As school autonomy, a central tenet of neoliberal education reform, increases, governments rely on the hard governance technologies of school inspections and student testing and the soft governance provision of information and advice to ensure their manifesto commitments on schools are met. This paper explores the interplay between the different education knowledge traditions underpinning such governance approaches, how these interact with the existing education knowledge of school leaders, managers and teachers, and the effect of this on students. I focus on England and Germany, two countries that differ considerably in the nature and extent of hard governance. Mathematics lessons are observed in two comprehensive and two selective schools in each country, and school leaders, managers and teachers are interviewed. Using a framework based in the work of Bernstein, I examine the influence of competing education knowledge traditions on mathematics teaching and the variance in how students think about mathematics that results. I thereby compare the process by which emerging and established market conditions in schools privilege some education knowledge traditions and thereby shape mathematics teaching and student experiences. Alongside market reforms in England such as the introduction of teacher accountability measures linked to student tests in 1990 and regular school inspections in 1992, arguments that educational research should attend more to gathering evidence of what works in what circumstances for use by teachers flourished (Hargreaves, 1996a, 1996b). Since then, methodologically complex research with little theorisation has dominated, with a few exceptions, such as cognitive psychology, regarded as neutral and trustworthy because they make use of the methods of science. Supporting teachers in using external research evidence to develop initiatives for tackling specific school issues, and internal evidence from student assessments and teaching observations to improve the focus and quality of teaching became a public policy focus. As such, the marginalisation of critical stances represents a de-politicisation of both educational research and practice. Germany remains less polarised although this is changing. An academic knowledge tradition of hermeneutic educational thought has traditionally dominated, where professionalism has remained relatively autonomous, emphasising reflective decision-making, but the use of test data to discern ‘what works’, evidence-based practice is increasingly valued (Schriewer, 2017).

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