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This paper provides an account of the topological and its description of contemporary culture and use as a research methodology, a topological lens, generally, and in education research specifically. Some commentary is proffered on the... more
This paper provides an account of the topological and its description of contemporary culture and use as a research methodology, a topological lens, generally, and in education research specifically. Some commentary is proffered on the relationships between the topological and the topographical, between relations and locations. A critical account is then provided on each of the papers in the special issue on the topological in education research and the specific contributions of each. The editors of the special issue make the important point that the topological is a spatio-temporal phenomenon, not just a spatial one. The topological does not exist in time and space, but rather constructs both and they change in a conjoint manner. As such, a topological lens rejects a construction of space as static and of time (and the temporal) as simply linear and chronological. The topological has been facilitated and articulated by and through practices of commensuration, datafication and digitalisation, flows and scapes, global connectivities and new relations, mobilities of various kinds and multiple networks. The paper argues that much greater emphasis has been given to the spatial in topological research; that is, there has been some neglect of the temporal in the spatio-temporal character of topologies.
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... It is and it isn't: Vernacular globalization, educational policy, and restructuring. Lingard, RL (2000). It is and it isn't: Vernacular globalization, educational policy, and restructuring. In NC Burbules and CA Torres... more
... It is and it isn't: Vernacular globalization, educational policy, and restructuring. Lingard, RL (2000). It is and it isn't: Vernacular globalization, educational policy, and restructuring. In NC Burbules and CA Torres (Ed.), Globalization and Education: Critical Perspectives (pp. ...
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The chapter demonstrates that one way to read recent developments in national curriculum in nations around the globe is as both expressions of and responses to globalization. Additionally, the chapter argues that curriculum making today... more
The chapter demonstrates that one way to read recent developments in national curriculum in nations around the globe is as both expressions of and responses to globalization. Additionally, the chapter argues that curriculum making today is affected by ever-changing imbrications between local, national, regional and global relationships. Examples of this include the curriculum impacts actual and potential of the OECD's testing regime and aspirations in relation to curriculum and the EU's creation of a European education policy space. The more recent rise of new nationalisms and ethnonationalism is seen to have potential impact on national curriculum. Some consideration is also given to the content of the curriculum and the contemporary focus on both disciplinary knowledge and on what sorts of people schools should produce; both it is argued are responses to globalization. The ways the message systems (curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation) sit in a symbiotic relationship with each other and the impact of the strengthened significance of international and large-scale assessments on the enactment of the curriculum are also documented. Some brief account is provided of the enhanced involvement of EdTech companies producing online curricula and the ways the pandemic has accelerated this development with the concerning potential for the privatization of the curriculum.
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The Australian National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), introduced in 2008, involves annual census testing of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in nearly all Australian schools. While this collection deals with the... more
The Australian National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), introduced in 2008, involves annual census testing of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in nearly all Australian schools. While this collection deals with the specific case of Australian national testing, the issues raised here have broader salience in other schooling systems around the globe. This program is managed by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which was established to oversee national testing and the new Australian curriculum. NAPLAN is managed by ACARA, which was specifically established under national legislation to develop an Australian curriculum and the National Assessment Program. However, in this chapter the focus is on the perceived impacts of national testing on student wellbeing. Despite intentions for NAPLAN to help target educational interventions, Cumming, Wyatt-Smith and Colbert show that teachers in their study did not find that it aided timely identifications of, or interventions with, students at risk in literacy and numeracy.
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ABSTRACT The academisation of schooling in Northern England is an example of a new mode of educational governance that promises greater autonomy for schools and school leaders. A common claim regarding the benefits of academisation is... more
ABSTRACT The academisation of schooling in Northern England is an example of a new mode of educational governance that promises greater autonomy for schools and school leaders. A common claim regarding the benefits of academisation is that it will improve student outcomes by delivering greater autonomy for Headteachers. In this paper, six Headteachers from Northern England, who had decided to academise their schools for various reasons, reflect on this promised autonomy. We develop the concept of ‘indentured autonomy’ (an outcome of negotiating autonomy, continued precariousness and cruel optimism) to explain how these Headteachers’ initial optimism for the academies programme has given way to the concern that they are probably less autonomous now than what they were previously. Paradoxically, these HTs still express a desire for autonomy, even as they reflect that the promised autonomy has not delivered what they had hoped.
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ABSTRACT This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, ‘scientific’ assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and... more
ABSTRACT This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, ‘scientific’ assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and ongoing narrative of a new policy emergence. This descriptive account serves as a precursor to our application of an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach, particularly the concepts of assemblage and assembling, while at the same time eschewing its depoliticising effect of a flat ontology. Our account details that much work and strategising went into achieving the new assessment but also into holding it in place. This included, strategising inside and across the Prefecture, with the National Ministry, with edu-businesses that had psychometric expertise, with politicians and the board of education and with the OECD and the Director of its Education and Skills Directorate. The analysis illustrates the complex, multi-directional and topological cartographies of power that now work in contemporary education policy processes. As such, we suggest a way to transcend the binary of methodological nationalism and methodological globalism evident in much policy sociology in education work.
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Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: Global educational accountabilities. Chapter 3: Politics of mutual accountability. Chapter 4: Catalyst data. Chapter 5: PISA and the invisibility of race. Chapter 6: PISA and the politics of... more
Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: Global educational accountabilities. Chapter 3: Politics of mutual accountability. Chapter 4: Catalyst data. Chapter 5: PISA and the invisibility of race. Chapter 6: PISA and the politics of "failing boys". Chapter 7: Conclusion.
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Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with new technologies, new social movements and a changing global economy. As a result, educational policy finds itself at the centre of a major political struggle between those who... more
Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with new technologies, new social movements and a changing global economy. As a result, educational policy finds itself at the centre of a major political struggle between those who see it only for its instrumental outcomes and those who see its potential for human emancipation. This book is a successor to the best-selling Understanding Schooling (1988). It provides a readable account of how educational policies are developed by the state in response to broader social, cultural, economic and political changes which are taking place. It examines the way in which schools live and work with these changes, and the policies which result from them. The book examines policy making at each level, from perspectives both inside and outside the state bureaucracy. It has a particular focus on social justice. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students will find that this book enables them to understand the reasoning behind the changes they are expected to implement. It will help to prepare them to confront an uncertain educational world, whilst still retaining their enthusiasm for education.
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[Extract] Nelli Piattoeva and Daniel Trohler argue logically, strongly and justifiably for the ongoing significance of the nation and nationalism in respect of schooling and education policy. They posit that this remains the case, despite... more
[Extract] Nelli Piattoeva and Daniel Trohler argue logically, strongly and justifiably for the ongoing significance of the nation and nationalism in respect of schooling and education policy. They posit that this remains the case, despite globalization. They also assert that the rise of performance data to manage and steer schooling systems at international, national and sub-national levels should be seen through the lens of the nation and nationalism. Indeed, they see the constitution of the nation and the place of nationalism as always in a state of becoming, always in a state of formation and reformation: the banal reproduction of nationalism, as they put it, drawing on Michael Billig (1995). They also argue that these multi-scalar performance data in education also contribute to these (re)formations of the nation
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The 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results have been released - and on first glance, it does not look good for Australia. On global comparisons, Australia performed equal 10th in science (down from 8th in 2012),... more
The 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results have been released - and on first glance, it does not look good for Australia. On global comparisons, Australia performed equal 10th in science (down from 8th in 2012), 20th in maths (down from 17th) and 12th in reading (down from 10th). There is a steady decline in the results since 2000, both in terms of overly simple international comparisons and absolute mean scores.