The paradox of neoliberal education bureaucracy and hysterical resistance: The case of New Zealand schooling (original) (raw)
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This study draws on Bacchi’s ‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) methodology of policy analysis, to explore the problem representations found in New Zealand’s National-led coalition Government’s discourse from 2008-2017. This methodology is overlaid by a critical realist theoretical perspective, whereby WPR analysis is supported through the use of Bourdieu’s thinking tools and Baudrillard's formulations of hyper-reality and Simulacra. These are used to identify, analyse, and challenge the beliefs and values which underpin the education policy changes made by this particular government, the National-led coalition government, which is viewed as market fundamentalist or neoliberal in its approach. Thus, its problematisations may be representative of a more general neoliberal means of approaching education policy. Specifically, the study seeks to add clarity to the way that ‘problems’ perceived to be in need of fixing are represented by this government and how such problematisations support the neoliberal agenda. Under consideration are the introduction and use of National Standards and the Investing in Educational Success (IES) suite of policies, and the way that these policies are explained as being necessary to combat perceived ‘problems’ with schools. These problems relate to inequity, ineffective teachers, and a lack of market forces interventions to make the education system efficient. A review of the research literature reveals the importance of the OECD’s Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) assessment ‘league tables’ in acting as a trigger and a driver for policy change. Also considered is the importance to the Government of the key measures of success used by it in its economically grounded education system, those being GDP and New Zealand’s standing in the triennial comparative tables issued by PISA, linking the use of PISA data to producing policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy. The Government’s practice of conflating social policy with education policy, with education becoming the meta-policy, has also allowed equity issues identified with neoliberalism to be passed onto schools as ‘their problem’. From these government-created problematisations that lay blame at the feet of schools, the thesis proposes alternative representations of the said ‘problems’. It then goes on to propose three alternatives: one is to use different measures of educational system success by using a multiple measures model—an edu-kete—to measure the possible stated outcomes for NZ schooling from the curriculum document (‘kete’ meaning bag or receptacle in the indigenous Māori language); another recommended alternative is that resourcing be targeted at increasing teacher expertise through professional development, instead of criticising teachers for failing students who are themselves the product of inequitable social policy and seeking ways to reward or punish those who do not meet lagging indicator targets; and finally, to review the curriculum and decolonize it for Māori and Pacifica (in particular) people.
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While the chill winds of neoliberalism blow, it seems some cultures are better equipped to weather the storm. The London Fog rain coat or the American Levi’s denim jacket has left little insulation against the effects of a quarter century of so called “reforms”. New Zealand’s Swanndri bushshirt, though not as efficient as the Finnish arctic parka, has provided surprising insulation against the policies heralded as the “New Zealand experiment”. This paper will explore the nature of neoliberalism and its relation to educational policy and consider the inherent inhibitors, or intuitive cultural resistors, to neoliberalism within New Zealand culture. It will argue that rather than focus solely on the negative impacts of neoliberal reform on New Zealand education—a valuable and critical tool for our understanding—research should also focus on those aspects of New Zealand culture, Maori and Pakeha, that blunt the excesses of neoliberalism that can be seen in such places as the United States and England. These areas can provide the “shady spaces” in which to combat neoliberal hegemony."
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Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind That blows before and after time,. . .-Eliot (1980, III, p. 120) Democracy distracted by the politics of accountability 1 and the public's disaffection in an ideologically bound culture of accountability, further defines the work ahead for teacher educators in an era of neoliberalism. We now live in "the audit society" (Power, 1999) wherein power and purpose are brought together in the institutional arrangements of accountability in ways that cause us to focus significantly upon the form and relationships of the educational systems and the public sphere (Ranson, 2003). Importantly, there is pressing need for teacher educators to understand that measures of accountability that sort populations and marginalize subpopulations while creating "a resource dependency and a hierarchical power structure which maintains that dependency" (McNeil, 1999, p. 10) places our educational systems and educator preparation programs at risk. In particular, neoliberal governmentality 2 links the university to economics and an economic model with the university (Jankowski & Provezis, 2014) viewed as a key driver in the knowledge economy. Teacher education is thus commodified (Schwartzman, 2013; Smyth & Shacklock, 1998), defined through economic rationality, and the concept of accountability has grown more complex with changes in society. Teacher educators must necessarily understand the problematic and political nature of their work as neoliberalism advances on higher education (Robertson, 2008; Saunders, 2010) and understand that a more democratic educational system and a more democratic accountability system rest, in part, on standards of complexity that work within the educational system to foster a more democratic society. The past several decades have witnessed the advancement of neoliberalism and with it a "New Public Managerialism" leading to the subordination of education as a social institution (Hill, 2006). 3 Before the rise of the technical-managerial approach, Biesta (2004) explains that a "tradition which sees accountability as a system of (mutual) responsibility, rather 672676C SCXXX10.
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The changes to education which took place after 1984 which resulted from the 'insertion' of the New Right into policy making in New Zealand were motivated by the adherence of the groups most centrally involved the Fourth Labour Government, the New Zealand Treasury, and the New Zealand State Services Commission to perspectives on the State, economy and education which differed fundamentally from those that had held sway under the period of the welfare state. The broad faith in the state's grandmotherly role of 'guidance and governance', typified in the economic sphere by Keynesian demand management, was replaced by a range of new academic, social, and philosophical perspectives whose central common assumptions can be seen as constituted by a particular strain of liberal thought referred to most often as 'neo-liberalism' (Burchell, 1991, 1993; Rose, 1993; Peters and Marshall, 1990) or as 'economic rationalism' (Marginson, 1993; Codd, 1990). The cent...
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