Challenging the System? a Dramatic Tale of Neoliberal Reform in an Australian High School (eBook)

Martin Forsey (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2006 | 1. Auflage
209 Seiten
Information Age Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-60752-581-3 (ISBN)

Infos

The book is written with great clarity, and a strong awareness of the importance of the school's social milieu. Forsey cuts through the mealy mouthed official rhetoric of "education for all" and shows the massive, continuing influence of social class inequalities in Australian society. Class interests shape not only this school but the whole education system around it, public and private. Ravina High is seen as a "good school" largely because of its comfortable middleclass catchment.

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Based on extended, intensive fieldwork in an Australian high school, Challenging the System illuminates issues faced on a daily basis by teachers and educational administrators in many parts of the world.Forsey highlights the tensions arising between neo-liberal emphasis on individual school communities as the engine for competitive excellence in education, and the need for those responsible for running public education to maintain some degree of equity across the whole system. He shows that reforms based purely on market forces are not only undesirable, they are imposible to achieve. Governments do not want to lose control of highly significant cultural and political systems, nor can they stray too far from at least appearing to support the egalitarian ideals purportedly underpinning modern democracies.

Inhalt

Cover 1
Contents 7
Foreword 9
Acknowledgements 13
Chapter 1 Devolution in Practice 15
Discovering Devolution 17
Situating the Study Theoretically 22
Social Re-production, Structure, and Agency 24
The Structured Agency of Teachers 27
Chapter 2 Neoliberalism and Schools: Global Ideals, Local Realities 29
January 27, 1998—The Ravina High Staffroom 30
Grace and Neoliberalism 31
Working in a Highly Centralized System 33
Reforming Schools 41
“Better Schools” in Western Australia 44
Rhetoric and Practice 47
Chapter 3 A Good Ship to Sail 49
Searching for Good Schools 49
January 27, 1998: Rallying the Teachers 50
Structuring, Structured Structures 53
The School Council 54
Parents and Citizens 56
The School Executive 58
The Staff 63
The Staff Association 63
The Union 65
Not a Team School 66
Permanency and Its Contents 68
Permanency and Its Discontents 70
A Good Ship to Sail? 73
Chapter 4 Maintaining the Good Ship 75
A Classless Society? 75
The Good School as a Middle-Class School 77
The Social Geography of the Ravina High Catchment 79
When the Good School Turned Rough: An Oral History 83
Middle-Class Illusions 85
Social Class—Structured Agency 89
A “Middle-of-the-Road” School 91
Social Class and Cultural Schema 96
Reform and the Comfortable School 98
Chapter 5 Disturbing the Millpond 101
An Innovative Principal 101
From Good School to Academic School 104
From Government Institution to Private Enterprise 107
A School By Any Other Name: Grace and the EDWA 110
Beyond the Breach 115
Privatizing the School: Grace and Parent Representatives 117
Restructuring the Workplace: Grace and the Staff 122
Official Complaints: Grace and the Union 127
A Widening Rift 132
The Foundering Ship 134
Chapter 6 Conduct Unbecalming 137
Wednesday, January 27, 1999 137
Redress, Power, and the Construction of Knowledge in the Public Sphere 139
Re-producing Public Knowledge 143
Surrendering Power 149
Continuing the Suspension 153
The Demotion of Grace 155
Reintegration 162
Chapter 7 Challenging the System? 165
Neoliberal Reform—Rhetoric versus Practice 168
Re-producing the “System”: Neoliberalism in Practice 172
Bureaucrats, Administrators, Teachers, and Parents as Neoliberal Subjects 173
Chapter 8 What Shall We Do? 181
The Democratic Promise of Devolution 181
References 187
Index 197

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.12.2006
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Lexikon / Chroniken
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Schulpädagogik / Sekundarstufe I+II
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Makrosoziologie
• ISBN-10: 1-60752-581-X / 160752581X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-60752-581-3 / 9781607525813