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.     

‘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.     

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 logic of the marketplace and the ethic of co-operation: a case study of a co-operative school

ABSTRACT

Over the previous decade, co-operative schools have emerged as a feature of, and resistance to, processes of marketisation in the English schools sector. The co-operative schools project, an education initiative of the UK co-operative movement, has been positioned as a ‘values-based alternative’ to the controversial academies programme. This paper examines the claim of the co-operative alternative and questions whether the co-operative schools project risks reproducing neoliberal values through a reliance on the ideal of the ‘self-improving school’. The discussion focuses on the evolution of one inner-city co-operative school. Through a close examination of its sociohistorical context, and with attention to the experiences of those involved, this case study explores the realities of a co-operative school striving to operate within a competitive system.     

Co-operative schools: democratic values,networks and leadership

ABSTRACT

For over a decade, co-operative schools have struck a note of discord within the highly orchestrated context of English education policy. They encapsulate an old set of ideas but re-articulate them for new times by engaging with educational frameworks which are locked into the so-called global education reform movement (GERM) based upon on standards, standardisation, a mixture of centralised and devolved accountabilities, leadership, testing and accountability. Yet co-operative schools ostensibly aim to embed a set of wide-ranging values and principles: equality, equity, democracy, self-help, self-responsibility and solidarity as well as the principles of education, democratic control and community ownership, all of which echo the history of labour movements. The co-operative legal model not only adheres to co-operative values and principles but necessitates stakeholder involvement in the governance of schools: pupils, staff, parents, community and, potentially, alumni are all expected to play a role. These are compared to David Hargreaves’ ideas about a ‘self-improving school system’. I analyse the emergence of the co-operative network and the reasons for its dramatic growth alongside the complex problems it faced. In turn, these help us to understand the possibilities and contradictions inherent in attempts to build inclusive and democratic educational networks.     

‘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.     

Exploring school leadership in coastal schools: ‘getting a fair deal’ for students in disadvantaged communities

ABSTRACT

This paper is a response to an earlier article in the Journal of Education Policy, which calls for ‘new ideas and constructive principles and practices for the provision of socially-just education’. We first discuss how an economistic approach to education entrenches socioeconomic disadvantage and argue that, in the light of evidence that inequalities are increasing both nationally and internationally, it has become increasingly important that we understand models of social justice in schools in deprived locations. Reporting on original longitudinal research with schools in disadvantaged coastal areas in England, and drawing on the notion of the insistent affirmation of possibility, we then discuss three dimensions of active social justice undertaken by participating school leaders. By examining practical examples of social justice, we aim to shift the debate into more positive territory, in which there can be more appreciation of the efforts and outcomes of some leaders in highly disadvantaged areas and more leaders can take heart in following their example.     

Responding to students' needs in special schools in Ireland and England: findings from two schools

As more students with special educational needs attend mainstream schools, it is critical that the role and operation of special schools be examined. This article reports on two case studies, one special school in England and one in Ireland, which formed part of a national review of the role of special schools and special classes in Ireland. Two students, in each case study school, were shadowed and observed during two‐day visits by the research team. These students, and everyone belonging to them, were interviewed and relevant documents were analysed. Findings are discussed in terms of responding to students' needs through: organization of teaching and learning, curriculum, leadership, specialist staff, collaboration and links outside the special school. The implications are considered with reference to research, policy and practice and the authors conclude that the evidence provides support for maintaining the special school as an integral part of the continuum of educational provision for students with special educational needs.     

The Australian national exceptional teaching for disadvantaged schools programme: a reflection on its first 8 years

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the aims, origins and principles of the Australian National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools programme and reflects on findings from its first eight years. As a well-established, mainstream university-based initial teacher-education programme designed to prepare social justice teachers for low socio-economic or high-poverty schools, NETDS has had significant impact on recruiting and retaining high-performing teachers in the schools that need them most. In this paper we discuss how it works, but also outline some of the complexities that arose in trying to design a teacher-education programme with equity at the centre and some of the changes we made along the way.     

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.     

Market accountability in schools: policy reforms in England,Germany, France and Italy

This article concentrates on the policy reforms of schools in England, Germany, France and Italy, from 1988 to 2009, with a focus on the introduction of market accountability. Pressing demands for organisational change in schools, shaped by the objectives of ‘efficiency’ and competition, which were introduced in England in the 1980s, have been adopted in other European countries, albeit at a slower pace and within the continuing need for domestic institutional conformity. How does the increasing predominance of market accountability in state schools change traditional bureaucratic and professional accountability relationships between politicians, managers, professionals and users? The article argues that despite some evidence of convergence between different education systems, England remains the outlier and continental European countries have been much more reluctant to adopt choice and competition policies.     

Context matters: primary schools and academies reform in England

There is little conclusive evidence linking academies reform in England with school improvement. While this reform has been effective in improving educational outcomes in some contexts, it has been resoundingly unsuccessful in others. Nevertheless, political faith in autonomous schooling as key to a world-class education remains strong. This paper considers how matters of context impact on approaches to and enactments of this policy. Drawing on case study data from two groups of primary schools from (1) a local authority and (2) an academy chain, the paper examines the particular situated, professional, material and external factors that impact on these schools’ capacities to cope with and respond to academies reform. In light of the continued tendency within policy for schools to be dematerialised, the paper argues the ongoing significance of greater attention to matters of context in understanding how schools are navigating the complex terrain of this reform.     

中世纪英国文法学校初探

文法学校是中世纪英国中等学校教育的一个典型。它是中世纪基督教文艺复兴和英国本民族历史发展的混合产物。它孕育于基督教教会学校中,作为拉丁文法知识的教育而存在,又在12世纪文艺复兴的影响下,脱离教会学校的母体,走向独立发展的道路,并在教会办学的基础上出现世俗办学的趋势。此后,在英国的宗教改革和14～16世纪文艺复兴影响之下,人文主义和古典主义复兴,文法学校脱离罗马天主教廷的控制,走向世俗的繁荣,其发展达到高潮。中世纪英国的文法学校,与当时的教会学校和今天英国的文法学校相比,都有其独特之处。同时,它在英国有极高的社会地位,并产生了深远的影响。笔者对中世纪英国文法学校的发展历程、概况和特征及其对当时英国社会的影响进行初步探索,旨在使读者了解中世纪英国文法学校的发展状况及教育特色,认识到中世纪英国学校教育的另一面,即在宗教文化笼罩之下的中世纪英国,也存在着古典人文教育。     

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.     

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.     

Challenging inequality in Australian schools: Gonski and beyond

In this paper I look at the most recent policy attempt to address the intractable issue of inequality in Australian schools, the Review of Funding for Schooling Final Report (2011), colloquially known as the ‘Gonski Report’, or simply ‘Gonski’. I highlight its important insights and some of its analytical limitations. I show how a fixation on sector-by-sector (government, Catholic and independent) analysis and disputation distracts from layers of disadvantage and advantage across all sectors, while also acknowledging that there is a disproportionate concentration of disadvantage in the government sector which must thus be properly funded. I illustrate how socio-educational advantage (SEA) and disadvantage are compounded and how the social segregation between schools on the top and bottom rungs is manifest and with associated problems. As implied throughout, systemic relational analysis, which recognises that educational advantage and disadvantage are mutually constituted is a diagnostic necessity which is absent in the Gonski Report and which thus led it to focus on disadvantaged schools rather than on the systemic relationships that also contribute to disadvantage. It is thus rather timid in its recommendations. Even so, I argue, it deserves support because the problems it identifies and seeks to address are dire.     

A comparison of the governing of primary and secondary schools in England

In England, governing bodies continue to be responsible for the conduct of publicly funded schools. This article compares the governing of publicly funded primary schools (for 5–11 year olds) and secondary schools (for 11–18 year olds). The research analysed policy documents and the governing of 16 primary and 14 secondary schools. The main governance mode for both primary schools and secondary schools is hierarchical and similar in nature, and the governing bodies of primary and secondary schools use broadly similar governing instruments. However, they differ in significant ways. In primary schools, governing is smaller in scale and less complex. Primary school governing is closer to the school and children, and the images held by governors of the system to be governed are better developed in primary schools. Functional knowledge was more useful in primary school governing, and the use of informal meetings as instruments of governance was more widespread in primary school governing. The findings and their implications need to be taken into account in the analysis of and policy making for school governing.     

Teaching within and against the circle of privilege: reforming teachers,reforming schools

Three decades of neo-liberal education in western countries, particularly English-speaking countries, have not served most children well. The evidence is mounting that the neo-liberal experiment has been a failure on many grounds, not least because of its deprofessionalizing effect on teachers. The disciplinary effects of neo-liberal policy frameworks on education remain powerful, but there are numerous teachers and schools who have resisted the regime of managerialism and accountability. This paper celebrates such activists. It argues that the internal focus on the delivery of instruction and test-taking inside schools ignores the point that the major influences on the school performance of children exist outside rather than inside the school. The paper argues that young people who have been ‘othered’ and put at a disadvantage by the neo-liberal education system deserve to be treated in a more dignified, engaged and respectful manner than seems to be the case within the ideology of accountability and top-down managerialism.     

Respect and responsibility: Review of research on small rural schools in England

This paper reviews 25 years of research on small rural schools in England, in a period of unprecedented educational reform, and shift in government policy on small schools from persistent threat of closure through a period of a centrally funded ‘presumption against closure’ in the early 2000s. It notes a dearth of funded or peer-reviewed research since that time, but reports new research on the status of teachers in small rural schools who feel greater responsibility towards, and sense greater respect from people inside and outside schools than do their large urban school counterparts. A call for theory-led, well-designed, comparative and large-scale studies, the application of the new definition of rurality, and research which seeks pupil and community voices is expressed.     

Identity and inter religious understanding in Jewish schools in England

This article sets up a dialogue between auto-referential (looking to self) and allo-referential (looking to the other) approaches to religious difference and applies these to education for inter religious understanding in Jewish schools. It begins by arguing that the multiculturalism of the 1980s and 1990s set up a duality of self and other, with the responsibility for looking to ‘the other’ (allo-reference) resting largely on the majority community and the licence to look to self (auto-reference) being given to minority communities. Within the Jewish community, multiculturalism supported and legitimated the development of an inward-looking Jewish identity-based education. This was challenged in the 2000s however by the new outward-looking emphases of the community cohesion agenda, and so Jewish schools have had to negotiate a place for themselves between auto- and allo-reference. Brief case studies illustrate contrasting ways in which two schools have positioned themselves in relation to these two poles. In School A, the imperative towards ‘the other’ attempts an openness to ‘the other’ in ‘the other’s’ own terms, whereas in School B the same imperative towards ‘the other’ is framed within the auto-referential framework of being and doing Jewish.