The reluctant state and the beginning of the end of state education

Bibliographic Data

ID10106224
AuthorsStephen Ball (0000-0001-7446-4201, University of London, corresponding author), Stephen J Ball
Year2012
Volume44
Issue2
Pages89-103
Publication date2012-04-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Educational Administration & History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0620 • E-ISSN: 1478-7431
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00220620.2012.658764
OpenAlexW2154062763
LanguageEN
Citations received47

This paper argues that English education policy has come full-circle – from the first constitution of a state system of education in 1870 to the beginning of the end of state education in 2010 – and that this circularity can be understood in relation to the reluctant state. That is, in the nineteenth century, the English state hesitantly and slowly moved from a patchwork education system of many providers to a national system locally provided. In the twenty-first century, the English state is moving back towards a patchwork of many providers with enhanced institutional autonomies and marginalising the role of local delivery and coordination. Keywords: the stateprivatisationphilanthropy Acknowledgements The author is grateful to Jane Martin for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Notes 1K.T. Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation 1846–1886 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 2That is, the non-conformist British and Foreign School Society for the Education of the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes of Society of Every Religious Persuasion, and the Church of England's National Society for Promoting Religious Education. 3B.A. Rapple, 'A Victorian Experiment in Economic Efficiency in Education', Economics of Education Review 11, no. 4 (1994): 301–16. 4D.W. Sylvester, 'Robert Lowe and the 1870 Education Act', History of Education 3, no. 2 (1974): 16–26. 6S. Hall and B. Schwarz, 'State and Society, 1880–1930', in Crises in the British State 1880–1930, ed. M. Langan and B. Schwarz (London: Hutchinson, 1985), 7. 5The 1870 Bill was modified several times to accommodate the various religious sensibilities. 7Ibid., 11. 8M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977–78 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 9Hall and Schwarz, 'State and Society', 30. 10B. Simon, 'Structural Change and Social Reproduction, 1870–1920', in The Rise of the Modern Education System: Structural Change and Social Reproduction 1870–1920, ed. D.K. Muller, F. Ringer, and B. Simon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 90. 11Ibid., 90. 12See 4; S.J. Ball, 'The Legacy of ERA, Privatization and the Policy Ratchet', Educational Management Administration and Leadership 36, no. 2 (2008): 185–99. 13N. Timmins, The Five Giants: A Biography of the Welfare State, New Edition (London: HarperCollins, 2001). 14The issue of compulsion is one which indicated the tensions in contemporary political thinking. The provisions of the Act left it to parents rather than the state to decide whether a child should go to work or to school. See N. Middleton, 'The Education Act of 1870 as the Start of the Modern Concept of the Child', History of Education 18, no. 2 (1974): 166–79. 15Between 1870 and 1902, local School Boards administered elementary schools and were directly elected, giving rise to a wide variety of political representations and struggles; for an example, see, J. Martin, Making Socialists: Mary Bridges Adams and the Fight for Knowledge and Power (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010). 16Timmins, The Five Giants, 67. 17See S.J. Ball, Politics and Policymaking in Education: Explorations in Policy Sociology (London: Routledge, 1990). 18Ibid., chap. 2. 19R. Hatcher, 'Profit and Power: Business and Education Action Zones', Education Review 13, no. 1 (2000): 71–7. 22See Ball, Politics and Policymaking, 62. 20M. Novak, Is There a Third Way? (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1998). 21J. Major, John Major: The Autobiography (London: HarperCollins, 1999). 23See The Cabinet Office, The UK Government's Approach to Public Service Reform, ed. Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (2006). 25Michael Gove, 'Failing Schools Need New Leadership' (speech, Conservative Party conference, Manchester, October 7, 2009). 24Conservative Party website, accessed 28 March 2010. In this section of the paper, I am drawing on some collaborative writing with Sonia Exley. 27Gove, 'Failing Schools'. 26See http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Rise-of-the-Red-Tories-xqcz-ycne. 28Jim Knight, 'Research Note on Conservative Plans for "New Academies"', http://iwc2.labouronline.org/166444/images/uploads/166444/3e8e4625-e028-9dc4-9dbc-a9fddce480f5.pdf (accessed March 23, 2012). 31Ibid. 29Graeme Paton, 'Michael Gove: Academics Will Be Norm in England', The Telegraph, May 27, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/graeme-paton/7767664/Michael-Gove-academies-will-be-norm-in-England.html (accessed March 23, 2012). 30Michael Gove, 'A Comprehensive Programme for State Education' (speech, November 6, 2009). 32David Willetts, 'Better Schools and More Social Mobility' (speech to CBI, May 16, 2007). 33J. Chubb and T. Moe, Politics, Markets and America's Schools (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1990), 139. 34Announcement by Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, October 15, 2010. 35B. Jessop, The Future of the Capitalist State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002). 36Given the pace of change these figures will be out of date as soon as this paper is finished! 37There is another circularity here; one of the earliest manifestations of schooling for the poor in the nineteenth century, the factory school founded by Robert Owen, is taken by the Cooperative movement to be the first Cooperative schools. 38DfES website (accessed February 23, 2006). 39 Education White Paper: Higher Standards, Better Schools For All, Department for Children, Families and Schools (October 2005), 24–5. 40R. Shamir, 'The Age of Responsibilitization: On Market-embedded Morality', Economy and Society 37, no. 1 (2008): 1–19. 42Explore Learning, http://www.explorelearning.co.uk/index.php?idPage=15 (accessed November 1, 2010). 41A. Ong, 'Mutations in Citizenship', Theory, Culture and Society 23, nos. 2–3 (2006): 499–531, 504. 43J. Kenway, 'Education and the Right's Discursive Politics', in Foucault and Education, ed. S.J. Ball (London: Routledge, 1990), 201. 44Tony Blair's (1998) address to public agencies cited in J. Newman, Modernising Governance: New Labour, Policy and Society (London: Sage, 2001), 51. 45A. Tuschling and C. Engemann, 'From Education to Lifelong Learning: The Emerging Regime of Learning in the European Union', Educational Philosophy and Theory 38, no. 4 (2006): 451–69. 46P. O'Malley, 'Risk and Responsibility', in Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government, ed. A. Barry, T. Osborne, and N. Rose (London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 202. 47See S.J. Ball, 'New Class Inequalities in Education: Why Education Policy May be Looking in the Wrong Place! Education Policy, Civil Society and Social Class', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 30, nos. 3/4 (2010): 155–66. 48E. Beck-Gernsheim, 'Life as a Planning Project', in Risk, Environment and Modernity, ed. C. Lash, B. Szersynski, and B. Wynne (London: Sage, 1996), 143. 49Ibid., 122. 50See S.J. Ball, 'Academies in Context: Politics, Business and Philanthropy and Heterarchical Governance', Management in Education 23, no. 3 (2009): 100–3

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