Partnership as cultural practice in the face of neoliberal reform     

Rob Smith  Matt O'Leary 《Journal of educational administration and history》2015,47(2):174-192

This article examines the nature of an on-going educational partnership between a Higher Education institution and a number of Further Education (FE) colleges in the West Midlands region of England, forged against the backdrop of sectoral marketisation and neoliberal reform. The partnership originates in the organisation and administration of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses for FE student-teachers across a range of sites. These collaborative ITE programmes prepare students to teach in FE settings and conceptualise the FE teacher as a critically informed practitioner, equipped to engage with research and knowledge production practices in the sector. The permeable grouping of teacher educators that has emerged identifies itself as a ‘community of practice’ and uses this concept in the development of a pattern of cultural interaction that scaffolds the continuing professional development of practitioners across the region. This article outlines the underpinning values of the Higher Education (HE)/FE partnership and explores how the partnership has responded to the neoliberal policyscape. Through a number of examples, the authors illustrate how this community seeks to translate shared beliefs into everyday practice, not least through a critical and participatory approach to practitioner research activities which challenges the performative practices that have come to dominate FE in England.  相似文献   

College re-culturing,marketisation and knowledge: the meaning of incorporation     

Rob Smith 《Journal of educational administration and history》2015,47(1):18-39

The further education (FE) sector in England has experienced two decades of marketisation. This article takes as its focus the first five years of incorporation (1993–1998) for one case study college in a city (‘Coppleton’) in the West Midlands of England, five years that were dominated by a contract dispute. Data from interviews with trade unionists active in Coppleton College (anonymised name) and from a trade union archive are set against selected official College documents in a genealogical enquiry into the college's corporate identity as an educational institution and employer during this time. This article looks behind the ‘legibility’ of the incorporated college and its knowledge production practices and focuses on excluded narratives, specifically the experiences of union activists caught up in a new era of industrial relations. In analysing the data, theories of New Public Management and marketisation reveal that Coppleton College has features that make it culturally distinct from its unincorporated forebear. The corporation as an institutional model – it is argued – brought with it features including institutional self-interest, an authoritarian culture, the erosion of trust, and the stifling of dissent as part of an incorporated view of knowledge production that worked against staff and the public interest.  相似文献   

Discursive practices of private online tutoring websites in Russia     

Olga Kozar 《Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education》2015,36(3):354-368

A recent development in English teaching in Russia is the emergence of private online language-tutoring schools, which offer one-on-one lessons by means of audio/videoconferencing. It remains unclear: (1) how these new providers of educational services are presenting themselves to the potential learners; (2) what ideology they tend to drawn on and (3) whether there is sufficient similarity to conceptualise these websites as exemplars of the same genre. This paper employs the tools of critical discourse analysis (CDA), Genre Theory and Appraisal within the Systemic Functional Linguistics to study the language of 17 websites of private online language schools. The study aims to investigate whether the websites exhibit similar discourse and ideology and whether they might belong to the same ‘genre prototype’. The analysis reveals a considerable thematic, structural and rhetorical similarity between the websites and a high presence of neoliberal ideology.  相似文献   

Reclaiming student voice(s): constituted through process or embedded in practice?     

Valerie J. Hall 《Cambridge Journal of Education》2020,50(1):125-144

ABSTRACT

Removal of the student numbers cap, reductions in funding and an accompanying need to generate revenue have driven education towards neo-capitalism and managerialism: students equate to income. An associated growth in performativity measures incorporates student voice as one of these benchmarking requirements. Aiming to explore and challenge assumptions about the role of student voice in post-compulsory education, this paper identifies a missing viewpoint in the wider research: perceptions from those engaged in teacher education. This paper presents research undertaken with 24 participants (teacher educators, student teachers and quality assurance managers) across three post-compulsory institutions in the UK. It explores perceptions about how student voice is espoused, enacted and experienced within the institutions, and whether this enables a democratic approach within education. The research considers questions raised about power, dialogue and engagement, as well as the impact of marketisation and consumerism on student–institutional relationships.  相似文献