Imagining powerful co-operative schools: Theorising dynamic co-operation with Spinoza

Abstract

The recent expansion of the English academies programme has initiated a period of significant change within the state education system. As established administration has been disrupted, new providers from business and philanthropy have entered the sector with a range of approaches to transform schools. This paper examines the development of co-operative schools, which are positioned as an ‘ethical alternative’ within the system and have proved popular with teachers and parents. Using a theory of co-operative power drawn from the philosophy of Spinoza (1632–1677), the author explores how co-operative schools have emerged, with and against the reforming agenda, using narratives of hope and resistance. Spinoza provides theoretical resources to critique this positioning and to project beyond the limiting narratives to an affirmative vision for co-operative schools.     

The tyranny of no alternative: co-operating in a competitive marketplace

This paper explores the decisions made by one secondary school in a major English city to become a co-operative academy. This school is located in an area affected by economic hardship and social and cultural tensions. The school, prior to its conversion to an academy, was well known in the local area for its commitment to social justice principles. Drawing on interview data collected from senior administrators, teachers, governors and students in the school, this paper seeks to understand why a school with a commitment to social justice would go down the academy route given the social justice concerns raised by such a move. This paper also considers if becoming a co-operative academy presents an ironic opportunity to resist many of the current regressive educational trends epitomised by academisation. This paper suggests that within the current English context, as in many other locations, a socially just approach to schooling requires alternatives to be explored and that the case study school's engagement with the Co-operative Society might present one such exploration.     

The processual life of neoliberalisation: permutations of value systems and normative commitments in a co-operative trust setting

ABSTRACT

Since 2010 the government in England has committed to accelerating the expansion of academies (‘state-funded independent schools’) through displacing the role of local government as principal manager and overseer of schools. In response increasing numbers of schools are embracing the co-operative trust model to improve economies of scale, facilitate stakeholding and community resilience and resist capture from the monopolising tendencies of some large multi-academy trusts seeking wholesale takeover of certain underperforming schools. Yet there are concerns that co-operative schools do not represent a radical departure from routines of neoliberalism – defined by managerial deference, technocratic efficiency, upward accountability and performativity – despite clear signs that co-operative schools promote themselves as jointly-owned, democratically-controlled enterprises. In this paper, I adopt a ‘processual view of neoliberalisation’ [Peck, J., and A. Tickell. 2002. “Neoliberalizing Space.” Antipode 34 (3): 380–404] to complicate the idea that co-operative schools can be judged in binary terms of ‘either/or’ – neoliberal or democratic, exclusionary or participatory – and instead point to the variegated organisational life of co-operative schools and their messy actualities as they straddle competing and sometimes conflicting sets of interests, motives and demands in their practice of school governance.     

The effectiveness of structured co-operative teaching and learning in Greek primary school classrooms

This study focuses upon the effectiveness of structured co-operative group work on primary school students, aged between 8.5 and 9.5 years old, regarding their content knowledge, attitudes towards co-operative group work, experiential learning and open-ended curriculum as well as students' social and learning behaviour during co-operative group work. A cross-curricular educational programme was implemented within the curriculum area of environmental studies entitled ‘traffic education'. The methodology applied in this study was the experimental and the case study research designs. The findings of the present study support the view that pupils can gain benefits through structured group work co-operation in obtaining content knowledge and group work skills, as well as in developing positive attitudes towards group work, experiential learning, open-ended curriculum and the co-operation with their peers with learning difficulties (LDs). Changes in the relationships with the peers were not affected after the implementation of the educational programme.     

A case study of inclusive school development: a journey of learning

A global recognition of students' rights requires school organizations to recognize, value and provide for diversity. The move towards more inclusive schooling in Queensland, Australia, requires schools to address professional development on two levels: reculturing of the school to reflect inclusive beliefs and values; and enhancement of teacher skills and knowledge to better address the learning needs of all students. The recently developed Index for Inclusion 2000) is one resource that can facilitate the process of professional development and facilitate change in school culture, policy and teaching practice. The process used incorporates a critical friend and peer mentoring model within an action research framework, which together provide benefits for all involved in the professional development process. The journey of learning incorporating the phases of the Index for Inclusion are reported along with discussions for future directions.     

The positions of primary and secondary schools in the English school field: a case of durable inequality

In interviews as part of a research study of structural reform in England, some tension between primary head teachers and their secondary peers was evident. This was symptomatic of a long-standing difference in status between the two phases. At a time when relations between stakeholders in local systems are subject to change, we seek to understand anew why that might be the case and how the tension we found was evidence of a current difference of power within interactions between representatives of the phases. We analyse differences of size, resources, workforce, pedagogy and history, and how they have resulted in different, and differently valued, practices and professional identities. We explore how attributes of the two phases have been counterposed and how, in complex interaction with wider discourses of politics, gender and age, this process has invested the differences with meanings and values that tend to relegate attributes associated with primary school. By focusing on the activation of cumulative inequality in interactions, we contribute a complementary perspective to studies of perceived relative status and highlight the implications for understanding school positioning in local arenas as the role of local authorities is reduced.     

‘Becoming co-operative’ – challenges and insights: repositioning school engagement as a collective endeavour

ABSTRACT

This article explores how a school’s decision to become co-operative affects its engagement relationships with students and parents. The findings stem from a wider study exploring approaches to engagement in a recently converted co-operative academy, a large secondary school in a northern English city. The article surfaces the possibilities and tensions that occur as the school seeks to reposition itself in the English education marketplace, with a co-operative model that explicitly sets out to promote mutualisation, not privatisation; ‘we’ rather than ‘me’. The process of becoming co-operative is examined by exploring the underlying purposes of the school’s engagement with students and parents and the relationships that emerge as a result. The study surfaces the issues faced as a co-operative school seeks to enact thicker, ‘collective forms’ of democratic engagement against a backdrop of English education policy based on individualistic notions of democracy as freedom of choice. The findings point to the need for a different policy understanding of school engagement, an understanding that suggests engagement is about the process of developing more equitable, collaborative relationships with stakeholders and rests on the repositioning of students, parents and community members – from ‘choosers’ and ‘consumers’ to a collective public in education.     

Conceptualizing curriculum management in an effective secondary school: a Western Australian case study

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the linkages between management processes and the curriculum using an academically effective secondary school as a case study. The aims of the study are twofold. First, in view of the acknowledged importance governments and others place on the quality of school leadership and management on the one hand and curriculum, teaching and learning reforms on the other, there is a need for empirical data as to how school leaders and managers work to secure improvements in curriculum, teaching and learning. This study purports to provide such data. The second aim acknowledges the need to develop conceptual frameworks and data collection instruments as aids to better understanding of complex relationships within school organizations.two deputy principals do play an indirect and important part in promoting academic performance by reinforcing school values in a wide variety of ways. Third, curriculum management is the responsibility of senior teachers and there is tight linkage between both senior teachers and teachers and high quality teaching and learning. Finally, the loose linkage between departments, and also between departments and senior management, provides little opportunity for a school‐wide approach to curriculum matters. It is evident that a whole‐school curriculum management perspective is absent in this school.     

‘Towards a society of equals’: democracy,education, cooperation and the practice of radical inclusion1

ABSTRACT

The radical inclusion of the different interests and powers of all is fundamental to social equality. Moreover, both democracy and the associated practices of cooperation depend upon an equality of different voices if they are not to fall into forms of authoritarianism. Cooperation involves the free association of individuals who aggregate their individual powers to complete projects they could not accomplish alone. Those mutual dependencies require equality of participation and reward if co-operation is not to become hierarchical line management where the powers and participation of some are more greatly rewarded than those of others. And if education is employed to privilege the development of the powers and interests of some over others, it becomes reduced to a form of engineering to fit the interests of the powerful. Thus, I argue that discourses of equality and radical inclusion are co-extensive with democracy, co-operation and education.     

Neither confirmed nor denied: special school provision in New Zealand's Special Education 2000 policy

Special Education 2000 (SE2000), New Zealand's first official special education policy, declared the aim of achieving a ‘world class inclusive education system’. It would seem that, by implication at least, the intention of the policy was to achieve full inclusion of all disabled children in mainstream educational settings and thus, consequentially, the demise of separate special school provision. Given this, it would be fair to expect that intentions with respect to special school provision would feature prominently in the policy. However, surprisingly, this was not the case; only brief references to special school provision can be found in the policy material and certainly nothing that would constitute a clearly articulated policy objective for this type of provision. In this article, Trish McMenamin of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, argues that a plausible explanation for this somewhat curious absence is that the differing ideological premises of inclusion and neoliberalism that underpinned SE2000 served as boundaries to what could be said and thought in that context and at that time. This, it is suggested, led to a policy position in which a role for special schools could neither be confirmed nor denied.     

The cultural politics of school relocations: an ethnographic study of an Istanbul neighbourhood school

ABSTRACT

In Turkey, the social and economic changes of the past couple of decades have facilitated a neoliberal reconstruction of the city and a concomitant reorganisation of its educational spaces. The interaction between the urban space economy and school spaces has been documented by various studies, most of which point to the interplay between education policies and the racialised restructuring of urban spaces. In Turkey, this process has been particularly convoluted, perhaps more so than anywhere else. With reference to a particular school relocation/closing case, this article examines how school relocations induced by urban transformation have interacted with the desecularisation of the education system in Turkey. By drawing on the responses of a specific neighbourhood to the relocation of their school, I argue that school relocations are inextricably linked to the material and symbolic reorganisation of neighbourhoods and lead to the destabilisation of secular middle class neighbourhoods and their schools. And by showing how neoliberalisation interacts with inherited regulatory systems, through this research article I aim to contribute to the existing literature on the interaction between education policy and urban space.     

Inclusive educational leadership to establish a co-operative school cluster trust? Exploring perspectives and making links with leadership for learning

ABSTRACT

One remarkable feature of the contemporary school landscape in England is the number of schools that have chosen the co-operative framework to shape their work and relationships. When a group of schools decides to become a co-operative trust, leadership challenges arise both in the process of establishing an inclusive collaborative cluster and in living out co-operative values. To add to the limited literature on co-operative school leadership, a study in a school cluster trust explored headteachers’, governors’ and teachers’ perspectives and beliefs through interviews, group discussions and questionnaires. These data sources revealed some of the motivations for, benefits of, and strategies to support inter-school collaboration guided by the co-operative values of democracy, solidarity, equality, equity, self-help and self-responsibility. Importantly, a range of perspectives on the extent to which leadership was viewed as, and appeared to be, an inclusive practice undertaken by all members of the cluster was identified. A particular contribution of this work is that it exemplifies resonances between the values and principles of the co-operative movement and those of the Leadership for Learning framework. Since these two models are being increasingly adopted and integrated into a variety of educational settings, the research findings may inform leadership practice more widely.     

Academisation,school collaboration and the primary school sector in England: a story of six school leaders

This paper presents data from a study of five English primary schools. It examines some of the challenges associated with school autonomy and collaboration for state primary schools amid the uncertainty and complexity of governance in the present English education context. The paper features the voices of six leaders gathered from interviews that explored their thoughts about the academies movement. It highlights their fears that academisation, and particularly the imperative to join a large academy chain, will undermine their autonomy as individual schools. Accepting of the inevitability of academisation and the forms of network governance this reform offers, it highlights the head teachers’ moves to ensure their autonomy in terms of determining the timing and type of conversion. In relation to these moves, the paper reiterates the significance within effective collaboratives of member schools experiencing a sense of ownership, a common purpose, shared responsibility for students and their learning and relations of trust. The paper considers some of the tensions arising in this space in relation to competition, collaboration and school vulnerability.     

The self-evaluating school — a case study of a special school

School self-evaluation allows staff to review the quality of their work in relation to local contexts. In this article, Peter Neil, senior lecturer in education, Alex McEwen, professor of education, and Karen Carlisle and Damian Knipe, both research assistants in the Graduate School of Education at Queen's University, Belfast, discuss a research project focusing on the process of self-evaluation carried out by staff at a special school in Northern Ireland. The project involved the participants in the completion of a research journal over a four-week period. The authors describe the ways in which the outcomes of the project were fed back to staff and the impact the project had on a range of issues, including teaching and learning and the school's professional development agenda.     

Religious discrimination discourse in the mono-cultural school: the case of Poland

The article forms an analysis of the religious discrimination discourse in Polish public schools, with special attention paid to the culturally specific, Polish understanding of the notion of religious discrimination. The introductory part presents the concept of religious discrimination as present in anti-discriminatory policies. The following part outlines the Polish system of religious education and its relation to the religious discrimination. Studies on religious discrimination in Poland are presented and discussed. Important context is supplied by a presentation of two recent cases of religious discrimination in Polish public schools, and the actions undertaken by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Authors of the article point out the important influence of cultural context on the perception of religious discrimination. The attention is drawn to the seemingly homogenous environment of the Polish school and of the discriminative discourse used in political and social debates. The analysis shows that the presence of religion as a subject in Polish schools remains a cause of conflict between the religious and atheist citizens, a conflict in which concepts of religious discrimination and religious freedom are used as arguments by both sides.     

Marketing diversity: selling school districts in a racialized marketplace

Schools in the US and across the globe are increasingly engaged in marketing practices to attract and retain students and families. This study examines why and how administrators and school board members in two public school systems in the US seek to market their schools. Using in-depth case studies, a socio-cultural approach to policy, and critical race perspectives, I trace administrators’ and school board members’ logics about marketing, and specifically their emphasis on marketing the racial ‘diversity’ of their students. I find that despite differences in economic circumstances and community orientations to racial inclusion, leaders in these two competitive, under-resourced, and demographically changing school districts target upper- and middle-class White families, draw on discourses of global cosmopolitanism, and commodify racial diversity as a competitive advantage for upper- and middle-class White families that leaders believe do not see inherent value in students of color. This attempt to use racial diversity as a ‘selling point,’ varies in its particularities in each district–one district acknowledges and emphasizes how all students may gain from interracial and intercultural interactions and knowledge while the other district leverages abstract notions of diversity, removed from actual children of color – a consequence, in part, of district leaders’ uniquely racialized marketplaces. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings.     

The creation of the Baccalaureat Professionnel : a case study of decision making in French education

Prime Minister Fabius's announcement (May 1985) of the creation of a new baccalauréat, the baccalauréat professionnel, and of the official objective of having 80% of high school students reach the level of the baccalauréat in 2000, was the most important decision in French education since the Gaullist reforms of the early sixties. This article shows the impact of that decision on student numbers and on the morphology of the educational system, mainly its vocational track. The detailed chronology of the reform makes it possible to specify the responsibility of each agent: the teachers' unions, the executive officers of the ministry, the politicians and the employers' pressure groups. The decision was not a response to employers' demands. It was state policy based on politicians' view of the long-term needs of the economy, on their desire to upgrade the vocational track and give the educational system a new dynamic turn, and finally, on short-run political considerations of the positive impact of such a measure on public opinion in view of the legislative election of 1986.