Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Centrifugal schooling: third sector policy networks and the reassembling of curriculum policy in England

an article by Ben Williamson (University of Exeter, UK) published in Journal of Education Policy Volume 27 Issue 6 (November 2012)

Abstract

This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England.

It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation.

It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative ‘curriculum experiments’.

The third sector curriculum policy network revolves around a policy vision of decentralisation constituted by public-private partnership, media-friendliness, social enterprise and an ‘open source’ or network-based organisational logic. It assembles a policy ideal of ‘centrifugal schooling’ which links together ideas about ‘networked governance’ with ‘flexible’ learning and ‘entrepreneurial’ curricula.

The article traces and discusses some of the inter-organisational relations, materials and discourses of the third sector network of alternative curriculum policy developments, and provides a case study of a prototypical third sector curriculum programme. It examines the organisational relations and practices by which the project was produced and the conditions leading to its failure.


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