High attaining students, marketisation and the absence of care: everyday experiences in an urban academy

Abstract

This article draws on the work of Nel Noddings to suggest that the current neoliberal, marketised system of education is eroding caring relationships in schools. Data are drawn from a small-scale qualitative study of an ethnically diverse group of high attaining sixth form students from a successful urban academy. Based on this data, we argue that two fundamental aspects of care, students' relationships with their teachers and an attention to their personal and social concerns, were neglected because of the overriding focus on examination success to maintain the school's position in the education marketplace. The article offers detailed evidence from the students' perspective to support the claim that the marketisation of the education system leads to students being valued only in as far as they bring value to the school. It also suggests that care is one of the main casualties in such a system.

A Light in Students’ Lives: K-12 Teachers’ Experiences (Re)Building Caring Relationships During Remote Learning

“…As neoliberal education rhetoric has informed education policy decisions, most strikingly the emphasis on high-stakes accountability testing, schools have shifted away from a relational approach to one driven by testing performance, school ratings, and maintaining or improving their position in the education marketplace (Lewis & Pearce, 2020). Accountability policies that privilege rigid curriculum and standardized assessment measures have narrowed student preparation to testing in reading, math, and science (Noddings, 2005).…”

Performances of care: Questioning relationship‐building and international student recruitment

“…Care has become commodified as a result of the widespread neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and 1990s (Mcdowell, 2004) and repositioned within market relations (Green & Lawson, 2011). From an education perspective, Lewis and Pearce (2020) note that the neoliberal system has eroded caring within schools. In these contexts, they suggest that care is reduced to abstract or more generalised understanding of student performance, rather than individualised, person-centred care.…”

“…Within the education sector, care is construed in various ways. A recent contribution by Lewis and Pearce (2020), for example, discussed how care is associated increasingly with successful learning outcomes rather than personal relationship‐building between students and teachers in secondary education. Deuchar and Dyson's (2020) work has shown how neoliberal enterprise and care can co‐exist.…”

What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education?

“…Teachers frequently paint damning pictures of academies and although the voices of students are often underrepresented in this literature, it would be naive to think that their views are too dissimilar. A recent small-scale study by Lewis and Pearce ( 2021 ) highlights how caring relationships between students and teachers are neglected due to examination success and positioning in the education marketplace being prioritised. As this autonomy rises so does accountability which produces highly pressurised environments.…”