Inside the English Education Lab

Bol Partner

Inside the English education lab collection has a dual focus. It offers a critical examination of the academies programme, and it interrogates methodological practice in education research. Overall, it argues that academies reproduce rather than reform inequalities, and that there is political salience to in-depth, qualitative methodologies. Inside the English education lab shows how critical qualitative methodologies work to illuminate and interrogate the everyday life of England’s privatised educational landscape. England has garnered a global reputation as a key proponent of education policy reforms defined by high-stakes accountability, claims of greater school autonomy, and a centralised governance structure. Employing qualitative and ethnographic methods, with their focus on practices unfolding over time and across particular, situated spaces, Inside the English education lab considers academisation in ways that depart from benchmarks and Ofsted ratings. The collection counters academisation’s contradictory assertion that quantitative data is the singular measure of value. The book makes a pivotal contribution to gauging some of the social and cultural effects of academisation through a reflexive focus on the practical ambiguities and incongruities that result as policy translates into practice. It explores how academisation (re)positions policies and publics through new modes of governance, examines strategies employed by students and teachers in situ, and interrogates how institutions are being produced through space, discourse and practice. Bringing together innovative new qualitative research on academies and free schools, the book traverses numerous geographical and social contexts within England. It provides a valuable viewpoint that reaches beyond policy claims and rhetoric by focusing on the everyday and often ambiguous practices operating within England’s rapidly academising education system. Inside the English education lab offers a range of qualitative and ethnographic explorations of the academies programme in England. Drawing on examples from primary and secondary academy institutions, a free school and Multi Academy Trusts, the collection explores how promises of academy policy are often at odds with everyday practice. Data and evidence throughout the collection highlight a multitude of ways in which the academies ‘experiment’ retrenches rather than reforms inequalities. Methodological insights and innovations are also a central feature of the collection, where authors interrogate what it means to collect and produce data in the current political context.

Bol

Inside the English education lab offers a range of qualitative and ethnographic explorations of the academies programme in England. Drawing on examples from primary and secondary academy institutions, a free school and Multi Academy Trusts, the collection explores how promises of academy policy are often at odds with everyday practice. Data and evidence throughout the collection highlight a multitude of ways in which the academies ‘experiment’ retrenches rather than reforms inequalities. Methodological insights and innovations are also a central feature of the collection, where authors interrogate what it means to collect and produce data in the current political context.