Academy schools and entrepreneurialism in education

Abstract

Original article can be found at : http://www.informaworld.com/ Copyright Taylor & Francis [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]The academy schools programme in England is presented by Government as the means by which increased diversity and private participation in the provision of public education can be used to solve educational and wider social problems. The entrepreneurial features of academy schools are examined, through a study of the sponsors and the ethos, values and specialisms of academies. Data on 58 academies (open or in development), gathered from secondary sources, are analysed. Four types of entrepreneurialism are used to review the findings and it is found that business entrepreneurialism strongly features as a normalising presence, with forms of cultural and social entrepreneurialism also apparent. Public entrepreneurialism is represented but is less evident than the other forms. The emerging pattern of participation in the academies programme suggests that existing structural advantages in the fields of business and the church are being replicated and strengthened, and so academies are predominantly being constructed as sites intended to enhance the growing influence of private versions of entrepreneurialism. It is also recognised, however, that academies represent an unfolding programme and that how it develops over time is subject to complex national and local factors, including the agency of groups and individuals differently positioned in their fields

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Commercial Actors and the Governing of Education: The Case of Academy School Sponsors in England

“…Stephen Ball (2007Ball ( , 2009) has explored the nature of England's policy networkswhich include academy sponsors and other commercial actors -to comment on the heterarchical nature of education governance. Woods et al (2007) have explored the entrepreneurial ethos of sponsored academies by closely examining their ethos and values through secondary sources. Most recently, Ball and Junemann (2012) have revealed the way in which the activities of academy chains are part of complex networks that span the public, private and third sectors.…”

Education reform in England: quality and equity in the performative school

“…Independent fee-paying schools have long been free from many of the constraints imposed on state schools, whilst over the past ten years many of these constraints have been lifted from publically-funded schools. Academisation brings freedom from local democratic control and from some aspects of legislation regarding workforce arrangements and the curriculum (Woods et al 2007) whilst the Coalition government's free school initiative represents the most overt signal yet of the desire to privatise state education (Hatcher 2011). Free schools are at liberty to determine their own curriculum and staffing arrangements (to the extent of being free of the need to employ any qualified teachers apart from a Special Needs Coordinator), and were explicitly set up to provide a competitive market for school places.…”