Consultants and Consultancy: the Case of Education (Educational Governance Research Book 4)

This book is a comprehensive study into and about consultants doing consultancy, and having influence in ways that generate concerns about an emerging ‘consultocracy’, with privileged access to governments and public services. It presents a detailed mapping of consultants and consultancy in education as a site of change and modernisation in public sector service provision. It considers consultancy at a macro-level of globalised policy, at a meso-level of national government policy, and at a micro level with vivid descriptions and analyses of consultants at work. The rapid rise of ‘edubusinesses’, combined with the restructuring of public services in western style democracies, has generated new types of ‘knowledge actors’ within education policy. Three main developments that have led to this change are: the entry of education policy and service consultants from within major companies into the public education market place; the emergence of ‘celebrity’ entrepreneurial actors and private businesses who make interventions into Universities and schools; and the rapid growth of small businesses based on individuals who have relocated their work from the public to the private sector. Such knowledge actors and the complexities they bring to public education are as yet under described and largely un-theorized. Based on current research and drawing upon a range of theoretical tools, this book fills the gap. __Gunter and Mills provide an invaluable contribution to scholarship on the neoliberal restructuring of public education by mapping and analyzing the under-examined yet central role of corporate education consultants. Their thoughtful and thorough discussion expands our understanding of how consultants promote and trade in the ideologies of corporate culture. Gunter and Mills show how consultants are integral to both knowledge making practices in schools and a radical reform agenda for schools in the UK and around the globe. This is an accessible and important volume for not just policy and politics scholars but anyone concerned about defending public forms of education and associated living at a moment when they are increasingly being positioned for pillage by profiteers.__ Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA Foreword 6 Acknowledgements 8 Contents 10 About the Authors 12 Abbreviations 13 1 Consultants and Consultancy in Education 15 Introduction 15 Consultants, Consulting, Consultation and Consultancy 17 Governing and the 4Cs 21 Anchoring the Book 28 Part I Consultants and Consultancy in Action 30 2 Corporate Consultants in Global Companies 32 Introduction 32 Who? 33 What? 36 Meanings? 41 Summary 44 3 Researchers as Consultants in and outside of Universities 45 Introduction 45 Who? 46 What? 51 Means? 54 Summary 57 4 Professionals as Consultants in and outside of Companies 58 Introduction 58 Who? 59 What? 62 Meanings? 65 Summary 69 Part II Consultants and Consultancy and Knowledge in Education Policy 70 5 Consultants and Clients: Knowledge Regimes 72 Introduction 72 Consultants `in the Know' 73 Knowledge Production 74 Knowledge Regimes 78 Agenda Setting 85 6 Consultants in Context: Knowledge Practices 86 Introduction 86 Dynamic Regimes of Practice 87 Problems, Problems, Problems 91 Missing Problems? 94 Summary 99 7 Consultants and Capitalism: Knowledge Economies 100 Introduction 100 Money, Money, Money 101 Privatisation 104 Privatising Knowledge 107 Privatising Knowledge Production 110 Summary 115 8 Consultants and `Consultocracy': Knowledge Politics 116 Introduction 116 Governing and Policy 117 Education Policy 123 Literacy and the Politics of Depoliticisation 125 Summary 130 9 Conclusion 131 Introduction 131 The Logics of Change 134 Governing Knowledge Production 137 Scholarly Activism 144 References 147 Index 165 Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Consultants and Consultancy in Education....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-18 Corporate Consultants in Global Companies....Pages 19-31 Researchers as Consultants in and outside of Universities....Pages 33-45 Professionals as Consultants in and outside of Companies....Pages 47-58 Front Matter....Pages 59-60 Consultants and Clients: Knowledge Regimes....Pages 61-74 Consultants in Context: Knowledge Practices....Pages 75-88 Consultants and Capitalism: Knowledge Economies....Pages 89-104 Consultants and ‘Consultocracy’: Knowledge Politics....Pages 105-119 Conclusion....Pages 121-136 Back Matter....Pages 137-160