Governance and Heterarchy in Education. Enacting networks for school innovation (original) (raw)
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Enacting networks for school innovation
2011
The paper deals with the complex issue of the shift towards heterarchical modes of coordination in educational governance, exploring the nexus established by the contemporary discourse on networking between networking itself and innovation. Once presented the main features of such a discourse, the work develops addressing those critical positions that challenge the ‘magic properties’ attributed to networks by the prevailing governance narratives in the field of education. A contribution to this critical pathway of analysis is given, presenting the findings of a case study on a policy program for combating social exclusion and school drop out developed through the establishment of a network to innovate the practices of teaching and learning in a group of Italian failing schools. The study highlights how the discourse on networks tends to offer a partial and simplitic view on the functioning of the networked forms of coordination and selforganising, eliciting those analytical dimensio...
Beyond Networks? A Brief Response to ‘Which Networks Matter in Education Governance?’
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Mark Goodwin's commentary on and critique, in this issue, of my 2008 article in this journal ( Ball, 2008 ) is both pertinent and constructive and indeed I agree with almost all of it. Goodwin makes the point that the distribution of power and capabilities within policy networks was not properly addressed in my article and that as a result I may tend to overestimate the looseness of such networks and underestimate the continuing prominence of the formal legal powers of the state in processes of governance. He also suggests that the existence of and work done by the networks I describe should not in themselves be taken to be indicative of a shift from government to network governance. These concerns raise very proper and important questions and pose major challenges for empirical policy network analysis. However, I would want to say that my 2008 article represents a first foray into the issues and problems of a grounded analysis of network governance in education. Many of the poi...
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Since 1997 the Italian educational system has seen the creation of new policies and significant changes in the design of actors’ roles, within the framework of a weakly implemented decentralisation. This scenario is investigated through an analysis of conflicting discourses (bureaucratism, professionalism, managerialism and the democratic-critical) that are shaping the “trans-formation” of these actors. Discourses are, in fact, used as heuristic devices in order to examine real people and institutions acting out their renewed roles. The aim of the paper is to outline the struggle between the four discourses in educational policy in Italy. The paper deals with a case study regarding the implementation of policies of governance fostering the institutionalization of school networks in richand poor-partnership areas (and then creating diversity) in Italy. Our findings show how difficult is learning practices and contexts inspired by the democratic-critical discourse as well as to make d...
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Policy discourse officially operates to distinctly influence public perception in an irrevocable and normalising manner. In a Maltese educational scenario of gradual decentralisation and increased accountability, I explore the ‘effects’ of both the global and the local policy discourse of networks and networking on the practising leaders, in addition to their reaction to the policy document mandating these multi-site school collaboratives, with a particular interest on their imposed nature and how this reform impinged on individual school autonomy. This research adopts a case study methodology, with data collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews; participant observation; and documentary analysis, interpreted via a Foucauldian theoretical framework through narrative analysis. The findings reveal an inherent tension among autonomy, centralisation, and decentralisation both within the policy discourse and the unfolding network leadership dynamics. This paper has particular philosophical implications for educational policy, practice, and theory in an educational scenario of school policy globalisation.
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This work in progress is intended as a contribution to the current politics of education. I attempt to identify strategic points of intervention in the current context that might help to reconsolidate education’s role as a social institution that orchestrates learning and advances social justice. My aim is to move beyond current characterisations of education politics, best seen in debates about markets in education and the Third Way, by disaggregating developments in the organisation of education and interrogating their implications for the politics of education policy and practice. I argue that the critical challenge for education research in advancing this intervention is to generate better understandings of: the relationships between centralised and decentralised networks; their articulations with both state and market forms of coordination and governance; and the infrastructure required to support networks that can anchor and protect educational values and commitments.
New Philanthropy, New Networks and New Governance in Education
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This article draws upon and contributes to a body of theory and research within political science which is concerned with changes in the policy process and new methods of governing society; that is, with a shift from centralised and bureaucratic government to governance in and by networks. This is sometimes called the 'Anglo-governance model' and the most prominent and influential figure in the field is Rod Rhodes. The article focuses on one aspect of these kinds of change within the field of education policy and argues that a new form of 'experimental' and 'strategic' governance is being fostered, based upon network relations among new policy communities. These new policy communities bring new kinds of actors into the policy process, validate new policy discourses and enable new forms of policy influence and enactment, and in some respects disable or disenfranchise established actors and agencies. The argument is illustrated with examples of networks identified and mapped by the author. Some of the relationships among participants who make up these new networks are traced and discussed, drawing upon research into the privatisation of education funded by the ESRC. These relationships interlink business, philanthropy, quangos and non-governmental agencies. This article seeks both to add to a body of research within political science which is concerned with changes in the policy process and new methods of governing society, that is with the shift from 'the government of a unitary state to governance in and by networks' (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003, p. 41), and to make a modest contribution to the conceptualisation of policy networks. The analysis of policy networks is sometimes called the 'Anglo-governance model' and the most prominent and influential figure in the field is Rod Rhodes (see Marinetto, 2005; Rhodes, 1995; 1997; Rhodes and Marsh, 1992), although there is also a lively US school of public network management research (see Agranoff and Maguire, 2001). In both these literatures a contrast is drawn wherein governance is accomplished through the 'informal authority' of diverse and flexible networks, while government is carried out through hierarchies or specifically bureaucracy. Governance then, involves a 'catalyzing of all sectors-public, private and voluntary-into action to solve their community problems' (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992, p. 20) and 'explores the changing boundary between state and civil society' (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003, p. 42)-and as we shall see between state and the economy. In general terms this is the move towards a 'polycentric state' and 'a shift in the centre of gravity around which policy cycles move' (Jessop, 1998, p. 32). All of this suggests that both the form and modalities of the state are changing.'The state, although not impotent [see below], is now dependent upon a vast array of state and non-state policy actors' (Marinetto, 2005, p. 599).