This symposium will explore the contradictory effects of policies which, within data-driven accountability regimes, are supposedly designed to promote social justice. We intend to show how such policies are often self-defeating and tend to reproduce the savage inequalities of neoliberal capitalism.

Several decades of neoliberal economic and social policy have led, even in advanced economies, to increasing divisions between the poorest and the very richest groups (Dorling 2014). Concomitantly, there has been an attack on welfare benefits affecting workless and low-paid parents and their families (Lansley and Mack 2015; Atkinson 2015), with ‘poor work’ i.e. low-paid, insecure, variable hours (Brown and Scase 1991) affecting many families with children, and young people in employment. These problems were exacerbated following the banking crisis, resulting in further erosion of welfare provision and public spending. In order to justify such measures, politicians have been able to resurrect deficit discourses (Jones 2011), in effect blaming the victim, which in education compounds existing deficit explanations for low engagement and achievement (Valencia 1997; Smyth and Wrigley 2013).

Numbers-based accountability systems (Evers and Kneyber 2016) are frequently underwritten by appeals to ‘social mobility’ which evade questions of structural injustice and poverty. In practice, even social mobility within a highly unequal society is very limited. Children growing up in poverty, along with their teachers and schools, are positioned in a field of acute inequality and limited opportunity while being simultaneously imagined as defective and expected to aspire. Aspiration becomes extremely problematic where families lack the knowledge to turn this into reality and when opportunities are limited (Smyth and Wrigley 2013; Bok 2010). The tension is exacerbated where children are segregated into different schools, classes or within-class ‘ability groups’, since there is a tendency for children affected by poverty to be labelled ‘low ability’ as a result of a lack of cultural capital or even due to prejudice (INCLUD-ED Consortium 2012).  

Further, in more extreme situations in which ‘governance by numbers’ is backed up by punitive consequences  including transfer into private management (England’s academies, Sweden’s free schools, the US charter schools), conflicting and impossible demands are placed on teachers and school leaders (eg Ball 2013; Ball et al 2012).

There are also curricular and pedagogical consequences. In earlier decades, some valuable innovation resulted from engaged teachers’ endeavouring to mediate between their students’ life experience and culture and canonical knowledge. This is now thwarted since neoliberal accountability regimes depend on curricular standardisation, whilst neoconservative ideologies insist on traditional content and modes of teaching (Collet and Tort 2016).

Identifying and analysing the complexity of policy development and policy effects is the focus of this symposium, recognizing that different political and professional historical cultures affect their formulation in different education systems. Cases from England, Germany and Australia exhibit diverse effects, which require both careful documentation and new forms of analysis. Contributions from these countries will raise questions of scholarly activism, ethical commitments and new directions for theoretical developments, leading to wider discussion among participants from other education systems, in order to reflect on the tensions affecting education in Europe and elsewhere.

A particular focus is on how measures of governance, curriculum and school evaluation can constrain the agency of teachers desiring to improve social justice. The first two papers show how both England’s high-stakes and Germany’s low-stakes data-heavy systems both have negative consequences. The final two papers from Australia shed further light on the complex workings of policy, but also resistance, within schools and classrooms.  

Atkinson, A (2015) Inequality: What can be done. London: Harvard University Press Ball, S (2013) Foucault, power and education. London: Routledge Ball, S, Maguire, M and Braun, A (2012) How schools do policy: Policy enactments in secondary schools. London: Routledge Bok, J (2010) The capacity to aspire to higher education: “It’s like making them do a play without a script.” Critical Studies in Education 51(2): 163-189 Brown, P and Scase, R eds (1991) Poor work: Disadvantage and the division of labour. Milton Keynes: Open University Press Collet, J and Tort, A eds (2016) La gobernanza escolar democrática. Madrid: Morata Dorling, D (2014) Inequality and the 1%. London: Verso Evers, J and Kneyber, R eds (2016) Flip the system: Changing education from the ground up. London: Routledge INCLUD-ED Consortium (2012) Final INCLULD-ED Report. Strategies for inclusion and social cohesion in Europe from education. INCLUD-ED Project, Universitat de Barcelona. http://creaub.info/included/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/D25.2_Final-Report_final.pdf Jones, O (2011) Chavs: The demonization of the working class. London: Verso Lansley, S and Mack, J (2015) Breadline Britain: The rise of mass poverty. London: Oneworld Publications Smyth, J and Wrigley, T (2013) Living on the edge: Rethinking poverty, class and schooling. New York: Peter Lang Valencia, R ed. (1997) The evolution of deficit thinking: Educational thought and practice. London: Falmer Press