Session Information
23 SES 11 A, Global Perspectives on Market-Based Teacher Accountability Policies
Symposium
Contribution
The Chilean educational system, since the early 80s, adopted a market-oriented schema, combined with accountability policies, which were made more extensive particularly after the year 2000. This schema includes: yearly standardised testing, public dissemination of school results, a national inspection agency, a system of school “quality” classification, added to incentives and sanctions according to school performance. From a sociological perspective of policy enactment theory, developed by Ball, Maguire, & Braun (2011), the research studies the ways these policies are produced at the school level and how they affect actors’ subjectivities and understandings (Rose, 1992). The study presents findings of eight school case studies located in different social scenarios. The research uses a multi-methodological approach. In total 108 in-depth interviews were carried out and 65 hours of classes and meeting observations, together with the analysis of school documents. The research findings evidence that the market performative configuration not only changes school practices, but moreover, is transforming school life, ethics and teaching profession subjectivities in complex and deeply-rooted ways. The data illustrates manners in which policies are (re)produced at the local level and within school classrooms. The study finds, for instance, frequent testing and student league tables in classrooms; children learning ability classification; symbolic, emotional and material awards, as well as, threats towards teachers, students and parents; and discourses that demand individual accountability for school test results. Meanwhile, critical thinking, social inclusion values and democratic principles are marginalised and in tension. It is argued that the analysed effects are not ‘secondary’ or ‘collateral effects’, as they are usually named within the literature. Public policies have a moral order, an ethics. They offer a vocabulary of imagined micropolicies. The identified practices do not occur detached from national policies, ‘in spite’ of policy intentions. On the contrary, they are coherent with policies that foment differentiation, competition and external accountability. State discourses, technologies and devices activate and intensify competition, as they produce a symbolic capital that is disputed within the marketplace. Accountability measures do not only signify the possibility of awards or sanctions, but more profoundly, they are tied to personal prestige, image and self-esteem, what it means to be a successful or failed head teacher, teachers, student. These are key understandings that need to be discussed in order to comprehend accountability effects within schools.
References
Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 625-639. Rose, N. (1992). Governing the enterprising self. In P. Heelas and P. Morris, The values of the enterprise culture. The moral debate. London, New York: Routledge.
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