools. Huber (2011), studying parental involvement in school governance in Israel, found that various types of encounters and tensions emerged between parents and school professionals. In Hong Kong, Pang (2008) has argued that the implementation of SBM provides a false hope of participatory orientation for stakeholders, because the level of government control and school sponsoring organisations at the same time has escalated due to lack of trust between parents and school professionals. Ng (2007b) has furthermore highlighted that parent governors are often sidelined by representatives of school professionals in the school council. In South Africa, parents have a majority on the school governing bodies and their interventions can outweigh the authority of the head teacher on key decisions (Connolly and James, 2011). However, a case study conducted by Brown and Duku (2008) revealed that micro-​politics prevailed among parents when they were involved in the process of school management, and Heystek (2006) has demonstrated a lack of mutual trust between head teachers and parent governors, sometimes generating tensions in school operation. A study of school governance across the UK conducted by Ranson et al. (2006) concluded that school governance in many respects remains significantly unrepresentative of some of its significant parent constituencies. As such, citizen participation in school governance has yet to be realised in many communities. At the same time, a state-​controlled market in school-​based education, with central government’s role increasing and local government’s decreasing, prevails (West, 2015). In the US, Lareau (2000) found that teachers did not want partnership in school governance but rather a ‘professional-​client’ relationship. Teachers saw education as a round-​the-​clock experience that parents had to supplement by supervising their children, reinforcing the curriculum and showing support by attending school events. Gramsci has argued that power cannot be obtained by force or coercion by a class alone, but that it also needs the consent of civil society institutions such as churches, schools and families (Thomas, 2009). According to Gramsci, cultural hegemony is a prerequisite to power (Crehan, 2002). Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved though social institutions which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behaviour of the rest of society (Davidson, 2018). Gramsci does not imply that subordinate groups are powerless. Nevertheless, Vincent (2000) asserts that those in power manage to retain control over the powerless by seeking their vigorous consent to

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144  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko the status quo. As such, school professionals, as the dominate group, are in a position to socialise and assimilate parents into their preferred school norms, rules, regulations, values and parent–​school relationships. Ultimately, parents come to believe that an uneven distribution of power between school professionals and themselves is natural and inevitable. Davies (1996) suggests there is a difficulty among school professionals working with parent volunteers and parent governors and a reluctance to hand over traditionally established power to parents. It is worth stressing that in the Chinese tradition parents generally accept substantial power differentials between themselves and school professionals based on position and status (Leung and Chan, 2001). Such cultural practice helps reinforce Gramsci’s assertion of cultural hegemony, which describes power manipulation as common-​sense norms and values. School professionals can legitimately continue to exercise control over parents and many Chinese parents will try to maintain a harmonious relationship with teachers in order to avoid any conflict. They believe that conflicts between parents and teachers will leave a negative influence on children’s attitudes towards school and learning. Therefore, if parents disagree with the actions of school professionals, they would rather draw on familial and community resources to compensate for it, rather than directly raise the disagreement with teachers or school administrators (Ng, 2000; Diamond, Wand and Gomez, 2004). Moreover, research findings show that most Chinese parents do not see active involvement as part of their rights and responsibilities (Gu, 2008). Ball (2006) argues that parent–​school collaborations enable school professionals to legitimately control and obtain parents’ support since they have built-​in control over their relationship with parent participants. Similarly, Gascoigne (2012) mentions that there are different types of obstacles in the process of encouraging parental involvement in school governance which have to be overcome before school professionals will ultimately value parents as real partners. However, Ng’s (2013) documentary analysis on chronological development of home–​school relations found that parents are marginalised by school professionals. They can be treated as partners when invited to be members of the School Management Board. These dilemmas and contradictions found within the literature, on the role of parents in school governance and the different levels of power assigned to them, provided the background and rationale for the design of the study presented in this chapter and interpretation of data collected.

Methodology The study which forms the basis for this chapter was an exploratory study carried out in 2016 to explore the relationships between parents and school professionals, arising from increased parental involvement at various levels of school education in Hong Kong. Qualitative methods were adopted in the study to provide insights which could help conceptualise the micro-​political relationships between parents and school professionals. To capture the interviewees’ points of view, the researchers employed an interpretive methodological approach for collecting and analysing data (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008), combined with a case study method (Yin, 2002).

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 145 Two case study schools were included in the study, which gave the context for the theories to emerge (Radnor, 2001). The case study schools, Trinity and Concordia, (pseudonyms), were selected based on two principles. First, the schools provided relatively more opportunities for parental involvement than other schools in Hong Kong and had already established parent–​teacher associations (PTAs) or school governing boards. From the school webpage, both schools demonstrated that they had a lot of parental involvement activities and welcomed parents to participate as members of the PTA. Second, students came from different socio-​economic family backgrounds and this ensured that parents from different social positions were invited for in-​depth interviews. Ethnographic methods were applied in the case studies. Creswell (2009) describes an ethnography as a description and interpretation of a cultural or social group or system. Ethnographic work helps interviews, conversations and participant observations to occur anywhere over a long period of time during which the researchers can close the distance between an outsider’s interpretation of social order and the real meaning of life experience to those under study. With the head teachers’ consent, the researchers engaged in extensive data collection work for 6  months in each case study school, and conducted semi-​structured in-​depth interviews with parents and teachers, combined with participant and non-​participant observations. Following agreement by school professionals and chairpersons of the PTAs, the researchers participated in PTA meetings, parent–​ teacher conferences, school open days, students’ arts exhibitions and parent days. Four parents and four teachers of Trinity and five parents and four teachers of Concordia were interviewed respectively. A  general semi-​structured interview guide, with questions about parental involvement in the case study schools, was designed for each of the aforementioned stakeholder groups. The researchers adopted the method of theoretical sampling to select interviewees (Hutchinson, 1988; Maykut and Morehouse, 2002; Shenton, 2004). After analysing the transcript of the first interview, the author selected another parent and teacher for interviews. According to Maykut and Morehourse (2002), sampling is completed when it arrives in a ‘saturation’ point in which data obtained from previous respondents are replicated by another interviewee. The researchers stopped inviting parents and teachers for interviews when they found data collected were saturated. In addition, the researchers also had conversations with the head teachers of the two case study schools concerning their intentions around involving parents. Observation field notes and interviews were recorded in Chinese and transcribed into English. Recurring themes and patterns were extracted from the transcripts. The data obtained from these two interview sources served the purpose of triangulation. Analyses were interwoven with a review of the relevant literature.

Descriptive analysis of two case study schools The following description of parental involvement in each case study school emerged from the data obtained through interviews and observations. They

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146  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko illustrate the responses of both parents and school professionals to increased parental involvement in PTA activities and school governance matters. The descriptive analysis serves as a foundation for the interpretive analysis which follows. Trinity Primary School Trinity was a Catholic school. It consisted of students from both middle-​class and working-​class families. The head teacher had held her position in the school for 3 years. She believed that parent participation was a milestone in school activities, and knowing that parental involvement was of paramount importance to SBM reforms, she had already proposed some measures involving parents. Our teachers have to adapt to change. Involving parents in school can help enhance better communication and relationship. (Head teacher, Trinity) In the morning, the head teacher often chatted with parents and welcomed them to attend the assembly with the children in the hall. The PTA at Trinity was established a year prior to the field work. Due to the head teacher’s belief in parents as valuable resources, she had immediately organised a preparatory committee for the setting up of a PTA at Trinity, when told by the Education Bureau to involve parents. The vice head teacher said that there had emerged a culture of parent participation since then, as the PTA served as a bridge for enhancement of better communication and co-​operation between parents and teachers. A parent remarked: The head teacher has established a vivid culture. She attends all parent events. She invites some of us to be tutors of students with learning difficulties. Last year, our representative was selected to be the school governor in School Council. (Parent A) Collaborative effort and collegial consensus were the impetus for developing better home–​school relationships. Nevertheless, a parent interviewee demonstrated his doubt and disbelief regarding the number of parent governors. He remarked: It’s just one representative invited to the governing committee. It’s really pointless when there is a vote. Will they really listen to us? (Parent B) Not every school professional was interested in working with parents. They were obliged to participate in the PTA committee, and the head teacher required them to be executive members. Teacher A commented: It’s unreasonable to require us to work for the parents on Saturdays. We are already exhausted after a week’s work. (Teacher A)

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 147 Teacher B also echoed Teacher A’s worry by specifying that some parents demanded too much from teachers and that parents’ involvement in school governance would develop a culture of complaints. He perceived it as the head teacher’s managerial strategy to keep teachers in check by encouraging parents to watch the teachers. In summary, increased parental involvement had necessarily exerted impacts on the school culture in Trinity. Parent–​teacher relationships were improved, though some concerns were voiced by teachers. Besides parent representatives being involved in school governance, many parents were involved at different levels of their children’s education, from communication and volunteering to school management. Concordia Primary School Concordia was situated between a private residential area and two public housing estates. Students were of both middle-​class and working-​class backgrounds. The head teacher had been serving the school for ten years. He did not believe that recent reforms would help improve parent–​school relationships, and described the setting up of the PTA as a formality. Change! Innovation! The Education Department has just borrowed the ideas from the West. Nonetheless, many policy initiatives have been proved unsuccessful. Parents cannot help but interfere with school operation. (Head teacher, Concordia) Although the Concordia school website specified the importance of home–​school co-​operation and welcomed parental involvement, it actually seemed that the only opportunity for parents to participate in school were the activities organised by the PTA. In addition to PTA activities, parents were invited to attend the general meeting of the PTA each year. The head teacher had strong reservations concerning parental involvement in the school and retained the traditional perspective of parents as trouble makers. He believed that it was beyond the ability of the parents to be school governors, and that parents needed to be trained and assisted by teachers in the PTA committee before becoming school volunteers and school managers. Indeed, he was afraid of parents’ intrusion at school. It was thus not surprising when parents could not identify with the statements about parents’ roles and responsibilities in children’s education, not to mention school governance. Parent H envisaged this as a lack of respect and another parent interviewee had the following negative comment: We are not impressed by what he has done so far. He has not taken any innovations into account in school policies. (Parent G) Teacher F similarly complained about the apathetic attitudes of school professionals towards participating in the PTA and the hesitations of the head teacher to involve parent representatives in the school board. He said:

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148  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko You can see that no school professionals find attending the PTA meeting important. The head teacher does not care. (Teacher F) In sum, there was a lack of consensus among school professionals with regard to enhancing parental involvement in Concordia. The head teacher was not eager to encourage his teachers to proactively communicate with parents and felt doubtful about parents’ capabilities of being executive members of the PTA committee and school governors in the school council.

Interpretive analysis: Micro-​politics of parental involvement in school governance The descriptive analysis of the two case study schools illustrates different types of micro-​politics regarding practices of power decentralisation in the process of encouraging parental involvement in school governance in Hong Kong. Four propositions of the relationships between parents and school professionals have emerged from the data. We have analysed them using Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, deliberately comparing the rhetoric of parental involvement at the two schools with their actual interactions with parents. They show that the school as a cultural institution maintains a professional-​client relationship with parents so that school professionals can easily maintain traditionally built-​in control over their relationship with parents. Their interactions with parents imply that the notion of partnership between parents and school professionals is misinterpreted and devalued and that school governance is a matter of power and manipulation. Parental involvement in school governance is thus still sidelined, even though decentralisation of power is emphasised in SBM reforms. Proposition 1: Parents as policy-​followers The first proposition is that the expert functions of school professionals are not influenced by parents. School professionals are more likely to welcome parents to get involved in their children’s learning outside the school because, in this way, they can retain their power in school. To a great extent, they do not like to work closely with parents as they believe they are unprofessional. Home–​school relations put an emphasis on routine communications about students’ academic performance. The school is a closed institution where teacher autonomy is emphasised and parents are perceived as policy-​followers. School professionals are likely to restrict parents’ involvement inside the school. At Concordia, parents were not expected to be involved inside the school. The perception that parents were unwelcome intruders was pervasive among school professionals. At Trinity, on the contrary, parents were invited to be school volunteers, to help organise school activities and, most importantly, to be involved in decision making in the school board. At Concordia, school professionals believed that it was the responsibility of parents to supervise their children at home.

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 149 Because of the authoritarian and conservative attitude of the head teacher, parents thought that they were not respected and there was a lack of trust in parent–​school relationships. The head teacher had set up the PTA and, on the surface, this was to empower parents to some extent, as requested by the Education Bureau. However, parents found that school professionals did not appreciate the activities organised by parent representatives of the PTA. Thus, the establishment of the PTA was a formality and parental involvement was marginalised. One parent commented: It’s too disappointing that no teachers participated in our activities. We are not respected. (Parent G) While some of the school professionals did not object to the innovation of involving parents, they thought that the head teacher did not take initiatives to actually realise it. Teacher G, a junior teacher who had only been at the school for a short time, was not pleased with what had occurred at Concordia: I don’t find any specification of parents’ roles in any school documents. There is a lack of policy-​driven consensus among us. (Teacher G) Manipulation of the parents’ participatory role was also seen to be illustrated by school policy, which expected parents to seek prior approval when wishing to enter the school campus, and two parent interviewees felt very unhappy about this. Concordia could thus be understood as a closed institution in which the power of school professionals was secured. It appeared as a closed community (Hanafin and Lynch, 2002) where parents could not influence the professional autonomy of teachers. Parents were perceived as laymen and prevented from involvement inside the school. They were expected to co-​operate by following school requests. Moreover, some school professionals demonstrated apathetic attitudes since they perceived working with parents as extra workload. As the vice head teacher remarked: It is difficult to elect teacher representatives to participate in the executive committee of our PTA. They think it is extra workload and they are fearful of their interference. (Vice head teacher, Concordia) Bæck (2010) has described the built-​in control of school professionals, deriving from protectionism, where parents are not welcome to be involved in school, unless required by school professionals. According to Gramsci, parents as a subordinate group are powerless. They have no choice but to render their consent to school professionals (the dominant group) to maintain the status quo. Chinese parents would like to avoid conflicts with school professionals for fear that it may create negative impacts on their children’s academic performance (Diamond, Wand and

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150  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko Gomez, 2004). Supporting this, it can be concluded that parents lacked opportunities to be involved inside Concordia. The relationship between parents and school professionals was far from congenial partners, and the notion of ‘parents as policy-​ followers’ denoted protection, refusal, denial and manipulation. Collaboration as the ultimate aim of parental involvement was ‘absolute’ rhetoric. Proposition 2: Parents as instruments of school initiatives at Trinity The second proposition emphasises the intention of the school to develop relations with parents to be mutually beneficial and supportive, to a certain extent. For political and pragmatic reasons, schools agree to devolve part of their power and influence to parents and welcome them to participate in school activities. A  more welcoming attitude emerges within the minds of school professionals. They gradually recognise parents as invaluable resources but they also worry that parents may interfere with school administration. Parents are playing the role of ‘instruments of school initiatives’ but not of ‘real partners’. School professionals still do not welcome parents to share the power of decision making or enjoy equal status. At Trinity, the teaching professionals started recognising the value and the need for involving parents in school and acknowledged that home factors could exert influence on students’ school performance. For political and pragmatic reasons, they agreed to disperse some powers to parents. They became active and took initiatives in reaching out to parents by welcoming them to attend school seminars, develop curricula, assist in co-​ordinating library resources, organise PTA activities and act as volunteers. The vice head teacher ventured her opinion about the significant role of parents: To enhance communication with parents, we have invited parents to offer assistance in extra-​curricular activities on Saturday such as religious gathering, traditional art and craft. Parents have their expertise and would like to offer help. We have a list of parent volunteers and they will come when they are told. (Vice head teacher, Trinity) It was politically correct to involve parents in school operations as the government had urged schools to include parents in children’s education. The general public was convinced that parents were empowered and parent–​teacher relations were improved at Trinity. It seemed that a welcoming culture had appeared in the school, where students felt happier and more confident. Their parents often turned up for participation, and a trust relationship had developed between parents and school professionals, where parents were also educated to help implement school initiatives (Anderson and Minke, 2007). Politically speaking, inviting parents to be volunteers at Trinity connoted the mission of ‘pragmatism’. Parents were treated as invaluable resources and, for pragmatic purposes, the school professionals utilised parents to carry out some school activities as assigned.

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 151 Pragmatism describes the quality of dealing with a problem in a sensible way, suiting the conditions that really exist. Actions are worth adopting if they are useful or benefit the greatest number of stakeholders. For promotion purposes, it thus appears that good partnership relationships were established at the school and, to be ‘politically pragmatic’, the inclusion of parents in school operations carried the notion of empowerment and democratisation. Nevertheless, some very significant points need to be considered. First, parents’ assistance was controlled by school professionals. Illustrated from the interviews above, at Concordia parents needed to seek approval prior to entering the school, and at Trinity they came when they were required. They were utilised as instruments to help implement school policies. Parents and school professionals were working collaboratively at various levels of children’s education. Nonetheless, an imbalance of power and control was implicitly embedded and a hegemonic culture was still prevalent by which parents were seen as subordinate to school professionals. This is similar to the finding of Lareau (2000) who showed that school professionals expected a professional-​ subordinate relationship with parents rather than a partnership of equal status, and that school professionals themselves defined the involvement of parents. Teachers wanted to control the amount of interconnectedness between home and school. They welcomed only particular types of parental involvement in schooling  –​involvement they defined as supportive and fruitful. Although they wanted parents to respond to their requests for help, they did not want parents at the school monitoring their decisions and trying to influence children’s school experience. (Laureau, 2000, p. 35) The parents at Trinity and Concordia were marginalised by having no visible roles to play, or as being active in participating in school events but in a limited way. Partnership was used as a tool to maintain school professionals’ control and to involve parents in closely circumscribed activities –​looking after children’s discipline or organising activities –​but no more than that. Proposition 3: Parents as ‘pseudo partners’ at Trinity The third proposition illustrates attempts to involve parents in school governance. The school authority accepts the rights of parents to participate in decision making and acknowledges that their voices should be listened to, at least to a certain extent. The power of managing schools is dispersed to parents. Nevertheless, these assumptions are mostly political rhetoric. The number of parent governors and their power to make decisions are both limited. Parent representatives are inevitably enacting the wishes of the governing body. Ball (2006) and Radnor and Ball (1996) suggest that the governing body often promotes the general interests of the school as defined by the head teacher. Parent governors predominantly enact the wishes of the governing body and thus their role is merely that of ‘a puppet’. They are pseudo partners.

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152  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko At Trinity, the governing body had invited one parent representative to the school council, while the Education Bureau was at the stage of promoting this new initiative to all primary and secondary schools. Politically speaking, this was a sign of democratisation in school governance in which representatives from parents, teachers and professionals were invited to be school governors. Parents were to be empowered and their opinions respected. The school management was seen as representative rather than dictatorial, and the notion of parental involvement in decision making connoted team work and partnership. The initiative of Trinity to include a parent on the school council was applauded by a mother: It’s progress. At least it is a symbol of allowing us to participate in governing our school. (Parent C, Trinity) Nevertheless, Parent B, a father, felt unhappy with regard to the ratio of school governors since there was only one parent representative in the council. He critically expressed his doubt in the following way: It’s really meaningless when there is a vote. And I’ve heard that the representative is often standing at the side of the school. He is actually a marionette. (Parent B, Trinity) The role of the parent governor was considerably limited, and the establishment of parent-​as-​governors in the school council was thus mere policy rhetoric. Parent B was angry at the behaviour of the parent representative because he felt he was promoting the interests of the school. This was because the parent representative was placed in an undesirable situation in terms of the numbers voting and because the agenda items were decided by the chairperson of the council without being distributed for comment before the meeting. Parent B feared that the parent governor had been assimilated by the school professionals and had come to play the role of a marionette, being manipulated by the school professionals. This situation is also echoed by Vincent (2003) who argues that governors are invited to envisage themselves as an integral part of the governing body rather than representing the general interests of parents in school. At Trinity, the small number of parent governors among the total number of members in the school council made it doubtful how the parents involved had any say and any input into the ‘partnership’ which the school had created for them. The governing role of parents was thus intentionally or unintentionally marginalised by the school council. The parent governor was an instrument of school initiatives and was, to a great extent, acting as a pseudo or puppet partner. The role of parent-​ as-​governor was a rhetorical symbol. It, furthermore, seemed that the role of parent governor held little appeal for most parents, since school management was perceived as the domain of the school professionals, and duties like school finance were considered beyond the capability of the ordinary parent.

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 153 Proposition 4: Parents as partners –​A utopian vision! The fourth proposition describes an equal partnership in which power and control are evenly distributed and in which parents and school professionals recognise the need of the input and value the skills and knowledge of each other. However, based on the data collected in these two case study schools, the vision emphasising parents as partners was not realised. It seems that it is a utopian vision, which was not witnessed at the time the study was conducted. It is a theoretical ideal and will hopefully be achieved when school professionals are willing to disperse actual powers to parents and participation in school governance is no longer pseudo or spurious. The phrase ‘utopian vision’ carries the following two messages. First, the intention of involving parents in school management as recommended by the Education Bureau has not yet been realised in Hong Kong. The data show that parents and school professionals were wrestling for power and influence, but that school professionals were always in a favourable and advantageous situation, marginalising the governing roles of parents. School professionals maintained control in terms of their position and knowledge. Second, utopia connotes something impossible to achieve. But what prevents us from actualising the vision of parents as partners? Is it the school professionals who cannot easily give up part of their traditionally established powers to share with parents? Are they afraid of losing their domain? School professionals, including teachers, principals and the governing bodies, are in control. Parents passively follow. Thus, whether parent empowerment is a success or just rhetoric really depends on the school professionals. If there is no intent to recognise parents’ contribution, there will continue to be an imbalance of power between parent and school that creates a pseudo partnership.

Discussion Similar to many other studies (e.g. Brown and Duku, 2008; Chikoko, 2008; Heystek, 2006), this qualitative study connotes that when inviting parents to be involved in school education, micro-​politics emerge between parents and school professionals. Highlighted in this chapter is the rhetoric of partnership between parents and school professionals emerging in the process of implementing parental involvement as an educational innovation in Hong Kong. Based on the case study, conducted in two primary schools in Hong Kong, it has been argued that parents’ involvement in school governance is a dynamic and complicated process, which involves the notion of compromises and concessions between parents and school professionals and requires trust and consensus. Parental involvement can be a way to empower parents, but the notion of empowerment evident here suggests a concern that power given to a subordinate group is eventually lost by the former power holders. This study of the micro-​politics of parental involvement in schools shows how the imbalance of power between parents and school professionals makes it a mere policy rhetoric. However, as discussed earlier, the

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154  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko Chinese culture tends to condition Chinese parents to be quiescent and acquiescent and this helps the school administration facilitate control over parents during the process of promoting parental involvement. Four propositions regarding parents’ non-​participatory roles in the dynamic process of parental involvement emerged in the qualitative data collected via interviews and observations in two case study schools. Similar to Vincent’s (2003) study in England, they show that parental involvement in school governance remains at the level of rhetoric, due to the fact that school professionals tend to define appropriate parental involvement according to their own interests. The first proposition, parents as policy-​followers, was exemplified by Concordia Primary School’s reiteration of teachers as experts and professionals who maintain control over parents. Here, school professionals tended to demonstrate an attitude of protectionism towards parents’ participation. Parents were kept away from participation in school operation due to school professionals’ apathetic attitudes. This has parallels with the Gordon and Louis (2009) protective model which avoids conflicts and protects schools from parents’ interference and the expert model of Ferrara and Ferrar (2005) where teachers regard themselves as experts or professionals and maintain control over parents in matters concerning their children’s education. Parents depend very much on the teachers and receive information only. The second proposition signifies a pragmatic orientation as exemplified at Trinity Primary School. It asserts that parents are treated as instruments of school initiatives in which parents are welcome to be school volunteers but are expelled from the process of decision making. Even though parents are included as school governors, they are still within the control of the school professionals and their role is used to promote the interests of the school governing body. Therefore, their partnership with school professionals is considered pseudo, as illustrated in the third proposition, which asserts that the practice of parental involvement in school governance is of empty rhetoric. The rhetoric delivers the message that ‘parents-​ as-​governors’ is an ideal for quality education, but this remained a utopian vision in the case-​study schools. Only when there is mutual respect between parents and school professionals and parents experience shared decision making, as depicted in the fourth proposition, can parents be involved as real partners of the school. However, in reality, there seldom appears a case where parents have equal status and the power that the school professionals enjoy. Looking at increased parental involvement from the school professionals’ perspective, there was fear that they would lose some of their traditionally established powers.

Conclusion The purpose of implementing SBM in Hong Kong has been to restructure school governance through the purposeful redistribution of power in schools. This arrangement, aimed at increasing parental involvement and usurping the power of school professionals, runs contrary to the deeply rooted structures of the school’s hegemonic culture underpinning how schools are ordered. If the shared power practice functioned well, parents and school professionals would work together

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 155 with mutual respect towards partnership, more power could be generated and parent–​school collaboration could contribute to parent development, teacher development and student development (Esptein, 2012). Nevertheless, in the process of parental empowerment, ‘parents-​as-​governors’ is mere rhetoric as demonstrated in the case study. The establishment of Incorporated Management Committees in schools was recommended in Hong Kong in 2011. This study was conducted in early 2016, but some of the school professionals still hesitated and even resisted parental involvement in the management of the school due to fear of the unknown, threats to status and power, reluctance to experiment and existing customs. The case study thus reveals that parents were still excluded from involvement at various levels of their children’s education almost 5 years after the implementation of SBM. For years, the lack of policy statements for schools at the management level has left the scope of parental involvement undefined in Hong Kong. Some school professionals find that working with parents creates extra workload, and the perspective of professional protectionism may also hamper the development of parent–​school relationships towards a partnership model. Ng’s study (2011) reveals that although some school professionals supported the innovation, they were constrained by lack of skills, knowledge and beliefs in working in partnership with parents. To formulate an effective policy that helps facilitate parents as ‘real’ but not ‘rhetorical’ or ‘pseudo’ school governors, it is of paramount importance to provide ongoing professional training programmes for school professionals and potential parent governors respectively. It is not the quantity of the programmes that matters, but rather the focus and quality of programmes that are designed to help school professionals and parent governors address the innovation in order to get rid of the deep structure of hegemonic culture in the school setting. Needless to say, the implementation of school governance demands that school professionals take initiatives and become effective change agents (Fullan, 2007). Hence strengthening professional development programmes and building school professionals’ capacities is what senior management should consider first and foremost to ensure that working towards the partnership model in school governance becomes a success.

References Addi-​Raccah, A. & Ainhoren, R. (2009). School governance and teachers’ attitudes to parents’ involvement in schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(6), 805–​813. Amatea, E.S. (2007). Building Culturally Responsive Family-​ School Relationships. N.J.: Pearson Education/​Allyn and Bacon. Anderson, K.L. & Minke, K.H. (2007). Parent involvement in education:  Toward an understanding of parents’ decision making. The Journal of Educational Research, 100(6), 311–​323. Bæck, U.-​D.K. (2010). ‘We are the professionals’:  A study of teachers’ views on parental involvement in school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 31(3), 323–​335. Ball, S. (2006). Education Policy and Social Class. London: Routledge. Ball, S. (2012). The Micro Politics of the School: Towards a Theory of School Organization. London: Routledge.

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156  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko Bastiani, J. (1989). Working with Parents –​a Whole School Approach. Berkshire: Nefer-​Nelson. Bauch, P.A. & Goldring, E.B. (2000). Teacher work context and parent involvement in urban high schools of choice. Education Research on Evaluation, 6(1), 1–​23. Beare, H., Caldwell, B.J. & Millikan, R.H. (2018). Creating an Excellent School: Some New Management Techniques. London: Routledge. Brown, B. & Duku, N. (2008). Negotiated identities: Dynamics in parents’ participation in school governance in rural Eastern Cape schools and implication for school leadership. South African Journal of Education, 28, 431–​450. Cheng, Y.C. (2013). School Effectiveness and School-​Based Management: A Mechanism for Development. London: Routledge. Cheng, Y.C., Chung, A. & Ng, S.W. (eds.) (2016). Internationalization of Higher Education: The Case of Hong Kong. Singapore: Springer. Chikoko, V. (2008). The role of parent governors in school governance in Zimbabwe: perceptions of school heads, teachers and parent governors. International Review of Education, 54(2), 243–​263. Connolly, M. & James, C. (2011). Reflections on developments in school governance: International perspectives on school governing under pressure. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 39(4), 501–​509. Cranston, N.C. (2002). School-​based management, leaders and leadership:  Change and challenges for principals. ISEA, 30(1), 2–​12. Crehan, K. (2002). Gramsci, Culture, and Anthropology. California: University of California Press. Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research Design:  Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. London: Sage. Davidson, A. (2018). Antonio Gramsci:  Towards an Intellectual Biography. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Davis, D. (1996). Crossing boundaries: Community-​family-​school partnership. Forum of Education, 51, 83–​91. Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (2008). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In:  Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc, pp. 1–​43. Diamond, J.B., Wang, L. & Gomez, K. (2004). African-​American and Chinese-​American parent involvement: The importance of race, class, and culture. FINE Network Research Digest at the Harvard Family Research Project. Epstein, J.L. (2001). School, Family and Community Partnerships –​Preparing Educators and Improving Schools. Boulder, Colorado: Westview. Epstein, J.L. (2012). School, Family and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools. New York: Taylor & Francis. Ferrara, M.M. & Ferrar, P.J. (2005). Parents as partners:  Raising awareness as a teacher preparation program. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 79(2), 77–​82. Fullan, M. (2007). The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York: Teachers College Press. Gascoigne, E. (2012). Working with Parents as Partners in SEN. New York: Routledge. Gordon, M.F. & Louis, K.S. (2009). Linking parent and community involvement with student achievement: Comparing principal and teacher perceptions of stakeholder influence. American Journal of Education, 116(1), 1–​31.

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The micro-politics of parental involvement 157 Gu, W. (2008). New Horizons and challenges in China’s public schools for parent involvement. Education, 128(4), 570–​578. Hanafin, J. & Lynch, A. (2002). Peripheral voices: Parental involvement, social class, and educational disadvantage. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(1), 35–​49. Hanburger, A., Carlbaum, S., Hult, A. Lindgren, L. & Lundström, U. (2016). School evaluation in Sweden in a local perspective: A synthesis. Education Inquiry, 7(3), 349–​371. Heystek, J. (2006). School governing bodies in South Africa:  Relationships between principals and parent governors  –​A  question of trust? Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 34(4), 473–​486. Huber, S.T. (2011). School governance in Switzerland: Tensions between new roles and old traditions. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 39(4), 469–​485. Hutchinson, S.A. (1988). Education and grounded theory. In: Sherman, R.R. & Webb, R.B. (eds.) Qualitative Research in Education: Focus and Methods. London: Falmer Press, pp. 123–​140. Lareau, A. (2000). Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Leithwood, K. (2000, September). School leadership and education accountability: Toward a distributed perspective. Invited paper presentation at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong. Leithwood, K. & Hallinger, P. (2002). Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration. New York: Springer. Leung, J.Y. H. & Chan, H.M. (2001). The school management reform in Hong Kong: Administrative control in a new cloak of managerialism. In: Cheung, B.L. & Lee, J.C.Y. (eds.) Public Sector Reform in Hong Kong into the 21st Century. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. 229–​260. Maykut, P. & Morehouse, R. (2002). Beginning Qualitative Research. London:  Taylor & Francis. Ng, S.W. (1999). Home–​school relations in Hong Kong: Separation or partnership. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 10(4), 551–​560. Ng, S.W. (2000). The impact of social class difference on parent involvement in school education in Hong Kong. Education Journal, 28(2), 35–​62. Ng, S.W. (2007a). The chronological development of parent empowerment in children’s education in Hong Kong, Asia Pacific Education Review, 8(3), 487–​499. Ng, S.W. (2007b). Development of parent-​school partnerships in times of educational reform in Hong Kong. International Journal of Educational Reform, 16(4), 321–​345. Ng, S.W. (2011). Managing teacher balkanization in times of implementing change. International Journal of Educational Management, 25(7), 654–​670. Ng, S.W. (2013). Including parents in school governance: Reality or Rhetoric. International Journal of Educational Management, 27(6), 667–​680. Ng, S.W. (2017). The evolving roles of parents in the process of developing home-​school relationships in Hong Kong:  Issues and challenges. In:  Gopinathan, S., Tse, K.C.T. & Lee, M.H. (eds.) Making Sense of Education in Hong Kong since 1997: Achievements and Challenges. London: Routledge Critical Studies of Asian Education, pp. 180–​198. Ng, S.W., Chan, T.M. & Yuen, G. (2017). Outsourcing extra-​curricular activities in a time of neo-​liberal influence. International Journal of Educational Management, 31(4),  1–​16. Ng, S.W. & Lee, T.H.T. (2015). How parents were involved in a special school in Hong Kong. International Journal of Educational Management, 29(4), 420–​430.

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158  Shun Wing Ng and Po Yuk Ko Pang, I.W. (2008). School-​based management in Hong Kong:  Centralizing or decentralizing. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 7, 17–​33. Pierre, J. & Peters, G.B. (2000). Governance, Politics and the State. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Radnor, A.H. (2001). Researching Your Professional Practice:  Doing Interpretive Research. Buckingham: Open University Press. Radnor, A.H. & Ball, S., with Vincent, C. & Henshaw, L. (1996). Local Education Authorities: Accountabilities and Control. Stoke-​on-​Trent: Trentham  Books. Ranson, S., Arnott, M., Mckeown, P., Martin, J. & Smith, P. (2006). The participation of volunteer citizens in school governance. Educational Review 57(3), 357–​371. Rizvi, F. & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing Educational Policy. London: Routledge. Shenton, A.K. (2004). Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. Education for Information, 22(2), 63–​75. Skerrett, A. & Hargreaves, A. (2008). Student diversity and secondary school change in a context of increasingly standardized reform. American Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 913–​945. Thomas, P.D. (2009). The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism. Leiden: BRILL. Vincent, C. (2000). Including Parents? Buckingham: Open University Press. Vincent, C. (2003). Social Justice, Education and Identity. London: Routledge Falmer. West, A. (2015). Education policy and governance in England under the coalition government (2010–​15): Academies, the pupil premium and free early education. London Review of Education, 13(2), 21–​36. Yin, R.K. (2002). Case Study Research:  Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA:  SAGE Publications.

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Part III

Radical governance

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10  Stronger Smarter Transformational change for Australian schools with rock-​solid foundations in the Early Years Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson Introduction Over the last decade, educational outcomes for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums1 (children) have remained consistently lower than those for the overall student population (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2018). At the same time, Australia’s educational outcomes in international testing such as PISA have been dropping (Thomson, De Bortoli, and Underwood, 2017). Successive Australian governments have responded to these challenges with an increasing focus on describing and assessing the attributes of quality teaching, and measuring student outcomes (Savage and Lingard, 2018). For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, the situation is compounded by an entrenched deficit paradigm where the standards used to measure success are based entirely around those valued by a Western education system. This resulting standardisation discourse distances both educators and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from the policy discussions (Bahr, 2016; Gillan, Mellor and Krakouer, 2017), favouring quick fixes and one-​size-​fits-​all approaches over strength-​based, localised approaches (Guenther, Disbray and Osbourne, 2014). As Reid (2018) suggests in a discussion of the future for Australian education, this is an approach better suited to addressing the certainties of the 20th century than the challenges of the 21st century. Rather than promoting quality education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums, this focus on standardisation based on Western views about what constitutes success simply reinforces the deficit model and is doomed to fail (McKinley, 2017; Anderson, quoted in Henebery, 2017). Over this same period, an Indigenous-​led, not-​for-​profit organisation, the Stronger Smarter Institute, has been working with schools across Australia, with a mission to improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums. The Institute promotes the ‘Stronger Smarter Approach’ which disrupts this deficit-​based, one-​size-​fits-​all thinking (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2017). The Stronger Smarter Approach provides a way of thinking about educational governance that favours the futures-​focused discourse described by Reid (2018), valuing collaboration, adaptability, student-​ centred teaching approaches and teacher autonomy.

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162  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson In this chapter, we describe a layered approach of radical governance where educators are provided with a different way of thinking and a new set of tools based on Australian Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing (Martin, 2008, p. 72). We start by describing the basis for the Stronger Smarter Institute’s programmes, discussing why this different way of thinking is essential for success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in Australia. We then describe one of the Institute’s programmes, the Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme, which is focused on the Early Years and designed in response to increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population growth (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). With more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums entering the school system over the next few years, framing Early Years education in a strength-​based paradigm will be essential for building success.

Stronger Smarter –​disrupting the approach in Indigenous education In 2008, the Melbourne Declaration, which laid out Australia’s goals for Australian schooling, recognised the key priority of improving the outcomes of Indigenous Australians (MCEETYA, 2008). The Declaration promoted a school system built on the local cultural knowledge and experience of Indigenous students as a foundation for learning. The strategy for achieving this has been framed as Closing the Gap (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2018). While this has been important in ensuring a continued focus on improving educational outcomes for Indigenous students, the framing of the strategy in a deficit discourse contributes to a disconnect between policy and the original aim of recognising the strengths of Indigenous students and their community. The discourse of Closing the Gap, together with the standards used to measure success, sees Indigenous people as ‘lacking’, positions the policy as a ‘problem’ that needs ‘fixing’ and signals that the aim of Indigenous education is about encouraging Indigenous people to become ‘better citizens’, where the measure is a good white citizen (Fogerty and Wilson, 2016; Moreton-​Robinson, 2009; Sarra, 2018; Vass, 2013). The use of mainstream measures of success such as attendance, retention rates and standardised test results is a narrow conception of ability for all students, which may miss out on other talents that students have to offer (Robinson, quoted in Duggan, 2018). For Aboriginal students, this becomes compounded when anything that does not conform to the standards and strengths valued by the westernised system is considered deficit. As a simple example, while some Aboriginal children may speak several Aboriginal languages when they start school, the only ‘strength’ and ‘standard’ considered is their ability to speak English. For Aboriginal people, particularly in remote communities, definitions of educational success may be very different. The values placed on language, culture and land, and the responsibilities to pass on traditional knowledge and mediating relationships are all valued educational outcomes that are important to well-​being (Wilson et al., 2018).

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Stronger Smarter 163 If Closing the Gap is based on the assumption that education is the key to future opportunity but then limits the measures of educational success to those valued by a Western system, as Guenther, Disbray and Osbourne (2014) argue, this will inevitably lead to quick fixes and one-​size-​fits-​all approaches. As an example, a focus on Indigenous student attendance (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2018) might seem like a quick fix but it is based on a false assumption that improvements in attendance will automatically lead to better academic outcomes which fails to recognise the complexity of the situation (Vass, 2015). These ideas are nothing new. Buckskin (2015) says that for over 35 years Aboriginal educators have been arguing for a paradigm shift in the way Western pedagogy and epistemology dominates the way Aboriginal students are being educated and assessed. This changes the focus away from the deficit model to focus on differences in opportunity and ensuring high-​quality teaching and high-​quality curriculum opportunities for all (McKinley, 2017; Savage and Lingard, 2018; Hattie, 2009). In the example of attendance, the understanding then becomes that attendance is evidence of an absence of engagement by students and families in a system that, to them, lacks relevance to their needs and aspirations. As Guenther et al. (2017) argue, human capital theory suggests that young people in Australia’s remote communities will only be engaged if there is a return on their investment and cultural capital in terms of seeing the value in participating and having their voices recognised. The deep-​seated ‘racialised fire’ that continues to burn in Australian education, based on ignorance and a lack of respect for diversity, is something that, in 21st century Australia, we cannot continue to ignore (Vass, 2015; Buckskin, 2015). In this setting, the Stronger Smarter Institute has provided a strength-​based alternative, where the starting point is that, as international education expert Ken Robinson says (quoted in Duggan, 2018), ‘educators already know what they need to do’. The Stronger Smarter Approach is based on the premise that a school community already has the skills and knowledge to solve the complex problems of Indigenous education. This involves developing quality student relationships and culturally responsive pedagogies, exploring what is happening in the classroom to engage students and recognising the outcomes valued by the students and their community. When these come together to establish a classroom environment conducive to quality learning for all students, both attendance and learning will naturally follow (Duggan, 2018). This approach provides a viable and successful alternative to Australia’s current standardisation approaches, with the Institute’s footprint of over 3,000 programme participants from over 850 schools across Australia, from remote to metropolitan areas, demonstrating the success. The Institute’s approach positions educators and their communities as active participants in professional learning and values them as the agents of change. This shifts the focus from locating the blame for academic failure with the family or the culture and places a high priority on the voices of both educators (Savage and Lingard, 2018; Bahr, 2016) and their school communities (Gillan, Mellor and Krakouer, 2017), positioning them as best placed to make decisions on what will work in their local context.

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164  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson

Stronger Smarter Jarjums –​High-​Expectations Relationships for the Early Years Yunupingu (1994) describes a social theory, Ganma theory, based on the knowledges of the Yolgnu Aboriginal People in the Northern Territory. Ganma theory explains the linkages of knowledges. For example, in the coastal mangrove channels, the tidal ebb and flow and the mixing of fresh and salt water create areas of brackish water in complex and dynamic balance. Yunupingu explains that in the same way that the salt water and fresh water mix, a balance of Yolgnu life is achieved through the ebb and flow of competing interests. He suggests that the same balance between black and white Australia can be achieved. Professor Martin Nakata has described this space where the two world views of the Western and Aboriginal knowledge systems come together as the ‘cultural interface’ (Nakata, 2002). This is a contested space, where we all bring assumptions by which we make sense and meaning. The brackish water or the cultural interface is perhaps most evident within the Early Years of schooling. Educators bring to the educational space their own assumptions based on the histories, discourses and social practices which condition how we look at the world (Nakata, 2002). These assumptions are tacit and unspoken and in Australia are inevitably based on a colonial, westernised view of the world. In contrast, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums enter the Early Years space as their first introduction to the education system from a different world view, a different knowledge system, finding themselves suddenly within this contested space, trying to understand where they fit within this complex, dynamic balance. While there is a plethora of literature describing what needs to be done for Australian Indigenous education (Buckskin, 2015), researchers have seldom offered practical solutions for schools. With more Indigenous Jarjums already entering the Early Years spaces (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018), and the statistics showing a need to support resilience for Jarjums (AEDC, 2015), the Stronger Smarter Institute developed the Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme to support educators to understand the complex dynamics of the brackish water and equip Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums with the code-​switching skills needed to become proficient in the behaviours of the academic expectations privileged by schools that differ to their home cultures (Lewthwaite et al., 2015). The underlying concepts of the Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme come from work by Aboriginal educator, Professor Chris Sarra, during his time as Principal of an Aboriginal school in the community of Cherbourg in southern Queensland (Sarra, 2011a) and are described as the Stronger Smarter Approach (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2018). The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme itself is a radical approach to professional development. The programme is run as a 4-​ day immersion where educators are led through a variety of activities and strategies focusing on building strong relationships. The purpose is both to shift the thinking of educators about Indigenous education, and to model tools and strategies that can be used directly in their schools. Each programme the Institute offers

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Stronger Smarter 165 is shaped to some extent by the participants themselves, with no programme ever quite the same. The offering of programmes becomes a dynamic process where the Institute is continually learning from the educators themselves, revising how the programme is offered and adding to the series of resources that can be shared back with the profession.

Shifting the thinking As Ken Robinson says (quoted in Duggan, 2018), if we can get the culture of the school right, student engagement will go up, and students will learn. This is more likely to occur when teachers see themselves as central players in enabling change. The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme recognises that building confidence and agency in educators starts with an altering of beliefs about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and the culture they represent. This recognises the legacy of the national discourse that has deliberately suppressed Indigenous knowledges, leaving educators reluctant to engage with issues of race for fear of getting it wrong (Matthews, 2015; Vass, 2015). When this turnaround in thinking is put into practice, collaborations between teachers and families negotiate towards embedding the students’ strengths and cultural capital to create a strong culture within the school (Lewthwaite et al., 2015). Sarra (2011b), when working at Cherbourg State School, used the idea of ‘Strong and Smart’ –​that being smart in the classroom and being strong in culture could work hand in hand –​to disrupt the idea that had been prevalent in many schools that being smart in the classroom meant leaving your Indigenous culture behind at the school gate. If this belief is then backed up by a culturally responsive curriculum that values the strengths the Jarjums bring to the classroom, incorporates Indigenous knowledges and brings local cultures to the forefront, student engagement is likely to increase, and communities will be empowered (Lewthwaite et al., 2015; Wilson et al., 2018; Guenther, Disbray and Osbourne, 2014). Sarra’s experience at Cherbourg was that when students took pride in understanding their cultural identity through Elders from the community, there was a dramatic improvement in outcomes such as attendance, unexplained absenteeism and literacy (Sarra, 2014). A number of Australian schools have introduced programmes to teach the local Aboriginal language to all students or to embed local culture in the curriculum. For example, one New South Wales kindergarten set up a semester-​long project based on the local totem of Kawal, the wedgetail eagle, called ‘What can Kawal see?’ This focused on embedding the local Aboriginal culture and histories across all key learning areas (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2018). Participants in the Stronger Smarter Institute’s programmes report how student engagement, confidence and pride increases when they see schools valuing and embedding local culture in this way. Using Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing (Martin, 2008, p.  72), the Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme sets up a gentle and safe environment where it is possible to challenge thinking. The programme models the concept of

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166  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson High-​Expectations Relationships (Sarra, Spillman, Jackson, Davis, and Bray, 2018) to create a Yarning Circle2. The protocols of a Yarning Circle involve deep listening, being present and respectful turn-​taking. This creates a safe non-​judgemental space where participants can speak without interruption. Standing or sitting in a circle on the same level promotes equal participation and eye contact across the group (Mills, Sunderland, and Davis-​Warra, 2013). Each participant is valued equally and roles are set aside. This is disruptive –​participants are challenged to rethink the assumptions and ideas they may have been used to throughout many years in teaching (Schein, 2010). The programme offers ways of how Indigenous people see the world and challenges educators to look beyond their own view of the world and understand what may be happening at the cultural interface (Nakata, 2002). Participants are asked to think about whose beliefs and values impact on this third cultural space, what can be done to reject the current inequitable power status and how they can support the different frames of thinking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums bring to the classroom. This safe environment ensures that participants are placed in a position where they feel comfortable in challenging deep-​held beliefs and assumptions and the process of changing ways of thinking can happen quickly with ‘light-​bulb’ moments, but in a way that is not abrupt. As an example, a participant in the Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme from a community preschool states, ‘the programme caused an internal shift in my thinking about what it means to be culturally competent and has strengthened my resolve as a leader of change in honouring diversity and embracing difference as key elements of a rich learning environment’ (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2018). Another participant says, ‘being able to do the training and to slow down and think about what’s happening has really then shifted the way we are doing things [in our school] even into our executive team. Taking the time to reflect and ensure what we are doing is worthwhile instead of doing things at a 100 miles an hour.’ A third participant notes how she was still unpacking ideas from the programme a year later (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2018) which suggests that participants continue to have ‘light-​bulb’ moments and deeper understanding as they continually embed the processes in their schools.

A layered approach to governance –​High-​Expectations Relationships Uncle Ernie Grant, a Jirrbal elder from North Queensland, describes how Aboriginal culture is based around relationships and connections (Grant, 1998; 2016). While Western cultures may talk about a tree in isolation, Aboriginal people take a more holistic approach, thinking about what else the tree is telling us depending on the type of tree, the different meanings throughout the year or what the flowers or fruit are signalling about the wider environment. A Western eye sees a butterfly, perhaps recognising the colours and patterns that show what kind of butterfly it is. An Aboriginal eye sees what else the butterfly is telling us about the relationships between climate, life cycles, the time of year, and what is happening with the sky, the trees or other animals. Uncle Ernie Grant explains that this holistic view is about

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Stronger Smarter 167 understanding land, language and culture, time and place and how these relate together. When we see these relationships, the learning is deeper and more likely to be retained. When Uncle Ernie Grant links this to education, he explains how the Aboriginal way of working with relationships and the teacher and student walking beside each other in the learning journey is quite different to the education system’s focus on authority and working with the ‘big stick’. The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme helps educators to understand how these relationships can work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums, their families and communities, introducing the concept and ideas of ‘High-​ Expectations Relationships’. A  High-​Expectations Relationship is defined as a two-​way relationship that is both supportive and challenging (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014; Sarra et al., 2018). Being ‘firm’ in a relationship means having the courage to challenge the deficit discourses that can act as excuses and, in doing so, limit the agency of educators to contribute to meaningful change. Similarly, in the classroom, this is holding high expectations for learning and challenging poor student behaviour or low expectations. This is balanced by being ‘fair’ in the relationship to establish the space of trust and safety where these challenging conversations can occur. Fairness involves engaging in authentic dialogue, such as Dadirri, with children and parents (Ungunmerr, 1988). Aunty Miriam-​Rose Ungunmerr-​Bauman describes Dadirri as a deep listening process and as a way of being for the Daly River People who have 65,000 years of continuous cultural knowledge. Dadirri is also about quiet, still awareness. As Aunty Miriam-​Rose Ungunmerr-​Bauman says, ‘We cannot hurry the river. We have to move with its current and understand its ways’ (Ungunmerr, 1988, p. 3). The deep listening and genuine interest with non-​judgement establishes equal power relationships where students and parents can voice their needs and desires for their education and feel part of a school system that values their strengths and culture. In a High-​Expectations Relationship it is essential that both the firm and fair aspects are present. If a classroom environment is based only on ‘fairness’ and supporting students, this may lose the rigour needed for quality teaching. If it is based only on ‘high expectations’ but without the supportive elements to ensure students feel like they belong and are cared about, then the results may be poor student behaviour and disengagement from school.

Relationships in the Early Years All Early Years educators understand the importance of nurturing relationships and positive interactions to bring a sense of ‘Belonging’ as clearly articulated in the Early Years Learning Framework (DEEWR, 2009). Building strong social and emotional skills in the Early Years has been shown to have a positive impact on academic results in Years 3 and 5 (Collie et al., 2018). The evidence is that most Early Learning programmes do this relationship building well (Tayler, 2016). However, data from the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC, 2015) show that across Australia 40 percent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums are at risk or vulnerable, double the number of non-​Indigenous Jarjums.

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168  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson If educators can understand the challenges for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums as they negotiate their way through the contradictions and tensions of the two knowledge and thought worlds, they are better placed to support the adaptive social and emotional competencies that Jarjums need as coping tools in the Early Years spaces (Collie, Martin and Frydenberg, 2017). The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme shows educators how High-​Expectations Relationships can be built from a point of view where it is not about the Jarjums fitting into the Western system’s view of the Early Childhood space, but about understanding the needs of the Jarjums and their family, and how their home lives and stories may differ from the lives and stories of non-​Indigenous Jarjums. This is understanding the languages families speak and how this might impact on learning –​for instance it might not be immediately obvious that Jarjums are used to speaking a mesh of languages such as a dialect of Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Islander creole. Understanding the social aspects of home arrangements helps an understanding of how Jarjums may behave in the classroom. For instance, Aboriginal Jarjums, who are often raised with more autonomy than Western Jarjums, may choose to seek help from peers rather than adults, and older Jarjums may be used to looking after the space they are in or the other Jarjums in that space. In the classroom this may sometimes appear to be slowness or disobedience (Llewellyn, Boon and Lewthwaite, 2018). Dr Chris Sarra’s words that we need a ‘commitment of doing things ‘with’, not ‘to’ Indigenous people’ have been recognised and repeated as a policy direction in the Australian government (Turnbull, 2018). This is the key tenet of the Stronger Smarter Approach –​that if schools recognise the strengths existing in their community, the school can co-​create a school improvement agenda together with the whole school community. Such a solution is far more likely to be effective than one that it is externally imposed on the community. While this collaborative approach may be a policy direction, there is considerable complexity in implementing this within a school. Lowe’s (2017) study in central and western New South Wales found it is essential for educators to understand the impact of past lived experiences and histories of Aboriginal communities on their interactions with the current educational system before they can establish meaningful quality classroom experiences for students. He suggests this understanding will only occur when educators initiate genuine two-​way engagement with local communities. Likewise, Bond’s (2010) study on Mornington Island off the north Queensland coast found that the community asked educators to build authentic relationships, understand their role as guests in the community, show respect for the local culture and consult Elders on matters of pedagogy and curriculum. Again, this highlights the need for the deep listening processes of Dadirri. In the same way that Aunty Miriam-​Rose Ungunmerr-​Bauman explains that you cannot hurry the river (Ungunmerr, 1988), these relationships cannot be rushed and will need to be built over time. And yet, the Western education system continues with the model of staffing remote schools with teachers who have limited social, political and professional knowledge about the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal students. These

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Stronger Smarter 169 inexperienced teachers, who return to metropolitan schools after 2 or 3 years, are inevitably limited in their ability to establish ongoing relationships with students. Ensuring the best outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students requires a system that recognises that the best way to support Indigenous student success, and to truly do things ‘with, not to people’ involves a system that forefronts the development of meaningful, ongoing, authentic connections between schools and communities. The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme supports educators to initiate these genuine two-​way conversations with families. This might begin with a quick conversation as parents or carers pick up their Jarjums at the end of the day. If the conversation starts from a point that embraces the strengths of community and seeks to understand their values and expectations, this can build a space of trust where more challenging conversations can be held. One preschool3 in New South Wales takes time to build relationships with families before their Jarjums start preschool. They invite families in for one-​on-​one yarns about their expectations for their Jarjums and what they would like them to achieve. Play days, where the new Jarjums come into the preschool to meet each other, also provide an opportunity to sit and chat with parents in an informal setting. This preschool has developed their information package for parents as a picture storybook that describes everything about ‘when I arrive at preschool’. Parents can then read this to their Jarjums and talk to them about what will happen in preschool (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2018). A number of schools are using Yarning Circles, as modelled in the Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme, to learn a little more about what is happening in the lives of the Jarjums in their class. In a Yarning Circle every voice is heard, and, in a classroom, this can help create equal power relationships. The Yarning Circle can be used for a quick check-​in each morning, for longer conversations or as a tool to bring the class back together when things are getting out of control. Several schools report how using the Yarning Circles and check-​ins can help build empathy and support among the children  –​so that if one Jarjum says they are feeling sad about something in the check-​in, the other Jarjums will be there immediately to support them. At one North Queensland school, they use Yarning Circles for the Jarjums to share their stories on a Monday morning when their preschool Jarjums come in excited to tell the class about everything they’ve done over the weekend. This has been a good way to help teach Jarjums to take turns and listen. They sit on a big Yarning Circle mat and the teacher explains to the children how the symbol in the middle represents the camp fire –​so if one child moves out of the circle into the middle, the other kids will shout ‘stop, you’ll get burnt’ (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2018).

Relationships across the sectors –​bringing the village together The Early Years journey for a Jarjum is one that takes them through a series of separate entities from playgroups, kindergarten or prep years, through to primary

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170  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson school. The Western approach to education tends to treat these separate entities as discrete silos. This is in sharp contrast to Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing which, as Jirrabal Elder, Uncle Ernie Grant, explains, are about connections and relationships (Grant, 1998). In the same way, the transition process for Jarjums across the Early Years spaces will be more successful if it is an interconnected, relational and holistic process where all relevant stakeholders  –​parents, family, community and school  –​work together (Krakouer, 2016 a; b). For educators, this begins with understanding the complexities of different family structures and the relationships between the family members, to identify the relevant stakeholders who should be encouraged to be involved. In addition, this requires a shift in thinking from the silo view of focusing only on the current space to igniting conversations and building partnerships across sectors and across communities (Bobongie and Jackson, 2018; Hirst et al., 2011; Rigney, 2010; Krakouer, 2016b). Uncle Ernie Grant’s Holistic Teaching and Planning Framework (Grant, 1998) gives an understanding for non-​Indigenous educators to take this more holistic approach. The framework shows how relationships between six components (land, language, culture, time, place and relationships) interlink, intertwine and exist together giving non-​Indigenous educators an understanding of seeing the world through Indigenous eyes. Sveiby and Skuthorpe (2006) describe how Aboriginal people (in this case the Nhunggabarra people) use stories as an educational tool. Every story has four levels of meaning, with the deeper levels only available to those with the ‘keys’ (Sveiby and Skuthorpe, 2006, p. 41). The first level of meaning is the simple story the child hears first and which might, for instance, answer simple questions about the environment. At the second level, the story provides examples of how to behave with others, the third level provides information about relationships with other communities and the environment, and the fourth level of meaning concerns spiritual action. The stories are repeated, perhaps with actions and dances to accompany them, and as the Jarjums get older they learn the deeper meanings. Cultural events also have the same sense of increasing depth where Jarjums are involved from an early stage to learn the protocols. Responsibilities change as the Jarjums get older to perhaps cleaning the house or preparing food, until as adults the involvement is in the planning and finally taking full responsibility for the organisation of the event. The involvement in the same event changes as roles and responsibilities grow, with each level practised before moving to the next level. The same concept of gradually building deeper meaning and learnings with stories or activities can be used across the Early Years transitions. The key here is familiarity for the Jarjum for the next space, the changing rules and routines, and the teachers they will encounter. As a simple example, using the same songs across different spaces could help with familiarity and connections. Each time the learnings can be deeper, moving from listening, to actions, learning to do the actions without Mum’s help, singing, knowing the words, knowing the meaning behind the words, and then eventually knowing more about the song, its history and where it comes from.

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Stronger Smarter 171 At one preschool in New South Wales, they start this transition to school from the beginning of the year, building up further in Terms 3 and 4. This involves visits to the school to learn about the library or the playground. They also start building relationships early on. Jarjums will attend a school class or a class will be taken by the teacher they will have in the next year. When Jarjums start the next year, their teachers already know who they are, how they work and how they learn. A preschool buddy programme operates when preschool students visit the school. Their buddies from the school explain how everything works, and they are starting to form relationships with Jarjums who will be in the year above them when they start at school the following year. By the time the Jarjums start at the school, they know the routines and expectations. They know their teacher, and they’ve already tested the waters, making behavioural management easier. The connections and expectations are there and the Jarjums are settled and ready for the next step in their learning. In Mackay in North Queensland, a super playgroup is run once a month in one of the local schools. Several playgroups come together, and this gives an opportunity for the Jarjums to become familiar with the spaces of the school –​the school gate, the playgrounds, the school hall. This provides a non-​threatening environment where staff can get together and yarn and where families can learn about the services and organisations that will all work together to support their Jarjums through the beginning of their learning journey. As shown in Figure 10.1, these examples provide a way for the Early Years transition to become a smooth, seamless process rather than stepping through a series of discrete silos. A strong transition programme in the Early Years, built on High-​ Expectations Relationships, can create spaces where families build relationships with each other so that new families can be supported, where Jarjums know what to expect in the next space, know the teachers who will be teaching them, and where Jarjums support each other and older children can talk to younger children about what is expected. If we can provide opportunities where all Early Childhood services can come together, we can bring the ‘village’ together. This gives the opportunities to create shared goals for expectations, plan strategies together and speak a common language rather than having separate goals and strategies in each sector. The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme takes the concept of radical governance to another layer. By valuing local approaches and the agency of educators, the programme models processes and tools and ensures educators are active participants in the programme. Feedback from participants is that after completing the programme on a Friday they are ready to start implementing strategies at their school on the following Monday. Participants can then use the concepts of High-​Expectations Relationships to build a radical model of school governance in their own context where the whole school community co-​creates high-​ quality, culturally responsive learning environments. Alumni from the institute’s programmes continue the layered approach to radical governance, running their own professional developments for their staff, running action research projects or taking opportunities to partner with the institute to co-​facilitate programmes or share their experiences. The Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme is unique in the

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Instead of discrete silos, the Early Years educators’area of interest extends across the boundaries to create and build a mesh of High-Expectaons Relaonships across the 0–8 year-old Early Years spaces

Figure 10.1 A smooth, seamless transition replaces a series of discrete silos

way that it achieves this way of seeing the world differently, providing answers to the question of ‘what can we do’ and giving participants the confidence that they are in a position to do things differently.

Conclusion The Melbourne Declaration’s aims for a school system built on local cultural knowledge and experience of Indigenous students as a foundation for learning (MCEETYA, 2008) have sometimes become lost along the way amid an entrenched deficit paradigm further magnified by an increasing emphasis on standardisation. As Sarra (2018) says, it is now time for Australia to plot a different course –​one that takes Aboriginal Australians from surviving to thriving and to ‘realise a new dimension where the negative stereotype of being Aboriginal that has defined us to white Australia since 1788 is filed away as a painful chapter in our history, and Aboriginal people are unequivocally liberated from the toxic precept of being forced into the mainstream’ (Sarra, 2018, p. 274). The Stronger Smarter Institute’s model has disrupted this status quo, providing an alternative view of educational governance. This model brings educators and communities to the forefront as the agents who can together create change. In this model, educators have the strategies and tools to engage respectfully with local communities and build culturally responsive curricula in a way that truly involves doing things ‘with people’ not ‘to people’. This is a sustainable model whereby educators themselves lead change rather than waiting for an external solution. When we explore the strategies in depth, it is clear that imposing external solutions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students reinforces the deficit model. Instead what is needed is simply the same good quality teaching that works for all students. However, quality teaching has to be about the Jarjums and recognising their strengths and their wishes for their educational outcomes and bringing their

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Stronger Smarter 173 culture into the classroom. We have to create a space where our Jarjums can be themselves and feel they belong, and not have to leave their culture at the school gate. In this model, educators recognise and reject the long-​held deficit and racialised beliefs entrenched in Australia’s education system. They believe in themselves as agents of change, have the confidence to build High-​Expectations Relationships with their Jarjums and their families, and provide a high-​quality, high-​expectations and culturally relevant curriculum to engage students in the classroom. It is essential that this model is enacted now, particularly in the Early Years. With rapid growth in Indigenous populations and more Jarjums entering the Australian school system, it is essential to get this right and create a rock-​solid foundation for all our Jarjums as they move into schooling. We can only do this if educators take a different approach, recognise strengths, and understand the cultural interface and what this means for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums in the Early Years.

Notes 1 Jarjums is an Aboriginal word for children used in a number of languages on Australia’s eastern coast. 2 The Yarning Circle is an oral language tradition used among Australian Indigenous communities. 3 We use the term preschool here as a general term for the Early Years learning spaces between playgroups and school, recognising that different terms are used in different states across Australia.

References AEDC (2015). Australian Early Development Census  –​National Report 2015. Australian Government Department of Education and Training, Canberra, ACT. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018). Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, June 2016. www.abs.gov.au/​AUSSTATS/​[email protected]/​Lookup/​3238.0.55.001 Main+Features1June%202016?OpenDocument [Accessed 24/​09/​18]. Bahr, N. (2016). Building quality in teaching and teacher education. Australian Education Review, 61. (Series editor S.  Mellor). Australian Council for Educational Research, VIC: ACER Press. Bobongie, F. & Jackson, C. (2018). Stronger Smarter Jarjums:  High-​ Expectations Relationships in the Early Years. Pedagogy+, 3, 42–​44. Bond, H. (2010). ‘We’re the mob you should be listening to’: Aboriginal Elders at Mornington Island speak up about productive relationships with visiting teachers. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 39, 40–​53. Buckskin, P. (2015). Engaging Indigenous students:  The important relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and their teachers. In:  Price, K. (ed.) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education:  An Introduction for the Teaching Profession. Second edition, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, pp. 174–​191. Collie, R., Martin, A., & Frydenberg, E. (2017). Importance of social and emotional competence for teachers, for very young children and for at-​risk students: Latest research. EduResearch Matters. www.aare.edu.au/​blog/​?p=2604 [Accessed 31/​07/​18].

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174  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson Collie, R.J., Martin, A.J., Nassar, N., & Roberts, C.L. (2018). Social and emotional behavioural profiles in kindergarten:  A population-​based latent profile analysis of links to socio-​ educational characteristics and later achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​edu0000262. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (2018). Closing the Gap Prime Minister’s Report 2018. Commonwealth of Australia. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) (2009). Belonging, Being and Becoming:  The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Barton, ACT, DEEWR. Duggan, S. (2018). ‘We have eroded the culture of learning’ –​Sir Ken Robinson delivers a powerful message to teachers at FutureSchools. EducationHQ. 21 March, 2018. https://​ au.educationhq.com/​news/​47392/​we-​have-​eroded-​the-​culture-​of-​learning-​sir-​ken-​ robinson-​delivers-​a-​powerful-​message-​to-​teachers-​at-​futureschools/​ # [Accessed 11/​ 09/​18]. Fogerty, B., & Wilson, B. (2016). Governments must stop negatively framing policies aimed at Indigenous Australians. The Conversation. 10 June, 2016. https://​theconversation. com/ ​ governments- ​ must- ​ stop- ​ negatively- ​ f raming-​ p olicies-​ aimed-​ at-​ i ndigenous-​ australians-​60558 [Accessed 10/​08/​18]. Gillan, K., Mellor, S. & Krakouer, J. (2017) The Case for Urgency: Advocating for Indigenous voice in education. The Australian Council for Educational Research. VIC: ACER Press. Grant, E. (1998). My Land. My Tracks. Innisfail, Queensland, Innisfail and District Education Centre. Grant, E. (2016). Transcript:  Knowledge leader  –​Uncle Ernie Grant. Foundations for Success. Queensland Government. www.foundationsforsuccess.qld.edu.au/​transcript-​ knowledge-​leader-​uncle-​ernie-​grant [Accessed 31/​07/​18]. Guenther, J., Disbray, S., Benveniste, T., & Osborne, S. (2017). ‘Red dirt’ schools and pathways into higher education. In: J. Frawley et al. (eds.). Indigenous Pathways, Transition and Participation in Higher Education. DOI 10.1007/​978-​981-​10-​4062-​7_​15. Guenther, J. Disbray, S. & Osborne, S. (2014). Digging up the (red) dirt on education: One shovel at a time. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 17(4), pp. 40–​56. Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning:  A synthesis of over 800 meta-​ analyses relating to achievement. Oxon, UK, Routledge. Henebery, B. (2017). Strength-​based approach needed for Indigenous education. The Educator. 19 Dec 2017. www.theeducatoronline.com/​au/​news/​strengthsbased-​approach-​needed​for-​indigenous-​education/​245053 [Accessed 24/​08/​19]. Hirst, M., Jervis, N., Visagie, K., Sojo, V. & Cavanagh, S. (2011). Transition to primary school: a review of the literature. Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia. Krakouer, J. (2016a). Literature review relating to the current context and discourse surrounding Indigenous early childhood education, school readiness and transition programmes to primary school. Australian Council for Educational Research. https://​research.acer.edu.au/​ indigenous_​education/​43/​ [Accessed 11/​09/​18]. Krakouer, J. (2016b). Relationships are paramount: Indigenous children’s transition. Blog, 25 August. Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY). www.aracy. org.au/​blog/​relationships-​are-​paramount-​indigenous-​childrens-​transition [Accessed 11/​09/​18]. Llewellyn, L.L., Boon, H.J., & Lewthwaite, B.E. (2018). Effective behaviour management strategies for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students:  A literature review. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43(1). http://​ro.ecu.edu.au/​ajte/​vol43/​ iss1/​1 [Accessed 11/​09/​18].

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Stronger Smarter 175 Lewthwaite, B.E., Osborne, B., Lloyd, N., Boon, H., Llewellyn, L., Webber, T., Laffin, G., Harrison, M., Day, C., Kemp, C., & Wills, J. (2015). Seeking a pedagogy of difference:  What Aboriginal students and their parents in North Queensland say about teaching and their learning. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 40(5). http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.14221/​ajte.2015v40n5.8. Lowe, K. (2017). Walanbaa warramildanha: The impact of authentic Aboriginal community and school engagement on teachers’ professional knowledge. Australian Educational Researcher, 44, p. 35–​54. Martin, K.L. (2008). Please knock before you enter: Aboriginal regulation of outsiders and the implications for researchers. Teneriffe, QLD: Post Pressed. Matthews, C. (2015). Maths as storytelling: Maths is beautiful. In: Price, K. (ed.) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education: An Introduction for the Teaching Profession. Second edition, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press. Mills, K.A., Sunderland, N. & Davis-​Warra, J. (2013). Yarning circles in the literacy classroom. The Reading Teacher, 67(4), 285–​289. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. www.curriculum.edu.au/​verve/​_​resources/​National_​Declaration_​on_​the_​Educational_​Goals_​for_​ Young_​Australians.pdf [Accessed 10/​08/​18]. Moreton-​Robinson, A.M. (2009). Imaging the good Indigenous citizen: race war and the pathology of patriarchal White sovereignty. Cultural Studies Review, 15(2), 61–​79. McKinley, E. (2017). Stop focusing on ‘the problem’ in Indigenous education, and start looking at learning opportunities. The Conversation, 9 February. https://​theconversation. com/​stop-​focusing-​on-​the-​problem-​in-​indigenous-​education-​and-​start-​looking-​at-​ learning-​opportunities-​71994 [Accessed 11/​09/​18]. Nakata, M. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and the cultural interface:  Underlying issues at the intersection of knowledge and information systems. IFLA Journal, 28(5/​6), 281–​292. Reid, A. (2018). Beyond Certainty:  A Process for Thinking About Futures for Australian Education. Commissioned by the Australian Secondary Principals’ Association. Rigney, L. (2010). Indigenous education: The challenge of change. Every Child, 16(4). Early Childhood Australia. www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/​our-​publications/​every-​ child-​magazine/​every-​child-​index/​every-​child-​vol-​16-​4-​2010/​indigenous-​education-​ challenge-​change-​free-​article/​ [Accessed 11/​09/​18]. Sarra, C. (2011a). Strong and Smart –​Towards a Pedagogy for Emancipation: Education for First Peoples. Oxon, UK: Routledge. Sarra, C. (2011b). Transforming Indigenous education. In:  Purdie, N., Milgate, G. & Bell, H.R. Two Way Teaching and Learning: Toward Culturally Reflective and Relevant Education. Camberwell, VIC: ACER Press. Sarra, C. (2014). Beyond victims:  The challenge of leadership. Griffith Review Annual Lecture. https://​griffithreview.com/​beyond-​victims-​the-​challenge-​of-​leadership-​lecture/​ [Accessed 09/​12/​18]. Sarra, C., Spillman, D., Jackson, C., Davis, J. & Bray, J. (2018). High-​ Expectations Relationships: A foundation for enacting high expectations in all Australian schools. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education. First View. http://​doi10.1017/​jie.2018.10. Sarra, C. (2018). Celebrating difference:  Transcending contamination with humanity. Griffith Review, 60 (First Things First), 271–​279. https://​griffithreview.com/​articles/​ celebrating-​difference-​transcending-​contamination-​humanity-​chris-​sarra/​ [Accessed 17/​08/​19].

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176  Fiona Bobongie and Cathy Jackson Savage, G.C. & Lingard, B. (2018). Changing modes of governance in Australian teacher education policy. In: Hobbel, N. & Bales, B.L. (eds.) Navigating the Common Good in Teacher Education Policy Critical and International Perspectives. New York: Routledge. Stronger Smarter Institute (2014). High-​ Expectations Relationships. A  Foundation for Quality Learning Environments in all Australian Schools. Stronger Smarter Institute Limited Position Paper. http://​strongersmarter.com.au/​resources/​high-​expectations-​ relationships/​ [Accessed 15/​04/​19]. Stronger Smarter Institute (2017). Implementing the Stronger Smarter Approach. Stronger Smarter Institute Position Paper. http://​strongersmarter.com.au/​resources/​high-​ expectations-​relationships/​stronger-​smarter-​approach-​position-​paper/​[Accessed 15/​ 04/​19]. Stronger Smarter Institute (2018). Stronger Smarter Interviews and Field Notes. Unpublished document. Sveiby, K. & Skuthorpe, T. (2006). Treading Lightly: The Hidden Wisdom of the World’s Oldest People, Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin. Schein, E. (2010). Organisational Culture and Leadership. Fourth edition, San Francisco: Jossey-​Bass Publishers. Tayler, C. (2016). The E4Kids Study: Assessing the Effectiveness of Australian Early Childhood Education and Care Programmes. Final report to the partner organisations of the Effective Early Educational Experiences (E4Kids) study. Thomson, S., De Bortoli, L. & Underwood, C. (2017). PISA 2015:  Reporting Australia’s Results. Australian Council for Educational Research. Turnbull, M. (2018). Closing the Gap Speech 2018. www.pm.gov.au/​media/​speech-​closing-​ gap-​report-​2018 [Accessed 01/​08/​18]. Ungunmerr, M.R. (1988). Dadirri: Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Still Awareness. Retrieved 8 December 2018 from www.miriamrosefoundation.org.au/​about-​dadirri. Vass, G. (2013). ‘So, what’s wrong with Indigenous education?’ Perspective, position and power beyond a deficit discourse. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 41(2),  85–​96. Vass, G. (2015). Putting critical race theory to work in Australian education research: ‘we are with the garden hose here’. Australian Educational Researcher, 42(3): 371–​394. Wilson, B., Abbott, T., Quinn, S.J., Guenther, J., McRae-​Williams, E., & Cairney, S. (2018). Empowerment is the basis for improving education and employment outcomes for Aboriginal people in remote Australia. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 1–​9. First View. doi:10.1017/​jie.2018.2. Yunupingu, M. & Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1994). Voices from the land. Sydney: ABC Books.

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11  Lessons from the AIME approach to the teaching relationship Valuing biepistemic practice Samantha McMahon, Valerie Harwood, Gawaian Bodkin-​Andrews, Sarah O’Shea, Anthony McKnight, Paul Chandler and Amy Priestly Citation: McMahon, S., Harwood, V., Bodkin-​Andrews, G., O’Shea, S., McKnight, A., Chandler, P.  & Priestly, A.  (2016):  Lessons from the AIME approach to the teaching relationship:  valuing biepistemic practice, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 25(1) pp. 43–​58.

Introduction Power, and particularly perceived power imbalances between teachers and students, is a problematic of schooling often interrogated by educational sociologists (Harwood, 2006; Youdell, 2011). Critique of this power dynamic is levelled via analyses focused by post-​structural theory (e.g., Davies, 2006; Harwood, 2006; McMahon, 2013; Youdell, 2011), discipline and authority (e.g., Macleod, MacAllister and Pirrie, 2012), gender (e.g., Crump, 1990; Read, 2008), inclusion (e.g., Allan, 1996), space (e.g., McGregor, 2004) and democracy (e.g., Thornberg and Elvstrand, 2012). One of the key tasks established in these critiques is to address power imbalances in the teacher–​student relationships and to build on processes that develop and affirm engagement in education. For instance, scholarship on alternative schooling shows how relationships between teachers and students can become less polarised by power differentials (e.g., Humphry, 2014; Kennedy, 2011; McGregor et al., 2015). This prompts the problem of how it may be possible for teachers to relinquish or change positions of power or authority while at the same time sustaining professionalism and a ‘well managed’ classroom. In such a scenario, what could an effective classroom with egalitarian teacher–​ student relationships look like? In this article we offer an illustration of pedagogies used in the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME), pedagogies that we suggest demonstrate the potential for effective egalitarian teacher–​student relationships. While the focus of this article is our fieldwork with AIME, we wish to acknowledge from the outset the diversity of Indigenous1 led work that draws on and applies rich knowledge traditions2 to engage and successfully teach young people. Our view is that there is an alarming lack of awareness of such successful approaches and

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178  Samantha McMahon et al. limited engagement in learning from the application of these important knowledge traditions. Respectfully, then, our work hopes to contribute to addressing this imbalance in ‘mainstream’ awareness. Responding to the critique of the power imbalances and how this can impact student engagement and retention, this article sets out to show how certain pedagogies are used in classroom instruction designed and lead by AIME for Indigenous young people in Australia. To do so, we explore how Indigenous epistemologies, or ways of knowing, underscoring the AIME educational context, seem to delimit possibilities for teacher–​student relationships stratified by power differentials. In arguing that Western educators have much to learn from Indigenous education and epistemologies, there is an urgent call for educators to explore how to traverse, learn from and practise using more than one knowledge system (e.g., Marika, Ngurruwutthun and White, 1992; Yunkaporta and McGinty, 2009). In colonised countries such as Australia (as well as others such as the United States, Canada, Aotearoa/​New Zealand) there is a well-​argued need for teachers to become ‘biepistemic practitioners capable of working through a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations’ (Hodson, 2012, cited in Kitchen and Raynor, 2013, p. 56). We use the term biepistemic practice to mean the ability to respectfully acknowledge and draw on both Western3 and Indigenous ways of knowing in teaching practice. We will demonstrate that AIME educators are skillful and effective biepistemic practitioners. Before doing so, it is necessary to first pause and differentiate between plausible linguistic interpretations and intended meanings and application of the term ‘biepistemic’. The prefix ‘bi’ denotes ‘two’, but we are not asserting here a distinct binary of ‘homogeneous Western’ or ‘homogeneous Indigenous’ epistemologies; rather our starting point is that these are heterogeneous (heterogeneous Western and heterogeneous Indigenous). We acknowledge and celebrate that just as there are many ways of knowing in the West, there are diverse and multiple ways of knowing in Indigenous cultures both internationally and nationally within settler states. Moreover, there are plentiful subtle points of commonality and tension in interactions between Indigenous and Western epistemologies (e.g., McKnight, 2015; Nakata, 2007; Yunkaporta, 2009). However, in schooling systems different knowledges and epistemologies are, problematically, not afforded similar values or status and, in our view, this directly impacts educational equity. Educational disadvantage for Indigenous students is commonly attributed to incongruities between the epistemologies of Indigenous and Western education (e.g., Castagno and Brayboy, 2008; Cherubini et al., 2010; Curwen Doige, 2003; Ireland, 2009; Smith, 2012; Yunkaporta, 2009). Battiste (1998, 20), conceptualises the sustained privileging of colonial and Eurocentric over Indigenous epistemologies in all aspects of schooling as ‘cognitive imperialism’; similarly, Brayboy and Castagno (2009) deploy notions of assimilation and power struggles to understand the problem. In this way, Indigenous epistemologies or ‘ways of knowing’ have been ‘subjugated’ (Foucault, 1980) in the field of Western education (e.g., Purdie and Buckley, 2010). According to Foucault, subjugated knowledges are those that have been wrongly afforded a diminished status of, or silenced, ‘beneath

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Lessons from the AIME approach 179 the required level of cognition or scientificity’ (Foucault, 1980, p. 81–​82) set out by a given discipline. If Foucault’s work positions the power/​knowledge problem of subjugating Indigenous knowledges at a systemic, discursive and disciplinary level, Fricker’s (2007) work closely considers the injustice perpetuated and felt by specific individual epistemic practices (e.g., personal processes such as conveying knowledge to others by speech and making meaning of social experiences) within such social contexts. Fricker describes these epistemic injustices as ‘testimonial injustice, in which someone is wronged in their capacity as a giver of knowledge; and hermeneutical injustice, in which someone is wronged in their capacity as a subject of social understanding’ (p. 7). Notwithstanding the efforts of culturally responsive and inclusive individual education professionals and staff, this subjugation of Indigenous knowledges and subsequent ‘wronging’ of Indigenous knowers is a persistent problem within schooling systems. In this context of injustice, while we acknowledge diverse epistemologies, summative nomenclature such as ‘Western’ and ‘Indigenous’ epistemology, and ‘biepistemic practice’ are strategic descriptors in this article. Crucially, this article takes an approach that distances itself from deficit accounts and seeks to ‘un-​subjugate’ Indigenous epistemologies or ‘ways of knowing’ in the field of education. We draw on Indigenous high school students’ and AIME staff ’s personal stories and experiences of AIME to erode colonial misrepresentations and deficit approaches through a ‘restorying’ (Corntassel, Chaw-​ win-​ is and T’lakwadzi, 2009) of Indigenous ways of knowing, teaching and learning. As stated above, we contend there is much for Western educators to learn from Indigenous ways of knowing, especially in reconceptualising alternative practices for the otherwise problematically hierarchical teacher–​student relationship. As we will outline, biepistemic practice holds potential for shifting the power dynamic in teacher–​student relationships. Thinking through the teacher–​student relationship using more than one way of knowing affords an opportunity to challenge Western understandings of relationships as solely interpersonal and imbued with power dynamics. Part of this shift involves bringing relationship with Country/​ environment/​land into the teacher–​student relationship dynamic. Yunkaporta (2009) and McKnight (2015) have explored this respectful meeting of Western and Indigenous pedagogies. Their work emphasises how the land (land links) or Country is the important knowledge tradition that guides the process, reducing the reliance on human power relationships. Building on this argument, through its attention to reducing power imbalances in pedagogic relationships, we venture to suggest that learning from the lessons of biepistemic practice has the capacity to contribute to improved inclusion for all students. This is especially because negative teacher–​student relationships are often cited as a key factor in young people’s disengagement from education, generally (Bodkin-​Andrews, Denson and Bansel, 2013; Duffy and Elwood, 2013; Hattam and Smyth, 2003; Humphry, 2014; Lumby, 2012; McMahon, Harwood and Hickey-​Moody, 2015; Pomeroy, 1999; Smyth and McInerney, 2006). We begin by recasting the problem of power imbalances in the teacher–​ student relationship by discussing how Indigenous ways of knowing contribute

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180  Samantha McMahon et al. to a better understanding of ‘teaching relationships’. Following this discussion, we foreground the AIME mentoring programme and describe how the approach used in this programme distances itself from the power-​imbued nomenclature of ‘teachers’ and ‘students’.4 We then outline our study methodology, which involved interviews with 143 Indigenous high school students and a classroom ethnography of 150 AIME sessions, across Australia. Our fieldwork with this programme included research in all the Australian states and the territory where the programme is delivered. We then move to the main part of the article, where we provide richly descriptive examples of how AIME uses Indigenous ways of knowing in Western classroom contexts and provides an instructive example of teaching ‘biepistemically’. Discussion of our findings is framed using Opaskwayak Cree scholar, Wilson’s (2008) theorisation of Indigenous ‘relationality’, an approach which supports an analysis of the Indigenous high school students’ emphasis on relationships in their experience of AIME. Drawing on our extensive ethnography of AIME classrooms, we describe elements of AIME’s pedagogical approach that promote egalitarian teacher–​student relationships. We show how, from the perspective of the Indigenous high school students, this is felt as an amelioration of power dynamics in the teacher–​student relationship.

Learning from Indigenous epistemologies –​biepistemic practice as a pathway to more egalitarian teacher–​student relationships There are many epistemologies, or ways of knowing. Yet, as described in the previous section, Western schooling tends to privilege one dominant way of knowing. The idea of teaching using multiple knowledges or more than one knowledge system (e.g., biepistemic practice) is juxtapositional to ‘mainstream’ educational thought. Knowledge, in Western educational scholarship, is commonly held as a collection of singularly true propositions or beliefs (Bonnett, 2009; Lang, 2011) to be learned, to fill one’s mind with, and to impart to the minds of others. The popular uptake of outcomes-​based education is testimony to this (Forster, 1995). From our observations of AIME’s Indigenous-​led classrooms, we contend that such approaches to knowledge (and, it follows, teaching and learning relationships) in Western schooling systems can only be enriched by also engaging with Indigenous epistemologies. In discussions of Indigenous epistemologies, Western constructs of epistemology and ontology do not remain separate; they are understood and experienced as interconnected and inextricably linked. In this discussion when we talk of Indigenous epistemologies we are also including ontological considerations. Indigenous epistemologies are diverse and complex; they are often characterised by multiple layers of relationality or relatedness (Martin, 2008; Wilson, 2008). Here, ‘relationality’ and ‘relatedness’ are used as technical terms; terms that hold specific meaning in contexts of Indigenous epistemologies and this varies from more common usage. Wilson (2008) describes relationality as it is experienced in Indigenous ontology and epistemology, internationally, as comprising relations with people, environment/​land, the cosmos and ideas. These types of relations,

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Lessons from the AIME approach 181 although described separately, are understood as completely intertwined with each other. Martin (2008), a respected Noonuccal scholar of Quandomoopah, highlights that stories and teachings may fluently interact with up to seven entities (e.g., people, land, animals, plants), yet, critically, relatedness moves beyond varying contexts to embrace important layers of reciprocity. Here, reciprocity encapsulates not just the sharing of knowledges, but a clear understanding of a responsibility to ensure that knowledges protect, sustain and strengthen both entities and also their relatedness to each other. Critically, relatedness becomes embodied in both the responsible sharing of, and sometimes the necessary silence of, stories as individuals progress through the varying layers of laws, customs and responsibilities linked to their very development. While the notions of relationality (Wilson, 2008) and relatedness (Martin, 2008) should be recognised as distinct themes, it may be argued that they are in part linked through an intrinsic emphasis on connectedness that ensures the survival of the peoples, lands, ancestral knowledges and teachings. This connectedness is emphasised through a form of reciprocity that ensures that knowledges are passed on through a foundation, a relational trust that directly links the teacher to both the teachings and the learner. The focus of this discussion is Indigenous high school students’ experiences of trust-​filled relationships with AIME ‘teachers’ and so ‘relations with people and ideas’ are key to our analysis. Before we outline Wilson’s (2008) theorisation of relations with people and ideas, we must first briefly rationalise why we are focusing on only this portion of this wider theorisation of Indigenous epistemology. It is important to acknowledge that relationality with what Wilson calls environment/​land and cosmos (spirit) are always part of AIME classrooms. Many Indigenous Australians recognise the relationality between environment/​land and cosmos (spirit) as Country. Country is physical, mental and spiritual (Harrison and McConchie, 2009). This is one example of how multiple dimensions of relationality inform interpersonal relationships and ways of knowing at AIME, and, further, this is different to the more dominant (Western) notions of relationships existing mostly between people. At AIME, Country is acknowledged, teachers’ and students’ stories name which Country they are from; as a national programme, there is scope for some flexibility within sites for an approach that is respectful of the many Countries and Indigenous peoples in Australia. Such connections to Country are inherently connected to cosmos (Wilson, 2008) through the personal stories shared from AIME staff and special guests. AIME’s curriculum content permits this feature to establish the importance of cultural pride, dealing with racism and overcoming hardships to implement the sharing and caring for spirit. In many instances, these stories emphasise not only how the presenters are linked to their culture and lands, but also to the lived experiences of the Indigenous students themselves. While relationality with Country and cosmos is invariably integral to AIME’s approach, attending to this comprehensively is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, the focus of the component of the study reported in this article was, as requested by AIME, to understand how the young Indigenous students became so engaged in AIME. This is of fundamental

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182  Samantha McMahon et al. importance given the appallingly low results that mainstream education and further education is achieving with Australia’s Indigenous people (e.g., ABS, 2012; O’Shea et  al., 2016; Purdie and Buckley, 2010; SCRGSP, 2015; Thompson, De Bortoli, and Buckley, 2013). In their interviews, the AIME students report that the egalitarian and respectful qualities of the teacher–​student relationships (i.e., their relationships with people) in AIME classrooms are key to their engagement in the programme. In our AIME classroom ethnography, we perceived the pedagogies used to facilitate these relationships as qualitatively different to what we have observed and experienced throughout our previous research and/​or professional experience in mainstream schools. We are careful here not to insinuate that the pedagogies AIME deploys are the only pedagogies, or even specifically Indigenous pedagogies, for achieving this outcome of egalitarian teacher–​student relationships. Rather, we contend that the egalitarian pedagogical relationships at AIME may be understood through Wilson’s theorisation of Indigenous ways of knowing, specifically his theorisation of relations with people and ideas. Wilson describes relationship building with people as of central importance to the ‘everyday lives of most Indigenous people’ worldwide (2008, p.  84). He points to the importance of cultural practices of developing shared relationships by talking about who you are and where you are from and sharing stories. One layer of Wilson’s (2008) theorisation of relationality between people is storytelling. Worldwide, storytelling is a respected Indigenous modality that emphasises relationality through not only getting to know and trust one another, but also a process of sharing knowledge, working together and mutual learning (Bessarab and Ng’andu, 2010; Bodkin-​Andrews et al., forthcoming; Wilson, 2008). In pedagogical literature, oral storytelling is acknowledged as cultivating relationality and learning communities (e.g., Baskerville, 2011; Phillips, 2013) and classrooms that are culturally inclusive (Baskerville, 2011). Wilson (2008) also describes the ‘relationality with ideas’ in Indigenous epistemology. He does so by drawing on his friend’s observation of the importance of the circle as a symbol for Indigenous cultures worldwide. Wilson (2008, p. 92) explains how non-​hierarchical relationships are at the foundation of Indigenous ontology and epistemology: If reality is based upon relationships, then judgement of another person’s viewpoint is inconceivable. One person cannot possibly know all of the relationships that brought about another’s ideas. Making judgement of another’s worth or value then is also impossible. Hierarchy in belief systems and social structure and thought are totally foreign to this way of viewing the world. Thus, egalitarianism and inclusiveness become not merely the norm but the epistemologically inevitable. By extension, we will argue, power imbalances in the teacher–​student relationship become impossible. We are not claiming that Indigenous teacher–​student relationships are power-​neutral; for example, learners’ deference to Elders is

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Lessons from the AIME approach 183 paramount. Instead, we read Wilson’s work to mean that there is a reciprocal and deep respect for each person’s role within a pedagogic relationship (e.g., Elder and learner, teacher and student). It is this deep respect for each other’s roles coupled with a cultural valuing of humility and generosity that results in an apparent egalitarianism, a lack of ‘power struggle’ or need to control or pass ‘judgement’ in pedagogic relationships. For example, some Elders, when sharing their personal lived experiences, humbly align these experiences to those of the students, thus emphasising a reciprocal and dialogical relatedness with learners (Curwen Doige, 2003; Goulet and Mcleod, 2002; Paterson and Hart-​Wasekeesikaw, 1994). Indigenous scholars in Australia (Buckskin, 2012) and internationally (e.g., Bishop et al., 2012; Brayboy and Castagno, 2009) highlight the paucity of such respectful and egalitarian ways of teaching in schools and call for the role of relationships and people to be re-​centred in Western schooling. In describing the teacher–​ student relationship in AIME classrooms, we hope to render the pedagogies that support ‘egalitarian and inclusive’ classroom relationships as observable and learnable for those who may otherwise not find it such an ‘epistemological inevitability’ (Wilson, 2008). Pedagogy is rarely thought through in terms of epistemology in contemporary educational research (Lang, 2011; McKnight, 2015; McMahon, 2013). While it might seem unusual to think through teachers’ pedagogical choices epistemologically, we contend that the connection between these two concepts is direct. How one comes to know something (one’s epistemology) directly informs choices about how one does things (in this case teach a class). A  person’s epistemology directly impacts their pedagogical decision making (e.g., Harwood and McMahon, 2014; McMahon, 2013; McMahon and Harwood, forthcoming). For example, McKnight’s (2015) paper offers a foundational work for understanding how Indigenous ontology and epistemology grounded in oneness and relationality engenders the very possibility of specific pedagogies for cultural learning (legacy pedagogies). He notes how these possibilities are delimited and rendered impossible within current treatment of knowledge in education, which he critiques as Western dualistic epistemological approaches. Adding to this scholarship, here we demonstrate how Indigenous epistemologies characterised by relationality allowed for a privileging of pedagogies that supported developing trust-​filled and egalitarian ‘teacher–​student’ relationships in AIME classrooms. In the discussion of the impact of epistemology on pedagogy that follows, we don’t presume to ‘dissect’ AIME’s approach to show which specific parts of it are drawn from Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. To do so would be to create artificial and inaccurate binaries (see discussion of ‘biepistemic’ in the previous section). Rather, based on our long-​term research involvement, our biepistemic research team (authors Bodkin-​Andrews, McKnight and Chandler are Indigenous scholars, authors McMahon, Harwood, O’Shea and Priestly are non-​Indigenous scholars) continually recognises how AIME differs to mainstream schooling via its central positioning of Indigenous epistemologies. Paramount to this is the inclusion of lived experiences of Indigenous AIME staff and young people to the programme’s content and delivery. With this in mind, we

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184  Samantha McMahon et al. agreed it was reasonable, and possibly useful, to think through the data from an epistemological point of view.

Why study AIME? In this paper we focus closely on the nature of AIME. AIME’s evaluative research base (Harwood et  al., 2013; KPMG, 2013) and reports (AIME, 2016) demonstrate it is a nationwide initiative making progress in closing the education gap5 for Indigenous Australians. AIME is an Indigenous mentoring programme; however, it is not a university pathway or outreach programme. AIME is a not-​ for-​profit organisation that is independent of universities and so is uniquely positioned to work across educational institutions. The purpose of the AIME programme is to support Indigenous students to complete high school and transition to any positive post-​school pathway of their choosing (including university, further education or employment). Delivered at university campuses across Australia, the AIME programme targets Indigenous students in Years 7–​12 (approximately aged 12–​18 years). The students engage with AIME via excursions to the university campuses (up to 5  days per year) where they meet with volunteer mentors, who are students at the host university. Additionally, AIME provides in-​school support via homework programmes called ‘tutor squads’ and delivers personalised transitional support for students between the end of high school and their chosen positive post-​school pathway. In total, during their high school years, students engaged with AIME have the opportunity to access 156 hours of mentoring and academic support (AIME, 2016). The AIME programme curriculum is designed by and for Indigenous young people. The curriculum focuses on skills and values that support engagement in education, for example, respect, empathy for teachers, self-​esteem, confidence and communication skills, goal setting, time-​management and leadership. The programme curriculum also focuses on cultural history and identity and promoting the idea that ‘Indigenous = Success’ and that there are many ways to be successful. AIME has experienced extensive national growth, starting with only 25 mentors and 25 high school students at one university site in 2005. By 2015, 4,864 students from 325 high schools attended the programme with 1,923 volunteer university student mentors, at 18 partnering universities across Australia (AIME, 2016). Such expansion is testimony to the programme’s success (AIME, 2016; Harwood et al., 2013; KPMG, 2013). There are now instances where Indigenous AIME students’ transition rates to the next scholastic year level out-​perform Australia’s national non-​Indigenous transition rates (AIME, 2016). AIME’s success is impressive and worth trying to understand more fully.

An example of biepistemic practice: AIME’s montaged approach to pedagogic relationships Here we suggest that AIME engages in biepistemic work by selecting concepts from multiple knowledges and practices to create a montaged, composite

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Lessons from the AIME approach 185 pedagogy6 for a culturally responsive classroom. We suggest that AIME simultaneously:  Honours Indigenous, cultural understandings of the importance of teaching with and through relationships; recognises specific elements of Western mentoring and coaching programmes as complementarily relational; and enacts a composition of these approaches within Western classroom contexts using knowledge garnered from AIME staff ’s personal schooling experiences. AIME innovates on widely accepted notions of who inhabits ‘the classroom’ and borrows from mentoring nomenclature to distance itself from Western education’s hierarchicalism of classroom roles. We now explain their terminology and highlight connections to dominant understandings of schools. For the purpose of this paper on AIME’s pedagogical approach, one may read ‘presenter’ as synonymous with teacher and ‘mentee’ or ‘mentor’ as synonymous with student. The presenters are the AIME staff responsible for curriculum delivery. AIME seeks to ensure that presenters are young Indigenous Australian role models. The presenters are rarely qualified teachers but they are responsible for ‘standing out the front’ and facilitating classroom learning; they are teaching. As in school classrooms, each AIME classroom typically features one presenter and up to 30  ‘students’. The ‘students’ in the AIME classrooms are both the mentees and mentors. As stated in the previous section, the mentees are Indigenous high school students, the mentors are university students from the host university. While the university student mentors are mostly non-​Indigenous this is representative of current university student demographics (O’Shea et al., 2016). We note that such demographics are indicative of universities failing to engage and retain Indigenous students, which leads to low participation rates. In our observations of the AIME programme we note that Indigenous university students are generous in giving their time to the AIME programme. The mentors sit (normally in lecture theatres, or at tables in classrooms) with the mentees to encourage and support them through learning experiences led by the presenter. Although this requires some level of role modelling and coaching from the mentor, the AIME mentor–​mentee relationship is not saturated with Western connotations of expert mentor transferring knowledge to an inexpert mentee (e.g., O’Shea et al., 2016; Rogers, 2009; Zeind et al., 2005). Instead, the key ‘knowledge’ of the mentoring (i.e., the AIME curriculum) is delivered (or taught) by the presenter. The mentor and mentee are positioned, both physically and via their pedagogic relationships and activities, as the presenters’ students. Reports of mentees’ and mentors’ significant learning from AIME support such an interpretation of their co-​positioning as students in this learning environment (Bodkin-​Andrews et al., 2013; Harwood et al., 2013, 2015; O’Shea et al., 2016).

Methodology The research was funded by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) and by the Australian Research Council grant DP140103690.7 The project has university and

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186  Samantha McMahon et al. state departments of education ethics approvals and complies with Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (2011) research protocols. This paper draws on a national classroom ethnography of the AIME programme and related mentee interviews8 to better understand how AIME’s pedagogical approach fosters egalitarian presenter–​mentee relationships. About the classroom ethnography and interviews Data for this article are based upon classroom ethnography and interviews with Indigenous high school students attending AIME. Semi-​structured interviews were conducted with 143 mentees in scholastic Years 9–​12 (either individually, or in small friendship groups). The interview questions focused on participants’ experiences of AIME. The number of mentees interviewed at each site is listed in Table 11.1. One-​hundred and fifty ‘AIME sessions’ (1-​h modules of work) were observed at 15 (out of AIME’s 29) sites. Site selection ensured representation of each state and territory participating in the AIME programme, and inclusion of regional and metropolitan campuses. Nine of the 15 campuses were ‘focus sites’, targeted for repeat visits from a single researcher to develop continuity and depth in the observational data. The six remaining ‘additional sites’ were observed for one-​off visits (see Table 11.1). Researchers co-​observed 27 (of the 150) sessions. To enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of data, researchers compared their observations at regular data meetings. The observations were conducted according to Setting Theory foci and protocols. Barker’s (1968) Setting Theory, originally part of a broader theory of ‘Ecological Psychology’, was adapted by teacher educators to offer a method useful for classroom ethnographies that focuses on understanding pedagogy (Cambourne and Kiggins, 2004; McMahon, 2013). Observations involved describing and sequencing basic units of teaching behaviour called ‘episodes’ (Cambourne and Kiggins, 2004). Within each episode the ethnographer is seeking to observe: How Table 11.1 Number and type of research sites (university campuses) for ethnographic observations, with numbers of high school students interviewed at each site (N). Focus sites

‘Additional’ sites

Totals

State

Met.a

(N)

Reg.b

(N)

Met.

(N)

Reg.

(N)

Sites

(N)

QLD NSW ACT VIC SA WA Totals

-​ 1 1 -​ 1 1 4

-​ (8) (4) -​ (6) (35) (53)

1 3 -​ 1 -​ -​ 5

(13) (29) -​ (12) -​ -​ (54)

-​ -​ -​ 2 -​ 4 6

-​ -​ -​ (18) -​ (18) (36)

-​ -​ -​ -​ -​ -​ -​

-​ -​ -​ -​ -​ -​ -​

1 4 1 3 1 5 15

(13) (37) (4) (30) (6) (53) (143)

a Met. = Metropolitan campuses. b Reg. = Regional campuses.

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Lessons from the AIME approach 187 the ‘episode’ starts and finishes and how it relates to other episodes (if at all); the mode of content delivery, for example ‘whole class focus discussions’, ‘group work’, ‘individual work’ etc.; how the teacher is using paraphernalia and language; how s/​he is communicating expectations; and how s/​he is acting and moving. Importantly, how does all this appear to impact the learning culture and the behaviour setting (classroom), as a whole? Additionally, Setting Theory field notes describe ‘space and place’ (how the classroom was used/​what it looked like) and ‘human inhabitants’ (numbers, age and gender of teachers, presenters, researchers, mentees and mentors, special guests in the classroom). Data analysis procedures and theoretical framework Findings from analysis of the mentee interview data informed subsequent analysis of the observational data. This article focuses on analysis of 23 interviews with 47 mentees (i.e., approximately one third of the 143 mentees interviewed), in which the mentees directly compared AIME to school. While not all mentees compared AIME with school, comparisons made were remarkably consistent. All such comments indicated a high regard for AIME’s pedagogical approach. The frequency and internal consistency of this ‘school/​AIME’ theme was noteworthy because the interview schedule did not explicitly feature questions about this. When young people offered comparisons between AIME and school, the interviewers asked follow-​up questions like, ‘what do you think makes AIME different to school?’ In 17 out of the 23 (approximately 74%) interview transcripts under analysis for this article, mentees’ responses to these questions focused on describing the relationships they experienced, especially relationships developed through trust. Field notes were then analysed to identify pedagogies that might reasonably contribute to the mentees’ self-​reported experiences of AIME. The theoretical framework for discussion of this analysis is Wilson’s (2008) theorisation of relationality. The mentees’ interview responses and our observations were treated as a collective and placed into an orientation of relationship. The focus on relationships pointed to connections between people and curriculum in AIME and maintaining relationality in the research.

‘AIME is different to school’ Yeah it’s a lot more chilled and laid back than school. (Rebecca, Year 10 female, Regional Victoria) At AIME you feel more welcome [than school] because everyone’s happy and stuff. (Zeke, Year 10 male, Regional Victoria) You still sit in a room [like at school] but it’s just different –​it’s just like you do more fun stuff but you still learn. (Taj, Year 11, Regional NSW)

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188  Samantha McMahon et al. School’s more like strict and here’s like more free. (Charlotte, Year 9 female, Metropolitan ACT) Understanding the mentee’s experience of AIME as, generally, more fun, chilled, relaxed, welcoming and freer than school is important. It is important because it points to the positive effects, at least in part, of AIME’s montaged pedagogical approach. At AIME, the mentees experienced and felt the familiar rituals but perceived AIME as different to school; mentees’ responses focused on their experiences of positive, egalitarian relationships with presenters developed through trust.

Pedagogies for ‘trust-​filled’ and egalitarian teacher–​student (presenter–​mentee) relationships Mentees’ comments regarding relationships experienced at AIME were unanimously positive. One of the key differences between AIME and school noted and valued by the mentees was a disruption of power dynamics experienced in teacher–​student relationships at school. This is succinctly explained by Toby as follows: I’d say that the presenters and people running it also try instead of being like authority figure try and like be more of your friend so that helps connect a lot with –​with younger people who have a problem with authority. Especially like with people like school and stuff –​like those reasons. (Toby, Year 11 male, Regional Queensland) Similarly, the following conversations with Zac and Alfie and with Kim reflect this positionality: Int: Okay. So what did you think before you came to AIME, like what were you expecting? Just anything. Z:   like actual school learning. A:   Yeah like classroom kind of. Int:  And now what do you think … what’s it like now? Z:   It’s like they’re treating us like adults. Int:  like adults. A:  Yeah. (Zac and Alfie, Year 10 males, Regional NSW) K:  And it’s not like the student to teacher relationship with the staff. It’s more like a friend-to-friend relationship. (Kim, Year 12 female, Metropolitan NSW) Whether the mentees perceived an ‘adult-​to-​adult’ or ‘friend-​to-​friend’ relationship, the above quotes explicate the prominent comments around lack of disparity

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Lessons from the AIME approach 189 in the power in the AIME presenter–​mentee relationship. As Toby (above) points out, the AIME presenters were consistently cast by mentees as non-​authoritative. This perception by the young people of a ‘levelling’ or ‘equalising’ of presenter–​ mentee (teacher–​student) to friend–​friend power dynamics in the above quotes was initially perplexing as there is much ethnographic data to counter these claims. We observed the presenters standing out the front just as teachers do and delivering content using whole-​class group work and individual instructional techniques; without exception they ran a very well ‘managed’ classroom (field notes, all). In this sense the presenters were all respected ‘teachers’. Moreover, there were explicit AIME rules about presenters not befriending the mentees; for example, rules about no contact outside of AIME, no social media friends etc. (e.g., field notes, 4 May, 9 May, 16 May 2014).9 So how is it done, this different egalitarian presenter–​mentee relationship? After further analysis, we contend that this is achieved not by presenters relinquishing professionalism or befriending mentees but by respecting mentees and letting them know they are trusted. The AIME presenters developed trust-​filled relationships with mentees by conferring messages of trust via specific pedagogical practices. The classroom ethnography demonstrates that AIME presenters communicated trust in the mentees by:  Demonstrating vulnerability; listening to and deeply valuing mentees’ contributions to class discussion; and selecting and presenting learning materials that communicate high expectations of mentees.

Vulnerability or ‘humble connectivity’ At the heart of the AIME presenter–​mentee relationship is generosity and vulnerability, a recognition of the need to share something of yourself in order to connect. All presenters share stories from their life with the class, they tell mentees who they are, where they are from and some of their life experiences, ‘So I’m not just some random [person]’ (presenter, field notes, 12 September 2014). This is especially the case on occasions of the presenter taking a group for the first time (field notes, all). In such relationship-​building introductory storytelling, the presenters’ stories relate to AIME’s core messages of valuing education, setting goals, perseverance, success, and overcoming adversity and racism (e.g., field notes, 6 May, 16 May, 9 August, 12 September 2014). Personal stories are also shared to demonstrate the presenters’ personal connection with content in curriculum stories (i.e., stories told in the text books or via audiovisual materials) (e.g., field notes, 6 June, 28 July, 6, 9, 25, 27 August 2014). This is illustrated in the following excerpt from our field notes: Whole class focus –​presenter talk The presenter starts the session by introducing herself and telling her story. Her story centres on issues of the negative effects of stereotyping and racism regarding ‘what Indigenous Australians look like’ and the discrimination she faced in the school playground because of looking different to other family members. To illustrate this story she projected a photo of her and her siblings

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190  Samantha McMahon et al. on the board. The story also highlighted how her aggressive response to one bully’s racism meant that she, as the victim, was the one who got into trouble with the principal. Whole class focus –​video –​Too Little Justice (2004) The short film was about a young Indigenous man who had just changed schools and was being ostracised by his new classmates. At lunch he went for a smoke behind the shed and was joined by another young man who seemed like a welcome and friendly face. The new ‘friend’ offered him some drugs (which at first were refused, but eventually were accepted). Then the ‘friend’ made racist comments at which point the new kid objected and identified himself as Aboriginal. A fight ensued because the ‘friend’ kept insisting that the new guy wasn’t Aboriginal because he didn’t look it. When the teacher broke up the fight the ‘friend’ told the teacher that the new guy had started it and that he was trying to sell him drugs. Small group focus –​reflection sheet The mentees, assisted by the mentors, work through a worksheet that asks them to reflect on the video, asks what they think would happen next, what could/​should have happened differently etc. The questions also ask them about their experiences of racism based on stereotypes of appearance and how they could handle this. (Field notes, 12 September 2014) This presenter’s personal story was told to introduce and complement a story told via course materials (in this case a short film). These stories worked together to deliver content regarding various possible responses to experiencing racism, which was then ‘workshopped’ via a comprehension and discussion activity. While the telling of personal stories in and of itself allows for vulnerability to be shown, it was also made clear to the mentees that they were being entrusted with a story that should be respected. Whole class focus –​presenter talk –​PowerPoint of photographs and story on presenter’s identity The presenter tells his life story using pictures in a PPT to show key moments in his life that informed his identity. He says ‘I’m going to tell you my story, which not many people get to hear, but then I’m looking forward to hearing your story too’. (Field notes, 9 May 2014, emphasis added) The presenters persistently develop relationships with the mentees, at the whole-​ class level, throughout the programme by regularly telling stories from their lives.

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Lessons from the AIME approach 191 Demonstrating such humble connectivity by telling stories of self  –​as opposed to stories of others  –​is characteristic of Indigenous storytelling for educational purposes, especially by Elders (Goulet and Mcleod, 2002). In terms of how such culturally important personal storytelling may be used in classrooms, Martin (2000) has described the effectiveness of a Lakota (Sioux) teacher’s demonstration of vulnerability through ‘self-​disclosure’ as a feature of whole-​class storytelling. Building on this, the current larger-​scale study highlights that this technique can be deployed consistently and effectively, in 150 AIME classroom sessions, over five different states and territories. Collectively, all types of presenters’ personal storytelling was identified by mentees as important to their engagement with AIME: … It’s just hearing the stories makes me think. And like, it’s really –​it brings people together and stuff. (Jake, Year 11 male, Metropolitan NSW) … the mentors and presenters are like –​there to listen and their stories –​their stories are so powerful. (Kenzie, Year 9 female, Metropolitan ACT) In the above quotes Jake talks about his experience of stories shared at AIME and how they facilitated ‘mak[ing] him think’ (or engage with the curriculum content) and ‘bring[ing] people together’ (or facilitating a relationality amongst people). Because presenters’ personal stories always doubled-​up as content-​stories, their stories may be conceptualised as functioning at an overlap between Wilson’s (2008) ‘relations with people’ and ‘relations with ideas’. The mentees simultaneously formed connections with the presenter as a person and the knowledge being taught. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, these findings support existing literature that position the use of storytelling (Baskerville, 2011; Martin, 2000) and relationship-​centred (Baskerville, 2009; Bishop et al., 2012) pedagogies as inclusive of Indigenous learners. Apart from ‘putting themselves out there’ by sharing their stories, presenters demonstrated their vulnerability to mentees in terms of modelling task requirements and ‘having a go’ at challenging learning tasks featured in the programme. For example: Whole class focus –​presenter talk –​pre-​performance task expectations In introducing the talent show performance, the presenter sets the expectation that everyone will perform. He pre-​empts this by modelling: ‘I’m not the best at this but I’m going to have a go’. He performed two one-​verse hip-​hop improvisations: a ‘funny one’ about his abs and a ‘serious one’ about how good AIME is. Everyone claps. (Field notes, 28 May 2014) What is important in these demonstrations of presenter vulnerability and forging of humble connectivity via storytelling and task modelling is that they all

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192  Samantha McMahon et al. took place as deliberate teaching acts within whole-​class contexts (field notes, all). In this sense, the presenters were vulnerable but still entirely professional. Moreover, the contexts of these moments of vulnerability were always appropriately content-​driven.

Listening respectfully and valuing mentee contributions Another professional practice that mentees perceived as different between school teachers and AIME presenters was that AIME presenters listened to and valued their contributions to whole-​class discussions. Some of the AIME participants explained how teachers in school also listened but this act lacked the authenticity of the AIME experience: Teachers listen but they don’t really take in what the students say. But here they’re like, I don’t know, they’re sincere. (Josie, Year 9 female, Regional NSW) They [the presenters] just kind of always include you in what they’re doing and they’re always really friendly and they just take whatever you say on board and then they apply it to situations and they don’t really say anything negative about your answers, they just support you on what you say and what you believe. (Mara, Year 11 female, Metropolitan Western Australia) Without exception, the AIME presenters possessed excellent skills for facilitating safe and generative whole-​class discussions (field notes, all). There was always a verbal recognition of thanks or praise from the presenter for any mentee contribution; ‘thanks for that’, or ‘that’s awesome’ were common refrains and presenters always linked mentee contributions back to core teaching messages to keep discussions and learning ‘on track’ (e.g., field notes 6, 9, 28 May, 18 June, 1, 2, 8, 9 August, 12 September, 22 October). Indeed, the ethnography showed AIME presenters prioritising listening to mentees and valuing their contributions over other plausible pedagogical considerations, such as ‘managing’ disruptive mentees. For example: Whole class focus –​a few mentees share their speeches with the whole class. The presenter stops everyone from their work and tells them he’s ‘stoked’ at the speeches he’s been reading and hearing about. He says that he has four names of people who have volunteered to read theirs out (he reads out the list of names). One mentee calls out ‘nah, five! I’ll read mine out’. The presenter thanks him for his enthusiasm and reminds him that he hasn’t finished writing his speech yet. To which the mentee replied  –​‘that’s alright, I’ll read what I got’. The presenter agreed but suggested that he could keep writing his speech while the others went first. Then without further discussion or invitation the

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Lessons from the AIME approach 193 ‘fifth’ mentee stands up (effectively both ignoring and interrupting the presenter) and reads out his speech and finishes with ‘That’s all I got!’ then sits straight back down again. This was met with applause and laughter from everyone, including the presenter. Then each of the four remaining speakers was encouraged to stand up and read aloud their speech. (Field notes, 27 August 2014) While the ‘fifth’ mentee in the example above acted in what might be considered as a disruptive and subordinating manner in discourses that hold the teacher as authoritative ‘manager’, in this AIME session his contribution was still listened to and celebrated with applause. The presenter did not engage with the managerial position of the need to enforce discipline; instead he quickly acknowledged that this ‘disruption’ was actually also an outcome of the lesson (to feel confident enough to get up and speak in front of your peers). Presenters’ reflexive skills, such as these, based in good listening and an egalitarian, deep respect for mentee contributions abound in the field notes. This gives credence to the mentees’ comparison between school and AIME:  ‘I think at school with some things it’s yes or no but here it’s always yes, like everyone has their own voice’ (Mara, Year 11 female, Metropolitan Western Australia). Trust was communicated to mentees via an intense listening to, and authentic valuing of, mentee participation in class discussions and activities. Curwen Doige (2003) offers an analysis of this in her discussion of what she terms ‘the missing link’ between Indigenous education and Western education. She argued a dire need for non-​Indigenous teachers to emulate Indigenous educators’ and Elders’ promotion of authentic dialogue as a pedagogy for creating relational, safe, and trusting learning environments: ‘how one listens to dialogue determines the direction and outcome of the exchange of information’ (Curwen Doige, 2003, p. 154). In the example provided above, the AIME presenters’ authentic listening and dialogic exchange transformed what could have been a disciplinary and ‘management’ outcome to an outcome of celebrating mentees’ learning.

Trust via learning design AIME learning tasks confer trust on the mentee via clear expectations that they will succeed in the set tasks. For example, the mentees are asked to publish a letter to send to a famous Indigenous Australian using AIME letterhead (e.g., field notes, 28 May, 6 June, 28 July, 29 July, 8 August 2014). This may seem an inconsequential choice of learning paraphernalia but reflect for a moment on who is normally allowed the use of a company’s letterhead  –​a trusted employee. The mentees could have been asked to write their letter on blank, lined paper but they were not. This pedagogical choice to confer trust on mentees via learning design and resources is repeated consistently throughout the entire AIME programme’s scope and sequence. Other examples include mentees being asked to add messages of kindness and hope to AIME business cards that they are encouraged to distribute in their schools and communities (e.g., field notes 9 August 2014), and being given

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194  Samantha McMahon et al. opportunities to design AIME corporate paraphernalia such as AIME hoodie designs and artwork for AIME apparel and website banners (e.g., field notes, 12 September 2014). In short, the mentees are trusted at every turn and in every major task to officially represent AIME. This trust, in combination with the authenticity of the tasks, conveys to the mentees that the presenters trust their abilities to step up, rise to the challenge, complete the task and succeed as a result. That the mentees were entrusted with representing AIME in major learning tasks was important. That this was communicated in part by learning paraphernalia (resources) demonstrates an overlap between Wilson’s (2008) relations with people and ideas. AIME’s learning paraphernalia (resources such as letterhead and business cards etc., see Methodology Section) branded with AIME corporate symbols positioned mentees more as presenters’ colleagues than students. Being trusted with the AIME brand communicates to mentees, albeit subtly, that the presenter is not ‘making judgement of [the] worth or value’ (Wilson, 2008, p.  92) of their work product. In this case, trust-​filled and egalitarian presenter–​mentee relationships are fostered not directly through interpersonal relationships or dialogic exchange but through the mentees’ relationship with the ideas presented in AIME’s curriculum and learning paraphernalia. Presenters developing trust-​filled relationships with mentees via learning design is also an apposite example of the known benefit of consistent application of high expectations to Indigenous students’ learning. For example, Chris Sarra’s work on the importance of educators having high expectations of Indigenous students is, arguably, a cornerstone of contemporary Indigenous education in Australia (e.g., Sarra, 2011; Stronger Smarter Institute, 2015). This research reinforces Sarra’s imperative that teaches similar findings:  Findings from the Te Kotahitanga research and development project show the ‘cognitive demand of teaching [tasks]’ and teachers’ high expectations are closely related to positive teacher–​student relationships (Bishop et al., 2012). Brayboy and Castagno (2009) in their review of Indigenous education literature also point to the importance of high expectations.

Closing thoughts For national Science Week in Australia in 2015, the University of New England hosted a special event to discuss Indigenous Science with Aunty Frances Bodkin, a Bidigal woman and of the D’harawal nation. Aunty Frances’ expertise in science, specifically botany, is widely respected and sought after, with many Indigenous and non-​Indigenous people learning from this esteemed Knowledge Holder. The seeking of learning and listening with Aunty Frances is of great significance. Her work demonstrates how learning from Knowledge Holders is possible and how it is successfully occurring in other disciplines, such as science. Such learning is crucial for biepistemic practice in education. It is possible and, we propose, is of immense importance to learn to listen to what Knowledge Holders may teach about pedagogy and Indigenous ways of knowing. At the heart of this discussion is the AIME mentees’ perception that pedagogies for building egalitarian, trust-​ filled teacher–​ student relationships are valued

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Lessons from the AIME approach 195 aspects of the AIME programme. Our ethnography identified this trust as enacted in specific pedagogies such as presenting a professional persona that is friendly and occasionally vulnerable, listening to and valuing mentee contributions to class discussions and devising purposeful and high-​status learning tasks. We have showed how these pedagogies for trust-​filled relationships displaced more hierarchical and authoritative Western ideas and enactments of the teacher–​student relationship. In this way, our findings build on existing calls from Indigenous education literature (e.g., Bishop et  al., 2012; Brayboy and Castagno, 2009; Goulet and Mcleod, 2002) to critique the ongoing colonising effect of long-​term power imbalances in teacher–​student relationships. We suggest there is scope for teachers and teacher educators to explore and promote egalitarian, trust-​filled teacher–​ student relationships as a means of distancing unhelpful yet prolific conceptions of ‘teachers as managers’ professional dialogue and practice (Harwood and McMahon, 2014; McMahon, 2013; McMahon and Harwood, forthcoming). To this end, we call for further research that investigates the capacity of biepistemic practice to produce possibilities (and a new lexicon) for more egalitarian and overtly trusting teacher–​student relationships. We also strongly encourage teacher educators to take stock of AIME’s success and explore, with both rigour and urgency, the transferability of these relational pedagogies to non-​AIME classroom settings.

Notes 1 We use the term ‘Indigenous’ throughout this article as a broad representation of peoples who identify with the vast diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures within Australia. 2 Povinelli (2002) makes the cogent case that the spectre of ‘tradition’ or ‘traditional’ is entangled with the belief of ‘a truly positively alterior’; an alterity that ‘fixes the attention of the nation, law, and commerce, publican and politician’ (p. 65). Mindful of this concern, we use the term ‘knowledge tradition’ as a respectful way to refer to the longstanding knowledges, past, present and future of Australian Indigenous people. 3 We use the term West here out of convention. Whilst peoples and cultures originally from Europe (the historical notion of West and Western Civilisation assume European origin) are not the only colonisers of Indigenous peoples and cultures, this is the case for Australia, the site of the study (and other First Nation people around the world, including Aorteroa/​New Zealand and the Pasifikas and Northern America). Whilst the term ‘West’ is problematic, it has become accepted as synonymous with ‘colonisers’ in this context. 4 We use the descriptor ‘teacher-​student’ here, although we note that AIME does not use this ‘schooling’ nomenclature, and also that AIME presenters generally do not hold teaching qualifications. We use ‘teacher-​student’ in this introductory section in order to describe a pedagogic relationship in the AIME context and connect the arguments of this article to relevant terms commonly used in schooling and existing educational literature. Later in this article we explain AIME’s terminology for this pedagogic relationship, the ‘presenter-​mentee’ relationship. In subsequent sections of the article we use AIME’s terminology. 5 We use the phrase ‘closing the gap’ because this is the political rhetoric that AIME leverages to position its work (see AIME’s annual reports at www.aimementoring.com).

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We are respectful of critique of the phrase regarding its deficit and colonising capacities. We also wish to recognise that AIME’s core value ‘Indigenous = Success’ works to contextualise any AIME-​related ‘gap’ talk as non-​deficit. In this article ‘pedagogy’ is simply used to refer to ‘methods of teaching’. The funding body did not have any role in designing, conducting or reporting/​publishing this research project. Two researchers [authors 1 and 2] conducted the data collection. These researchers are experienced ethnographers with 2 years’ prior experience conducting qualitative fieldwork with AIME. Field notes are only identified by date as any further details such as location or programme days would compromise the anonymity of the presenters. Throughout, field notes excerpts may comprise multiple paragraphs headed by text in italics. The new paragraph/​italic heading in the field notes comply with setting-​theory requirements to delineate and sequentially record teaching.

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198  Samantha McMahon et al. Harwood, V., McMahon, S., O’Shea, S., Bodkin-​ Andrews, G. & Priestly, A. (2015). Recognising aspiration:  The AIME program’s effectiveness in inspiring Indigenous young people’s participation in schooling and opportunities for further education and employment. Australian Educational Researcher, 42(2), 217–​236. Hattam, R. & Smyth, J. (2003). ‘Not everyone has a perfect life’:  Becoming somebody without school. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 11(3), 379–​398. Humphry, N. (2014). Reconciling Educationally Displaced People and Education. (PhD thesis) University of Wollongong. http://​ro.uow.edu.au/​theses/​4022. Ireland, B. (2009). Moving from the Head to the Heart: Addressing the Indian’s Canada Problem in Reclaiming the Learning Spirit: Aboriginal Learners in Education. Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan, Aboriginal Education Research Centre; Calgary:  First nations and Adult Higher Education Consortium. Kennedy, B.L. (2011). The importance of student and teacher interactions for disaffected middle school students:  A grounded theory study of community day schools. Urban Education, 46(1), 4–​33. Kitchen, G. & Raynor, N. (2013). Indigenizing teacher education: An action research project. Canadian Journal of Action Research, 14(3), 40–​58. KPMG (2013). Economic Evaluation of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience Program: Final Report. www. aimementoring.com. Lang, J.C. (2011). Epistemologies of situated knowledges: ‘Troubling’ knowledge in philosophy of education. Educational Theory, 61(1), 75–​96. Lumby, J. (2012). Disengaged and disaffected young people: Surviving the system. British Educational Research Journal, 38(2), 261–​279. Macleod, G., MacAllister, J. & Pirrie, A. (2012). Towards a broader understanding of authority in student–​teacher relationships. Oxford Review of Education, 38(4), 493–​508. Marika, R., Ngurruwutthun, D. & White, L. (1992). Always together, yaka gäna: Participatory research at Yirrkala as part of the development of a Yolngu education. Convergence, 25(1),  23–​39. Martin, K.J. (2000). ‘Oh, I have a story’: Narrative as a teacher’s classroom model. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 349–​363. Martin, K.L. (2008). Please Knock before You Enter: Aboriginal Regulation of Outsiders and the Implications for Researchers. Brisbane: Post Pressed. Mcgregor, G., Mills, M., Te Riele, K. & Hayes, D. (2015). Excluded from school: Getting a second chance at a ‘meaningful’ education. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(6), 608–​625. McGregor, J. (2004). Space power and the classroom. FORUM, 46(1), 13–​18. McKnight, A. (2015). Mingadhuga Mingayung: Respecting country through mother mountains stories to share her cultural voice in Western academic structures. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(3), 276–​290. McMahon, S. (2013). Mapping the Epistemological Journeys of Five Pre-​service Teachers: The Reconstruction of Knowledge of Challenging Behaviour During Professional Experience. (PhD thesis) University of Wollongong. http://​ro.uow.edu.au/​ theses/​3781/​. McMahon, S. & Harwood, V. (Forthcoming). Confusions and conundrums during final practicum:  A study of preservice teachers’ knowledge of challenging behaviour. In: Peterson, E.B. & Millei, Z. (ed.) Interrupting the Psy-​Disciplines in Education. London: Palgrave. McMahon, S., Harwood, V. & Hickey-​Moody, A. (2015). ‘Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’: Educationally disengaged and disadvantaged young people’s talk about university. British Journal of Sociology of Education. doi:10.1080/​01425692.2015.1014546.

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Lessons from the AIME approach 199 Nakata, M. (2007). The cultural interface. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 36 (Suppl.), 7–​14. O’Shea, S., McMahon, S., Priestly, A., Bodkin-​ Andrews, G. & Harwood, V. (2016). ‘We are history in the making and we are walking together to change things for the better…’:  Exploring the flows and ripples of learning in a mentoring program for Indigenous young people. Education as Change. doi:10.1080/​16823206.2015.1024150. Paterson, B. & Hart-​ Wasekeesikaw, F. (1994). Mentoring women in higher education: Lessons from the elders. College Teaching, 42(2), 72–​78. Phillips, L. (2013). Storytelling as pedagogy. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 21(2),  ii–​iv. Povinelli, E.A. (2002). The Cunning of Recognition. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pomeroy, E. (1999). The teacher-​student relationship in secondary school:  Insights from excluded students. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(4), 465–​482. Purdie, N. & Buckley, S. (2010). School Attendance and Retention of Indigenous Australian Students. Issues Paper no. 1, Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Read, B. (2008). ‘The world must stop when I’m talking’: Gender and power relations in primary teachers’ classroom talk. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(6), 609–​621. Rogers, R.A. (2009). No one helped out. It was like, ‘get on with it. You’re an adult now. It’s up to you’. You don’t … it’s not like you reach 17 and suddenly you don’t need any help anymore: A study into post-​16 pastoral support for ‘Aimhigher Students’. Pastoral Care in Education, 27(2), 109–​118. Sarra, C. (ed.) (2011). Strong and Smart: Towards a Pedagogy for Emancipation: Education for First Peoples. New York: Routledge. SCRGSP (2015). Report on Government Services 2015:  Indigenous Compendium. Canberra: Productivity Commission. Smith, L.T. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies:  Research and Indigenous Peoples. Second edition, New York: Zed Books. Smyth, J. & McInerney, P. (2006). Teachers in the Middle: Reclaiming the Wasteland of the Adolescent Years of Schooling. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Stronger Smarter Institute (2015). About Us. http://​strongersmarter.com.au/​about/​. Thompson, S., De Bortoli, L. & Buckley, S. (2013). Highlights from the Australian Report: PISA 2012: How Australia Measures up. www.acer.edu.au/​files/​PISA-​2012-​In-​Brief.pdf. Thornberg, R. & Elvstrand, H. (2012). Children’s experiences of democracy, participation and trust in school. International Journal of Educational Research, 53, 44–​54. Wilson, S. (2008). Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Black Point: Fernwood Publishing. Youdell, D. (2011). School Trouble:  Identity, Power and Politics in Education. Abingdon: Routledge. Yunkaporta, T. (2009). Aboriginal Pedagogies at the Cultural Interface. (PhD thesis) James Cook University. Yunkaporta, T. & McGinty, S. (2009). Reclaiming Aboriginal knowledge at the cultural interface. The Australian Educational Researcher, 36(2), 55–​72. Zeind, C.S., Zdanowicz, M., MacDonald, K., Parkhurst, C., King, C. & Wizwer, P. (2005). Mentoring for women and underrepresented minority faculty and students: Experience at two institutions of higher education. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 69(5),  1–​5.

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12  Is participation a ‘sick word’? New insights into student democratic participation in light of research in Spanish schools Teresa Susinos Introduction In a brief press article, the well-​known Portuguese academic and social researcher Boaventura de Sousa referred to a text by the Italian film director Pasolini, which demonstrated how certain words ‘become ill’ and lose their capacity to convey unambiguous and clear meaning because of saturation and trivialisation. These terms become ingrained in our language, are used with disproportionate frequency and progressively acquire vague, sometimes even contradictory, connotations until they finally lose any clear meaning. On this occasion, Boaventura de Sousa was discussing the concept of Illustration seen from the southern epistemologies, but I believe his argument is also appropriate for this chapter, where the central idea is participation  –​more specifically student participation in school governance. In our current pedagogical vocabulary, student participation or student voice (SV) has become an evanescent term. This has already been highlighted by several authors (Fielding, 2011; Bragg, 2007) who have warned about the risks of the excessive popularity of the concept, pointing out that its indiscriminate use weakens its capacity to form part of real democratic practices in schools. SV is frequently used with meanings that can hardly be considered relevant when we are addressing new forms of governance that seek to promote authentic participation of students and power redistribution in school governance. In this text I argue for the need to redefine the concept of ‘participation’ in a radical way, and to analyse the necessary qualities of the participative presence of students in order for it to offer a real alternative to other possible forms of democratic governance in schools. To do this, I  will draw on knowledge accumulated during successive research projects carried out in Spain1. In Spain, unlike in other countries, no expression equivalent to SV has traditionally been part of teachers’ vocabularies, even though there have been several experiences of student participation under headings such as Citizenship Education or Democratic Education. Regardless of the terms used, there is no doubt that many of our initiatives are also at risk of suffering the semantic ‘illness’ described by Boaventura.

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 201 The inclusive education model was embraced swiftly in Spain, in the early 1980s.2 This unquestioned impulse for the advancement of democratisation and equity within the education system was not accompanied, however, by the expansion of a more participative culture in schools nor the will to encourage a more active and participative presence of students. Thus, participation and inclusion have been facing in opposite directions and their theoretical and practical advances have run in parallel without ever meeting or acknowledging one another (Parrilla, 2007; Susinos, 2002; Echeita, 2006). The research we have been carrying out in the last 10  years with schools in the north of Spain has been aimed at filling this gap in educational research.3 We have aimed to carry out an in-​depth study of a number of ongoing participatory initiatives, which are also inclusive, to prove how both ideas could converge in school policy and practices (Susinos and Parrilla, 2013). Participation as a citizen’s right is inextricably connected to inclusion as an educational paradigm. An inclusive school, as well as an inclusive society, is essentially a space for democratic participation as a step towards social justice. For that same reason, student participation is a core element and, at the same time, a lever for the improvement of inclusion in the common school. The ways in which students take part in schools are varied, but the starting point for our work is an understanding of the concept of participation that is far removed from the more superficial interpretations of SV (such as consultation, artistic expression, enunciating preferences, students as data source, etc.). Our research focuses on the learning process of democratic participation through social practice, through actions aimed at the democratic resolution of common problems in schools (Biesta and Lawy, 2006; Samuelsson, 2016). During this journey of practical research, we have identified two major barriers to real student participation that we consider worth mentioning. They are both part of the scaffold that sustains the hegemonic discourses concerning children’s participation and they need to be revealed and problematised in order to move towards a new narrative. First of all, the dominant view concerning childhood arising in the modern era (and that the school institution has contributed to creating and nourishing) has kept children and young people in the role of passive beings, without agency, immature and ‘held up’ (Biesta, Lawy and Kelly, 2009; Kingdon, 2018). Therefore, children have remained a non-​existent group for social theory (in a clear parallel with claims made within women’s studies or those regarding the social model of disability). This silencing has led to a lack of theorising about children as active social agents as well as an underestimation of children’s and young people’s capacity to take part in the processes of cultural production and social change. This vision of children as adults in the making has undoubtedly limited our understanding of their agency and, in general, their consideration as competent social actors (Jociles, Franzé and Poveda, 2011; Corsaro, 2011; Dahlberg, Moss and Pence, 2013). Secondly, as we stated in a recent paper (Sáiz-​Linares, Rodríguez and Susinos, 2019), the discourses that explain the participation of students on an individual

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202  Teresa Susinos basis are still dominant among teachers. Following these hegemonic visions, student participation fundamentally depends on some personal dispositions or traits such as age, gender, character, personal capacities, etc. It is less common for teachers to appeal to the socio-​political dimension of participation, which regards it as a citizen’s right to make decisions about common and public issues and which acknowledges that this right can be either structurally promoted or prevented. This suggests that most of the teachers still see their work from a technical point of view, rather than envisaging the school as a space for promoting democratic participation and practice. If we are to successfully counter this common narrative, we need to reformulate the terms of the problem of student participation. We are interested in studying what would make it possible for all students to participate in the decisions that directly concern them, what social conditions are necessary for that to happen and what institutional obstacles prevent them from taking part. In order to do that, we need to enlighten our enquiry about participation much more from the point of view of philosophy, political science and the social sciences in general, than from the torrent of postulates from the psy-​knowledges4 that have flooded research on education. This text aims to contribute to the dialogue between what we know from political science about democratic participation and the tradition of educational research committed to inclusion. In this way we intend to advance the understanding of inclusion as participative presence in schools and define how student participation can become a real alternative for school governance. The article puts forward a number of proposals for the resemantisation of student participation as real systems of distributed governance in the schools. The conclusions presented are a result of the extensive experience of our team working in several projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education. I begin by briefly describing the research carried out and the characteristics of the schools with which we have collaborated in each micro-​project. Next, I discuss the conclusions about participation that derive from this research and that I have summarised in four sections: (i) Student participation is an intentional and systematic process: How does the Inclusive Participation Cycle work?; (ii) Student participation needs democratic processes embedded in the daily life of schools which argues participation involves the ability to have practical influence in order to bring about improvements for all; (iii) Student participation needs democratic processes embedded in the daily life of schools which argues participation uses democratic processes embedded in the daily life of the school; and (iv) inclusive participation for all: Democratic participation does not have an aprioristic individual which maintains participation must be inclusive and this right has no a priori subject.

A brief overview of research design and methodology From a methodological point of view, the research we have carried out is within the qualitative tradition (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011). Our general aim has been to

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 203 promote the democratic participation of students in schools and study the social conditions that allow them to be agents of school improvement processes (Ainscow et al., 2012; Rudduck and Flutter, 2007; Susinos, 2009). The research projects have been developed locally in different schools and they are jointly carried out by the teachers, the students and some university researchers, following a model of participatory research (Aldridge, 2015; Bergold and Thomas, 2012). The research has been carried out at all levels of compulsory education (infant school, primary school and secondary school), as well as in second chance programmes, making up a total of 20 different micro-​projects carried out in 11 different schools in the region of Cantabria, Spain. The schools (along with the university researchers) have put into practice student participation initiatives, following a process we have called the Inclusive Participation Cycle (Susinos and Haya, 2014). This cycle is a pathway consisting of three phases that are considered parts of a binding process that can be summarised in the following terms:  Deliberation, action and dissemination/​evaluation. The cycle is reminiscent of the processes of action research or participative action research known to us since the 1960s from the liberation pedagogy of Freire. We have carefully studied each school project as a ‘prototype’ of democracy in action or as a real example of participation through democratic deliberation. The characteristics of the schools, the participants and micro-​projects carried out are summarised in Table 12.1. Aware of the difficulty of any attempt to capture the whole meaning of participation in a few words and the necessary provisionality of such a description, in this chapter, I assume that so-​called inclusive participation in schools is an organised process that enables students to display their capacity to influence or intervene in the real world. These practices are intended to trigger material or symbolic changes towards achieving the common good. I will also defend the principle that participation is learned through action and is bound to processes of democratic deliberation, which must be accessible to everyone. Participation, as a collective action based on inclusive deliberation, should eventually become a daily democracy, incorporated into the day-​to-​day routine of schools as an alternative form of school governance.

Student participation is an intentional and systematic process: How does the Inclusive Participation Cycle work? In our research projects, students decide to implement a particular school improvement selected from among all the proposed ideas collectively generated. As already mentioned, the entire process is carried out following three phases (deliberation, action, dissemination/​evaluation). By proposing common guidelines for all schools, we are not advocating a technical notion of participation. We primarily try to demonstrate that relevant changes (those proposed and designed by the students for their schools) did not arise by chance, serendipity or improvisation, but are the result of a plan agreed by the parties following a series of steps and conditions that are known to all.

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Table 12.1 Summary of the school research activities carried out throughout the research projects. Type of school

Participants

Short description

Deliberative strategies

Duration

Infant and Primary State School. Semi-​urban. Primary and Secondary School. Private/​ State funded. Urban.

Infant school. Students 4–​5 years old.

Decisions on the curriculum ‘My favourite activities at school are …’.

• Classroom assembly

1 year. Number of projects developed: 1

Compulsory secondary education. Students 15–​16 years old.

• Survey for the other students in school • Classroom assemblies • Group work and PowerPoint presentation

3 years. Number of projects developed: 2

Secondary Education. Local Authority Second Chance Programme. Urban.

Programme: ‘Trade assistant and warehouse assistant’. Students 16–​18 years old.

• Interviews in pairs • Classroom assembly

1 year. Number of projects developed: 1

Infant and Primary State School. Semi-​urban.

Primary education. Students 11–​12 years old.

Decisions on the physical spaces (toilets and sports court). Revision of school norms (i.e. using of mobile telephone during free time, prohibition to leave the school during break time). Increase the participation of students in the design of the curriculum, especially for the most voiceless students. Proposals to rehabilitate spaces outside the classroom. Improve relations with teachers. Initiatives to improve physical accessibility to school and playgrounds (‘My favourite place in school is …’ Children Geographies). Improvement of the co-​existence in the classroom.

• Online questionnaire • Classroom assembly • Work in pairs (student of 6th grade with one of 2nd grade) and sharing results • Photovoice about school spaces • Writing a field diary • Assembly of mixed classes • Creation of a blog to publicise the experience

4 years. Number of projects developed: 3

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Infant and Primary State School. Urban.

Primary education. Students 3–​12 years old.

Secondary Education State School. Second chance programme. Urban.

Programme: ‘Hairdresser’s assistant’. Students 16–​18 years old.

Improving social relationships within the school. Organisation and running of the meeting with the families at the end of the academic year. Improvements in the school assembly (6th grade students support the youngest). Decisions about school facilities (creation of graffiti on the walls of the courtyard). Research about the participation of students in the school. Design and develop activities for other students: • Volunteers in the playground and the library • Sponsor a reader • Active Fridays Proposals for change linked to: • school norms (prohibition on leaving the school during break time) • school schedule (the programme is carried out in the afternoon while the main activity of the school takes place during the morning; this hinders their active participation in the school) • Revision of school facilities • Decisions about the curriculum: Review the actual atomised evaluation system used in school

• Survey in pairs • Classroom assembly with a film • Creation of a decalogue of school improvements • Student–​student interviews • ‘I wish’ panel • Assembly of mixed classes

4 years. Number of projects developed: 3

• Individual photo taking about the best and worst things in the school • Sharing and discussing results • Create a mural with all the proposals

1 year. Number of projects developed: 1

(continued )

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Table 12.1  (Cont.) Type of school

Participants

Short description

Deliberative strategies

Duration

Infant School. Private/​State funded. Urban.

Infant school. Students 2 years old and their families.

• Classroom assembly • Interviews in small groups • Observations by the teachers

2 years. Number of projects developed: 1

Infant and Primary State School. Rural. Infant and Primary State School. Urban.

Primary education. Students 11–​12 years old.

Improving outdoor spaces at the school. Young children’s voices and mediated consultation (families as facilitators). Relating our schooldays for the next generation.

Infant school (2nd cycle) and primary education.

Students as researchers in their neighbourhood: Proposals to improve the cleanliness of the streets and the green areas in a suburban area.

1 year. Number of projects developed: 1 1 year. Number of projects developed: 2

Infant and Primary State School. Urban.

Infant school (2–​4 years old) and primary education students.

• Work in groups with laptops • Share the work using a PDI • Classroom assembly • Classroom suggestions box • School suggestion box • Classroom assembly • Assemblies according to education level • Meeting between the representatives of each level and the school’s head • Recording of the activities and analysis of the video material by the teachers • Observations in the playground by the teachers and assemblies • Walking methods, shadowing, photo voice, photo eliciting, visual narratives

Infant and Primary State School. Urban.

Infant school and primary education. Students 4–​5 years old and 9–​10 years old.

Outdoor spaces at the school: School yard and common spaces. Students as researchers with different topics. Curriculum co-​design in classroom for 2-​year-​olds based on sound experimentation and psychomotricity. ‘Changing the words to change the • Visual stories such as visual micro-​ world’. Research about how we stories, cartographic resources and talk to each other, how we feel dialogues stimulated by videos and express ourselves, what is happening in our school, how to communicate our findings to other students in the school.

2 years. Number of projects developed: 4

2 years. Number of projects developed: 1

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 207 Deliberation All the schools and classrooms taking part in the process have started with an open-​ended question (What would I like to change in my school? What do I think should be changed in my classroom?) and have organised different ways for democratic deliberation (Della Porta, 2005; Englund, 2006; Ross, 2012; Thompson, 2008). The consultation must be designed with a clear inclusive intention so that all students must take part in it. Diverse and imaginative systems for supporting deliberation have been used (mail boxes, surveys, photovoice, photographic diaries, interviews, photo documentation for the youngest, facilitated consultation, etc.) (Ceballos, Calvo and Haya, in press). Everybody must have the opportunity to express their opinion and, for that reason, everyone’s proposals are discussed, justified and presented publicly so that the group can eventually choose one of them. This deliberation process drives students to make a public and informed decision and is essential because it legitimises the scheme of school change they will then undertake. It is a very important qualitative step for the research project and for the objectives of democratic and inclusive participation. The process of identifying areas of change, which we have called the deliberation phase, is followed by the implementation of the idea that has been decided by all. Action This phase consists of a venture, with a longer or shorter duration in time, in which the students themselves take a central role. Both the teachers and the students work together towards an objective that is considered of value to everyone. The relationship between them is increasingly one of collegiality (Fielding, 2011). Whatever the project undertaken (for example making changes in the physical spaces of the school, reformulating some aspects of the school curriculum, organisational changes in the school, reviewing personal relationships or improvements related to the community which is closest to or farthest from the school), the result of the project should not eclipse the process. The way in which the students organise themselves to make decisions, the importance of listening to everyone, giving priority to the common good, and the way in which they address other people (classmates, school staff, external participants, families, etc.) are the bricks that eventually hold up the building of democratic participation. Dissemination/​evaluation The group that has undertaken the process of participative change (students of a classroom, various classes or the whole school) must finally disseminate their achievements and evaluate the process in order to be able to make improvements for the next time. The dissemination can be as creative as desired, but it is important that it does not stay within the classroom and does not remain a private matter. Once again, making public what has been done and how it has been done becomes

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208  Teresa Susinos an important part of the process. The intention is to raise visibility and to influence other people so that new voices and ideas will join the next project.

Students participate when they are able to influence the real world and to improve the common good. Our starting point has been a radical view of participation in the sense chosen by Fielding (2011). This is distant from the ways of understanding and practising student voice as a simple consultation or with tokenistic objectives and that is why we affirm that participation must be purposeful. Participation is aimed at intervening in the world, it triggers certain changes and cannot be reduced to a simple rhetorical or speculative exercise. This means that students participate when they address a topic that has a direct impact on their lives, when they analyse and try to modify a problem in the school that the group would like to make public, denounce or transform. Participation is indissoluble from social action; it seeks to provoke changes in the real or symbolic space occupied by the students throughout diverse processes of hetero-​reflection. For this reason, the research we have carried out is based on a model of practical teaching of deliberative democracy through real experiences of decision making about the common good (Samuelsson, 2016). This differs from other, more restrictive views of democracy in schools that perceive democracy as a content of one or several specific school subjects. In such a way, it remains circumscribed to the curricular logic and its restrictions (for example a single teacher, limited class time, physical classroom space or predetermined curriculum content flow). In contrast, in our work, democratic participation is expressed as practical content that overlaps different school subjects. The school develops original initiatives that are taken as an opportunity to practise and embody certain democratic values. In this way we ensure that the pedagogy of participation is committed to a more democratic society and to a mode of associated living (Biesta and Lawy, 2006) that necessarily needs to be learned from practice (Thompson, 2008; Pateman, 2012). Participation is aimed at fostering the flourishing of life lived together and the care of shared spaces. It is not an activity with private or personal objectives and intersubjectivity is both the starting and finishing point of democratic participation. Participation looks for agreements that respect the common good and pursue what is beneficial for everyone. In order to do that, schools try to find original ways to encourage a joint debate and reflection. As Dawney (2013) stated, participation is the process that allows us to build shared worlds. Through our research projects we have come to understand that the word ‘participate’ acquires a certain polysemy and is demonstrated through diverse actions aimed at improving the common good, such as denouncing, reinventing, investigating, collaborating, etc. Participation encourages us to take part in many different ways; it invites us to imagine different norms, new uses in school according with the common good. Sometimes participation leads to the resemantisation of school spaces or routines –​for example, the school corridors or halls are not only used as places of transit, which are impersonal and of broad significance, but are

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 209 transformed by the action of the students and become places with a particular communicative sense. At other times it is possible to bring to light within the public sphere of the school some aspects of peripheral cultures that are usually invisible. On other occasions we are able to revise, rethink or challenge the school spaces, the school policies or even the school curriculum (e.g. which spaces, materials or contents are not for everyone? How are the common spaces used in the school? When was this decided? Who benefits from it?). All this leads us to the debate concerning the management of the life in common and will allow us to reveal the so-​called enclosures or hidden privatisations that also exist in the school institution. This argument is framed within the extensive and flourishing theorising about civil society and the denouncing of the progressive appropriation of public spaces for private purposes. A review of this can help us to enlighten this debate regarding the school as a social institution (Hess, 2008; Ostrom, 1990; Harvey, 2011). For example, in several schools we have attended interesting debates and proposals regarding the modification and use of playground space in which the disproportionate appropriation of school yards for the playing of football has been revealed. As shown by several previous studies, the importance of school spaces constitutes a category of the discourse that specifies certain values, norms and school uses. For this reason, this review of the traditional uses of the shared space (in this example, the playground) helps us reveal the relation between the use of the spaces, the learning process, and the inclusion/​exclusion of students (Hemingway and Armstrong, 2012). Also, the act of unveiling this issue through shared deliberation allows students to take part in the process of resemantisation to produce other meanings, for example as a meeting space, a space to interact with other people, to learn, to rest, to experiment and to enjoy (Strong-​Wilson and Ellis, 2007; Abad, 2006; Clark, 2010; Norðdahl and Einarsdóttir, 2014).

Student participation needs democratic processes embedded in the daily life of schools The dominant definition of student participation in Spanish schools has been restricted to representative or delegated democracy (Sáiz, Rodríguez and Susinos, 2019). Participation conceived as representation was regularised in our country a long time ago through the annual election of student delegates as part of the school council. Participation understood as representation implicitly accepts that the students have a unique and homogeneous voice that is channelled through representatives. This assumption leads to sustaining the hegemony of those students with more cultural capital who master the school language and know and respect its norms (Bragg, 2007; Arnot, 2006; Arnot and Reay, 2007). Thus, this way of participating can be considered as a reproductive rather than emancipatory social mechanism. However, this issue is not the objective of our study which, rather than exploring in more depth how the class delegates could eventually represent all the student voices, is instead mainly focused on unravelling how the school can creatively provide numerous opportunities for everyone to participate.

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210  Teresa Susinos Our work has been carried out in the heart of deliberative democracy. In its original formulation, Habermas (1998) defined democratic deliberation as a communicative situation in which everybody can freely and equally contribute to the dialogue, without any kind of restraint or manipulation. Democratic deliberation triggers participative processes which aim to reach legitimate agreements on the common good (Englund, 2006). During this process, different points of view are addressed through articulated arguments and are discussed in a way where the interaction must respect a number of conditions:  It must be public, attentive, respectful and open to dialogue. These characteristics of deliberation (see Thomson, 2008) are responsible for granting democratic legitimacy to the final decision made, because the followed process respects the moral agency of the participants (Della Porta, 2005; Englund, 2006). The core of the deliberation process is a respectful dialogue in which all the voices can be heard, and therefore, in every situation of deliberative democracy, the debated arguments must be made accessible to all citizens. We are reminded by Thomson (2008, p. 506) that ‘deliberative democracy is based on a moral principle of reciprocity, a form of mutual respect that requires treating citizens as equals’. Each participation process is played out in a particular social space. In our research, each school experience is scrutinised as a unique scenario in which decisions are made about the common good and about what has been manifested as relevant to the lives of the students themselves. We believe that each local micro-​ project has the potential to become a real forum for participation and a sort of workshop on democratic experience that allows students to learn and teach the lived democracy (Fielding and Moss, 2011). Equally, it is important to acknowledge that the contexts in which the experiences have taken place are always on a small scale and must be studied taking into account the local conditions, as is usually the case with research of a transformative nature such as this. Therefore, we could understand the different initiatives studied as democratic innovations that allow us to study the processes of participation developed locally. These initiatives can be understood in some ways as relocation movements, initiatives that are intended to appreciate what is local, and as micro-​projects that may begin to grow in a fractal and organic way within schools. As we know, changes in social institutions (in this case, in schools) sometimes start with the activity of pioneer groups. They are usually small groups in terms of their components, but they share the ideas and the language of certain school practices, so that they result in the launching of coherent projects according that theoretical view. This has been called communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Sometimes changes in schools start with this seed, with small scale innovations that work as ‘prototypes’ and can later be adopted by the rest of the school. When the conditions are right, small beginnings can trigger big changes.

Inclusive participation for all: Democratic participation does not have an aprioristic individual The centrality traditionally held by deliberative forums (typically assemblies) as privileged or even exclusive mechanisms for democratic participation is

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 211 unquestionable. Classroom assemblies (school assemblies are virtually non-​ existent in Spanish schools) have been the favoured mechanism to channel this participation (although they tend to disappear as a classroom routine as the educational stages advance). I will not go any deeper into analysing this preferred and extended structure of student participation, especially present in some pedagogical traditions such as that of Freinetian or Reggio Emilia. Rather, I intend to reflect on the limitations that these public deliberation forums could entail for inclusion. These deliberative formats, based on rational argumentation, confrontation and the discursive capacity of the participants, have been used as privileged (rational) systems for democratic decision making. However, due to several reasons, these deliberative instruments are often neither suitable for a lot of people nor accessible to them. This drawback is extremely important for the objectives of inclusive participation. Several feminist authors have already pointed out that the debate that takes place between unequal actors cannot be considered genuinely deliberative (Fraser, 1990; Young, 1997). Young (1997) has noted that the traditional deliberation model favours those social groups with more cultural capital and she thus defends the need for deliberation guided by inclusive principles, which she has called communicative democracy. Bächtiger et al. (cited by Engelken-​Jorge, 2016) introduced a difference between two ways of deliberating that is particularly relevant to our purposes. On the one hand there is a deliberation in which the participants publicly debate and justify their arguments so that the participants can choose the proposal they consider more rational, more appropriate or more advisable (deliberation type I). But there is also a deliberation type II, which works in conflict conditions and envisages other ways of communicating in deliberative processes, such as narration, testimony, the use of humour and emotional communication. In Young’s (1997) words, along with public debate, deliberation could and should accept other ways of narration and argument that have a more tentative, exploratory or conciliatory purpose and that may be more familiar to people of different ages and cultures. Some of the ways explored by Young are greetings, rhetoric, narratives, embodied or emotional talking or figurative language (Enslin, Pendlebury and Tjiattas, 2001). In other words, further progress towards the ideal of a democratic school that listens to all opinions and values diversity will be possible as long as we learn to incorporate the multiple languages and ways of communication in the processes involving public decisions about the common good. This will allow us to transcend the mechanisms of representation and delegation as forms of participation that are sustained solely by verbal language, which is traditionally considered the uniquely legitimate code in schools. Taking into consideration the differences between groups and participants widens the communicative formats that foster deliberation and, in turn, make the participation process fairer and more inclusive. Furthermore, this way of deliberating contributes to enriching the idea of politics and citizenship as it embraces not only normative groups but also other collectives such as children (Lindley, Brinkhuis and Verhaou, 2011) or disabled people. Elwood and Mitchell (2012) broadened this debate by questioning how infants (non-​verbal children) could be included as political actors (something the classic

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212  Teresa Susinos theorisation of Habermas does not envisage). With the purpose of finding other ways of acknowledging the agency of the youngest children, these authors suggest paying attention to the bodily practices and to the use that children make of physical space and objects as elements through which to elicit their agency. This makes it possible to consider the everyday acts of children as ‘arenas of children’s politics’. Non-​verbal expressions tell us, for example, about their resistance to adult rules, the expected use of spaces or their preferences concerning their use of time. These are ultimately the children’s way of expressing their negotiating power and managing resources. Our research has explored this idea in the work with children from infant school (2–​3  years old). In this particular micro-​project, the strategies based on oral communication that we used (the assembly and informal conversations with the children while they were playing) turned out to be insufficient as a single method of listening to children whose verbal communication is not completely developed (MacBeath et al., 2003; Clark, 2010; Ghirotto and Mazzoni, 2013). For that reason, we included observations and mediated consultation. With these additional strategies, we were able to demonstrate that there are other ways to listen to children’s preferences through their multiple languages: Body language, crying, facial expressions, noise and movement, etc. (Clark and Moss, 2001). Furthermore, relatives acted as facilitators. The role of the facilitators (animators, mediators or conveners) is highly relevant in the processes of participation. They not only act as interpreters but also contribute to building trust and creating a safe space for people who might otherwise not express their opinion. Trusted space is essential for people to speak up and appreciate that their contributions are respected, so that those who feel more vulnerable can take risks, confident that their opinions will be considered. This is an issue that is not without difficulties and has been explored in some depth in our inclusive participation project (Rojas, Susinos and Calvo, 2013). Ultimately, varied methods can be deployed and have been used in many schools and these can include multiple innovative and creative forms of non-​verbal expression (for example narration, arts and crafts, photography, video, collages, role-​play, drama, and collective mapping) (Bragg, 2010). There are numerous examples in which deliberation is triggered by stimuli that have not necessarily been organised or expressed with arguments. Thus, for example, the use of photography with a participative purpose has been very important in our work and has allowed us to differentiate (Pink, 2001) what is visible to everyone from what is in fact culturally visible in the school. The work of Luttrell (2013) is also a truly inspiring example of the use of photography as a vehicle to explore various counter-​narratives, in this case with the aim of bringing to light stories from young boys about caring that contradict and oppose the culturally dominant narratives.

Conclusions This chapter aims to provide a contribution by building theoretical and practical bridges in two ways. Firstly, we intend to create networks between the

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 213 theoretical-​normative studies of deliberation and participative practices in real environments. More specifically, our activities take place in schools and add empirical knowledge on how to develop democratic participation among children and young people (Thomson and Hall, 2015) as a co-​responsible form of school governance. Secondly, we focus on looking into how participation as collaborative deliberation is both an instrument and an expression of educational inclusion. Thus, our work emphasises the search for every possible way for student participation to be real and accessible to everyone, regardless of age, ability or culture. It is an endless task to imagine new ways of participation that include those who tend to be physically and symbolically excluded from decision making because the social mechanisms of exclusion are ever-​changing and continuously expanding. The chapter is intended to assist in preventing participation from being an empty container that becomes established in the teaching vocabulary as a depoliticised term whose only purpose is to describe the individual designation of a few students to take part in school governance. To this effect, the chapter proposes a route towards the resemantisation of participation by treating the elements that we have described as components of inclusive participation. In each school these elements are linked together in an original way, the same tiles forming a unique mosaic in each case. Thus, we also conclude that a certain process of vernacularisation of the approaches we have employed is required. We propose combining the more traditional micro and macro deliberative forums with other expressive formats that include different languages so that participation can become more accessible and inclusive. We need to have a wide range of diverse ways to access the point of view of others that are not only based on rational verbal argumentation. Having a more diverse pool or catalogue of tools for deliberation makes participation more inclusive and, as a result, more democratic. This participation, which we propose as a form of day-​to-​day democracy, should be embedded in ordinary, real world contexts, in social institutions and also in schools (García Marzá, 2015). It is a matter of extending direct democratic practices in schools, seeding everyday acts that bring commitment to wider objectives, giving rise to isolated but numerous interventions that allow us to progressively expand the agency of students in the contexts and institutions they inhabit. As Thompson (2008) has stated, the social conditions under which deliberative democracy thrives are difficult to achieve, and for this reason research into what constitutes these circumstances holds much promise. I would further argue that these inclusive practices can contribute to the normative theory of deliberation by providing new actors (the students) and new social scenarios (the schools). We are aware that current discourses endorse individualism much more than the strengthening of the public space through the deliberative management of the common. We also know that these surrounding narratives pervade school culture and constitute what Marina Garcés (2016, p. 11) has called prisons of the possible (a reality in which everything seems possible but nothing ever changes). However, this cannot be regarded as an argument for conformity with traditional school governance, usually deaf to student voice, because, as the author notes, these prisons can only be sabotaged from the inside.

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214  Teresa Susinos

Notes 1 These successive research projects are:  Susinos, T.  (Dir.) ‘Análisis de los procesos de inclusión/​exclusion educativa en la enseñanza obligatoria. Desarrollo de proyectos locales de cambio y mejora escolar’ (I+D+i, EDU2008-​06511-​C02-​02/​EDUC) (2008–​2011); Susinos, T. (dir.) ‘Escuelas que caminan hacia la inclusión: aprendiendo de la comunidad local, la voz de los estudiantes y el apoyo educativo’ (I+D+I, EDU2011-​29928-​C03-​ 03) (2011–​2015); Susinos, T.  (Dir.) ‘Redes de innovación para la inclusión educativa y social: co-​laboratorio de inclusión’ (I+D+i EDU2015-​68617-​C4-​4-​R) (2015–​2019). 2 The original term school integration was adopted more than 25 years ago in Spain, but it only covered the inclusion of disabled children, known here as Special Needs Education Children. This partial approach has led to numerous difficulties in accepting the authentic and comprehensive meaning of the term inclusion. 3 All the research on which this chapter is based has been carried out by a research team of nine people from the University of Cantabria, co-​ordinated by me. For this reason, and although what is expressed in this text is my opinion, I  will often use the plural throughout these pages in recognition of my colleagues and the collaborative work carried out during these years. 4 Psy-​knowledges, also known as psy-​disciplines, psy-​ences, include a group of disciplines (Psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, cognitive sciences, etc.) which have addressed education (and also dementia, disability, justice, politics or sexuality, among many other fields) with their own analytical categories which are individual-​based. The psy-​ knowledge narratives are based on categorisation, pathologisation, commensuration etc. and have been spread and settled in local or international cultures until they become very popular and widely accepted explanations (Illouz, 2007).

References Abad, J. (2006). Escenografías para el juego simbólico. Revista Aula de Infantil, 34, 10–​16. Ainscow, M., Dyson, A., Goldrick, S. & West, M. (2012). Developing Equitable Education Systems. London: Routledge. Aldridge, J. (2015). Participatory Research: Working with Vulnerable Groups in Research and Practice. Bristol: Policy Press. Arnot, M. (2006). Gender voices in the classroom. In: Skelton, C., Francis, B. & Smulyan, L. The Sage Handbook of gender and education. London: Sage, pp. 407–​421. Arnot, M. & Reay, D. (2007). A sociology of pedagogic voice: Power, inequality and pupil consultation. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 28(3), 311–​325. Bergold, J. & Thomas, S. (2012). Participatory research methods: A methodological approach in motion. Historical Social Research/​Historische Sozialforschung, 37(4), 191–​222. Biesta, G. & Lawy, N. (2006). From teaching citizenship to learning democracy: Overcoming individualism in research, policy and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36(1),  63–​79. Biesta, G., Lawy, L. & Kelly, N. (2009). Understanding young people’s citizenship learning in everyday life. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 4, 5–​24. Bragg, S. (2007). Student voice and governmentality:  The production of enterprising subjects? Discourse, 28(3), 343–​358. Bragg, S. (2010). Consulting Young People: A Literature Review. CCE, London. Ceballos, N., Calvo, A. & Haya, I. (in press). Estrategias de consulta al alumnado como palanca para la mejora escolar. Resultados de una investigación colaborativa. Revista Cultura and Education.

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Is participation a ‘sick word’? 215 Clark, A. (2010). Young children as protagonists and the role of participatory, visual methods in engaging multiple perspectives. American Journal of Community Psychology, 46(1–​2), 115–​123. Clark, A. & Moss, P. (2001). Listening to Young Children:  The Mosaic approach. London: National Children’s Bureau for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Corsaro, W. (2011). The Sociology of Childhood. Third edition, London: Sage Dahlberg, G., Moss, P. & Pence, A. (2013). Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care: Languages of Evaluation. Third edition, London: Routledge. Dawney, L. (2013). Making common worlds: An ethos for participation. In: Noorani, T., Blencowe, C. & Brigstocke, J. (eds.) Problems of Participation: Reflections on Authority, Democracy, and the Struggle for Common Life, Lewes: ARN Press, pp. 147–​151. Della Porta, D. (2005). Deliberation in movement: Why and how to study deliberative democracy and social movements. Acta política, 40(3), 336–​350. Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (2011). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage Handbooks. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Echeita, G. (2006). Educación para la inclusión o educación sin exclusiones. Madrid: Narcea. Elwood, S. & Mitchell, K. (2012). Mapping children’s politics:  Spatial stories, dialogic relations and political formation. Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography, 94(1),  1–​15. Engelken-​Jorge, M. (2016). Narrative deliberation? On storytelling as a necessary component of public deliberation. Politica y Sociedad, 53(1), 79–​99. Englund, T. (2006). Deliberative communication:  A pragmatist proposal. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38(5), 503–​520. Enslin, P., Pendlebury, S. & Tjiattas, M. (2001). Deliberative democracy, diversity and the challenges of citizenship education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35(1), 114–​130. Fielding, M. (2011). La voz del alumnado y la inclusión educativa:  una aproximación democrática radical para el aprendizaje intergeneracional. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, 25(1). Fielding, M. & Moss, P. (2011). Radical Education and the Common School: A Democratic Alternative. London: Routledge. Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25(26), 56–​80. Garcés, M. (2016). Fuera De Clase. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutemberg. García Marzá, D. (2015). El valor democrático de la sociedad civil:  una respuesta a la desafección. Thémata, 52, 93–​109. Ghirotto, L. & Mazzoni, V. (2013). Being part, being involved: The adult’s role and child participation in an early childhood learning context. International Journal of Early Years Education, 21(4), 300–​308. Habermas, J. (1998). Between Facts and Norms: A Contribution to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press. Harvey, D. (2011). The future of commons. Radical History Review, 109, 101–​107. Hemingway, J. & Armstrong, F. (2012). Space, place and inclusive learning. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 16(5,6), 479–​483. Hess, C. (2008). Mapping the New Commons. https://​papers.ssrn.com/​sol3/​papers. cfm?abstract_​id=1356835 [Accessed 11/​04/​19]. Illouz, E. (2007). Cold Intimacies. The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Oxford: Polity Press. Jociles, M.I., Franzé, A. & Poveda, D. (2011). Etnografías de la Infancia y la Adolescencia. Madrid: La Catarata.

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216  Teresa Susinos Kingdon, Z. (2018). Young children as beings, becomings, having beens:  An integrated approach to role-​play. International Journal of Early Years Education, 26(4), 354–​368. Lindley, E., Brinkhuis, R. & Verhaou, L. (2011). Too young to have a voice? In: Miles, S. & Ainscow, M. Responding to Diversity in Schools. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 81–​90. Luttrell, W. (2013). Children’s counter-​narratives of care:  Towards educational justice. Children and Society, 27, 295–​308. MacBeath, J., Demetriou, H., Rudduck, J. & Myers, K. (2003). Consulting Pupils: A Toolkit for Teachers. Cambridge: Pearson Publishing. Norðdahl, K. & Einarsdóttir, J. (2014). Children’s views and preferences regarding their outdoor environment. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 15(2), 152–​167. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parrilla, A. (2007). Inclusive education in Spain:  A view from inside. In:  Barton, L. & Armstrong, F. (eds.) Policy, Experience and Change:  Cross Cultural Reflections on Inclusive Education. Dordrecht: Springer Books, 19–​36. Pateman, C. (2012). Participatory democracy revisited. Perspectives on Politics, 10(1), 7–​19. Pink, S. (2001). Doing visual ethnography. London: Sage. Rojas, S., Susinos, T. & Calvo, A. (2013). ‘Giving voice’ in research processes: an inclusive methodology for researching into social exclusion in Spain. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(2), 156–​173. Ross, A. (2012). Education for active citizenship: Practices, policies, promises. International Journal of Progressive Education, 8(3), 7–​14. Rudduck, J. & Flutter, J. (2007). Cómo mejorar tu centro escolar dando la voz al alumnado. Madrid: Morata. Sáiz-​Linares, Á., Rodríguez, C. & Susinos, T. (2019). ‘I think we are still very directive’: Teachers’ discourses on democratic student participation. British Educational Research Journal, 45(1), 83–​98. Samuelsson, M. (2016). Education for deliberative democracy:  A typology of classroom discussions. Democracy and Education, 24(1). https://​democracyeducationjournal.org/​ cgi/​viewcontent.cgi?article=1227andcontext=home [Accessed 05/​08/​18]. Strong-​Wilson, T. & Ellis, J. (2007). Children and place:  Reggio Emilia’s environment as third teacher. Theory into Practice, 46(1), 40–​47. Susinos, T. (2002). Un recorrido por la inclusión educativa española:  investigaciones y experiencias más recientes. Revista de Educación, 327, 49–​68. Susinos, T. (2009). Escuchar para compartir. Reconociendo la autoridad del alumnado en el proyecto de una escuela inclusiva. Revista de Educación, 349, 119–​136. Susinos, T. & Haya, I. (2014). Developing student voice and participatory pedagogy: A case study in a Spanish primary school. Cambridge Journal of Education, 44(3), 385–​399. Susinos, T. & Parrilla, Á. (2013). Investigación Inclusiva en tiempos difíciles:  certezas provisionales y debates pendientes. REICE. Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación, 11(2), 87–​98. Thompson, D. (2008). Deliberative democratic theory and empirical political science. Annual Review of Political Science, 11, 497–​520. Thomson, P. & Hall, C. (2015). ‘Everyone can imagine their own Gellert’: The democratic artist and ‘inclusion’ in primary and nursery classrooms. Education 3–​13, 43(4), 420–​432. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice:  learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Young, I.M. (1997). Intersecting Voices. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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13  Democratic alternatives in a neoliberal age? Co-​operation, governance and schooling Tom Woodin

Introduction Co-​operative schools in England provide a fascinating example of democratic governance within a neoliberal context. They are schools which have adopted co-​operative legal models, accepted by the Department for Education, based upon two requirements: First, that they promote the values and principles of the International Co-​operative Alliance (ICA) including democracy, solidarity, equity, equality, self-​help and self-​responsibility; and, second, that they embrace a multi-​ stakeholder form of governance in which pupils, staff, parents and communities are all expected to play a role, in theory re-​establishing democratic connections that were severed with the undermining of local education authorities. Over the last decade, co-​operative schools have offered a significant alternative to the dominant model of English education. Following on from initiatives with a number of specialist business and enterprise colleges, the first co-​operative trust was established in 2008 and subsequently models for co-​operative academy schools, so-​called ‘independent state schools’, and free schools were added. Since then the numbers of co-​operative trusts and academies grew rapidly to over 800 by 2015, although this number then decreased to around 600 and subsequently declined further. Charting this experiment in democratic educational governance is urgent given the difficulty of sustaining radical ventures. Applying co-​operative values to governance in a neoliberal context throws up paradoxes which need to be explored. This chapter reports on research that has taken place over almost 2 decades involving documentary investigation, interviews and close observation of a social movement to assess the claims of co-​operative schools and multi-​stakeholder governance. It necessarily addresses both the specific governing bodies of co-​ operative schools as well as the broader governmental context in which schools are enmeshed. Attempting to democratise governance necessitated considerable support and scaffolding for new constituencies whose journeys did not always fit neatly into the parameters of existing governing bodies. Unsurprisingly, actual practice on the ground has been more limited than the aspiration for participative co-​operative governance. Co-​operating with pupils has been productive where it has been attempted in a serious way and where schools have offered opportunities

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218  Tom Woodin for individual and collective development. But empowering parents and communities has proved to be more problematic and, despite achievements, it is partly tied into deep-​seated cultural change. Understanding these contradictions provides wider perspectives on long-​standing trends in education and governance. Having offered a relatively straightforward definition of co-​operative schools, I need to complicate it a little. Schools have willingly taken on co-​operative values as very much within their existing value set, with head teachers claiming ‘this is already what we do’ (Woodin, 2012). Some schools have also applied co-​operative values and principles to foster deeper thinking and action about cooperation (Woodin, 2015a). Yet co-​operative schools do not entirely fit with the formal definition of a co-​operative as: an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-​owned and democratically-​controlled enterprise. (ICA, 2019) This definition raises some tricky issues for co-​operative schools, as do the principles which put the values into operation including open membership, members’ economic participation, democratic member control, autonomy and independence, co-​operation among co-​operatives and concern for community. In the current English legal framework of state schooling, co-​operative schools cannot be fully owned and controlled by members nor can they be completely autonomous and should thus be seen as ‘hybrid’ models (Woodin, 2015b, p. 6). There is, however, an affinity between co-​operatives and schools. Notably, one of the principles calls on co-​operatives to provide ‘education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-​operatives. They inform the general public –​particularly young people and opinion leaders –​about the nature and benefits of co-​operation’ (ICA, 2019). Despite the different context of schooling, this helps to justify the existence of co-​operative schools. Others simply apply the ‘duck test’: If it looks like a duck (co-​operative) and quacks like one, then it probably is one, reflecting an awareness that legal rules only tell part of the story and that the ethos and dynamic of an organisation are just as important as official structure. It is possible to run a formally hierarchical organisation in a co-​operative way just as one could run a co-​operative organisation based on discipline and a strict division of labour. Aside from the definition given above, there is no consensus on the meaning of a co-​ operative school. Cursory international comparisons throw up even greater variety. For instance, Andalucía in Spain boasts several teacher-​owned co-​operative schools and the ikastolas of the Basque region have taught in the Basque language (Delgado, 2014). School co-​operatives have been prolific in countries such as Croatia and Poland while France has a long tradition of co-​operative education, in part derived from Célestin Freinet, an influential educationist of the early 20th century (Clandfield and Sivell, 1990; Beattie, 2002; see also Wilson and Mills, 2008).

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Democratic alternatives 219 The nebulous definition of co-​operative schools is perhaps unsurprising in the contemporary educational context. The rise of neoliberalism and marketisation have instituted new forms of accountability and governance. Markets have been held up as the model to emulate and have infused the universe of policymakers who impose market-​like structures upon what were, and still are, considered public services (Woodin, 2018). Yet, the distinctions between public and private/​ market have become considerably blurred and contested in the current period of change. Many years ago, the French historian Fernand Braudel noted that markets predate capitalism and take a wide variety of forms which today would range from the farmers market and table top sale to global commodity and financial markets (Braudel, 1979). In education, which does not easily fit into the definition of a business, markets are necessarily a politically constructed approximation. It leaves considerable scope to remould key ideas. The shift in education policy since 1988 has frequently been understood simply as ‘privatisation’. There is much truth in this but it can occlude more nuanced understandings of private and public. Both have been conceived in terms of dominant types:  The public as universal comprehensive forms of state welfare and the private in terms of for-​profit businesses owned by, and accountable to, shareholders. It is a distinction that simplifies a number of complex developments, historical events and future possibilities. Thus, according to certain definitions, private includes domestic arrangements where education and learning continue to take place, individual initiatives, social movements, large-​scale mutual and co-​ operative enterprises, voluntary organisations as well as capitalist firms. By contrast, the public embraces not only direct state funding and provision of services but also some of the above forms, especially in cases where voluntary organisations or for-​profit businesses deliver services on behalf of the state. At different historical moments, public and private have been viewed as monopolistic and domineering –​ for instance, the business trusts of the early 20th-​century US or the tech giants of the early 21st century; conversely, the post-​war welfare state was viewed as both a cumbersome, inefficient bureaucracy that stifled initiative and and a guarantor of freedom and equality. The state continues to act as a major force for change in propagating the process of marketisation among public bodies. From the late 20th century, state action and regulation intensified, undercutting the claims that markets and freedom on their own will necessarily furnish economic growth and educational improvement. For instance, World Bank descriptions of emerging South East Asian economies as ‘knowledge economies’ downplayed the importance of the state in underpinning these developments (for example, World Bank, 2013; Green, 2007). Michel Foucault (2008) argued that the ‘neo’ in neoliberalism partly derived from the enhanced role of the state in regulating contemporary capitalism and its diverse institutional arrangements. This is only partly convincing and a historical view would confirm that, in the 19th century, capitalist markets and relations of production were also actively policed and regulated. Indeed, from 1848, John Stuart Mill would laud the role of co-​operatives in maintaining a liberal society while conceivably dispensing with capitalist wage labour (Mill, 1923). These debates

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220  Tom Woodin illustrate how the interconnection between the economic and political have also been played out on the cultural terrain: state formation itself is cultural revolution … The repertoire of activities and institutions conventionally identified as ‘the State’ are cultural forms … They define, in great detail acceptable forms and images of social activity and individual and collective identity; they regulate, in empirically specifiable ways, much … of social life. (Corrigan and Sayer, 1985) In the 21st century we might add that state re-​formation is also a form of cultural transformation. Co-​operatives are frequently described as both private and public. In an influential book, Private Island, James Meek notes the paucity of understanding that permeated debates over the successive waves of privatisation in Britain and argues that nationalised enterprises could have been commercialised and more client-​focused: There are many forms of private ownership. The department store chain John Lewis, an unsubsidised commercial firm in a fiercely competitive market, is owned by its employees. The Nationwide Building Society, an unsubsidised commercial firm in a fiercely competitive market, is owned by its members. The Guardian media group, an unsubsidised commercial firm in a fiercely competitive market, is owned by a trust set up to support its journalistic values and protect it from hostile takeover. And so on. None of the many alternatives to stock market flotation were put up for discussion by either side: it was either shareholder capitalism or the nationalised status quo. (Meek, 2014, p. 16) We could give many further examples of such ambiguous enterprises where ownership is vested in members and communities, such as German football clubs, Desjardins credit unions in Canada, and community enterprises among others (see ICA, 2013; Woodin, Cook and Carpentier, 2010). In addition, public spaces have not simply been repositories of market-​like structures to improve efficiency, but have fostered public value, enterprise and innovation from a different set of priorities (Mazzucato, 2013). In the wake of the 2007–​2008 financial crisis and subsequent austerity, faith in state models was shaken and co-​operatives have been one area where there has been growing interest. They are seen as potentially democratic enterprises which can begin to combat the neoliberal ascendancy. Globally, co-​operatives can be shown to ‘work’; for example, the International Co-​operative Alliance confirms that the turnover of the 300 largest co-​operatives is in excess of $2 trillion. Co-​operatives blend ideas about markets, entrepreneurialism, public value and welfare. Yet trends in education policy have moved in different directions. Sahlberg (2012) has described an international convergence of educational discourse which he characterised as a Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). Michael

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Democratic alternatives 221 Barber’s (2011) notion of ‘deliverology’ claimed that the main ideological battles over the nature of education were over; we know what needs to be done but it needs to be implemented urgently and monitored closely. This remains a dominant mode of operating for policymakers who, under pressure of international competition, give precedence to getting things done in the most ‘efficient’ way. The centralisation of policy, the devolution of powers to schools and the undercutting of ‘middle tier’ structures have all put pressure on governance arrangements. In particular, academy schools are directly responsible to central government. These changes have undercut the representative model of accountability and governance in which elected local authorities played a crucial role while parents and community members were also seen as representing their constituencies. Moreover, policy changes have destabilised and reorganised governing bodies. For instance, Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, chided school governors for avoiding difficult questions and holding meetings that were a ‘touchy-​feely, sherry pouring, cake slicing exercise in hugging each other and singing Kumbayah’ (Paton, 2014). Efficient governing bodies, run by small coteries of professionals with the right skills, were to replace the supposedly amorphous larger representative groupings. Skilled and sympathetic individuals were actively courted by academy chains looking to expand their market share. Gove’s successor, Nicky Morgan, lauded attempts to recruit ‘highly skilled’ governors and ‘exceptional business’ leaders (DfE, 2015), exposing a data-​driven culture based upon standardisation, performance management and close regulation in which ‘good governance’ is based upon managerialism and methods imported from for-​profit business (Wilkins, 2016).

Assessing the co-​operative movement Co-​operative schools represent an important case study of democratic governance. In an unstable policy context, a historical awareness of the co-​operative movement helps us to appreciate the tensions and contradictions faced by these schools. Co-​operation has a complex organisational, social, economic and educational history which impacts upon contemporary visions for co-​operative education (Yeo, 1988; Gurney, 1996; Wilson and Mills, 2008; Woodin, 2011). Past developments can provide vital clues for contemporary understanding (Silver, 1990; Tosh, 2006; Higham and Yeomans, 2007). I  have followed the emergence and development of co-​operative schools from the early years of the 21st century as part of a network (Ball, 2012; 2016) or social movement methodology that assesses the co-​operative movement within a historical and educational context (Woodin, forthcoming 2019). Specifically, in comparing the stated aims and theories of co-​operative governance with the actual practices of co-​operative schooling, two main research methods have been deployed. Firstly, a documentary analysis of literature produced by schools and the movement as well as key policy documents, most importantly the legal documents relating to the establishment of co-​operative schools (Scott, 1990; McCulloch, 2004). Secondly, a number of interviews and observations of

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222  Tom Woodin practice and informal discussions have been carried out with staff, pupils, governors, community activists and volunteers. This has helped to sketch a picture of the key changes and dilemmas of co-​operative governance in schools. I have benefited from immersion in the movement, attending events and organising seminars where informal discussions took place. This has enabled me to visit schools which have been most interested in embracing co-​operative values. My sample is thus a strategic one which captures those schools that are enthusiastic about the co-​ operative project and most likely to openly address the obstacles and snags they face (Mason, 2002). I have interviewed over 30 participants in ten schools as well as having many more discussions outside of schools. Interviews followed a broad path of questions but I  aimed to uncover the narratives, concepts and reflections of respondents so tended to ask very open-​ended questions and then probed for further detail as appropriate. Leaders did not simply repeat well-​worn policy mantras or hackneyed stories but also had to explain their motivations for working within a co-​ operative framework which did not immediately fit with the dominant discourse of the powerful leader. Alongside these, I interviewed facilitators and organisers in network bodies such as the Co-​operative College, Co-​operative Group and Schools Co-​operative Society. I have focused on seven schools in this chapter. Each of the schools is located in a so-​called ‘deprived’ area –​a southern small town (Chestnut School), two northern small towns (Ash School and Birch School), on the fringes of London (Alder School), a southern city (Elm School), in London (Larch School) and another on the edge of a northern city (Oak School). In part this research was funded by a small grant from the Society for Educational Studies. I have worked with summaries of interviews as well as the original recordings to stay close to the spoken nature of the sources (Portelli, 2016). The themes have emerged from my historical studies of co-​operation and mutuality in addition to the key concerns of co-​operative schools (Woodin, 2019, forthcoming). I found that co-​operative schools replicated a theme of co-​operative history in which present day activity was accompanied by broader projections about the future. Thus, while studies of education policy and practice tend to be very present focused, this study also implicitly cast an eye backwards to the history of the movement as well as forward towards projected futures. The study represents a coming together of three key moments: The formation of co-​operative schools in the early 2000s, around 2013–​2014, as the rapid growth started to slow, and the present.

Legal models of co-​operative governance Co-​operative schools represent a conscious desire to intervene in mainstream schooling rather than pursue radical and progressive visions that remain marginal. This was no easy task as the opportunities for democratic experimentalism within the state system have been severely squeezed (Fielding and Moss, 2011). The network rapidly and unexpectedly grew to the third largest network of schools after those of the Church of England and Catholic Church. It represents an ‘alternative’

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Democratic alternatives 223 educational model of schooling but we need to recognise that there are different ways of being alternative (for instance Woods, 2015). The previous chief executive and principal of the Co-​operative College, Mervyn Wilson, noted that shifts in the understanding of marketisation had created spaces in which co-​operatives could manoeuvre: Marketisation of services that a previous generation have taken for granted and left to the state to run … Neoliberal thinking runs … there is a difference between the state’s responsibility to ensure that it is in place as different from the state’s responsibility therefore to do it. Even where it is state funding, it’s funding by the tax system, it doesn’t mean to say that they should do it. That’s quite a sophisticated line of development, thinking that’s gone on for well over 20  years. From the difference between Thatcher, ‘we shouldn’t be doing that –​sell it’, to, ‘we’ve got a role to play but we don’t necessarily need to do it ourselves’. (CEO, Co-​operative College) In this new setting, with the regulatory demands of Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) and government policy over their heads, school leaders have managed to build co-​operative structures. While there has been a consistent direction to education policy in recent decades, it has nevertheless thrown up contradictions which cannot easily be contained from the centre. The stated aims of successive governments and their actual policies have not been in complete alignment. For instance, the former Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, Tony Blair, expressed a widespread assumption that government action should be concerned with ‘standards not structures’. Yet, the means to deliver this eventuated in a plethora of new structures:  Trust schools, specialist schools, studio schools and, most significant of all, academies and free schools. Subsequently, having dismantled local authorities –​the bedrock of post-​war schooling as a ‘national system, locally administered’ –​the DfE and its predecessors found it difficult to manage such an inchoate system, an archipelago of ostensibly free-​floating schools. Policy initiatives had seeded literally thousands of individual contracts with academies, all of which had to be serviced. These schools gained a disproportionate share of funding, time and advice from the DfE. The formation of chains of schools, Multi-​Academy Trusts and regional schools commissioners are attempts to plug some of the gaps. Co-​operative schools emerged in this historical moment and would add further confusion to the already messy boundary between public and private. Following the 2006 Education and Inspections Act, a co-​operative version of a trust school was established with the help of the Co-​operative College and Co-​operative Group. The Group is the largest consumer co-​operative in the UK while the College was established in 1919 as a form of higher education for the consumer movement although its remit has widened in recent years. Trust schools have established a foundation trust which brings together external partners to aid the development of member schools. It involved a commitment to co-​operative values and principles

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224  Tom Woodin as well as consulting with the key stakeholders –​staff, students, parents, communities and potentially alumni. There was an imperative at the Co-​operative College to establish a workable model out of the fast flowing stream of educational initiatives. Co-​operators had been actively interpreting the shifts in government policy, particularly with the incoming coalition government dominated by the Conservative Party. The party leader, and Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016, David Cameron, at one point praised co-​operatives and established the ‘Conservative Co-​operative Movement’. He seemed to suggest that worker and parent co-​operatives might be encouraged, as a new type of free school (BBC, 2007). To respond effectively to such new policies, agencies would have to be very flexible and quick-​witted (Woodin et  al., 2010). At this time, the co-​operative movement was ‘ready’, having had experience of applying values and principles to a range of public service bodies since the 1990s. The Co-​operative Group had already sponsored a network of ten business and enterprise colleges, or ‘specialist’ schools, with the assistance of the Co-​ operative College. While that scheme was coming to an end, College staff worked with school heads to consider how co-​operative schooling might be continued through different means. They gave precedence to ‘an ethos based on global shared co-​operative values’ and ‘a governance structure that directly engaged key stakeholders’ through membership and community action (CEO, Co-​operative College). In order to put these ideas into practice, the College worked with a firm of solicitors to develop legal models of co-​operative governance. Co-​operative schools were created from a judicious mix of cultural and economic capital, including finance, knowledge and know-​how, as well as legal skills, brought to bear by the Co-​operative College and Co-​operative Group (Woodin, 2019, forthcoming). Trust schools established a ‘forum’ which would represent the various constituency groups (Cobbetts, 2008). The legal models for co-​operative schools promote democratic governance and loyalty to co-​operative values and principles. The model seemed obvious to many school leaders; it built upon historical assumptions that schools were public resources for the benefit of communities. Similarly, the model currently on the DfE website refers to the purpose of: providing learners with a global perspective rooted in the [co-​operative] values … helping them to become responsible and articulate citizens in a global economy affected by rapid environmental and economic change. (DfE, 2016, p. 9) From 1997 and the early years of the New Labour government, there was an interest in ‘third way’ politics which might steer a course between the public and private spheres, for instance around social enterprise as well as co-​operative and mutual enterprise (Giddens, 1998; DTI, 2002; Woodin et al., 2010). Although co-​ operatives had been crucial to the development of social enterprise, there were dangers of marginalisation when the concept was taken over by policymakers flattered by individual entrepreneurs disassociated from communities or members (Ridley Duff, 2019). In this vein, Blair’s initial vision for consumer co-​operatives

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Democratic alternatives 225 had been to transform them into for-​ profit businesses with charitable arms (Yeo, 2002). New forms of governance on their own did not bring about significant change. For instance, one ill-​fated example of ‘co-​operative’ structures was foundation hospitals. Their governance model was based upon the top-​down imposition of corporate-​style leaders, with a member model attempting to foster citizenship and participation bolted on. Unsurprisingly, power resided with the former constituency. While the members were to elect governors, a solely appointed team of non-​ executive directors held the real power. It was a ‘governance nightmare … a recipe for conflict’ (CEO, Co-​operative College; Woodin et  al., 2010). To some extent, trust schools were a similar halfway house in which governance structures were muddled: The original concept came from the 2006 Act that trusts would be largely the wise and the good, universities and so on who would be trustees. We inverted that model with membership. But it is still a fudge … in terms of ownership between membership and those institutional partners. (CEO, Co-​operative College) Compromises had to be struck in which member control was balanced against a range of institutional partners. There were also unexpected results. For example, when academy models were introduced and extended to all schools after 2010, it was ironic that the co-​operative academy model, which inserted direct representation by stakeholder groups, did allow for an element of real democratic control by members (CEO, Co-​operative College). Critics had seen academy schools as a means of siphoning off any vestiges of democratic practice given the small number of people who wielded actual control (Benn, 2012). Having established the model, within 5 years the number of converted schools stood at around 850. The boost in numbers resulted from coalition government policy that all high-​performing schools should become ‘converter’ academies, a reversal of the New Labour policy that targeted schools in deprived areas. Other schools were to be ‘sponsored’ or taken over by academy chains such as Harris or Ark. The co-​operative schools option appeared to offer a means to avert ceding autonomy in perpetuity to what were commonly referred to as ‘rapacious’ and ‘predatory’ chains. Moreover, co-​operative legal structures presented a model which could be adapted to the needs of individual schools and groups of schools. To the outsider familiar with a single version of top-​down academisation, it could be a confusing labyrinth and the extension of autonomy and democracy made simple relationships more complex. The range included: Single school trusts, multi school trusts including community based pyramids, community secondary plus primary feeders, horizontal clusters, clusters of just primaries or just secondary schools or just special schools, limited number of single schools; academies –​already 3 types –​sponsored academy with the

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226  Tom Woodin Co-​operative Group, converter academies split into converter academies from co-​operative trusts where they are trying to retain their ethos in a different legal format; converter academies from community schools i.e. [that] want academy route for financial and autonomy reasons but only if there’s a co-​op model available … Hybrids –​cluster trusts where one or more schools have converted to academy. (CEO, Co-​operative College) This diversity very much paralleled the complex organisational history of co-​ operative and labour organisations that Raymond Williams once referred to as the ‘basic collective idea’, the collective democratic institution, whether in the trade unions, the co-​operative movement or a political party which he viewed as an example of working-​class creativity (Williams, 1982, p.  313). This was an inevitable consequence of allowing schools to adapt the basic frameworks to their own requirements. It also raised the need for wider forms of co-​ordination and governance. Successful co-​operative trusts and academies became deliberative arenas that drew in a broad range of partners and stakeholders. The trust structures existed above the schools and quarterly meetings would develop a strategic overview. In one example, there were over 20 trustees, two from each member school, typically the head and a governor in addition to six trustees from partner organisations and three trustees representing parents, staff and community organisations. Although this sounded unwieldy, the arrangement worked well because there was a co-​ operative dynamic and shared expectations about ways of working which had been built up before conversion to co-​operative status –​it was ‘accountable but not bureaucratic’ (Head Teacher, Oak School). For one teacher in another school, ‘the co-​operative, with a small ‘c’, way of working had given a name to the way we do things’ which had the effect of reinforcing it (Teacher, Alder School). The head teacher elaborated on the style of partnership working: we’ve been a very strong supporter of investors in people and we’d always had a JCC, joint consultative committee, so the unions felt partners in our organisation, very democratic co-​operative approach to staff, felt very strongly about equality and equity, felt very strongly that children should show their own self-​responsibility that there should be a way that shows that children did it for themselves and we would be there to support them in their journey in education. (Head Teacher, Alder School) One of the partners in co-​operative structures was, paradoxically, local authorities, which successive governments had been eager to undermine. There was commonly mistrust on both sides and councillors could ‘be very nervous about these sorts of things because they see trusts and academies as breaking away from democratic local accountability’ (Head Teacher, Oak School). Equally, schools felt they had previously suffered from neglect and micro-​management by local officials.

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Democratic alternatives 227 Where relationships were fruitful, co-​operative models of governance nurtured a rethinking of the role of local authorities as service agencies responding to schools rather than developing centralised services. One head teacher spoke of reinventing local authorities to replicate many of the services they had previously provided but to do it ‘backwards’, working from educational needs and then commission services so that ‘slimmer’ and ‘leaner’ structures might be developed (Head Teacher, Ash School). Multi-​agency working in close connections with community needs thus required good relations with local councils even after their primary administrative role had been removed (Head Teacher, Oak School). Another head teacher had developed a collaborative sense of working with local authorities and partner schools, both within and outside the co-​op network and had reached similar conclusions: we should be recreating something for a different purpose. I have … clearly defined views about how local authorities work … it’s a democratic environment, it’s an accountable environment … one of the partners in our trust is the local authority. However, I do see a lot of waste and I do see it’s sometimes bureaucrats as opposed to educationists determining the agenda … I would like to be very … slim, lean and do things at nil cost if possible so that we’re in a process that doesn’t have a big bureaucracy. (Head Teacher, Alder School) The process of introducing democratic governance changed the ways in which decisions were made. It led to greater levels of dialogue and critical questioning between equal partners learning how to work together and figure out mutually beneficial policies. Increasing the level of communication helped to ensure a strategic response to problems. An alternative vision of the future rapidly formed, central to co-​operative and pre-​figurative working (Rowbotham et al., 1979). Co-​ operative governance felt different: When you have any model of co-​operation and you give people increased voice and dialogue, you have disagreements and tension. I don’t mean argument, I mean just tension. You get it in the classroom, you get it in meetings … my research is showing me that the very nature of tensions and conflicts, leads to transformation … it is what you do with those that matters and a leader of a co-​operative democratic school must understand that. (Deputy Head, Chestnut) Democratic working in a trust involved a lot of consensus building outside of meetings, to avoid members turning up with conflicting agendas; as a result, there was an effort to ‘broker a better way of working in a partnership’ (Head Teacher, Oak School). This was moving some distance from the ideas about deliverology championed by Michael Barber. By contrast, co-​operative ideas emphasise the importance of key stakeholders participating in decision making which leads to better decisions that can be acted on more decisively and with partners on board.

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Pupils and governance Pupils are a crucial partner in any vision of democratic schooling (Fielding and Moss, 2011; Woodin, 2015a). They are at the centrepiece of the need to raise standards as well as neoliberal assumptions about responsibilisation. The co-​ operative model of governance potentially bridges both these radical and neoliberal languages of education. At one level this is a patently obvious point: Schools will do better when pupils, staff, parents and communities actively and critically champion them and contribute to governance. Whereas education policy and academies have demanded strong forms of traditional discipline, the experience of engaging pupils in a democratic community is a complex process but it ultimately may lead to greater rewards. Co-​operative values have provided a space in which schools can develop ways of working ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ pupils as part of a shared endeavor, although it requires pupils to take on new roles and responsibilities. In co-​operative schools, avenues of dialogue, participation and leadership have opened up. This can be seen in many schools where ostensibly weaker forms of consultation have taken place about school uniform, layout of toilets or even the fragrance of soap (Pupils, Elm School). This can easily be dismissed as window dressing, marginalising pupils from real governance and/​or diluting the actual responsibilities of governance. In reality, it helped to build ways of working in which pupils took part in school decision making. It raised awareness of democratic processes and increased the willingness to take on more strategic issues. Consequently, co-​operative schools have also consulted with communities and pupils over more serious strategic matters such as new policies, equality issues or curriculum changes, all of which were fed into governing bodies (Woodin, 2015c; Ralls, 2019). The specific work on students and governance has not easily been disaggregated from other areas of pupil experience. Democratic governance depends not only upon good leadership but also upon a responsive followership. Structures can only operate effectively with a strong participative culture in which individuals and groups feel able and suitably equipped to contribute to collective well-​being. Thus, an effective co-​operative school requires substantial support processes. At Larch School, the governing body fully backed the change to a co-​operative school which immediately spilled over into ‘the fabric of the place and the values it develops in young people’ (Teacher, Larch School). One teacher took on responsibility to develop this area of work across the age range: working with the students, taking out a group that was vertical, taking them out to other schools that had vertical structures, looking and seeing, taking them to conferences and then, having them off-​timetable, creating the structure that they would want here. And that’s the one that we are running with and more things get added. (Teacher, Larch School) This school had acted upon the much-​lauded notion of ‘leadership at all levels’ and potentially turned commonly held assumptions about leadership on their head.

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Democratic alternatives 229 Leadership did not refer to a small number of spaces to be filled in a representative way, ‘who’s going to be top dog’, but only seemed to be limited by the capacity and willingness of young people: More roles get added, so at the moment it’s somewhere in the region of 150–​ 170 students who have posts of responsibility across the College. In each community you have your community leaders, your community council members, your sports leaders, your arts and events leaders, your tutor reps into the community council … duty monitors. You also have, as a wider part of leadership, we’ve got our farm academy leaders, our bee keepers, our green scene leaders, last year we had philosophy leaders, digital leaders, mathematical leaders and literacy leaders … and peer tutors. So you have this wide swathe, and because it’s vertical it doesn’t mean it’s only older students … we’ve invested quite a lot getting it so that tutor groups are no more than 20 and that’s phenomenally different … from other places. (Head Teacher, Larch School) Co-​operative values were built into the foundations of this system so that shared expectations could emerge. Values were openly discussed in assemblies where pupils could develop new understandings. In place of ‘houses’, which were reminiscent of public (private) schools, ‘communities’ were instituted with the help of a ‘community assistant’ and each of them was named after a co-​operative value (Head Teacher, Larch School). Repercussions beyond the school were also felt. Participating in varied activities fed into wider forms of governance. A pupil presentation at an academic seminar, where an eager group of 50 adults listened intently to their concerns, provided the springboard for participating in other areas: one of the students said to me when they came back, well, it was just incredible, this room full of adults wanting to know what our opinion was and wanting to know what we had to say and they felt very valued actually through that evening, really valued. They’ve gone on, two of them have now become part of the … Young People’s Council and National Steering Group Voice, fantastic. (Teacher, Larch School) Student groups also shadowed senior leaders and carried out interviews with prospective employees, without teacher supervision. They interviewed for the security person on the school gate (Head Teacher, Larch School) as well as for senior teaching posts. In one case students came back and were ‘shockingly perceptive’ saying that the person might be a ‘good community director but they couldn’t see her being effective as the head of a subject and in the leadership team … they were very diffident about what they’d heard, that someone then piped up and said, what would happen if you didn’t appoint any of them?’ (Head Teacher, Larch School). In fact, the school did have to re-​advertise the post. Listening and acting upon

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230  Tom Woodin student voice had helped to build momentum for change: ‘they actually see the outcome … so that their voice is valued in that whole process’. Interesting conundrums arose which taught students about the nature of democracy. Some students who took on roles found they were not ‘ready’ for it, despite training which dovetailed back into the core learning activities: ‘how we are managing that in the classroom … to enable students to be leaders of their own learning and of others to become confident and resilient’ (Teacher, Larch School). Others felt empowered from taking on leadership positions but then interpreted this in quite an individualistic, specific and skills-​based way –​influencing people and presenting oneself appropriately for example, rather than building collective awareness and change (pupil presentation at workshop; see also Woodin, 2017). Another school had implemented a representative structure in which each class voted for representatives within a democratic pupil forum. When I asked one of these pupils how the system worked and how s/​he represented her/​his peers, s/​ he simply replied that ‘I can only represent people if they let me’, indicating the difficulties s/​he and the school faced in convincing pupils about the value of this system.

Working with stakeholders Multi-​stakeholder governance is a powerful idea which allows for the representation of multiple groups of people. Co-​operative schools made significant progress with democratic governance in a short space of time. Inevitably, drawbacks were apparent from the beginning that would be compounded by external obstacles. Indeed, the limitations of working with pupils was amplified with other stakeholder groups. Support for pupils to play leadership and governance roles could, to some extent, be built into the fabric of schooling. Assembling similar levels of enthusiasm and action among parents presented greater difficulties even though their participation is widely agreed to be a fundamental determinant of pupils’ success. Yet, leaving the status quo as it is will reproduce hierarchies whereby a few participate in PTAs and governing bodies (Davidge. 2017). Schools tended to start with small scale projects and looked at ways in which parents could be gradually developed as a ‘natural extension’ of community engagement such as building community gardens (Teacher, Birch School). Co-​ operative schools were eager to address parents: one of the features that clearly has a massive impact on educational attainment is the involvement of parents in the lives of their children. We don’t want to be doing it to them, we want to be doing it with them but it’s quite hard in busy lives to get parents to join in and give time to take part in activities when they think, well, why don’t the school just do that on their own. Many many parents here, they believe the school is doing well … we’re seen as both inclusive and high achieving and actually doing very well compared to schools who would never be our statistical neighbours … Parents tend not to be complaining or worrying about what’s going on in their school. But we, as a school, still

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Democratic alternatives 231 believe the next level of improvement will only come if parents are more directly involved in understanding how systems work within the school for the purpose of supporting and guiding their children through their pathways. (Head Teacher, Alder School) As a result, stakeholder developments had only been ‘embryonic’ and were ‘not impacting at the level it has the potential to do’; the long-​term benefits were far greater than the short-​term gains and it was recognised that it was not going to ‘automatically raise results’ (Head Teacher, Alder School), implicitly raising the danger that it might lead to a loss of focus (see also Woodin 2015c). This shift related to abiding cultural and generational changes. Schools attempted to overcome parental fears and mistrust of schooling (Co-​ordinator, Co-​operative College). Some schools have removed PTAs and instituted school improvement groups which are about planning the learning process in schools, attempting to attract parents into new areas of activity beyond their own children. Initial efforts were to develop common policies across groups of schools or develop curriculum reforms in a consistent way that is understood by parents. Co-​ operative schools felt as though they were embarking upon unchartered waters. Building new relationships with parents was considered fairly experimental  –​ establishing an ‘ethos of self-​help and self-​responsibility … across a community? That sounds terribly utopian doesn’t it?’ (Head Teacher, Oak School). It could also feel a little disciplinary at times, for example in developing a common behaviour policy across schools: One of the biggest obstacles we find in that is parental apathy, disengagement. So outcomes for children remain stubbornly satisfactory to good and not outstanding. So how do we (and whether it is controlling or not) how do we engage families in an area that … traditionally hasn’t valued learning … In a participatory way? So it’s not controlling or regulatory, it’s a proper parent partnership … So yes, it is social engineering. It is a way of levering up expectations and aspirations. (Head Teacher, Oak School) The difficulty with animating parents was paralleled in different ways by the staff. Often the co-​operative message was reinforced by teachers but there could also be a reticence about new ways of working. Staff who were used to coercive management styles did not immediately welcome an ‘empowerment’ approach which could be threatening: if you’ve had a culture in the past of a coercive top-​down style when there’s always someone else to blame. It’s never your fault, it’s always somebody else’s fault … it is an enormous challenge of changing … that culture to one that is actually based on those values … the point about change is that you change the people or you change the people … you give them every opportunity to engage through training but if they don’t share your values, there is a point

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232  Tom Woodin when you say, maybe you are in the wrong organisation now: that is the values of this organisation, that is how we are going to move forward, and that is a critical point of embedding co-​operative culture. (Head Teacher, Walnut School) Similarly, the demand of one head Teacher that ‘I’ve told staff I want them to live and breathe the values, I want them on every corridor’ could not be imposed and might alienate staff rather than assuage existing levels of negativity induced by performative trends (Ball, 2003). The difficulty of energising stakeholder groups as a whole reveals crucial issues in democratic governance. The normative assumptions of the legal models and the existing global co-​operative movement could intimidate schools given the size of their task, and lead to stasis. The co-​operative model set the bar quite high in terms of democratic participation which was to go beyond merely selecting a few representatives but required an active membership that would impact upon governance. Larger consumer co-​operatives find membership difficult and invest time and resources into developing, engaging and growing their membership. Stakeholder engagement in schools applied the idea of membership from co-​ operatives which are established to meet the needs of members. It did not gel easily with compulsory schooling where pupils are already forced to attend (Woodin, 2015c). Some schools became confused about membership and ‘tied themselves in knots’ over the issue (Manager, Co-​operative Group). As a result, they were slow to take up the offer of funding for training in co-​operative working (Co-​ ordinator, Co-​operative College). Even very committed schools found it ‘quite a complex thing to breathe life into’ and developed ‘membership champions’ in each constituency. It was, however, recognised as ‘a really big piece of work, a very big piece of work’ (Head Teacher, Oak School). New structures take time to embed themselves and could be destabilised by the unrelenting change which is at the heart of contemporary education policy. One trust had been established a year before it changed its name as part of a wider learning partnership where new relationships had to be worked out. In such a context, stakeholder representatives were also outnumbered and their role could easily be reduced to surface consultation. Those committed to a co-​operative vision appreciated the continuing nature of the process of becoming a co-​operative. Part of the pre-​figurative politics of schooling was allied to a recognition that actual progress could be very slow, described as a ‘painting the Forth Bridge scenario’. To take everybody forward is a really big challenge, to take all the teachers forward, let alone the students and their parents and the community, governors and everybody … We get disappointed on a daily basis but if you are realistic and reflect properly then we have come a long way. (Head Teacher, Alder School) The ever-​present ‘grammar of schooling’ (Tyack and Cuban, 1995, p.  5) could reassert itself in a context where changes were too onerous or rapid to take in: ‘We

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Democratic alternatives 233 often forget … how deep conservative traditions in terms of resistance to change actually are … myopic attempt to pretend that change might go away if you avoid this for long enough’ (CEO, Co-​operative College).

Reflecting on co-​operative schools Co-​operative schools are neither a completely bottom-​up practice nor an entirely top-​down one. Rather they work from the middle outwards, up and down, from school leaders who can see the potential of motivating new constituencies while simultaneously addressing the targets they are given and operating effectively within regulatory and inspection frameworks. The idea originated within the co-​ operative movement, specifically with enthusiasts in the Co-​operative College and Co-​operative Group who, consulting with schools, figured out a workable model and were able to devote resources to it. This was an innovative initiative which showed how education policy could be contested from within. The ensuing attempts at democratic education have been part of an intensive and enduring process. Co-​operative governance of schools has had to deal with immediate governance responsibilities while gradually animating the various stakeholder groups in relation to a potential democratic practice. Working with co-​operative values also required a level of openness, transparency and dialogue with interested participants. The prosaic development of committees and structures, based upon co-​operative values, conversely generated wider visions of a co-​operative commonwealth and active learning communities. Keeping these two poles in a productive relationship has been a significant task for co-​operative schools as it is for co-​operatives in general. Co-​operative governance arrangements helped schools to think creatively about how to make sense of values and principles. Schools have taken significant steps in community education based upon active stakeholder constituencies. In stimulating the participation of students, staff, parents and communities –​central to democratic governance  –​considerable preliminary work proved necessary which invoked a new set of cultural assumptions. Work with pupils could be integrated into school processes and developed in and outside the classroom. By contrast, staff tended to have competing priorities which meant they were conflicted in advocating and upholding certain aspects of co-​operative working while questioning others. These could also be serendipitous –​for instance, in one case co-​operative status led to much improved terms and conditions. In addition, similar work with parents and communities has been more testing. Those with negative experiences of schooling were reticent while others would be willing to volunteer for projects but not necessarily within the stipulated parameters of governance. To foster democratic governance, old practices had to be reshaped and new information and support proffered. Indeed, much of the work with stakeholder groups was spread across a range of activity which posed a potential danger for those with governance responsibilities, in that new democratic procedures could lead to governors taking their eye off the ball or holding unrealistic expectations about levels of participation. An additional danger arose from

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234  Tom Woodin the policy distinction between ‘skills’ and ‘representation’ in school governance when both are clearly needed. But effective representation does not take place without a lot of prior work on shared expectations, values, rights and responsibilities. This includes training in skills so that finances can be managed and leaders held to account, something that is severely lacking in the governance of many academies and free schools. Sustaining co-​operative schools, in order that robust models could be developed, has not been straightforward. Co-​operative schools themselves were established on a self-​help basis which contrasts with many other networks where services are developed first and then sold to participating schools. A  Schools Co-​operative Society was established but its voluntary nature meant that it was difficult to create a self-​financing system and schools became wary of paying subscriptions for an unknown service (Woodin, 2019, forthcoming). The predicament of co-​operative schools has become doubly difficult when those administering policy have been hostile and forced schools into non-​co-​operative alliances (Manager, Co-​operative College). While some schools perceived that co-​operative status might be a way of protecting them from forced academisation, the reality was different, especially for ‘failing’ or ‘coasting’ schools that were specifically targeted by the DfE. In theory, co-​operative governance helped to lock-​in co-​operative values and principles but at least one school discussed here has been incorporated into another academy chain since I visited. As internal resources provided by the co-​operative movement reduced in an unsympathetic policy context, the number of co-​operative schools has inevitably declined. Of course, some of them have continued to flourish and embed co-​operation but they will face a further ordeal to ensure smooth succession as enthusiasts move on or retire. These complications are to be expected for alternative practices working in the mainstream education system. Learning how to handle and manage the resulting contradictions and conflicts is essential if such schools are to survive and flourish. One further factor contributing to the significance and potential survival of co-​operative schools is that they are part of a long-​term historical trend which is fostering a closer popular embrace of education as a form of cultural revolution (see Woodin, McCulloch and Cowan, 2013). Education policy has become increasingly authoritarian and centralised, enforcing obedience to politically constructed quasi-​markets. It benefits from the popular embrace of education but, in focusing upon skills and delivery over process and representation, it offers a deracinated model of education that expects people to learn to be critical thinkers while accepting illogical strictures and rigid hierarchies. It resembles the way that participative and democratic action has been constricted in many societies over recent decades (for example, Woodin, 2018, p.  199; Skocpol, 2003). There are parallels with the neoliberal impulse to commercialise solutions to educational problems which may appear to be efficient and ‘normal’ but it is a normality that results from considerable investment and campaigning to gain the support of policymakers. By contrast, co-​operative schools are an important means of re-​articulating historical trends through popular dialogue and discussion.

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Democratic alternatives 235

References Ball, S.J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy , 18(2), 215–​228. Ball, S.J. (2012). Global Education Inc. London: Routledge. Ball, S.J. (2016). Following policy: Networks, network ethnography and education policy mobilities. Journal of Education Policy, 31(5), 549–​566. Barber, M. with Moffit, A. & Kihn, P. (2011). Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for Educational Leaders. London: Corwin/​SAGE. BBC (2007). Cameron launches ‘co-​op movement’. 8 November. http://​news.bbc.co.uk/​1/​ hi/​7083878.stm [Accessed 24/​01/​10]. Beattie, N. (2002). The Freinet Movements of France, Italy, and Germany, 1920–​2000: Versions of Educational Progressivism. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen P. Benn, M. (2012). School Wars: The Battle for Britain’s Education. London: Verso. Braudel, F. (1979). Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cobbetts (2008). Model Memorandum and Articles of Association: Co-​Operative Trust, May. Manchester: Cobbetts. Corrigan, P. & Sayer, D. (1985). The Great Arch. English State Formation as Cultural Revolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Clandfield, D. & Sivell, J. (1990). Cooperative Learning and Social Change: Selected Writings of Célestin Freinet. Toronto: OISE Publishing. Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) (2002). Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success. London: DTI. Davidge, G. (2017). Rethinking Education Through Critical Psychology: Co-​operative Schools, Social Justice and Voice. Abingdon: Routledge. Delgado, A. (2014). Co-​operatives and education in the Basque Country: the ikastolas in the final years of Franco’s dictatorship. History of Education, 43(5), 676–​690. DfE (2015). Nicky Morgan speaks about the importance of school governance, 27 June. www.gov.uk/​government/​speeches/​nicky-​morgan-​speaks-​about-​the-​importance-​of-​ school-​governance [Accessed 20/​06/​17]. DfE (2016). Co-​operative academy trust articles of association: Model six, May. DTI (2002). Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success. London: DTI. Fielding, M. & Moss, P. (2011). Radical Education and the Common School. London: Routledge. Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics:  Lectures at the Collège De France, 1978–​79. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Giddens, A. (1998). The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Cambridge: Polity. Green, A. (2007). Globalisation and the changing nature of the state in East Asia. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 5(1), 23–​38. Gurney, P. (1996) Co-​Operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England 1870–​ 1930. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Higham, J. & Yeomans, D. (2007). Policy memory and policy amnesia in 14–​19 education: Learning from the past? In: Raffe, D. & Spours, K. (eds.) Policy Making and Policy Learning in 14–​19 Education. London: Institute of Education. ICA (2013). Blueprint for a Co-​Operative Decade. Geneva: ICA. ICA (2019). Statement on Co-​ Operative Identity. www.ica.coop/​en/​cooperatives/​ cooperative-​identity [Accessed 02/​02/​19]. Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative Researching. London: Sage.

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236  Tom Woodin Mazzucato, M. (2013). The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public Vs. Private Sector Myths. Anthem Press: London. McCulloch, G. (2004). Documentary Research in Education, History and the Social Sciences. London: Routledge Falmer. Meek, J. (2014). Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else. London: Verso. Mill, J.S. (1923). Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Paton, G. (2014). Gove: School governors ‘must toughen up and stop singing Kumbayah’. The Telegraph, 14 May. www.telegraph.co.uk/​education/​educationnews/​10833799/​Gove-​ school-​governors-​must-​toughen-​up-​and-​stop-​singing-​Kumbayah.html [Accessed 20/​ 01/​19]. Portelli, A. (2016). What makes oral history different? In: Thomson, A. & Perks, R. (eds.) The Oral History Reader. Abingdon: Routledge. Ralls, D. (2019). Reimagining education policy:  Co-​ operative schools and the social solidarity alternative. In:  Woodin, T. & Shaw, L. (eds.) Learning for a Co-​Operative World:  Education, Social Change and the Co-​Operative College. London:  Trentham/​ UCL Press. Ridley Duff, R. (2019). Cooperative social entrepreneurship:  Reflections on a decade embedding cooperative studies in social enterprise courses. In: Woodin, T. & Shaw, L. (eds.) Learning for a Co-​Operative World: Education, Social Change and the Co-​Operative College. London: Trentham/​UCL Press. Rowbotham, S., Segal, L. & Wainwright, H. (1979). Beyond the Fragments. London: Merlin. Sahlberg, P. (2012). How GERM is infecting schools around the world? https://​pasisahlberg. com/​text-​test/​ [Accessed 28/​04/​17]. Scott, J. (1990). A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research. Cambridge: Polity Press. Silver, H. (1990). Education, Change and the Policy Process. Barcombe: Falmer Press. Skocpol, T. (2003). Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Tosh, J. (2006). In defence of applied history:  The history and policy website. www. historyandpolicy.org/​papers/​policy-​paper-​37.html [Accessed 04/​02/​17]. Tyack, D. & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering Towards Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilkins, A. (2016). Modernising School Governance:  Corporate Planning and Expert Handling in State Education. London: Routledge. Williams, R. (1982). Culture and Society 1780–​1950. London: Penguin. Wilson, M. & Mills, C. (2008). Co-​Operative Values Make a Difference in the Curriculum and Governance of Schools. Manchester: Co-​operative College and Mutuo. Woodin, T. (2011). Co-​operative education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:  Context, identity and learning. In:  Webster, A., Shaw, L., Walton, J.K., Brown, A. & Stewart, D. (eds.) The Hidden Alternative: Co-​Operative Values, Past, Present and Future. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Woodin, T. (2012). Co-​operative schools: Building communities in the twenty first century. FORUM, 54(2), 327–​339. Woodin, T. (ed.) (2015a). Co-​ Operation, Learning and Co-​ Operative Values. London: Routledge. Woodin, T. (2015b). An introduction to co-​operative education in the past and the present. In:  Woodin, T. (ed.) Co-​Operation, Learning and Co-​Operative Values. London: Routledge.

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Democratic alternatives 237 Woodin, T. (2015c). Co-​operative schools: Putting values into practice. In: Woodin, T. (ed.) Co-​Operation, Learning and Co-​Operative Values. London: Routledge. Woodin, T. (2017). Co-​operative education, neoliberalism and historical perspectives: The dilemmas of building alternatives. In:  Rudd, T. & Goodson, I.F. (eds.) Negotiating Neoliberalism: Developing Alternative Educational Visions. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Woodin, T. (2018). Working Class Writing and Publishing in the Late Twentieth Century: Literature, Culture and Community. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Woodin, T. (forthcoming, 2019). Co-​operative schools: Democratic values, networks and leadership. International Journal of Inclusive Education. Woodin, T., Crook, D. & Carpentier, V. (2010). Community and Mutual Ownership  –​a Historical Review. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Woodin, T., McCulloch, G. & Cowan, S. (2013). Secondary Education and the Raising of the School Leaving Age –​Coming of Age? New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Woods, P.A. (2015). Co-​operativism as an alternative: Choice, assimilation and challenge. In: Woodin, T. (ed.) Co-​Operation, Learning and Co-​Operative Values. London: Routledge. World Bank (2013). Four pillars of the knowledge economy. http://​web.worldbank.org/​ archive/​website01503/​WEB/​0_​_​CO-​10.HTM [Accessed 20/​04/​18]. Yeo, S. (ed.) (1988). New Views of Co-​Operation. London: Routledge. Yeo, S. (2002). A Chapter in the Making of a Successful Co-​Operative Business:  The Co-​ Operative Wholesale Society 1973–​2001. Manchester: Zeebra and Co-​operative Group.

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Afterword The magic of democracy Jerry Mintz

Citation: Mintz, J. (2017). The Magic of Democracy. In: Mintz, J. School’s over: how to have freedom and democracy in education. New York: Bravura Books. At its core, democracy should mean something very specific: The empowerment of a group of people to make real decisions about their lives. It should describe the process in which people have the ability to debate and discuss and take action based on the conclusion of the community at hand. In a school setting, democracy is problematic because there are still compulsory school laws. This means that no matter how democratic a school is, an element of choice is absent; children are required to be in some kind of educational programme. Often, the assumption is that students in a democratic school are there because they want to be in that school as opposed to any other, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they wouldn’t rather be somewhere else. Given that caveat, democracy in a school works the same way it would anywhere: When there is a decision to be made, the people of the school gather to make it. Democracy in schools also works on the small scale: When an individual seeks to make a decision –​about how they spend their time, or what action they should take in a particular situation  –​they are empowered to do so within the boundaries they’ve helped to establish as a part of the whole community. In this discussion of democratic power in the hands of children, I am making an assumption I should put on the table right away. People are natural learners. Children are natural learners. They don’t need to be ‘motivated’ to learn. We have no way of predicting what kinds of things each one of us is going to want to learn or do, and, in fact, the words ‘learn’ and ‘do’ pretty much blur together –​learning isn’t in some separate compartment. Even when people are being forced to study something, you can never tell exactly what they’re learning; is it the subject matter or how to pass a test? Are they mastering the material or the responses an instructor is looking for? Similarly, although we can make guesses about when people are learning, it is such a highly personal, individual experience that it can be hard to nail down. Some people have an outward display of an ‘aha!’ moment, others have an internal click that is harder to see. Children who are part of a democratic school, and participate in a democratic meeting, have the chance to tap into a source of energy and creativity that is not

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Afterword 239 accessed in an ordinary school. People often use words like ‘spontaneity’ and ‘creativity’ when describing children, but you don’t truly see those qualities in action until you’re in a learning situation where anything is possible, where the children aren’t always being told what to do. When I talk to children about the idea behind this kind of school, it usually takes mere seconds for them to inherently understand. I was once in an elevator when a woman asked me what the ‘Education Revolution’ printed on my shirt meant. As I launched into philosophical answer, her 9-​year-​old son interrupted to keep me on track. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but what do you really do?’ ‘You get to decide what your school rules are democratically,’ I said, ‘and you don’t have to go to classes unless you want to’. Without hesitating he responded, ‘Sign me up!’ It’s amazing how consistent this response is, and equally amazing that—​while it is a clear indication that children know what they want –​so few adults will even acknowledge this reaction as meaningful. There exists in our culture an infuriating acceptance of children’s dislike of school, of their unhappiness. It seems almost like a joke when adults chuckle and shrug, ‘Of course they don’t want to go to classes!’ The unspoken assumption, counter to one I’ve made above, is that they are indolent, unfocused, unable to make decisions that serve their minds and bodies. The prevalence of this notion exists in spite of modern research that continues to prove that the brain is aggressive and ready to learn, that children are natural scientists, observing and cataloguing and quickly understanding the world around them. So, as study after study refutes the idea that children are lazy, what if we all stopped to look at school from another angle? Maybe the problem doesn’t lie within the hundreds of thousands of discontented children; maybe the problem is inherent to the one, overarching system meant, somehow, to serve them all. It is hard to fight against the inertia of our huge education system, this multi-​ trillion dollar system that wants to maintain its own shape. In many ways the public school, or the educational bureaucracy, is like a giant balloon. There could be an innovation that begins at some point on the surface and starts pushing in and changing the shape of the balloon. You may even be able to push all the way through, to touch the other side, but as soon as that innovation stops or that innovator goes away, the pressure comes off and the balloon goes back to its original shape. Attempting to shift momentum internally, at this point in time, can only go so far. Alternatives and options outside of this system, then, are becoming increasingly important, especially as layers of bureaucracy build up over the years, ossifying a system that was rigid to begin with. It is not easy, though, to make a leap of faith and trust children with power over their own lives, especially having not experienced it yourself. One of the main things I recommend to potential teachers and parents is to see a democratic school, or meeting, in operation. I have an incredibly hard time communicating the importance  –​and dynamism  –​of democracy, but each time I’ve visited a school or conference or gathering to give a demonstration of democratic process, within 5 or 10 minutes it takes on a life of its own and the innate potential is on display. You can feel the power of it as soon as people discover that they’re talking

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240  Jerry Mintz about real and significant things and are in a position to make real and significant decisions. They are emboldened by their own strength, by the meaning possible in working directly with a group of others to shape their world. Once adults have seen this, it can become easier, at least on an intellectual level, to acknowledge the function and purpose of democratic education. For many adults, though, being in relationship with students in a democratic setting (whether as a parent or teacher) highlights the fear and uncertainty born of experience in a compulsory setting. When people haven’t experienced freedom, they are often afraid of what they might do if they had freedom. Perhaps there is anger that has built up over a period of time, perhaps there is doubt in oneself; the compulsory school system, as it exists now, encourages people to be dependent on others for decision making. It is a system built on disempowerment and, thus, relying on yourself to make decisions, to direct your own time and energy, is an unknown. It’s scary. And if adults haven’t come through to the other side of these feelings, it can be hard to believe that children have the ability to live in freedom. The necessity of democratic schools, then, extends beyond the well-​being of the children to the parents and teachers as well. For adults who are coming to democratic schools for the first time, it is important to begin with an intellectual understanding, to acknowledge their anxiety and unfounded attachment to the idea that children aren’t learning –​that they won’t learn –​unless they’re made to, and to choose, in spite of those feelings, to trust children. In taking these steps, adults, too, have an equally incredible opportunity to learn and grow and, alongside their children, change the shape of education.

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World Yearbook of Education Series Series editors: Julie Allan, University of Birmingham, UK. Terri Seddon, La Trobe University, Australia. Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.

Examining a different topical subject each year, these fascinating books put forward a wide range of perspectives and dialogue from all over the world. With the best and most pivotal work of leading educational thinkers and writers from 1965 to the present day, these essential reference titles provide a complete history of the development of education around the globe. Available individually or in libraryready sets, this is the indispensable atlas of education, mapping ever-changing aspects of theory, policy, teaching and learning. Titles in the series: World Yearbook of Education 1965 The Education Explosion Edited by George Z. F. Bereday and Joseph A. Lauwerys World Yearbook of Education 1966 Church and State in Education Edited by George Z. F. Bereday and Joseph A. Lauwerys World Yearbook of Education 1967 Educational Planning Edited by George Z. F. Bereday, Joseph A. Lauwerys and Mark Blaug World Yearbook of Education 1968 Education within Industry Edited by Mark Blaug and David G. Scanlon World Yearbook of Education 1969 Examinations Edited by Joseph A. Lauwerys and David G. Scanlon World Yearbook of Education 1970 Education in Cities Edited by Joseph A. Lauwerys and David G. Scanlon

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World Yearbook of Education 1971/2 Higher Education in a Changing World Edited by Brian Holmes, David G. Scanlon and W. R. Niblett World Yearbook of Education 1972 Universities Facing the Future Edited by W. R. Niblett, R. Freeman Butts and Brian Holmes World Yearbook of Education 1974 Education and Rural Development Edited by Philip Foster and James R. Sheffield World Yearbook of Education 1979 Recurrent Education and Lifelong Learning Edited by Tom Schuler and Jacquetta Megarry World Yearbook of Education 1980 The Professional Development of Teachers Edited by Eric Hoyle and Jacquetta Megarry World Yearbook of Education 1981 Education of Minorities Edited by Jacquetta Megarry, Stanley Nisbet and Eric Hoyle World Yearbook of Education 1982/3 Computers and Education Edited by Jacquetta Megarry, David R. F. Walker, Stanley Nisbet and Eric Hoyle World Yearbook of Education 1984 Women and Education Edited by Sandra Acker, Jacquetta Megarry, Stanley Nisbet and Eric Hoyle World Yearbook of Education 1985 Research, Policy and Practice Edited by John Nisbet, Jacquetta Megarry, Stanley Nisbet World Yearbook of Education 1986 The Management of Schools Edited by Eric Hoyle & Stanley McMahon World Yearbook of Education 1987 Vocational Education Edited by John Twining, John Nisbet and Jacquetta Megarry

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World Yearbook of Education 1988 Education for the New Technologies Edited by Duncan Harris World Yearbook of Education 1989 Health Education Edited by Chris James, John Balding and Duncan Harris World Yearbook of Education 1990 Assessment and Evaluation Edited by Tom Schuler World Yearbook of Education 1991 International Schools and International Education Edited by Patricia L. Jonietz and Duncan Harris World Yearbook of Education 1992 Urban Education Edited by David Coulby, Crispin Jones and Duncan Harris World Yearbook of Education 1993 Special Needs Education Edited by Peter Mittler, Ron Brouillette and Duncan Harris World Yearbook of Education 1994 The Gender Gap in Higher Education Edited by Suzanne Stiver Lie and Lynda Malik World Yearbook of Education 1995 Youth, Education and Work Edited by Leslie Bash and Andrew Green World Yearbook of Education 1996 The Evaluation of Higher Education Systems Edited by Robert Cowen World Yearbook of Education 1997 Intercultural Education Edited by Jagdish Gundara World Yearbook of Education (1998) Futures Education Edited by David Hicks and Richard Slaughter

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World Yearbook of Education 1999 Inclusive Education Edited by Harry Daniels and Philip Garner World Yearbook of Education 2000 Education in Times of Transition Edited by David Coulby, Robert Cowen and Crispin Jones World Yearbook of Education 2001 Values, Culture and Education Edited by Jo Cairns, Denis Lawton and Roy Gardener World Yearbook of Education 2002 Teacher Education: Dilemmas and Prospects Edited by Elwyn Thomas World Yearbook of Education 2003 Language Education Edited by Jill Bourne and Euan Reid World Yearbook of Education 2004 Digital Technology, Communities and Education Edited by Andrew Brown and Niki Davis World Yearbook of Education 2005 Globalization and Nationalism in Education Edited by David Coulby and Evie Zambeta World Yearbook of Education 2006 Education Research and Policy: Steering the Knowledge-Based Economy Edited by Jenny Ozga, Terri Seddon and Thomas S. Popkewitz World Yearbook of Education 2007 Educating the Global Workforce: Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Knowledge Workers Edited by Lesley Farrell and Tara Fenwick World Yearbook of Education 2008 Geographies of Knowledge, Geometries of Power: Framing the Future of Higher Education Edited by Debbie Epstein, Rebecca Boden, Rosemary Deem, Fazal Rizvi and Susan Wright

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World Yearbook of Education 2009 Childhood Studies and the Impact of Globalization: Policies and Practices at Global and Local Levels Edited by Marilyn Fleer, Mariane Hedegaard and Jonathan Tudge World Yearbook of Education 2010 Education and the Arab ‘World’: Political Projects, Struggles and Geometries of Power Edited by André E. Mazawi and Ronald G. Sultana World Yearbook of Education 2011 Curriculum in Today’s World: Configuring Knowledge, Identities, Work and Politics Edited by Lyn Yates and Madeleine Grumet World Yearbook of Education 2012 Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education Edited by Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Florian Waldow World Yearbook of Education 2013 Educators, Professionalism and Politics: Global Transitions, National Spaces and Professional Projects Edited by Terri Seddon and John S. Levin World Yearbook of Education 2014 Governing Knowledge: Comparison, Knowledge-Based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education Edited by Tara Fenwick, Eric Mangez and Jenny Ozga World Yearbook of Education 2015 Elites, Privilege and Excellence: The National and Global Redefinition of Educational Advantage Edited by Stephen Ball, Agnes van Zantén and Brigitte Darchy-Koechlin For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ World-Yearbook-of-Education/book-series/WYBE

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Index

Note: Bold page numbers indicate tables, italic numbers indicate figures. Aboriginal education in Australia: attendance, focus on 163; children’s needs, understanding 168; Closing the Gap 162–​163; collaborative approach 168–​169; cultural events as educational tools 170; cultural interface 164; Dadirri 167, 168; deficit discourse 162–​163, 172; Early Years, relationships in 167–​169; Ganma theory 164; High-​Expectations Relationships 166–​167, 171, 172; holistic approach to transition 169–​172, 172; mainstream measures, use of 162–​163; Melbourne Declaration 162, 172; one-​ size-​fits-​all approaches  161; shift in thinking 165–​166; stories as educational tool 170; ‘Stronger Smarter Approach’ 172–​173; Stronger Smarter Institute 161, 163; Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme 164–​169, 171–​172; two-​way engagement with communities 168–​169; Yarning Circles 166, 169 academies: Academies Act 2010 102; co-​operative schools and 225; converter 103; decentralised centralism 100–​101; introduction and growth of 34, 102–​103; philosophy of 99–​100; professionalisation of governing bodies 104–​107; school governance, implications for 103–​104; skills-​ based governance model, shift to 100; sponsored 103; see also Multi-​Academy Trust schools (MATs) Academy Board Members (ABMs) 35 accountability: as complex, diluted and fragmented 39–​40; definition 38; in English education 41; free schools 130; governing bodies 105; horizontal 39,

39, 51; local, on Academy boards 35–​36; MATS 44–​50, 45, 48; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (US) 14–​16; Ofsted 40; performance 39; Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) 39–​40; school governance 39; standards tied with 13, 15; vertical 38–​39, 39 Addi-​Raccah,  A.  142 Ainhoren, R. 142 Amnå, E. 58–​59 Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in: attendance, focus on 163; children’s needs, understanding 168; Closing the Gap 162–​163; collaborative approach 168–​169; cultural events as educational tools 170; cultural interface 164; Dadirri 167, 168; deficit discourse 162–​163, 172; Early Years, relationships in 167–​169; Ganma theory 164; High-​Expectations Relationships 166–​167, 171, 172; holistic approach to transition 169–​172, 172; mainstream measures, use of 162–​163; Melbourne Declaration 162, 172; one-​ size-​fits-​all approaches  161; relationships and connection in Aboriginal culture 166–​167; shift in thinking 165–​166; stories as educational tool 170; ‘Stronger Smarter Approach’ 161, 163, 172–​173; Stronger Smarter Institute 161, 163; Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme 164–​169, 171–​172; two-​way engagement with communities 168–​169; Yarning Circles 166, 169 Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME): biepistemic practice 178, 180–​184, 184–​185, 195;

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Index 247 classroom ethnography and interviews 186, 186–​187; data analysis 187; as different to school 187–​188; egalitarian teacher-​student relations 180–​184, 188–​189; ‘humble connectivity’ 189–​192; Indigenous knowledges, learning from 180–​184; Knowledge Holders, listening to 194; listening to and valuing contributions 192–​193; mentors’ role of 185; methodology for research 185–​187; montaged approach to pedagogic relationships 184–​185, 188; personal storytelling by presenters 189–​192; presenters 185; programme 184; purpose of 184; relationality 180–​184, 187; Setting Theory 186, 187; study of, reasons for 184; subjugated knowledges 178–​179; success of 184; theoretical framework 187; trust, communication of 193–​195; trust-​filled relationships 189; vulnerability by presenters 189–​192 Austria: actors, impact of reforms on 78–​79; autonomy of schools 74–​76; criticisms of system 74; data feedback as stimulating improvement 86, 88–​90; dual regulation 73–​74; cost efficiency 82–​83; evidence-​based governance models 77–​80; expectations, setting 85–​86, 88; governance, impact of reforms on 75–​76, 77; impact in 87–​90; impact of 80–​81; input regulation 73; modernisation of system 74–​76; in-​school co-​ ordination of teachers 87; message from research 89; parents, impact of reforms on 78–​79; performance standard policy 84–​90, 85; professional self-​regulation 73, 75–​76, 79–​80; professionalism of teachers 81–​82; Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 77; rationality, promises of 83; reforms, impact of 87–​90; reforms, recontextualisation of 72–​73, 75–​76; school leaders, changed role of 76–​77; school management reforms 76–​77; schools and teachers, impact on 84–​87; stakeholders, involvement of 87; state-​ based governance 73; support structures 86, 88; weaknesses, persistence of 81 Bächtiger, A. 211 Bæck, U.-​D.K.  149

Ball, S.J. 114, 119, 125, 143, 144, 151 Barber, M. 220–​221 Barker, R.G. 186 Bastiani, J. 142 Battiste, M. 178 Beare, H. 140 ‘best practice,’ sharing of 116 Biebricher, T. 113, 118–​119 biepistemic practice 178, 179, 180–​184, 184–​185, 195 Blair, Tony 223 boards, local representation and accountability 35–​36 Bodkin, Frances 194 Bond, H. 168 Braudel, F. 219 Brayboy, B.M.J. 178 Brown, B. 143 Brüsemeister, T. 73 Buckskin, P. 163 Caldwell, B.J. 140 Cameron, David 36, 131, 224 Carmichael, N. 106 Castagno, A.E. 178 centralisation/​decentralisation 100–​101, 114; Austria 74–​76; of education policy, impact of 33–​34; inclusion 117, 121–​122, 125–​126; micro-​politics of parental involvement 148–​153; Nordic school governance 55; state power 116–​117 change management discourse 124 Children and Families Act (2014) 116 Clarke, M. 115 Clinton, B. 21 Co-​operative College 223–​224 Co-​operative Group 223, 224 co-​operative schools: Academies and 225; co-​operative movement 221; contradictions in education policy 223; defined 217, 218–​219; democratic governance, pupils and 228–​230; democratic working 227; establishment and growth of 217; governance, assessment of 233–​234; International Co-​operative Alliance (ICA) 217; international comparisons 218; legal models 217, 222–​227; local authorities and 226–​227; marketisation context for 219–​221, 223; partnership working 226–​227; public/​private, nuanced understanding to 219–​220, 223; pupils and governance 228–​230; research

248

248 Index into 217–​218, 221–​222; stakeholders, working with 230–​233; trust schools and 223–​227; trustees 226; values and principles of 217 Coburn, C.E. 87 Coleman Report 12 collaboration: advantage versus inertia 35; Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in 168–​169; challenges in 42; communication 48–​51; education 33–​36; emphasis on 33; Norway 62–​64, 64; trust 59 Common Core State Standards (CCSSI) 18, 20–​22 communication in Multi-​Academy Trust schools (MATs) 48–​51 competition for funding 117, 121, 125 complexity 108 Concordia Primary School, Hong Kong 147–​150, 151 Cook, I. 121 Cooper, D. 108 Cornforth, C. 51 Corrigan, P. 220 cost-​effectiveness, inclusion and 123 cost efficiency, evidence-​based governance models and 82–​83 Courtney, S. 100 Creswell, J.W. 145 cultural events as educational tools 170 cultural hegemony as pre-​requisite to power 143–​144 cultural interface 164 Dadirri 167, 168 Darling-​Hammond,  L.  15 data dashboards 106 data feedback as stimulating improvement in evidence-​based governance 86, 88–​90 Davies, D. 144 Dawney, L. 208 de Sousa, B. 200 decentralisation/​centralisation 100–​101, 114; Austria 74–​76; of education policy, impact of 33–​34; governance as dynamic process for 141–​142; inclusion 117, 121–​122, 125–​126; micro-​politics of parental involvement 148–​153; Nordic school governance 55; state power 116–​117 deconcentration 34 delegation systems in MATs 44–​48, 45, 50 deliberation, democratic 210–​212, 213

deliverology 221 democracy in schools 238–​240; see also co-​operative schools; democratic participation, student, in Spain democratic participation, student, in Spain: barriers to 201–​202; children seen as passive beings 201; common good, improving due to 208–​209; daily life, deliberation, democratic 210, 213; democratic processes embedded in 209–​210; facilitators, role of 212; inclusion and 201, 210–​12, 213; Inclusive Participation Cycle 203; intentional and systemic process, participation as 207–​208; personal disposition towards 201–​202; real world actions through 208–​209; representation 209; research design and methodology 202–​203, 204–​206; sick word, participation as 200; varied methods of 211–​212; youngest children 212 Denmark 62 Disbray, S. 163 Doige, C. 193 Duku, N. 143 Edquist, C. 60–​61 Ehren, M.C.M. 87, 89 Eisenhower, D.W. 12 Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) (US) 12 Elwood, S. 211–​212 England: economics applied to education 102; see also academies; co-​operative schools; Multi-​Academy Trust schools (MATs) epistemology: biepistemic practice 178, 179, 180–​184, 184–​185, 195; epistemic injustices 178–​179; Indigenous epistemologies, learning from 180–​184 Epstein, J.L. 142 equity and governance in the US: accountability and NCLB 14–​16; achievement, educational 13; Coleman Report 12; collapse of NCLB 18–​23; Common Core State Standards (CCSSI) 18, 20–​22; Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) (US) 12; Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) 13, 25; High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE) 15, 16; Highly Qualified Teachers (HQTs) 14, 15, 16; historic federal

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Index 249 policy 11–​14; National assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 15–​16; revision and retooling of 16–​18; teacher training 15; Race to the Top (RTTT) 13, 17–​19, 21, 22, 26; resources, equity and 12–​13; return of governance 23–​26, 25; segregation/​desegregation  12; standards and accountability 13, 15; survival of equity 26–​27; tests, objections to 22; unions, teachers 18–​20 Eriksson, M. 60–​61 ethnographic methods of research 145 Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) (US) 23–​26, 25 evidence-​based governance models: alternatives to, lack of 84; application and use as unclear and simplistic 83–​84; Austria 77–​80; cost efficiency 82–​83; data feedback as stimulating improvement 86, 88–​90; expectations, setting 85–​86, 88; impact in 80–​81, 87–​90; in-​school co-​ordination of teachers 87; inspections 82–​83; message for from research 89; performance standard policy 84–​90, 85; professionalism of teachers 81–​82; rationality, promises of 83; reforms, impact of 87–​90; schools and teachers, impact on 84–​87; stakeholders, involvement of 87; support structures 86, 88; weaknesses, persistence of 81 Exley, S. 119 expectations, setting 85–​86, 88 expert model of parental involvement 154 failure of governance 106 Ferrara, M.M. 154 Ferrer, P.J. 154 Fielding, M. 208 Finland 58, 67 Florian, L. 115 Foucault, M. 101, 108, 115, 118, 119, 120, 124, 125, 130, 178–​179, 219 foundation hospitals 225 free schools: accountability 130; aims of 131; decision-​making powers 130; governance of 131–​132; impact of 131; inclusion 131; innovation 131; responsibilisation 130, 135 Freiburg school of ordoliberalism 120, 121, 125 Fricker, M. 179

Ganma theory 164 Garcés, M. 213 Gascoigne, E. 144 German Bundesländer 82–​83; see also Austria globalised governance, inequality as result of 1 Gordon, M.F. 154 Gove, M. 221 governance: failure of 106; globalised, inequality as result of 1; literacy and capability in, need for 6; metagovernance 1; network 1; shift from government to 1–​3; theoretical perspective, governance as 68 governing bodies: accountability 105; compliance with law 105; professionalisation of 104–​107; responsibilities of 105–​106; shift from government to governance 2; skills-​ based 104–​107; state power, contraction and expansion of 107–​108 Graham, A. 115, 121, 123 Gramsci, A. 143 Guenther, J. 163 Gunter, H. 100, 124 Habermas, J. 210 Hall, D. 124 Hatcher, R. 104 Hayes, J.P. 51 head teachers: Austria, changed role of in 76–​77; performance management of in MATs 46; training of in Norway 64–​67, 66, 68 hegemony as pre-​requisite to power 143–​144 Heystek, J. 143 hierarchy: features of 59; Nordic school governance 62, 68–​69 High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE) 15, 16 High-​Expectations Relationships 166–​167, 171 Hong Kong: Concordia Primary School, parental involvement in 147–​150, 151; cultural hegemony as pre-​requisite to power 144; democratisation, movement for 140; instruments of school initiatives, parents as 150–​151, 154; micro-​politics of parental involvement 143, 148–​154; parent representation in school governance 140; partners, parents

250

250 Index as 153; policy-​followers, parents as 148–​150, 154; pragmatism concerning parental involvement 150–​151; pseudo partners, parents as 151–​152, 154; rhetoric, parental involvement as 151, 152, 153, 154, 155; school management, democratisation in 140; training for professionals and parents 155; Trinity Primary School, Hong Kong 148, 150–​152; Trinity Primary School, parental involvement in 146–​147; utopian vision for parental involvement 153, 154 horizontal accountability 39, 39, 51 horizontal networks 62 Houchin, S. 35 HOUSSE (High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation) 15, 16 Huber, S.T. 143 Huxham, C. 35 imagination 122–​123 inclusion: centralism/​decentralism  114; change management discourse 124; competition for funding 117, 121, 125; cost-​effectiveness  123; criticism of market and state 122; decentralisation/​ centralisation 117, 121–​122, 125–​126; deliberative forums and 210–​212; economic efficiency 122–​123; education governance 122–​124; free schools 131; governance as lens 113; marketisation 121, 122; marketisation and 117, 119; National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN) 117–​118; non-​state bodies  123; “off-​rolling”  114; ordoliberalism 114–​115, 118–​119, 125; participation, student, in Spain 201, 210–​212, 213; participation in testing 117, 121; responsibilisation of teachers 114, 115–​116, 117, 120, 121–​122, 122–​124, 125; SEN Coordinators (SENCos) 118, 124; soft law as feature of governance 116, 117; Spain, student democratic participation in 201, 210–​212, 213; statutory guidance 115; variants within 120–​122; Indigenous education in Australia see Aboriginal education in Australia; Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) Indigenous epistemologies, learning from 180–​184

inequality: accountability and NCLB 14–​16; as result of globalised governance 1; see also equity and governance in the US inspections in evidence-​based governance models 82–​83 instruments of school initiatives, parents as 150–​151, 154 International Co-​operative Alliance (ICA) 217 Israel 142, 143 Junemann, C. 114, 125 Kjær, A.M. 6 Knowledge Holders, listening to 194 Kröger, S. 113, 119 Kuper, H. 87 Lareau, A. 143, 151 Lee, T.H.T. 140, 142 Leithwood, K. 141 Lisbon Strategy 116 local authorities: lack of trust in (United States) 11–​12; removal of power from 33 local non-​governmental actors, control of education by 34 Louis, K.S. 154 Lowe, K. 168 Luttrell, W. 212 Maier, U. 87 March, J.G. 68 marketisation: co-​operative schools 219–​221, 223; criticism of market and state 122; inclusion 117, 119, 121; responsibilisation 117 Martin, K.J. 191 Martin, K.L. 181 Maykut, P. 145 McKnight, A. 179, 183 Meek, J. 220 Melbourne Declaration 162 mental health 123 metagovernance 1 micro-​politics of parental involvement 142–​144, 148–​154 Mill, J.S. 219 Millikan, R.H. 140 Mitchell, K. 211–​212 Montin, S. 58–​59 Moore, A. 115 Morehouse, R. 145

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Index 251 Morgan, N. 107, 221 Müller-​Armack, A, 120–​121 Multi-​Academy Trust schools (MATs): Academy Board Members (ABMs) 35; accountability 44–​50, 45, 48; advantage versus inertia in collaboration 35; communications 48, 48–​51; data analysis 43–​44; delegation systems 44–​48, 45, 50; disconnect between schools and MATs 51; governance structure 36, 38; local representation and accountability 35–​36; method and sample for research 42–​43, 43; numbers and size of 36, 37; Ofsted inspections and 40; powers accorded to local boards 44–​48, 45; powers of strong/​weak schools  37; remit of boards, understanding of 50–​51; terminology 35; Trustees 35; see also Academies Nakata, M. 164 National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN) 117–​118 neo-​institutional theories  86 neoliberalism, responsibilisation and 120 network governance 1, 33; features of 59–​60; horizontal networks 62; Nordic school governance 61–​62, 68 Ng, S.W. 140, 142, 144 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (US): accountability and 13–​16; collapse of 18–​23; revision and retooling of 16–​18; teacher training 15 non-​governmental actors: inclusion and 123; local, control of education by 34 Nordic school governance: broken chains in 56, 67; centralisation/​ decentralisation 55; collaborative governance 62–​64, 64; Denmark 62; Finland 58, 67; governance concept 58–​59; hierarchy 59, 62, 68–​69; horizontal networks 62; model of 56–​58, 57; municipalities, role of 55–​56, 57–​58; networks 59–​60, 61–​62, 68; Norway 62–​67, 64, 66, 68; partnerships 64–​67, 66, 68; school superintendants, role of 56–​57, 61, 61–​62; soft governance discourse 67; Sweden 58, 67; system-​of-​innovation approach 60–​61, 64, 67, 68; theoretical perspective, governance as 68; ties, weak versus strong 59, 62; training of school principals 64–​67, 66, 68; transnational

bodies, influence of 55, 57, 67; trust in networks 68 Norway 62–​67, 64, 66, 68 Norwich, B. 122 Obama, B. 17, 21 “off-​rolling”  114 Ofsted: accountability 40; MATs and 40 Olmedo, A. 2, 122 Olsen, J.P. 68 ordoliberalism 114–​115, 118–​119, 122, 125; variants within 120–​122 Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD) 55; TALIS survey 65 Osbourne, S. 163 Pang, I.W. 143 parental involvement: Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in 168–​169; co-​operative schools 231–​232; Concordia Primary School, Hong Kong 146–​150, 151; controlled by professionals 151; dilemmas and contradictions on role 144; empowerment 140–​141; ethnographic methods 145; expert model of 154; frameworks for 142–​143; Hong Kong, representation in school governance in 140; impact of reforms on in Austria 78–​79; instruments of school initiatives, parents as 150–​151, 154; methodology for research 144–​145; micro-​politics of 142–​144, 148–​154; partners, parents as 153; policy-​ followers, parents as 148–​150, 154; pragmatism concerning 150–​151; professionals and 148–​150; protection model 154; pseudo partners, parents as 151–​152, 154; as rhetoric 151, 152, 153, 154, 155; selection of case study schools 145; shift from government to governance 2; theoretical sampling 145; training for professionals and parents 155; Trinity Primary School, Hong Kong 146–​147, 148, 150–​152; utopian vision for 153, 154 participation, student, in Spain: barriers to 201–​202; children seen as passive beings 201; common good, improving due to 208–​209; daily life, democratic processes embedded in 209–​210; deliberation, democratic 210, 213;

252

252 Index facilitators, role of 212; inclusion and 201, 210–​212, 213; Inclusive Participation Cycle 203; intentional and systemic process, participation as 207–​208; personal disposition towards 201–​202; real world actions through 208–​209; representation 209; research design and methodology 202–​203, 204–​206; sick word, participation as 200; varied methods of 211–​212; youngest children 212 partners, parents as 153 partnerships in Nordic school governance 64–​67, 66, 68 Peck, J. 108 Peeters, R. 105, 130, 135 performance accountability 39 performance management of head teachers in MATs 46 performance standard policy 84–​90, 85 personal storytelling by presenters 189–​192 Peters, M.A. 113, 120, 121 policy-​followers, parents as 148–​150, 154 Powell, W.R. 59 power: cultural hegemony as pre-​requisite to 143–​144; imbalances between teachers and students 177 pragmatism concerning parental involvement 150–​151 principals: Austria, changed role of in 76–​77; training of in Norway 64–​67, 66, 68 private/​public, nuanced understanding ot 219–​220, 223 professionalisation: of governing bodies 104–​107 professionalism of teachers 81–​82 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 55, 77 protection model of parental involvement 154 pseudo partners, parents as 154 public/​private, nuanced understanding of 219–​220, 223 Race to the Top (RTTT) 13, 17–​19, 21, 22, 26 radical governance: focus of 2–​3; micromodalities of 3; see also Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in; Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME);

co-​operative schools; Spain, student democratic participation in Radnor, A.H. 151 Ranson, S. 143 rational self-​management 107–​108 Ravitch, D. 22 Rayner, S.M. 100 reforms: recontextualisation of 72–​73, 75–​76; see also evidence-​based governance models Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) 39–​40 Reid, A. 161 relationality 180–​184, 187 representation, local, on Academy boards 35–​36 resemanticisation 6 responsibilisation 2; of citizens 130; free schools 130, 135; inclusion 114, 115–​116, 121–​122; marketisation 117; neoliberalism and 120; of teachers 114, 115–​116, 117, 120, 121–​122, 122–​124, 125 rhetoric, parental involvement as 151, 152, 153, 154, 155 Rhodes, R.A.W. 6, 59, 106 Robinson, K. 163, 165 Roden, Michael, conversation with: accountability, free schools and 130; ambitions for University of Birmingham School 133–​134; appeal of University of Birmingham School 133; DfE relationship 137; diversity of intake 137; governance structure, establishing 134, 138; governors, experience and competence of 134–​135; leadership style 136; Osted judgement as “good” 136; responsibilisation, free schools and 130, 135; success measures 136–​137; teacher development, school’s contribution to 137–​138; university training school 137–​138 Sahlberg, P. 220 Sarra, C. 164, 165, 168, 172, 194 Sayer, D. 220 school superintendants in Nordic school governance 56–​57, 61, 61–​62 SEN Coordinators (SENCos) 118, 124 Setting Theory 186, 187 Sjögren, H. 60–​61 skills-​based governance model, shift to in Academies 100, 104–​107

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Index 253 social networks 58–​59 soft governance discourse 55, 67 soft law as feature of governance 116, 117 South Africa 142, 143 Spain, student democratic participation in: barriers to 201–​202; children seen as passive beings 201; common good, improving due to 208–​209; daily life, democratic processes embedded in 209–​210; deliberation, democratic 210, 213; facilitators, role of 212; inclusion and 201, 210–​212, 213; Inclusive Participation Cycle 203; intentional and systemic process, participation as 203, 207–​208; personal disposition towards 201–​202; real world actions through 208–​209; representation 209; research design and methodology 202–​203, 204–​ 206; sick word, participation as 200; varied methods of 211–​212; youngest children 212 stakeholder model, shift to skills-​based governing bodies 104–​107 stakeholders: co-​operative schools 230–​233; evidence-​based governance, involvement of 87; policy formation, involvement in 116; shift from government to governance 2 state power: contraction and expansion of 107–​108; criticism of market and state 122; decentralisation 116–​117; exercise of 101; marketisation and 219–​220 stories: as educational tool 170; by presenters in AIME 189–​192 ‘Stronger Smarter Approach,’ Australia 161, 163, 172–​173 Stronger Smarter Institute, Australia 161, 163 Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme, Australia 164–​169, 171–​172 subjugated knowledges 178–​179 Sweden 58, 67 Swyngedouw, E. 106 system-​of-​innovation approach  60–​61; Nordic school governance 64, 67, 68 Teaching and Learning International Survey (OECD) 65 Teague, L. 3 technologies of rational self-​management 107–​108; levels of 101

theoretical sampling 145 Thompson, D. 213 Thompson, G. 121 ties, weak versus strong 59 Torres Strait Islander education in Australia: attendance, focus on 163; children’s needs, understanding 168; Closing the Gap 162–​163; collaborative approach 168–​169; cultural events as educational tools 170; cultural interface 164, 168; deficit discourse 162–​163, 172; Early Years, relationships in 167–​169; High-​ Expectations Relationships 166–​167, 171, 172; holistic approach to transition 169–​172, 172; mainstream measures, use of 162–​163; Melbourne Declaration 162, 172; one-​size-​fits-​all approaches  161; shift in thinking 165–​166; stories as educational tool 170; ‘Stronger Smarter Approach’ 172–​173; Stronger Smarter Institute 161, 163; Stronger Smarter Jarjums programme 164–​169, 171–​172; two-​way engagement with communities 168–​169; Yarning Circles 166, 169 training: parental involvement 155; school principals 64–​67, 66; of school principals 68; United States, of teachers 15 transnational bodies, influence on Nordic school governance 55, 67 Trinity Primary School, Hong Kong 146–​147, 148, 150–​152 Tröhler, D. 1 trust: communication of at AIME 193; social networks 59, 68 Trustees 35 Turner, E.O. 87 typology of educational systems 74 unions, teacher, in the US 18–​20 United Kingdom: economics applied to education 102; micro-​politics of parental involvement 143; see also academies; co-​operative schools; England; Multi-​Academy Trust schools (MATs) United States: accountability and NCLB 14–​16; achievement, educational 13; Coleman Report 12; Common Core State Standards (CCSSI) 18, 20–​22; Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) (US) 12; Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) 13, 23–​26, 25;

254

254 Index government-​centric direction  11; High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE) 15, 16; Highly Qualified Teachers (HQTs) 14, 15, 16; historic federal policy 11–​14; local government, lack of trust in 11–​12; micro-​politics of parental involvement 143; National assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 15–​16; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) 13–​23; Race to the Top (RTTT) 13, 17–​19, 21, 22, 26; Republicans/​ Democrats 11; resources, equity and 12–​13; return of governance 23–​26, 25; revision and retooling of NCLB 16–​18; segregation/​desegregation  12; standards and accountability 13, 15; survival of equity 26–​27; teacher training 15; tests, objections to 22; unions, teachers 18–​20 University of Birmingham School: governance of 131–​132; innovation

131; see also Roden, Michael, conversation with Vangen, S. 35, 51 vertical accountability 38–​39, 39 Vincent, C. 141, 143–​144, 152, 154 voice, student see participation, student, in Spain Waslander, S. 33–​34 Widmer, C.H. 35 Wild, E. 106 Wilkins, A. 2, 39, 122 Williams, R. 226 Wilson, S. 180–​184, 187 Windzio, M. 74 Yarning Circles 166, 169 Young, 211 Yunkaporta, T. 179 Yunupingu, M. 164