Session Information
05 SES 01 A, School-Based Collaborative Approaches to Overcoming Disadvantage and Inequality in England, Scotland and Wales
Symposium
Contribution
Policies promoting decentralisation and a ‘new localism’ (Corry & Stoker, 2002) have had a significant impact on public services, including education in the UK and internationally, giving rise to a pervasive but often under-defined culture of partnership and collaboration within education systems (Glendinning et al, 2002). This has resulted in increasingly divergent education systems in the different UK countries, particularly with regards to the organisation of the support on offer to schools and teachers. This divergence is the result of a number of policy changes, not least the devolution of powers to national assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland and to the Scottish Parliament since 1997.
Decentralisation and localism have become increasingly common drivers and outcomes of policy changes in many education systems in recent years, often supported by an emphasis on collaboration between schools. The outcomes from these two policy drivers have been increasingly complex and fragmented educational landscapes(Simkins et al, 2015) and the development of more complex middle tiers, as the “disintermediation” (Lubienski, 2014), the withdrawal of power and influence, of traditional intermediate organisations that have operated between local schools and national entities has led to the emergence of new intermediary forms (Marsh et al 2004, Claeys et al 2014, such as partnerships, networks, and consortia. These varying new forms of organizing support and services are a recognition of the value of school-to-school collaboration, but also of the need to provide some form of additional capacity to ensure it is coordinated and has a sufficiently strong mandate to have an impact on schools and communities.
This symposium examines key areas of education policy and practice that have been widely affected by these changes: collaborative approaches to school improvement, professional development and multi-agency working that are focused on challenging the impact of social deprivation and inequality on pupils’ attainment and wellbeing. The symposium is based on case studies of emergent organizational forms in England, Scotland and Wales, and identifies and exemplifies key tensions relating to the shifting role of the middle tier in challenging educational underachievement, a space previously dominated by local government. With a theoretical perspective informed by network theory, the symposium calls for a move away from a deficit models that focus on the fragmentation of local education systems towards considering how the multiplexity of current education systems can be used as a starting point for future developments in policy, research and practice aimed at challenging educational inequality and supporting schools to improve.
References
Cleays, A., Kempton, J. and Paterson, C. (2104) Regional Challenges: A collaborative approach to improving education. CentreForum London Corry, D., and Stoker, G. (2002) New localism: Refashioning the centre-local relationship. London: The New Local Government Network. Glendinning C., Powell, M., and Rummery, K. (eds.) (2002) Partnerships, new labour and the governance of welfare. London: The Policy Press. Lubienski, C. (2014) ‘Re-making the middle: Disintermediation in international context’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 42, 3, 423-440. Marsh, J., Kerr, K. Ikemoto, G., and Darilek, H. (2004) The Role of Intermediary organization in District instructional improvement. Rand Education. New York, Simkins T., Coldron J., Crawford M., Jones S. (2015) Emerging local schooling landscapes, the role of the local authority. School Leadership and Management
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