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

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.