School Leadership Between Community and the State : The Changing Civic Role of Schooling

This book presents changes in UK and global educational governance in the context of a radical shift in the operating logics of politics and its interaction with education. Beginning from the colonial origins of political interest in education, the author traces a fundamental shift in the patterns of governance of schools in England in the opening decades of the 21st century. Operating through the logics of public choice economics involving both real markets and quasi-markets, policy reforms have increasingly framed school values, and the value of schooling, in line with a politically determined and nostalgic discourse of ‘British values’. This stands in contrast to a previous focus on ‘community cohesion’ which foregrounded school partnership with the parent community and wider society. Tracing the processes and mid-level actors mediating between government and school leaders, the author identifies processes of recontextualisation through which policy can be reinscribed and resisted. Acknowledgements Timeline of Research Contents List of Figures List of Tables Introduction: What Is Philosophy of Education For? 1: Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance ‘Free Trade and Toleration’ in British India 1833–1947 Toleration, Neutrality and the ‘Bristol School’ of Multiculturalism Multiculturalism in the Brexit Moment Two Tests, Two Paradoxes and Two Biases of Pluralism Toleration and Neutrality Neutrality as to Means or Ends The Epistemic Paradox The Fundamental Values Paradox Constitutive Bias—Defining Community Directive Bias—Teaching ‘for’ Tolerance Works Cited 2: Post-Historical Institutionalism On the Notion of Authority From Historical to Post-Historical Institutionalism Towards a Philosophy of Bureaucracy Choice and Diversity, the Problem of a Marketplace for Values Education Works Cited 3: Leadership and Community Religious Education and Community Cohesion Does Religious Education Work? Revisiting Does RE Work? Ten Years on From Community Cohesion to ‘Mere’ Tolerance Works Cited 4: Schools, Leadership and the Law Mediating Law: The Inspectorate and the Courts The Trojan Horse Researching Security and Schooling Becoming Post-Institutional Works Cited 5: School Leadership and the Market Public Choice Economics Communities, Academies, Faith and Business The Market and Mid-Level Policy Enactors Works Cited 6: Leadership and the Political State Mediating Teacher Agency Through School Strategy Theorising the Political Sector, Liberty and Liberalism in the Fundamental British Values Works Cited 7: Conclusions Mapping the Politicisation of School Values Through Marketisation Theorising Multi-Agency Working Researching Institutional and Post-Institutional Logics in Education Works Cited 8: Epilogue—From the Political to the Undifferentiated School Values in the COVID-19 Pandemic Moment From British Values to Personal Development Works Cited Works Cited Index