Resistance, professional agency and the reform of education in England | Zendy

Stephen Rayner | Zendy; Helen Gunter | Zendy

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Resistance, professional agency and the reform of education in England

Author(s) -

Stephen Rayner,

Helen Gunter

Publication year - 2020

Publication title -

london review of education

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.326

H-Index - 21

eISSN - 1474-8479

pISSN - 1474-8460

DOI - 10.14324/lre.18.2.09

Subject(s) - metaphor , resistance (ecology) , agency (philosophy) , ethnography , pedagogy , sociology , empirical research , position (finance) , assimilation (phonology) , public relations , political science , social science , epistemology , business , ecology , philosophy , linguistics , anthropology , biology , finance

Much research into structural reform in education has reported on the success or failure of individual projects. Less attention has been paid to how the discourses associated with reform are normalized in teachers’ and head teachers’ thinking, and realized in their actions. In this article, we engage with resistance at the interface of legal policy positioning and position-taking by educational professionals. Drawing on empirical data from an ethnographic study of structural change in a school in England, we deploy the metaphor of ‘the Borg’ to develop new insights into the different stances that educational professionals can take to avoid assimilation into a hive mind.

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