Policy as numbers: ac/counting for educational research

The Australian Educational Researcher - Tập 38 - Trang 355-382 - 2011
Bob Lingard1
1School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Tóm tắt

This paper provides an account and a critique of the rise of the contemporary policy as numbers phenomenon and considers its effects on policy and for educational research. Policy as numbers is located within the literatures on numbers in politics and the statistics/state relationship and, while recognising the longevity of the latter relationship, it is argued that the governance turn and neo-liberalism have strengthened the role of numbers in contemporary education policy. This phenomenon is situated in the contemporary ‘structure of feeling’, which sees politics reduced to managing the everyday and the evisceration of a progressive imaginary. The paper then documents the impact within education, focusing both on the emergent global education policy field and on the national agenda in Australian schooling and the related rise of ‘gap talk’, both globally and nationally. The paper concludes by drawing out some implications for educational research, suggesting that we as educational researchers are also being positioned by policy as numbers.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Alexander, R. (Ed.). (2009). Children, their world, their education. London: Routledge.

Altman, J. (2009). Beyond closing the gap: Valuing diversity in indigenous Australia. CAEPR Working Paper, No 54. Canberra: ANU.

Anderson, G. (2009). Advocacy leadership. New York: Routledge.

Bernstein, B. (2001). From pedagogies to knowledge. In A. Morais, I. Neves, B. Davies, & H. Daniels (Eds.), Towards a sociology of pedagogy: The contribution of Basil Bernstein to research. New York: Peter Lang.

Binde, J. (2003). Toward an ethic of the future. In A. Appadurai (Ed.), Globalization (pp. 90–113). Durham: Duke University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1999). Understanding. In P. Bourdieu, A. Accardo, G. Balazs, S. Beaud, F. Bonvin, L. Bourdieu, P. Bourgois, S. Broccolichi, P. Champagne, R. Christin, J.-P. Faguer, S. Garcia, R. Lenoir, F. Oevrard, M. Pialoux, L. Pinto, D. Podalydes, A. Sayad, C. Soulie, & L. J. D. Wacquant (Eds.), The weight of the world, social suffering in contemporary society (pp. 607–626). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Brenner, N. (2004). New state spaces: Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Campbell, C., Proctor, H., & Sherrington, G. (2009). School choice: How parents negotiate the new school market in Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Cerny, P. G. (1990). The Changing Architecture of Politics: Structure Agency, and the Future of the State. London: SAGE.

Department of Education and Training. (2009). Closing the gap: Education strategy. Brisbane: Queensland Department of Education and Training.

Durkheim, E. (1894). Translated 1938 the rules of sociological method. New York: Collier-MacMillan.

Fukuyama, F. (1996). The end of history. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Hammersley, M. (2002). Educational research policymaking and practice. London: Paul Chapman.

Harvey, C. (2010). Making hollow men. Educational Theory, 60(2), 189–201.

Klenowski, V. (2009). Australian indigenous students: Addressing equity issues in assessment. Teaching Education, 20(1), 77–93.

Lawn, M., & Lingard, B. (2002). Constructing a European policy space in educational governance: The role of transnational policy actors. European Educational Research Journal, 1(2), 290–307.

Lingard, B., Creagh, S., & Vass, G. (2011). Education policy as numbers: Two Australian cases of policy misrecognition. Journal of Education Policy, 24(2), 149–162.

Lingard, B., & Gale, T. (2007). The emergent structure of feeling: What does it mean for critical educational studies and research? Critical studies in education, 48(1), 1–23.

Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Malaysian Government. (2010). Tenth Malaysia plan 2011–1015. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Government.

Masters, G. N. (2009). A shared challenge: Improving literacy numeracy and science learning in Queensland primary schools (masters report). Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.

Ozga, J., Dahler-Larsen, P., Segerholm, C., & Simola, H. (Eds.). (2011). Fabricating quality in education: Data and governance in Europe. London: Routledge.

Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding governance policy networks governance, reflexivity and accountability. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2006). Globalization and the changing nature of the OECD’s educational work. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, J.-A. Dillabough, & A. H. Halsey (Eds.), Education, globalization, and social change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge.

Rudd, K. (2009). The global financial crisis. The Monthly. Retrived February, 20–29, 2009.

Spufford, F. (2010). Red plenty. London: Faber and Faber.

Stobart, G. (2008). Testing times: The uses and abuses of assessment. London: Routledge.

Strathern, M. (1995). New accountabilities: Anthropological studies in audit, ethics and the academy. In M. Strathern (Ed.), Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in audit, ethics and accountability. London: Routledge.

Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers. New York: Routledge.

The Economist. (2010). The data deluge. Technology section. The Economist, 394(8671), 11.

Thrift, N. (2005). Knowing capitalism. London: SAGE.

van Zanten, A. (2008). Competition and interaction between research knowledge and state knowledge in policy steering in France: National trends and recent effects of decentralisation and globalization. In J. Ozga, T. Seddon, & T. Popkewitz (Eds.), Education research and policy steering the knowledge-based economy (pp. 259–269). London: Routledge.

Vertovec, S. (2009). Transnationalism. London: Routledge.

Watson, L. (2004). The total operating resources of Australian private schools in 2004. Canberra: University of Canberra.

Williams, R. (1961). The long revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Williams, R. (1966). Culture and society. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Williams, R. (1983). Towards 2000. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Yates, L. (2010). Research building versus research auditing: The ERA intervention in Australia. Paper presented at European Council of Education Research Conference, Helsinki, 25–27 August.