‘Untangling the entangled knot’: a critical and genealogical examination of Multi-Academy Trusts’ (MATs) ideologies, power and governance in England

‘You just need to work harder’: Misalignments between the rhetoric of social mobility and education for social justice

“…The new forms of governance adopted by the MATs in the study are driven by the logics of the market and dictats of the state in the form of the Department for Education (DfE) in England, its officers and associated agencies and are presented as the only possible option. As Pennington (2022: 204) asserts:MATs were channelled in a particular direction which concludes with one approved and acceptable model for governance and accountability arrangements. Governance is a corporate model based on privileging business skills and removing connection with community.…”

“…The evolving model of school governance in England, based on conversion of publicly funded schools from locally controlled assets to privately run academies, represents a significant but under-appreciated turn away from democratic forms toward a corporatised, market driven model. The impact of this turn is significant; from approximately 200 academies in England prior to 2010 over half of all children are now educated in such institutions (Pennington, 2022). This turn is manifest in the post 2010 drive to academy status for English schools.…”

“…We argue they are therefore inimical to social justice because ‘there is an intimate connection between justice and democracy’ (Sen, 2010: 326). In a small scale case study of governance and community engagement by MAT boards in three MATs, Pennington (2022) analyses how evolving models of school governance in England are increasingly hierarchical, corporatised and market driven and eschew participation and involvement of communities. The operation of such forms of governance is interpreted as a form of neo-colonial ontological and epistemological practice in which MATs acquire and reshape schools and the community of those who constitute them as subjects without agency and voice.…”

“…The formation of a MAT therefore represents a significant turn away from modes of community oriented governance which have a long history and antecedents stretching back several centuries (Pennington, 2022). Nationally, this process is experienced both as: an enforced neo-colonial takeover of schools by what is perceived as a hostile MAT and as a more subtle, consensual process.…”