Mapping the discursive formations of ‘effective’ school governance and the role of parents

ABSTRACT

Discourses concerned with responsibilisation and expertise have seen the ascendency and fall in who is positioned to do ‘effective’ school governance and what that ‘doing’ is. Using the four phases of the moon as a metaphor I map the discursive formations of ‘effective’ school governance and the relational structuring of parents. This mapping exercise, through a simple metaphor, has produced a heuristic construct through which questions can be asked of the field of school governance and an analytical construct to use in our thinking about school governance across other cases. By thinking with Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge, to interpret this mapping of discourse strands, I have revealed the interrelationship between discourse strands and the increasing invisibility of parents in a context of corporatised school governance and the waning of democratic structures in school governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Effective school governance; educational leadership; parents
• metaphor; legislation
• neoliberalism

Introduction

This article maps legislation concerned with school governance in England between 1870, (England’s first Education Act) and the current final act in 2016. In mapping this legislation, I seek to provide a critical understanding of the waxing and waning of discursive formations shaping ‘effective’ school governance and the role of parents. Discursive formations are understood here as the forming of the object, (school governance) through discourse that presents the world in a particular way (Gillies 2015). Using four phases of the moon as a metaphor I map how alternative knowledge rises in ascendancy to marginalise and silence existing regimes of truth, understood here as a system that shapes what is accepted as truth, through the discourses, apparatus, and structures that reward or sanction (Gillies 2015). The phases of the moon as a metaphor provide an analytical construct to understand how policy can wax, secure dominant ideology, and wane with the rise of alternative knowledge. Foucault’s ideas about discourse and discursive formation support analysis in a wider body of work concerned with the use of metaphor as a heuristic construct. In this article, I argue that an entanglement of discourse strands secures the discursive formation of what is known as ‘effective’ school governance at any time. Through the ascendancy of these strands, alternative knowledge is normalised, reimagining school governance practices and the relationship of parents with school governance.

This is arguably an important task, in that firstly it enables our understanding of the key discourse strands that that have shaped the waxing and waning of the discursive formations of ‘effective’ school governance and the relational structuring of parents for school governance. By relational structuring, I mean the structuring of relationships that not only position parents but secure the nature of the parent’s role. Secondly, the ideological discourses underpinning these discursive formations, particularly the neoliberal discourses of the last forty years, shape much of the educational reform internationally. Therefore England, described as an education laboratory for the Western world (Hall and Gunter 2016), offers a useful case study to explore the discursive formations shaping regimes of truth concerned with ‘effective’ school governance and the role of parents. This mapping reflects how the waxing and waning of these discursive formations mirror the ascendency and decline of underpinning ideology contextualised locally (Springer 2012) and the state updating ‘its toolkit’ (Peeters 2013, 585).

The conceptualisations of ‘effective’ school governance have been constructed through regimes of truth, shaped by state goals for education These goals have changed over time with education and its governance being reconstituted. Firstly, with mass industrialisation, there was the need for an industrial workforce. The establishment of School Boards to build and manage schools using funds from public rates (Lawson and Silver 1973) saw the state take on responsibility for education. Local education authorities were established to manage the establishment of compulsory education for children 5–14 (Gov. UK 2023). This growing sense of collective responsibility for social inequalities and problems, saw education as a public service governed by public policy (Lawson and Silver 1973). Education became the focus of government action in response to perceived problems (Knill and Tosun 2012) and provision of a hierarchical workforce for a growing economy. In the latter part of the twentieth-century public policy called for a ‘common’ school system as a means for economic prosperity and social cohesion (Haydn 2004). But with increasing public service costs and a static economy, the failure of belief in a polity response saw the emergence of neoliberalism where private actors or those with business skills offer the state an edu-market that could be regulated and provide for the self-governing citizen (Foucault 1983).

Responsibilisation offers the state the means to positions subjects to act upon themselves or self-govern in the form of subjectivity (Foucault 2008). Through responsibilisation those in school governance are positioned to self-manage rather than through a relationship with an external agent such as a democratic state (Rose 1988). Thus, a shifting of ‘behaviours and dispositions in specific ways and in particular directions’ (Thompson, Lingard, and Ball 2021, 220) has structured the act of school governance with those responsibilised being both object and agent of this recodification as responsibilisation ‘constructs and assumes a moral agency’ (Shamir 2008, 4). This shifting of responsibility for school governance away from the state, rose initially as a stakeholder model based on interest in the school (Ranson 2011) replaced by one with a focus on technocratic precision, performance evaluation, and risk regulation (Wilkins 2017).

In times of change there is a recodification (Ball 2017) that leads to the disabling and (re)enabling of subjects and structures. Through what Foucault (1971) sees as the control, selection, organisation, and redistribution of discourse, the being and doing of those responsible for school governance is [re]constructed. Therefore, discourses are ‘not about objects; they do not identify objects; they constitute them and in the practice of doing so conceal their own invention’ (Foucault 1970, 49). As such, discourses are constructing not only what, but also who can speak legitimately, when, and where (Ball 2017) regarding school governance. Through discourses conflicts, interests, and the dynamics of power are reframed (Peeters 2013) shaping the relationships between the state, institutions, and individuals. Through legislation, the state provides the structural enshrinement of such reframing securing what Foucault (1982, 220) terms the ‘conduct of conduct’ in the ‘calculated practice to direct categories of social agent to specified ends’ (Dean, cited in Ball 2013:120). In this way, school governance is constructed and constructs the act of doing and responsibilises the who, identifying those that have the required ‘expertise’.

Knowledge, for Foucault (1970), is a term used to express the idea of knowing a field of knowledge and the modalities of knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is ‘expert’ knowledge but also the different modes of existence that create that existence and/or experience (Ball 2013). Knowledge cannot exist without a system of power as each produces the other (Foucault 1980). This power/knowledge acts as ‘an agent of transformation of human-life’ (Rabinow 1991, 256) interconnected in shaping social structures. As such power and knowledge co-constitute each other. Power operates through institutions and discourses to shape what is ‘truth’. Through knowledge/power the subject is positioned as an object of knowledge (Ball 2013) but also their position of power is dictated by their knowledge maintaining the desired social order (Foucault 1980). The underpinning ideology that informs the state’s goals for education, therefore construct the regimes of truth concerned with school governance privileging some knowledge whilst marginalising other knowledge.

With the waxing and waning of the regimes of truth constructing ‘effective’ school governance, the role of parents is reconstituted from citizen with democratic collective responsibility to that of individual consumer (Reay and Ball 1997) of value in supporting the position of the school within a hierarchical edu-market (Smith 2021). These constructions of the parent have shaped how participation is constructed and its purposes. Whether this is as Riddle and Apple (2019) define as a ‘thick’ conceptualisation of democracy as critical citizens seeking a common good or perhaps through a managerial framing (Newman 2001) participation is reduced to that of the individual concerned with narrow economic goals for education.

Legislation has enshrined the discursive formations of school governance creating new regimes of truth. By using the metaphor of the four phases of the moon to map the discourse strands concerned with responsibilisation, expertise, and the role of parents underpinning the discursive formations of school governance, this article seeks to reveal the relational structuring between these strands as both a heuristic construction and analytical construction.

Study approach

This mapping is part of a wider doctoral study investigating the role of parents for school governance of schools in a corporatised educational system. Educational legislation between 1870 and 2016, concerning school governance and the role of parents for governance, has been included in this mapping. 1870 saw the state’s first legislative concern with public education and its governance in a time of liberalism. Further selection of legislation was based on the legislative focus on school governance responsibilities and supporting apparatus to secure this. Since 2016 there have been no further Education Acts within England although guidance for governance has continued. To guide this mapping my questions where:

• what are the key discourse strands in the discursive formation of ‘effective’ school governance?

• What roles are constructed for parents?

• How have the regimes of truth concerned with school governance structured parent participation as discursive formations have waxed and waned?

Documents were located through a keyword search of the United Kingdom’s (UK) site for legislation (legislation.gov.uk) and the UK parliament’s site to identify legislation concerned with school governance in England between 1870 and 2022. In seeking to map the discursive formations of school governance, a Foucauldian discourse analysis approach was undertaken to identify key discourse strands within the selected legislation, identifying the sub-topics and their distribution over time (Jager and Maier 2016). I sought to analyse each legislative text by considering context, surface of the text, rhetorical means, content, and ideological position. Through this analysis the discourse strands of responsibilisation, expertise, and relational structuring of parents for ‘effective’ governance were identified by categorising topics such as responsibility, role, knowledge, skills, subject, and position relationship. To understand the dominance, marginalisation, and silencing of regimes of truth I have mapped these discourse strands using the phases of the moon illuminating the waxing and waning of discursive formations. This mapping seeks to firstly reveal the waxing and waning of regimes of truth that underpin the legislation that shapes policy and practice in school governance and the role of parents for governance activities and accountabilities; secondly, it seeks to offer a heuristic construct through which questions can be asked; and thirdly to provide an analytical construct as a tool in seeking to understand the interrelationship between the waxing and waning of discursive formations of school governance and the relational structuring of parents for school governance.

The phases of the moon as a mapping tool

The phases of the moon are used as a metaphor. Metaphors help us construct the world in which we live (Paetcher 2004), but they ‘constitute a core component in cognitive processing’ (Boxenbaum, and Rouleau 2011, 273). As a heuristic construct a metaphor not only describes but can offer opportunities for empirical analysis, theory building (Alvesson and Spicer 2010). As such, metaphors illuminate new ways of thinking and perspectives (Guilhermea and Souza de Freitas 2018) providing both a structured means to understanding but also a critical purpose in understanding current conditions (Samier 2019).

There are in total eight phases of the moon, however I have simplified these to the four main phases to maintain focus on the waxing and waning of discursive formations that construct phenomena, in this case ‘effective school governance’ and the role parents play in this construction. These four phases are:

• The New Moon – hidden and symbolising an alternative knowledge challenge to existing policy.

• The Waxing Crescent – reflecting the growth of an alternative knowledge as ‘truth’.

• The Full Moon – the normalisation of what was once alternative knowledge as ‘common sense’ and the ‘right’ way of ‘being’ and ‘doing’.

• The Waning Crescent – reflects the shadow of derision, marginalisation, and silencing of some knowledge.

The metaphor of the phases of the moon offers both a heuristic and analytical tool for exploring policy. As a metaphor the moon captures the dynamics of the [re]construction of ‘effective’ school governance and the position of parents relationally allowing not only a description but analysis (Biesta 2009 ). There perhaps is a deterministic nature to the phases of the moon which is reflected in policy regimes of truth formed through an entanglement of discourse strands that shape knowledge and who are seen as the knowers. Policy ascends through discourse creating regimes of truth constructed through discursive formations, structures, and apparatus securing both privileged power/knowledge in its ascendency as other knowledge and power wanes as it is marginalised often through derision (Ball 1998). However, to avoid oversimplification of the complexity of these [re]constructions (Biesta 2009) a Foucauldian approach was used to interpret this metaphorical analysis through the discourse strands of responsibilisation and expertise to understand how power/knowledge [re]constructs ‘effective’ governance and [re]positions the relational role of parents.

To map the discourse strands found within education legislation, I have used these phases of the moon to position each document. This provides a visual interpretation of the waxing and waning of each discourse strand in the discursive formation of school governance and the role of parents. Furthermore, it reveals the interrelationship between the strands (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The waxing and waning of the discursive formations of school governance in England (all legislation online, available at Legislation.gov.uk).

Analysis and discussion

By exploring the discourse strands of responsibilisation and expertise I seek to reveal how governance legislation has enshrined constructions of school governance as regimes of truth. By mapping the final discourse strand of the relational structuring of parents for school governance I can reveal the interrelationship between these discourse strands.

In this section, I explore firstly who is responsibilised for the governance of schools in the selected legislation between 1870 and 2016. Using the phases of the moon I illuminate with whom responsibility sits and the role of the state, as legislation constructs ‘effective’ governance. I have identified these phases of responsibility as state, stakeholder, business, corporation. Secondly, I explore how the legislation constructs the expertise required for school governance through the mapping of each education act as policy constructions ascend and/or descend. The phases of expertise have been identified as bureaucratic, stake experience, managerial, and corporate. Finally, I explore how the legislation and guidance for school governance have positioned parents for school governance activities.

Responsibilisation

New moon: Education Act 1870 legislates for private individuals to form School Boards

Prior to 1870 the governance of education had not been a concern of the state. Whether education was provided through dame schools (Higginson 1974) or voluntary schools governed through foundations seeking to promote protestant doctrine, education was free of state regulation, though not necessarily church (Lawson and Silver 1973). However, the demands of employers with the growth of mass industrialisation saw the rise of an alternative rationale for education beyond those of religious bodies. Concerns over child labour and the requirements for an industrial workforce (ibid) led to the state responsibilising others to respond to this. The Elementary Education Act 1870 was the first act to deal specifically with educational provision in England and Wales for elementary schooling (primary). With the establishment of ‘School Boards’ responsibility was given for both building and managing schools in areas where they were needed with access to funding from the local rates This responsibilisation of school boards offered an alternative position on school governance where private citizens (who were rate payers) could be elected to govern elementary schools driven by an alternative rationale for education based on socio-economic goals rather than promulgation of religious doctrine. School boards offered, not only the opportunity for election but also, those with the right to vote, the opportunity to engage democratically in the who governed the provision of local education.

Waning gibbous of School Boards as the Balfour Act 1902 legislates for the establishment of local education authorities

With continued mass industrialisation, the demand for a suitable workforce and the state’s focus on economic growth, there was a waning of this responsibilisation of elected citizens. The Balfour Act 1902 established local education authorities (LEAs), with responsibility for elementary education.. However, it was the 1944 Education Act that ensured the waning of private citizens responsibilisation for education Situated centrally in the welfare state every LEA had a duty to ensure ‘character, and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education’ (Education Act 1944 Section 8) and for all County and Voluntary schools to have an instrument of governance by order of the LEA ‘providing for the constitution of the body of managers or governors of the school provided for’ (Education Act 1944 Section 17.1). With this Act, the appointment and dismissal of teachers was now the responsibility of LEAs in county schools as well as elementary and in the case of voluntary schools was regulated by the rules of management or articles of government. Thus, the state had secured democratic responsibility for the governance of schooling.

A new moon: Education Reform Act 1988 and a return to reponsibilising ‘school governing boards’ (GBs) by the State

A growing perception of crisis in schooling (Chitty 2009), in a context of financial challenge nationally and the perceived failure of welfarism (Apple and Apple 2018) reframed the discourse surrounding school governance and its responsibilities. The freedoms of the previous liberal perspective of the nineteenth century where institutions (i.e. schools) and individuals were not constrained by state regulation were not returned to. However, a new moon began its ascendancy with an alternative knowledge underpinned by neoliberal values was seeking to shape what governance does and is. It is accepted that neoliberalism is a shifting signifier (Springer 2012) but for the purpose of this article it is understood as ‘the rationality of the market as the organisational principle for state and society as a whole’ (Shamir 2008, 6). Conservative government legislative acts of the 1980s and 1990s positioned school governance as responsible for education on behalf of the state and local government. The Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988 gave greater responsibility to school GBs in terms of instrumental activities. For example, the delegation of budgets to schools required GBs to oversee budgets and contracts through service-level agreements with the local education authority rather than managing on behalf of that local authority.

ERA 1988 provided the opportunity for governors to opt out of local authority control with the consenting ballot of parents, as a grant-maintained school (GM) funded directly by the state and managed as an independent organisation by the GB. Aligned with this responsibilisation of governors for autonomous schools, ERA established City Technology Colleges (CTCs) and City College for the Technology of the Arts responsibilising business leaders with school governance. ERA positioned school governance, through the discourse strand of responsibilisation, as subject to‘market forces and greater control from the centre’ (Chitty 2009, 51) establishing the foundations of neoliberal education (Ball 2018) and arguably school governance.

The Education (School Teacher Appraisal) Regulations 1991 continued to responsibilise school governance with the need for regular appraisal of teacher performance to ‘improve the management of schools’ (Section 4.3a and f). This widening of responsibility suggests the future positioning of what Newman (2001) has determined as a rational goal model through hierarchical control by the state.

As the state sought to reconstruct school governance as responsible for performance of staff, financial management, and parent perceptions, the Education (Schools) Act 1992 saw the birth of an ‘independent’ arm of government in the form of OFSTED. The regulation and evaluation of effectiveness using identified measures, such as standards of achievement and financial management, framed school governance activity reducing the responsibility of LEAs (Courtney 2016) as governing bodies were increasingly responsibilised.

The waxing gibbous of school governance in neoliberal times

New Labour’s School Standards and Framework Act 1998 required all schools to have a GB with responsibility for the ‘conduct of school with a view for promoting high standards of educational achievement’ (School Standards and Framework Act 1998, Pt. II, Chap. III, Section 38). Building on Conservative policies, this legislation required boards to have annual reports to parents that included standards of achievement and a complaints procedure. A focus on the complaints process has been returned to in later legislation symbolising the relationship being constructed with those in governance and parents as provider/consumer suggesting a reconfiguring of democratic engagement. Governors’ powers were increased, both in the control of premise to generate income and control over appointments of most staff. The combination of increased powers and expectations for school GBs reveals the further neoliberalisation of schools as the foundations of business practice were being built into the discursive formations of ‘effective’ school governance.

A full moon: The Academies Act, 2010 – the normalisation of neoliberal school governance practices

The Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 amended GB’s powers to form a company to become an Academy Trust or join an existing company (Academy Trust) as part of a chain or what is now known as a Multi Academy Trust (MAT). However, the Academies Act, 2010 concretised the structural conditions of an edu-market (Ball 2017) with a rapid expansion of the academies’ programme introducing converter academies and the continued expectation that GB of schools requiring intervention would seek sponsored academisation with a ‘successful’ Academy Trust. The What it is to be and do governance is found explicitly for the first time in the The School Governance (constitution) (England) Regulations 2012 creating a single set of regulations for the governance of maintained schools centred around financial efficiency, strategy and accountability that enshrine technocratic practices (Wilkins 2015) in law.

Legislation has been used to structurally reform school governance constructing the conduct of conduct as the state’s role as deliverer and manager is marginalised with the ascendency of neoliberal education (Ball 2018). Unlike the arrangements of the 1870s, School Boards were elected, current receipt of state funds is regulating the practice of governance as legislation has determined what this governance looks like and who has a seat at this table. There is no longer a requirement for boards to be elected as this responsibilisation is built around technologies of business to deliver state goals (Wilkins 2015) through contractual arrangements (Clarke, Cochrane, and McLaughlin 2000).

Expertise

New moon: stake expertise as an alternative to bureaucratic knowledge

Bureaucratic expertise described as ‘professional, impartial and non-partisan knowledge’ could be seen as regulating relationships between citizens and representatives (Byrkjeflot and Du Gay 2012, 94). The constitution of school governing, or management boards ensured this knowledge was heard but framed a relationship between power and knowledge where bureaucratic knowledge is both the object and subject of power. These boards as apparatus of LEAs, recognised this relationship as one of democratic activity. With the renaming of these instruments for constitution as ‘articles of governance’ (Education Act, 1980) stakeholders, such as parents, were positioned to provide an alternative power/knowledge. The ascendancy of a new moon illuminating the importance of the stakeholder experience for ‘effective’ school governance in the Education Act 1986 saw a repositioning of what was considered ‘required expertise’ as bureaucratic knowledge began to descend. Furthermore, the requirement for the co-option of a representative business governor (Part II, Section, 3) suggested the skills of business ‘could’ be knowledge that would be required for ‘effective’ governance.

However, ERA, 1988, brought over 350,000 volunteer citizens into school governance with its remodelling of the management of schools to one stakeholder governance with responsibility for delegated powers of staffing, budgets, and strategic direction. This has been described as ‘largest democratic experiment in voluntary public participation’ bringing together those with a ‘stakeholder interest in the school’ (Ranson 2011, 398) but also could be seen as bringing the stakeholder expertise as power/knowledge challenging bureaucratic knowledge as an old moon in descent. In understanding what is meant by stakeholder, I turn to Johnson and Scholes (2002, 206) who conclude it pertains to ‘those individuals or groups who depend on the organisation to fulfil their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organisation depends, highlighting the reciprocity between the organisation and stakeholder. Stakeholder governance provided a forum where ‘differences are voiced, deliberated, mediated’ (Ranson 2011, 411) as custodians for community interests (Barton et al. 2006) underpinned by the knowledge of stakeholder experience.

At the same time as this focus on inclusion and participation of stakeholders ERA, 1988 was instrumental in repositioning the practice of school governance with the delegation of school budgets. In contrast to the skills suggested through participatory and inclusive practices of voluntary participation, there was an underpinning requirement for managerial duties in response to utilitarian accountabilities (Olmedo and Wilkins 2017; Wilkins 2015). In addition, with the establishment of autonomous schools in the form of CTCs and GM schools (Courtney 2015) ERA 1988 lay the foundations for the depoliticisation of education as state centric, societal, and discursive (Woods and Flinders 2014) in a competitive marketised system (Ball 2018) that privileges expertise in the markets as schools became edu-businesses requiring a different form of doing governance. Here we see power/knowledge reconstructing the regimes of truth of ‘effective’ school governance.

The waxing gibbous of managerial expertise in preparing school governance for an edu-market

With a delegation of budgets to schools, those responsibilised for governance were tasked with oversight of resources and income generation; staff performance with the introduction of appraisal (Education Regulations 1991); a focus on standards through required setting of targets (Education Act 1997); control of premise and opportunity to use for income generation (The School Standards and Framework Act 1998). This positioning of school businesses in an edu-market (Ball 2017) required governors with knowledge in human resources; income generation; financial and performance tracking. This privileging of managerial expertise positioned those responsible for school governance as managers, required to use the tools of managing in the act of management of the school revealing the key features of new public management (NPM) (Hall and Gunter 2016). The requirement, legislated in the Education Act 2002, for all schools to have a governing body and a complaints policy was the signal that school governance was being constructed as the delivery mechanism with the school as its product requiring a managerial expertise to reframe the processes of measurement and control.

A full moon: corporate expertise and governance of schools in the edu-market

The Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 gave power to GBs to form companies or join an existing company as part an academy chain, later to become known as Multi- Academy Trusts (MATs). Thus, a corporate expertise was required for school governance, as a business model was being established requiring the governance of associated risks of failure (Wilkins 2015) due to financial efficiency, performance, compliancy, training, monitoring, and evaluation for example. This structural reconfiguration of school governance continued as the Academies Act 2010 concretised schools as a business into the structural conditions and drove the requirement for ‘professionalised’ school governance. This professionalisation can be seen both as a response to the loss of local government, a steering middle tier (Wilkins 2015) and the positioning of ‘effective’ governance in judgements concerned with the performance of school leadership (Ofsted 2015, 2019). To align GBs in maintained schools with privatised schools such as academies, the Education Act 2011 reduced the required number of governors and the required only one LA governor. The eligibility criteria for the LA governor would be specified by the GB. In this way, these regulations further elevated business expertise rather than bureaucratic and participatory knowledge as legislation ensured that those that govern are both the objects and agents of this reconstruction.

The ascendency of corporate expertise was secured in practice through the reconstruction of what it is to do governance in The School Governance (constitution) (England) Regulations 2012 with efficacy of school governance reinforced in The School Governance (Roles, Procedures, and Allowances) (England) Regulations 2013. These constructed ‘effective’ school governance as one concerned with establishing the technologies and apparatus required to plan the strategic direction of the organisation; oversee financial efficiency; and hold the operational leadership to account. In this way who ‘gets to perform the business of governance’ (Wilkins 2015) was constructed through the discourse strands structuring the legislation in terms of whose expertise was positioned through power/knowledge.

The Education Act 2016 has normalised the construction of ‘effective’ school governance securing a full moon position for business expertise and widened our understanding of this to a corporate exercise with expertise of mergers and take-overs as MATs (corporate bodies) seek to identify their market, structure the business units, and increase the competitiveness of their school product (s). In this way they can ascend the edu-market’ hierarchy bidding for ‘failing’ schools or seeking acquisition of other schools or smaller trusts through mergers. Here power/knowledge is seen clearly in the relationship with those privileged in the MAT governance hierarchy with the expansion of the MAT as the preferred state governance structure.

There has been a marginalisation of bureaucratic knowledge and stakeholder experiential knowledge provided by the stakeholder experience, replaced by what Wilkins (2015) has described as instrumental knowledge. The silencing of other knowledge has constructed not only what is deemed ‘effective’ governance in the image of business but with corporate expertise constructed as the preferred model the monopoly of ‘effective’ school governance is established (Wilkins 2020) ensuring those that get to do governance are not only objects of the legislation but agents (Wilkins 2015). Corporate expertise is normalised through the discourse strands of responsibilisation and expertise where corporate practices are positioned as central to constructions of ‘effective’ governance.

Mapping the waxing and waning of discursive formations of parents for effective governance

In this section I explore how the legislation and guidance for school governance has constructed the relational structuring of school governance and parents to understand the power dynamics underpinning this construction. I have described these relationships as democratic citizen, participatory stake, consumer (citizen), and object of governance activity.

Waning Gibbous: school governance and parent as democratic citizens

With an increasing call for public policy to be a concern of the state, the Education Act, 1870 position some parents as democratic citizens in the election of school boards to build and manage new elementary schools based on their eligibility to vote and payment of local rates. The parent as a democratic citizen was consolidated with the creation of LEAs through the Balfour Act, 1902 and their increasing responsibilities for provision of free education for their communities in the Fisher Act 1918 and Education 1944. In seeking to conceptualise a citizen perhaps there is a need to turn to what can be understood as citizenship. For this paper citizenship is understood as the civil rights of citizens regarding freedom and equality alongside the social and political rights to participate in democratic deliberative activities (Wilkins 2020). This therefore could include opportunities to elect preferred public officials, or inform local government consultations regarding priorities (Wilkins 2020).

New moon: school governance and parent as participatory stake (PS)

The parent as the participatory stake was realised in the Conservative government’s Education Act 1980 which provided parents with greater powers through elected positions to school GB on county or controlled schools by legislating for at least two parent governors who would be elected by parents of the school as representatives. With the Education Act 1986 parents were given a greater participatory stake with the number of parent positions on the GB directly linked to the size of the school. Furthermore, this Act strengthened the position of parents with the number of seats on the GB being equal to that of LA appointed positions as discourse strands concerned with responsibilisation and expertise entwined to secure the rise of stakeholder experience and position.

The power for GBs to hold a parent ballot to ‘opt out’ of local government control in a school was provided through ERA 1988 at the same time as delegation of budgets to schools ensured that GBs had a role in the oversight of budgets and contracts through SLAs with the local authority. This discursive formation positioned parents as a participatory stake on GB’s who were provided legislatively with a representative voice for parents in decision-making in the school locally. However, ERA also positioned parents as consumers, behind a smokescreen of the participatory stake. This relationship of consumer [citizen] rose with the expectation on GBs to report school syllabi in secondary schools; produce an annual report for parents (perhaps foreshadowing requirements for company reports) and hold an annual general meeting. Therefore, this discourse strand concerned with the relational structuring of parents and school governance saw the waning of the democratic citizen, with a new moon illuminating the participatory stake and an early form of consumer [citizen] as power/knowledge priviledged business practices and stakeholder representation.

Waxing Gibbous: school governance and parent as consumer [citizen]

The legislative requirements for GB’s assume a relational structuring that seeks to engage with parents as the consumer [citizen]. Clarke et al. (2007, 21) explain that the ‘consumer embodies the private (rather than the public), the market (rather than the state) and the individual (rather the collective)’. Thus, providing a binary form of social relations in the relational structuring between GB and parents. This discursive formation now in ascendency is of the parent as an individual, concerned with private goods in an edu-market (Ball 2017). The launch of autonomous schools (GM and CTCs) through ERA 1988 based on a discourse of choice, was reinforced in the Education Act 1993 which strengthened the power of parents as consumer citizens, legislating for parents to have the right to request a ballot for application for GM status to be undertaken by the Governing Board and act as an agent in the creation of this market. This use of legislation to create structural changes that reinforce choice was extended with the requirements for LAs to ensure diversity of school provision for parental choice through the Education Act 2006. This legislation required securing the creation of a market in which the governance of schools engaged with the continued rise of the consumer citizen through a diverse offer.

The parent as an individual responsibilised for making a choice about the education of their child required mechanisms for distinction not only about the character of the school but also the performance. This ascendancy of the discursive formation of the parent consumer [citizen] was supported by mechanisms such as the School Profile (The Education Act 2005) which partially populated with standards and school characteristic data by Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) required GBs to complete, identifying their priorities, impact, progress on OFSTED inspection recommendations and how they were working with parents. No longer was this a report to parents as a participatory stake but sought to distinguish the school in edu-market.. Mechanistic apparatus further consolidated the construction of parents as consumer citizens with the legislative responsibility of GB for target setting and publication of performance (Education Act 1997, 2002).

Full moon: parent as tools for school governance activity

The Academies Act (2010) saw a rapid expansion of the edu-market through converter academies and the expansion of school chains, such as MATs and concretised in legislation the depoliticisation of education and market practices. The Free School model utilising the academies legislation (Courtney 2015) invited parents to set up new schools demanding business modelling to secure submission success. A reduction in the required number of parent governors in all types of schools quickly followed with the Education Act, 2011, s38.2 underlining the discourse in the deficiency of parents for academy governance and an expectation of ‘professionalised’ governance. With the 2012 and 2013 regulations changing the constitution of school governance and the roles and responsibilities for all maintained schools, legislation secured this professionalisation based on market principles (Wilkins 2015) as the role of parents declined in this construction of ‘effective’ school governance.

A focus on strategic direction, financial efficiency, and accountability offered only a small number of parents from professional backgrounds the opportunity to sit in a governance role (Kulz 2021) The majority of parents perhaps were being no longer considered as a stake with a voice in schools or even a consumer [citizens] but perhaps as labourers (Gerrard and Savage 2022) or tools of governance as they measured satisfaction and managed support for the organisation and its goals (Healey Broadhurst 2022). The rise of professional governance continued with the derision and fall of what was called amateurish governance by a variety of policy makers (see Wilshaw 2015). The White Paper Education Excellence White Paper (DfE 2016) had called for the removal of parent governors but the requirement for two parent governors continued with the Education Act 2016. However, power was given to Academy Trust Boards through the scheme of delegation to determine on which committee these parents sit and what if any delegation of responsibilities is given. Whilst parent governors are still elected, government guidance for boards (DfE 2017; 2020) has made it clear that they are not representative of parents but should provide skills necessary for what is called modern governance (Wilshaw 2015). Guidance documents such as the School Governance Handbooks (2016, 2020), The Competency Framework (2017) (both discontinued in March 2024) and The Academies Trust Handbook (2022) reinforce regimes of truth. The conduct of conduct for ‘effective’ governance is secured with ‘people with the right skills, experience, qualities and capacity’ (DfE 2022, 11). Thus, technocratic governance has secured the descent of parents from governance positions, with the majority arguably a tool for governance activity to secure accountability, strategic leadership and provide evidence of impact of governance. This objectification of parents has changed the nature of participation and the relational structuring of ‘effective’ governance and parents. As corporations,MATs identify and secure their products and market, and parents become tools for securing an increase in their competitiveness and advantage..

Conclusion

Using the metaphor of the four phases of the moon I have mapped the school governance legislation between 1870 and 2016 focusing on the discourse strands of: responsibilisation; expertise and the relational structuring of parents for ‘effective’ school governance. I have been able to reveal how constructions of ‘effective’ school governance in the legislation position who is responsibilised; and privileges some knowledge, making invisible other. The entanglement of these discourse strands secures the discursive formation of what is known as ‘effective’ governance at anytime. However, the positioning of parents has been revealed to be [re]constructed with the [re]constructions of school governance. These discourse strands are instrumental in the relational structuring of parents for ‘effective’ school governance. With the adjustment of legislation, to provide for the responsibilisation of corporations for the governance and delivery of education, privileged knowledge is constructed as corporate expertise, subsuming managerial expertise and reframing stake experience to support corporate strategy. Hence parents have been repositioned as objects of and tools for corporate strategy to secure both the MAT’s identity and position within the market.

The legislation has ensured a waning of democratic relational structures between parents and those responsible for school governance with the normalisation of corporate expertise and responsibilisation underpinning regimes of truth concerned with ‘effective’ school governance. With the rise of corporate actors within school leadership (Courtney 2015), this mapping has revealed that the legislation has led to an increasing invisibility of the parent as a democratic citizen or stakeholder of value for corporate school governance. In fact, the mapping has revealed that with the demise of democratic engagement the parent has increasingly become a tool for corporate governance when adjustments need to be made to secure their market position.

The analysis presented here through this mapping not only has significance for England but has international significance as neoliberalism is a global phenomenon locally materialised (Springer 2012) and informing legislative materialisations. Similar (re)constructions have occurred elsewhere through legislation securing free schools in Sweden, charter schools in the United States and the voucher system in Chile furthering private interests and/or the corporatisation of education. This research contributes methodologically to the field’s efforts to question, describe, and explain how key discourse strands of ideologies wax and wane, constructing and reconstructing regimes of truth concerned with ‘effective’ school governance. Through a simple metaphor based on the phases of the moon I have created a heuristic construct through which questions can be asked of the field and an analytical construct to use in analytical thinking across cases in the field. Through these constructs, the relational structuring of parents is revealed as a construction formed through the interrelationship of these discourse strands that illuminates the increasing invisibility of parents with the corporatisation of school governance.

Acknowledgements

I must acknowledge Critical Education Leadership and Policy Research Group at the University of Manchester. The generosity of support and sharing of experience are enabling and inspiring. Particular thanks go to my supervisors Professor Steve Courtney and Dr Andy Howes– who have created a critical yet safe space to learn.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen (Broadhurst) Healey

Karen is currently undertaking her PhD at the University of Manchester, Institute of Education. Her research interests are school governance and leadership, parental engagement and democratic agency. Her doctoral research is a critical study that seeks to understand the role of parents in the governance of multi academy trusts in disadvantaged communities.