Accountability Policy Effects Within Sch1

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/312460085
ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY EFFECTS WITHIN SCHOOL MARKETS A STUDY IN

THREE CHILEAN MUNICIPALITIES. PHD THESIS
Thesis · January 2012
CITATIONS READS
13 239
1 author:
Alejandra Falabella
Alberto Hurtado University
64 PUBLICATIONS 661 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Accountability policy school enactment View project
History of School Markets & National Assessments in Chile View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Alejandra Falabella on 27 January 2019.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

!
!
!
!
!
!
!
ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY EFFECTS WITHIN SCHOOL

MARKETS
A STUDY IN THREE CHILEAN MUNICIPALITIES
ALEJANDRA FALABELLA
THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
2013
!
Acknowledgments
In first place, I wish to give sincere thanks for the openness, time, and generosity of
all of those teachers, head teachers, and members of the municipalities and Ministry
of Education of Chile who collaborated in the different stages of this research. Their
willingness and contribution in sharing their daily experiences, thoughts, and feelings
were essential to the development of this thesis.
I am immensely grateful to Debora Youdell, Stephen Ball, and Carol Vincent for
their guidance, support and critical engagements with my work. Thanks to Deborah
and Stephen for sharing their theoretical and conceptual points of views, and helping
me to critically think about the Chilean case. A special thank you to Carol, for her
invaluable and supportive role during the last and most difficult part of this doctoral
project, and for constantly stimulating me to analyse my findings in an articulated
and complex manner.
Thanks to my colleagues Alejandra Cardini, Alejandro Carrasco, and María Teresa

Rojas; their support and discussions on education, policy and social justice in Chile
and other places were a constant inspiration for this thesis. I would also like to
acknowledge the Government of Chile for funding my doctoral studies abroad; the
Universidad Alberto Hurtado; and Juan Eduardo García-Huidobro and Daslav Ostoic
for their institutional support in the last stage of my thesis.
Special thanks to my unconditional friends Paz and Paula; to my family, parents,

sisters; to Alvaro for his support during these years and to my son Miguel who asked
me so many times: When will you finish that book?
I dedicate this thesis to my dad and his boundless passion for understanding the
world and love for sociology.
!
2!
!
Abstract
Implemented as a political experiment in the early- 1980s, Chile’s educational

market model is radical and extensive. Later, when the centre-left Concertación
coalition came to power (1990-2010), the market-led scheme was largely maintained,
yet a set of centralising accountability policies have been gradually added, resulting
in a market + accountability regime. The assumption is that this model will
encourage schools to continuously improve the quality of their provision, ensure that
it is both diverse and innovative, and provide for more equality of opportunity
amongst pupils.
The central aim of this thesis is to study the ways in which accountability policies are
understood, practised and experienced by educational institutions within a market-led
schema in the Chilean context. For this purpose, the research develops a qualitative
case study approach, examining in an intense and comprehensive way three
institutional networks: two local Ministries of Education; three municipalities, and
four schools. The data analysis is set within a framework of dialogue between the
theories of Foucault and Bourdieu, as well as referencing a body of critical
educational policy literature.
The research concludes that, whilst these policies may produce some positive
contributions under specific circumstances, overall they generate substantial damage
to teaching quality, triggering exam-oriented methods; intensifying inequities among
and within schools; and sharpening managers’ insecurities and anxieties, which
accentuate hierarchical and bureaucratic systems of control. These are not
‘unexpected effects’; they are consistent strategies that enable institutions to compete
in the market, although with unequal resources and chances.
All in all, it is argued that the state does not ‘regulate’ the ‘free market’, as a separate
and neutral entity, in order to assure educational quality and diminish inequities, as
suggested by Concertación’s policy-makers and ‘Third Way’ scholars.
Accountability-performance policies are powerful technologies that produce and
sharpen individuals’ desires and motivations for competing, so the market can
function. These are the most pervasive and extensive effects of this policy
arrangement that work beyond market activities. They entail an ethical
transformation of how schooling and professionalism is understood and thought
about.
3!
!
Declaration:
I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in
this thesis is entirely my own.
Word count (exclusive of appendices and bibliography): 99.088
4!
!
CONTENTS
Introduction. Problematising market + performance regimes p. 8

PART I: Context, Theoretical Approach and Research Design p. 13
Chapter One. Literature Review: Educational Markets within a p. 14
Post-Welfare Regime
Introduction p. 15
1. Worldwide Trends in Education p. 17
2. The Performing School p. 24
3. Policy Effects: Encountering the Expected Challenges? p. 30
4. Chile: Research Setting and Problem p. 51
5. Conclusions p. 61
Chapter Two. Power, discourses and the Field: A Dual Theoretical p. 62
approach
Introduction p. 63
1. Foucault: Power, Discourses, and Truth p. 63
2. Bourdieu: Field, Capitals, and Habitus p. 69
3. Conclusions: Reworking Foucault and Bourdieu p. 75
Chapter Three. Methodological Framework: Post/Critical Social p. 79
Research
Introduction p. 80
1. Post/Critical Social Research p. 80
2. A Methodological Approach p. 87
3. Data Collection and Selection Criteria p. 91
4. Data Analysis p. 98
5. Ethical Framework p. 101
6. Conclusions p. 103
PART II: Research Findings p. 104
Chapter Four. Narratives of School Identity within the p. 105
Marketplace
Introduction p. 106
1. High Hill School: The Continuous Narration of Success p. 110
2. The Eagle School: The Sense of Insecure Positioning p. 113
3. Low Hill School: The Troubled Identity in p. 125
Disadvantaged Positioning
4. Conclusions: School Accountability or Reinforcement of p. 138
School Positioning?
5!
!
Chapter Five. The Intensification of Performativity among p. 144

Educational Networks
Introduction p. 145
1. A General Panorama: Truth, Performativity, and p. 146
Exteriorization
2. Curriculum Standardisation and Test Training p. 155
3. Standardisation, Managerial Work, and Inner- p. 165
competition
4. Entangling Students and Parents in the Competition p. 170
5. Persuasion, Control and Authoritarianism p. 173
6. Conclusions: Performativity in the Chilean context p. 178
Chapter Six. The Messy and Expansive Market p. 182
Introduction p. 183
1. The Metropolitan Regional Ministry: Aiming for Symbolic Power p. 184
and Distinction.
2. White Hill Municipality: Learning, Reputation and Money p. 193
3. The Canelo School: Strategies for Survival p. 202
4. Conclusions: The Messiness of Educational Markets p. 206
Chapter Seven. Interrogating School Market Diversity p. 211
Introduction p. 212
1. The Eagle Borough: The Cult of Excellence p. 212
2. White Hill Borough: Fabricating School Diversity p. 223
3. The Canelo Borough: The Decline of Rural Education p. 232
4. Conclusions: Diversity or distinction? p. 236
Chapter Eight. Problematic Social Justice Issues in a Market p. 243
Regime
Introduction p. 244
1. Tolerance of Injustice p. 246
2. Local Hierarchies and Unequal Resource Distribution p. 252
3. Failing School or Failing Model? p. 260
4. Conclusions: Making Social In/Justice at the Micro p. 270
Sphere
PART III: Conclusions and Further Research p. 275
Chapter Nine. Concluding Discussion p. 276
Introduction p. 277
Section 1. Discussion of Research Findings p. 279
1. Policy Effects of Accountability Regimes: Quality Improvement, p. 279
Teaching Innovation, and Educational Diversity?
2. Governance, Power, and Control p. 285
6!
!
3. Social In/justice Matters p. 289

Concluding Discussion of Research Findings p. 298
Section 2: Policy Recommendations and outline of future research p. 300
References p. 305
List of figures and tables

Figure
Figure 1. The Performing School p. 25
Figure 2. Changes in the Average Score of the 4th grade SIMCE Test, p. 58
Between the Periods 2002 to 2010
Figure 3. Chilean Institutional Network in Education p. 87
Tables
Table 1. School Leading Orientations Towards Market Competition p. 38
Table 2. Effects of Market and Accountability Policies p. 49
Table 3. Enrolment Distribution Among School Providers From 1981 p. 56
to 2008
Table 4. School Enrolment Distribution Among Socio-economic p. 56
Groups in 2010
Table 5. Selected Municipalities p. 92
Table 6. Selected Schools p. 93
Table 7. List of Analysed Documents p. 95
Table 8. Summary of In-depth Interviews p. 97
Table 9. Meeting Observations p. 98
Table 10. Institutional Strategies for Improving School Performance p. 150
7!
!
INTRODUCTION
Problematising market + performance regimes1
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11
Photos: Augusto Pinochet (Chilean Military Dictator 1973-1990); a rainbow which is the logo of
the ‘Concertación’ (Chilean centre-left coalition) and the logo of the political parties of the same
coalition (1990- 2010); the World Bank logo (the Bank financed Chile’s educational reform during
the 1990s); a map indicating the countries and years I lived abroad (since my family was exiled during
the military dictatorship) and my return to the country; photos of the Chilean students’ movement
against the educational model, the graffiti and signs read: “Education Free of Charge”, “Education
Not For Sale”, “Against a Market Education”, “No More Profits”; finally at the centre of the collage, a
photo of Concertación and the right-wing’s political representatives celebrating the agreement of a
new constitutional law which consolidated a market-accountability reform (2008), the newspaper title
reads: “Signed Agreement in Education”.
8!
Introduction!
Problematising market + performance regimes
Accountability-performance policies combined with market formulas have been

introduced in various regions around the world as panaceas for solving countries’
schooling problems. In this thesis, I discuss these policy combinations and examine
their effects in the Chilean educational context.
Predominantly, educational reforms today involve the withdrawal of the state as the
sole universal monopolistic supplier and regulator. School welfare provision is open
to the market, enabling diverse providers to come into play, generating competition
among the private and public sectors, and the possibility that parents may choose
amongst different options. However, at the same time these market devolving
policies are strategically combined with a set of centralizing state policies which
form an accountability-performance regime, entailing measures such as the
definition of a national curriculum and standards, test assessments and league tables,
school inspections, and rewards and sanctions for performance outcomes.
I will argue that, under this schema, the state is a school subsidiser and evaluator that
distances itself from educational management and daily processes, yet it controls
school targets and sanctions/rewards outcomes. In other words, school management
is devolved and ‘made private’, while school targets, standards and evaluations are
centralised and nationalised, i.e. ‘made public’. This implies a shift from a
centralised hierarchical scheme to a state that ‘controls at a distance’, making use of
a dispersed network of social providers (Rose and Miller, 1992). This new
configuration has been conceptualised as the ‘post-welfare model’ (Gewirtz, 1996,
2002) or ‘post-bureaucratic model’ (Maroy, 2009; Vandenberghe, 1999).
Paradoxically, the state employs new policy technologies in order to guarantee that
the educational system is not left in the hands of a ‘free’ market. Hence, alongside
market devolution policies, the state simultaneously fuses centralising tactics in order
to retain power and to assure certain interests regardless of dispersed players and
networks. Therefore, the state has not weakened nor lost its power, but has
reconfigured its form and strategies.
Chile has one of the most deregulated educational schemas in the world, led by
market-oriented mechanisms. In 1981, in the context of Pinochet’s dictatorship
(1973-1990), a radical neoliberal reform was designed involving the educational
arena, as well as other welfare sectors, such as housing, health, and pensions. In
9!
Introduction!
education, this reform enhanced privatisation and competition based on a per-student

attendance funding, and it created a national evaluation system. Also, a
decentralisation process was implemented, transferring the Ministry of Education’s
responsibility to manage public schools to municipalities. Consequently, school
management was dispersed as municipalities, with mayors from different political
parties, and a variety of private owners became involved.
With the return of democracy, under a centre-left political coalition (1990-2010),

called Concertación, the market model was generally maintained, while combined
with stronger state support of schools, added to compensatory programs for those
most disadvantaged schools, and a set of accountability policies (e.g. national
assessments, school league tables, teacher salary-performance-payment).
The government coalition, particularly since 2000, commenced to flag the idea of a
strong protective state that standardises, evaluates and awards educational quality,
and threatens to punish ‘failing’ schools. So, whilst the market schema was accepted
and preserved, the state was posed as the rescuer of educational problems and market
failures. This policy discourse was strengthened after massive students’ social
protests against market arrangements in education (see photo collage, p. 7). “The
state will become a true guarantor of the quality of state subsidised public or private
education”, former President Michelle Bachelet said during a speech in 2006.2 In this
manner, the Concertación’s accountability policies adhered to a ‘Third Way’ or a
renewed ‘Social Democracy’ discourse that promoted the idea of an ‘ideal
combination’ that balances the free market with state regulations.
The central purpose of this thesis is to study, in the Chilean context, the policy
effects of this new configuration of the accountability regime within a market-led
schema. The study aims to examine in what ways these policies are understood,
practised, and experienced in a small number of educational institutions, including
Regional Ministries of Education, municipalities and schools. Additionally, the study
intends to contrast the manners in which discourses and daily practices vary among
institutions with different market positions and social demographics. Also, the
research seeks to examine the consequences of accountability policies in the
marketplace on education quality, diversity and innovation, and social justice.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2
Speech via open national television network, June 2, 2006.
10!
Introduction!
The research develops a qualitative case study approach, examining in an intense,

comprehensive and holistic way, educational institutions’ discourses and everyday
practices, in order to understand how accountability-performance policies affect
institutions within a market schema. The research explores a group of case studies
that form three institutional networks, including: two local Ministries of Education;
three municipalities, and four schools. The selected institutions vary in terms of
geographical location, budget, performance achievements and market reputation.
Consistent with a case-study approach, I employed multiple methodological
strategies, including in-depth interviews, meeting observations and shadowing, and
documentary analysis.
In very broad terms, my theoretical framework draws on both Foucault and

Bourdieu’s theorising. On the one hand, I employ Foucault’s conceptual tools
(together with other authors with similar stances) in order to examine how
governance and its policy technologies are practised and the effects of this kind of
power on subjects. On the other hand, I make use of Bourdieu’s theoretical notions
(and of other like-minded thinkers) in order to analyse how discourses and daily life
practices vary among institutions, considering their different positioning and capitals
within the market-field; and how this may affect schools’ institutional habitus.
These research concerns are also part of my personal history. Issues related to power,
democracy, and authoritarianism, together with ideals of social justice, are crucial
concerns, which I have thought about throughout my life. I was born in Lima, Perú
as my family was exiled from Chile for thirteen years during Pinochet’s dictatorship.
After Perú, we traveled to Brighton, UK and then to London under Thatcher’s
government, and then to Maryland, USA, at that time under Reagan. Then back to
Chile, under a confusing semi-democracy, since we still have many anti-democratic
and neoliberal legacies of the dictatorship. In effect, the current National
Constitution was designed under the dictatorship and is still very difficult to change,
as it imposes a high percentage of parliament approval for any modification.
Meanwhile, those who strongly criticized Pinochet’s neoliberal policies during the
1970s and 1980s, governed through the Concertación coalition and have
substantially preserved these schemes and rationales. All in all, these geographical
and policy transitions are part of my life, of my family’s life, and of my country. In
this manner, the research questions of this thesis engage with significant issues of my
own history.
11!
Introduction!
Chapters and themes

The thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part (chapters 1 to 3) the research
framework and design are outlined. In Chapter 1 the research context and problem
are established, referring to market-accountability policy patterns around the world,
and the particularities of the Chilean educational system. A deep and extensive
literature review is also developed, referring to the studied effects of these policies in
different parts of the world. In Chapter 2 the theoretical framework is laid out,
bringing into play Foucault and Bourdieu’s conceptual tools. And in Chapter 3 the
methodological research approach and design is outlined, taking into account a
‘policy sociology’ research perspective.
In the second part of the thesis (chapters 4 to 8), I present the main findings of the
research. Chapter 4 analyses school identity narratives and the ways in which
members produce, resist, and re-elaborate market and state judgements and official
classifications. In Chapter 5 institutions’ aims, strategic thinking, and daily routines
for improving performance outcomes are examined, referring particularly to the
consequences for teaching and curriculum approach, parent involvement,
institutional inter-relationships, and management tactics.
Chapter 6 refers to the extensive and pervasive effects of accountability policies

including institutions and individuals that are not necessarily in a market-competitive
position. Chapter 7 studies municipalities and school provision in terms of its
market-distinction, and questions the assumption that a market schema enhances
educational diversity, teaching innovation, and school autonomy. Lastly, Chapter 8
studies institutional micro-policies and discourses related to social in/justice matters.
In the third and final section, Chapter 9, the main research findings are summarised
and discussed, putting them in dialogue with the theoretical framework. Finally, the
current educational-policy setting in Chile is examined, together with the elaboration
of policy recommendations, and the definition of future research directions.
12!
!
PART I
CONTEXT, THEORETICAL APPROACH AND

RESEARCH DESIGN
!
CHAPTER ONE
Literature Review
Educational Markets within a Post-Welfare Regime
14!
!
Literature Review: Educational Markets within a Post-Welfare Regime
Introduction
Over the last decades, the state has tended to depart from a welfare model in favour
of a neoliberal scheme. David Harvey (2005) points out that during the late 1970s the
increasingly global and knowledge-based economy put a strain on the welfare model,
as it was unable to assure economic growth and capital accumulation within the
changing scenario. Since then, neoliberal devices have gradually proliferated around
the globe as hegemonic policy solutions. In Latin America, these policies were
adopted during the 1980s in the midst of a huge economic crisis, adding to external
debts. Most countries of the region enforced a ‘structural adjustment programme’,
following the ‘Washington Consensus’ formula promoted by international aid
agencies3 (Ramos, 1997; Castells, 1997). The main economic guidelines were fiscal
austerity, privatisation of public social services and of public companies in
competitive sectors (offering them to foreign capital), and market liberalisation,
involving price liberalisation, reduction of import tariffs and state subsidises.
In the region, Chile is considered to be an example of a radical and widespread

neoliberal model. These policies were implemented as a political experiment during
Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990). In general terms, the prevailing scheme of this
model continues to be in place, affecting the political, economic and social service
system (including education, health, housing and pensions).
The globalised neoliberal context has also transformed the educational arena in a
significant way. Across the world, various countries began (and continue) to
restructure their education systems, introducing market-oriented policies, such as
policies of school choice (and exit), competing funds per capita, and school
autonomy. Meanwhile, the welfare state no longer has sole responsibility for
providing and managing a centralised and universal education system. This political
configuration began to develop during the ‘Thatcher and Reagan Era’ (1980s). Both
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3
Such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The aim of these agency
interventions was to achieve ‘economic stability’ (especially aimed at control inflation), the payment
of the debt, and to incorporate countries into a free global economy.
Chapter One: Literature Review
models (UK and USA) influenced many countries, including those in Latin America
(Henales and Edwards, 2002; Schielfelbein, 2004). Supranational economic and
political agencies, such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) have also played a crucial role, framing and
pushing through finance-driven reforms (Lingard, 2000; Morrow and Torres, 2000)4.
Nowadays educational policies have evolved in complex and sophisticated ways.

Market-led policies injected into school provision are fused at the same time with
new mechanisms of state regulation, such as curriculum standardisation, national
pupil assessments, and accountability policies. In this way, these reform patterns
combine policies of market devolution, whilst the state retains its control through
centralising strategies. So, as prevailing policy discourses promise ‘free choice’,
‘school autonomy’ and ‘educational diversity’, paradoxically the state steers key
educational targets and outcomes. This mixed configuration has been conceptualised
by various authors attempting to capture its dual nature, for instance: ‘quasi-market’
(Le Grand and Bartlett, 1994; Levačić, 1995), ‘public-market’ (Woods, Bagley, and
Glatter, 1998), ‘decentralised centralism’ (Karlsen, 2000), ‘controlled school market’
(Bunar, 2010), ‘post-bureaucratic model’ (Maroy, 2009; Vandenberghe, 1999), and
‘post-welfare model’ (Gewirtz, 1996, 2002).
This thesis will research in detail educational institutions’ discourses and life
practices within this market and performance accountability schemata in the Chilean
context. In this chapter I analyse the main policy trends in education and argue that
this mixed formula is changing the way schools are understood and experienced,
configuring the performative school (Gleeson and Husbands, 2001) within a
competition-based setting. On the basis of an extensive literature review, I discuss
whether these reforms have met the supposed challenges, such as encouraging
continuous school improvement, diversification of educational provision, and
growing equality. In brief, I find that policy discourses have set high expectations for
these reforms, whilst the body of research reviewed shows problematic effects for
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4
Nonetheless, also internal forces within the region, coming from a broad political spectrum, have
actively promoted and developed these policy patterns, including governments, political parties and
interest groups.
16!
educational institutions. These entail the prevalence of a competitive rationale, the

construction of a performative culture, and practices that lead towards pupil
segmentation and exclusion.
The chapter is divided into four sections. Firstly, an analysis of recent trends in
educational reform across different countries. Secondly, a conceptualisation of the
performing school shaped within the new policy scenario. Thirdly, research findings
showing the effects of market and accountability policies within schools, and lastly,
an examination of the Chilean policy context and the definition of the research
problem and aims.
1. Worldwide Trends in Education
1.1. Prevailing educational reforms

Educational reforms across nation-states have entailed an almost synchronous
emergence of similar discourses and rationales (see for example, Ball, 1998a; Ball
and Youdell, 2008; Burbules and Torres, 2000; Daun, 2004; Falabella, 2007; Maroy,
2004; Whitty, Power, and Halpin, 1998; van Zanten, 2002). Although there are local
policy variations influenced by particular settings and history5, it is possible to
identify shared reform trends. As explained above, in recent decades, neoliberal
policies have been set up and combined in multiple ways, opening educational
services to the market, together with the introduction of state centralising tactics, as
national standards and assessment systems linked to school awards and sanctions. In
this section these policy shifts are analysed, referring specifically to i) privatisation,
choice and competition, ii) school autonomy and ‘new public management’, iii)
curriculum standardisation, national assessments and accountability, and iv) equality
policies.
i. Privatisation, choice and competition. In different ways a market-logic has been

introduced into the social provision of education, entailing public-private
partnerships, parental choice programmes and competing-fund systems (e.g.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5
In effect, there are countries where these policy trends have not been applied at all (e.g. Cuba), or
countries where market-oriented policies have been introduced, but these have involved scant changes
in practice. See for example the case of Finland (Simola and Rinne, 2011).
17!
vouchers or per capita plan). Diverse entities from the public and private come into
play, e.g. voluntary organisations, religious institutions and enterprises. These
players offer educational services and compete with each other in order to attract
‘clients’ and sell their services as a product in a market. Market-led reforms have
been carried out with a variety of approaches and degrees of extension, involving
diverse countries such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech
Republic, Finland, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the United
Kingdom, and the USA6.
Neoliberal advocates in education, such as Chubb and Moe (1990) and Tooley (1996,
2000)7, expect that this competition-based scheme will enhance the quality of
education, school diversity (responding to parents’ preferences), and will enlarge
equality as parents can freely choose amongst education providers in spite of the
location of their home. These reforms are accompanied by neoclassical economic
assumptions, underpinned by an instrumental rationality. From this perspective it is
assumed that a competing-based schema will, on the one side, motivate self-
interested school professionals to provide ‘good quality school’, and on the other
side, that parents will demand ‘good quality schools’. These mechanisms are
believed to be the driving forces for attaining efficiency and overall educational
improvement.
ii) School autonomy and New Public Management. A model of ‘New Public
Management’ style, with different degrees, has also been introduced into many
educational systems, departing from a centralised-bureaucratic model. This approach
involves a devolved system where schools have higher degrees of autonomy, mainly
in administrative and financial areas, mixed with higher accountability pressure. It is
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6
! Whilst privatisation, free choice and voucher policies have expanded in different locations around
the world, the aims, extensions and philosophies that have oriented these changes vary, and are not
always and exclusively market-based. Chile, for example, is quite an exceptional case as schools
compete for state funding on a national level, with equal economic incentives for both public and
private schools. On the other hand, charter schools in Colombia or Guatemala, for instance, take a
different approach. State subsidises are restricted to certain geographical districts with scant public
school provision and to disadvantaged populations, and they offer low incentives to compete. In these
cases vouchers mainly work as scholarships rather than as market incentives, as Narodowski and
Andrada (2004) point out. !
7
Influenced by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek’s ideas.
18!
believed that this school model will provide a more efficient service and a
management more responsive towards parents and school community.
Several countries have adopted ‘self-managed schools’ or ‘school autonomy’

policies, as in, for example, England (‘Local Management of Schools’), New
Zealand (with the large-scale experiment ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’), and the United
States by way of charter schools. In Latin America during the 1980s most public
educational systems were decentralised to municipalities or provinces, but not
directly to school management; although ‘autonomous schools’ managed by parents’
councils were particularly developed in several countries of Central America.8
In a critical vein, Peters, Marshall, and Fitzsimons (2000), argue that this
management model is synchronous with corporate ‘managerialism’, as economic
rationales are predominant, ‘injecting’ private ethics into the public sector. These
policies put cost-benefit analyses and quantifiable evidence (e.g. national test scores)
at the heart of schools’ incentives. Besides, managerialism discourse assumes the
applicability of this model to all contexts, as if organisations were homogeneous.
Clarke and Newman (1997) point out that this approach praises efficiency and
rational planning, assuming that everything can be strategically controlled, calculated
and improved through de-politicised mechanisms. This management style has
established a new morality and culture within public service, using private sector
management ‘solutions’ and creating a ‘public entrepreneurship’ (Osborn and
Gaebler, quoted in Clarke and Newman 1997, p.21).
iii) National standards, assessment and accountability policies. Together with

policies of devolution, most countries have created new ways to maintain state power
and regulation over a dispersed network of school managers. The state, for instance,
defines national curriculum and standards, sets school targets, and delivers school
assessments and inspections. Moreover, countries increasingly publish league tables,
offering supposedly ‘objective’ and ‘transparent’ information for parents. Schools
and teachers are held accountable to the state for performance outcomes; and these
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8
Such as ‘Autonomous Schools’ in Nicaragua, PRONADE (National Program of Self-management
for Educational Development) in Guatemala and EDUCO (Education with Community Participation)
in El Salvador.
19!
results are linked to school dis/incentives, as for instance, performance-based

salaries, the dismissal of school staff, or the closure of schools.
Authors, such as Apple (2000, 2003) and Ball (1998a) argue that under this schema
the state extends in more sophisticated ways a set of policy technologies and
artefacts, having greater control over curriculum and school targets. These state tools
align in a more precise way the schooling system towards an economic rationale and
a conservative morality. These technologies push schools to educate pupils to
compete ‘efficiently and effectively’, shaping a skilled and adaptable labour force in
order to assure countries’ social stability and economic productivity.
In general, state standards and examinations have proliferated around the world.
England is frequently recognised as a model of these new accountability regimes,
involving the shift from ‘Her Majesty’s School Inspector Service’ to Office for
Standards in Education (Ofsted) school audits, in addition to curriculum
centralisation policy, national assessments and public league tables. The United
States, which has been characteristically decentralised according to a federal state
model, has also made use of these centralising policies through the programme ‘No
Child Left Behind’. New Zealand is another example where school audits and
accountability policies are delivered through the Education Review Office (ERO).
In Latin America by the end of the 1990s almost all countries had introduced some
form of national student assessment system, yet few of them deliver census-based
tests reporting results to schools (Ferrer, 2006; Ravela, 2006; Wolf, 2006). Chile is a
unusual case in the region that reports annual school results in the media9 and has
gradually introduced accountability policies. Currently, the creation of a new
institutional schema is being delivered in the country, which is made up of a ‘Quality
Agency’ and a Superintendence of Education, in charged with setting up standards
and inspecting schools (more detail is given in section 4).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9
Although there are Brazilian states that offer public information, such as São Paulo.
20!
iv) Equity policies

Equity policies have also tended to shift their goals, strategies and arguments. While
there was a prevailing centralised-welfare state model in education in Chile and
elsewhere (50s-70s), policy debates were related to democratic schooling and social
cohesion, linked to the idea of the comprehensive school or the collège unique
(Frandji and Pincemin, 2008). Gradually, since the 1980s, and particularly from the
1990s, these policies have evolved together with a general market-oriented reform
moving towards policies of positive discrimination and ‘social inclusion’ in order to
assure equal access to education and opportunities to integrate all people within the
labour market. This approach entails concern for the ‘maximisation of individuals’
opportunities’ to succeed, including particular attention to ‘special needs’ pupils, and
also those ‘gifted and talented’ pupils.
This policy transformation has implied that the struggle against social inequality has
shifted towards problems and aims that work at an individualised level. As Rochex
(2011) puts it, referring to the European context: “The central reference is no longer
the goal of addressing schooling inequalities of which working classes or those
dominated are victims, but to maximise the chances of each individual” (p. 80).
Subsequently, the idea is not that the state assures social services for everyone as a
civil right. It is a state that on the one hand gives ‘equal opportunities’, positive
discrimination measures, and aims for ‘social inclusion’, and on the other offers
incentives, devolves responsibility, and demands individual ‘effort’.
1.2. The educational post-welfare model

Today’s predominant policy configuration described above (1.1) strategically inserts
market-led policies into the educational system, combined with managerial and
accountability policies. This educational arrangement involves a complex policy
nature that cannot be reduced to market hegemony. The prevailing reforms and
discourses shift from a welfare model to a ‘post-welfare model’ (Gewirtz, 1996,
2002), or from a ‘bureaucratic–professional’ scheme to a ‘post-bureaucratic schema’
(Maroy, 2004, 2009; Vandenberghe, 1999). These new terms, on the one hand,
attempt to recognise that education is still a welfare service and remains subject to
state control and bureaucracies (laws, rules, decrees). In effect, school education is
compulsory for all pupils, is mostly financed by the state, and it is a key arena for
21!
countries’ economic development and cultural formation10. However, these

conceptualisations of the educational model, on the other hand, also note that the
relationship between the state and schools has been transformed in a significant way.
The state has changed its role from universal provider of education to a subsidiser
and evaluator, together with the introduction of market-led policies.
This combined policy formula of market devolution and state governance ‘at a
distance’ has emerged as a common rationale for varying governments, interest
groups and political parties, including right-wing and ‘renewed’ left-wing policy-
makers, as well as international aid agencies, such as the World Bank or PREAL11
(Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas). The underpinning
rationale is not the idea of the state assuring welfare services for all in a
homogeneous way, nor a free market without any state intervention. Both the ‘state
monopoly model’ and the ‘mean market’ schema are criticised. The prevailing policy
discourse, instead, has suggested an ‘ideal balance’ or a ‘Third Way’ (in Anthony
Giddens’ terms), referring to a ‘synergy’ between the market and the state, the public
and the private, the local and the global.
It is a model that is assumed to maintain the benefits of the market, and at the same
time creates solutions for its failures through state interventions and regulations.
Thus, on the one hand, market schemes are expected to motivate school diversity,
parental free choice, efficiency, and individual ‘effort’ and responsibility. On the
other hand, state regulations are seen to assure minimum national quality standards,
information and transparency within the market, and to generate ‘equal
opportunities’ and ‘social inclusion’ programmes for those in disadvantaged
positions. This is the ‘dualistic nature of the neoliberal project’, as Gordon and
Whitty express it (1997, p.455).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10
!These features make the educational market unique in comparison with other markets.
11
See for example, Arregui, 2006; di Groppello, 2004; Ravela, et al. 2008; West, 1997; World Bank,
1995.
22!
Under this scheme, the state modified its power technologies from direct and
centralised mechanisms to controlling in indirect and less obvious ways. In other
words, there has been a move from ‘government control’ to ‘governance by results’12
(Newman 2001, 2005), also conceptualised as the ‘evaluative state’ (Neave, 1988).
The state shifts its efforts from supplying school inputs, prescription and
interventions, to establishing school targets and standards, assessing measurable and
comparable outcomes, and delivering awards and sanctions. In this schema
governance is practiced ‘at a distance’ (Rose and Miller, 1992).
The state is a permanent overseer, assessing schools, teachers and pupils, through the
state-inspector, the evaluative tools and criteria are never fully known, neither
predictable. Consequently, subjects become their own controller, producing the
norms, limits and discourses, constituting self-disciplined subjects. This new form of
control is symbolised by the surveillance camera on the front page of this chapter, as
a novel version of Foucault’s notion of power represented by the panopticon
(Foucault 1977, 1980, §2.1).
This new setting does not imply that the state has weakened or diminished its
power13. The policy articulation makes evident that the neoliberal dream of a free
and diverse market, together with a minimum state14, has not existed in practice.
Instead, the state has preserved or even increased its power. There is a state
readjustment, instead of a power reduction that demands a new form of coordination,
influence and control. This shift involves a more indirect and omnipresent control
that attempts to guide the goals and outcomes of diverse school operators. As
Newman (2001) argues, new technologies of power are based on “guiding and
steering rather than on command and authority” (p.19). Therefore, the author points
out that policies of privatisation and devolution does not signify the ‘hollowing–out’
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
12
Ozga (2011) also uses the term ‘governing by numbers’.
13
Harvey (2005) provides evidence that, under neoliberal capitalism, the state has performed a key
role in enhancing capital accumulation. In his words, the state is “actively interventionist in creating
the infrastructure for a good business climate” (p.72). Subsequently, the author emphasises that the
belief that neoliberalism leads to freedom, democracy and a reduced state is a false expectation.
14
For instance, Tooley (2000) claims that education should be ‘returned back’ to the private sector, as
for-profit companies, not-for-profit foundations, families, philanthropy and other civil society
agencies. Also, Chubb and Moe (1990) insist on ending bureaucratic control and any forms of state
evaluations, so schools can dedicate themselves “to please their clients” (p.189).!!
23!
of the state. Rather the state takes on new forms of power, related to governance and
managerialism, intending to reassure its control ‘at a distance’ over multiple
educational providers.
Furthermore, Clarke and Newman (1997) claim that the state has even expanded and
deepened its discursive power within today’s dispersed networks, as it coordinates an
extensive pool of public and private institutions. The state reaches into civil society
and non-state agents, such as the entrepreneurial sector, religious institutions and
voluntary organisations. Consequently, devolution policies enable the state to
increase and spread its control into new sectors, since new technologies of power are
extended to a much larger section of the society. As the authors state, the
phenomenon of dispersion “engages more agencies and agents into the field of state
power, empowering them through its delegatory mechanisms and subjecting them to
processes of regulation, surveillance and evaluation” (p.30). This is the exercise of
‘meta-governance’, since the state sets “the rules of the game within which networks
operate and steers the overall process of coordination” (Newman, 2005, p.6).
2. The Performing School
The meaning and role of schools (and other local educational institutions)
dramatically changes in this new market and performativity scenario. Schools are
positioned in a ‘local competitive arena’, as Woods et al. (1998) calls it, or among
‘local spaces of competitive interdependencies’ conceptualised by Maroy (2004,
2009). Institutions are situated hierarchically with unstable funding, battling for
economic capital (vouchers), and symbolic capital (school reputation, linked to
performance outputs). In this setting, schools are continuously influenced by the
threat of a withdrawal of financial and staff resources if they do not attract students.
Meanwhile, they are publicly watched, assessed, classified and ranked, according to
uniform state standards. This policy configuration is a complex formula, as schools
may devolve in terms of management, but are at the same time constrained by
centralising forces related to standardised curriculum and comparative assessments.
24!
Therefore, schools have a twofold task under this scheme. They have to compete to
attract parental preference and, at the same time, they are pressured to achieve
national standards and to position themselves favourably in school league tables, in
addition to daily managerial-bureaucratic obligations (see Figure 1). In this way, it is
expected that schools are accountable to both the market and the state, named by di
Gropello (2004) as a ‘double accountability’ scheme, which implies therefore a
double way of competing15. Subsequently, it is believed that this dual pressure,
added to state support (e.g. teacher training, curriculum materials, external support
for school improvement), will enhance quality provision, while low performing
schools will tend to disappear because of low enrolment (‘natural selection’) or
owing to state regulations and penalties.
Figure 1: The Performing School
State regulations and

Parents’ artefacts: assessments,
choice, fees, audits, league tables,
voice, exit dis/incentives
!
The
Performing
School
Voucher
Performance
competition
competition
New public management
Entrepreneurial rationale within
educational provision
My own elaboration
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
15
Maroy (2004) uses the term ‘multi-regulations’, referring to the diversification of policy
regulations, not only emanating from the central state, but also from the market, local state, and
private sector.
25!
Ranson (2003) argues that at the heart of these changes lies the question of how
public trust assures a good educational service. Within a bureaucratic-welfare
scheme, public trust was relegated to the expertise of educational professionals.
However, current policies shift from this previous ‘professional accountability’ to a
‘consumer accountability’ and ‘performance accountability’. In the words of the
author:
Public dependence on trusting the professional, authoritative judgement

has been replaced by trust in mechanisms of explicitly, transparent,
systematic public accountability that seeks to secure regulatory
compliance of professional practice. (Ranson, 2003, p.468)
This competing-accountability regime involves the demands of ‘empowered

consumers’ (as aggregated private choices) and, at the same time, a superior body
that evaluates and measures itself against state targets and standards, based on
observable and quantifiable evidence. Increasingly, these state tools, which inform
parents and the public at large, develop in more expansive and detailed ways.
Meticulous specifications of school processes and outputs are established,
maintaining a bureaucratic and controlling state locus. This policy logic reflects a
deep distrust of those professionals who work in school education, controlling
through “a potential punitive image” as Ranson puts it (2003, p.460). It is a policy
mechanism based on threat, not on motivation, vocation, moral responsibility or
internal satisfaction. Fielding (2001), referring specifically to UK Ofsted inspections,
argues that the spirit of this policy is profoundly hierarchical, with a “mixture of
populism and arrogance” (p.695).
This policy configuration shares new orthodoxies about ‘good’ education, teachers
and parents, which shape school routines, and, more importantly, political rationales.
Ball (1994, 2006) and Gewirtz (1998, 2002) claim that the most profound change of
these reforms is a transformation of schools’ prevailing ethics.
... the market revolution is not just a change of structure and incentives.
It is a transformational process that brings into play a new set of values
and a new moral environment. In the process it generates new
26!
subjectivities. The role and sense of identity and purpose of school

managers are being reworked and redefined. (Gewirtz, 2002, p.47)
There is a shift from a comprehensive culture towards an instrumental efficiency

rationale, concerned with individual competition, efficiency and performance
indicators, over pedagogical criteria and issues of social justice. These schemas
shape and constitute what Blackmore and Sachs (1997), drawing on Cozer, call
‘greedy organisations’, conceptualised as postmodern institutions eager to compete,
demonstrate ‘their best’, and position themselves favourably in comparison to others.
In this way, in Foucauldian terms, market and accountability policies discipline
schools in self-reproducing ways, at a micro-daily-level; constituting individuals into
‘enterprising selves’, as Rose (1996) argues. Individuals have to calculate, construct
and advertise themselves in an efficient way and according to a predefined ‘project
of success and excellence’.
This ‘new mode of social (and moral) regulation’ outlines a new practice oriented
towards performativity, as Ball suggests (2001, 2003). The author states that:
Performativity is a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation, or

even a system of ‘terror’ in Lyotard’s words, that employs judgements,
comparisons and displays as means of control, attrition and change
(2001, p.210).
Performativity is a constantly planned and calculated practice of individuals and

organisations, with the purpose of being seen and positively judged. National
assessments and classifications represent the value of the individual or organisation
as a regime of truth (Foucault, 1977, 1980). Consequently, institutions and
professionals are pressured to invest their best efforts into satisfying external
standards, criteria and tasks, in order to produce a favourable and profitable image,
creating in this way the performing school (Gleeson and Husbands, 2001). As Ball
(2001) asserts, there is a profound ‘process of exteriorisation’, where “professional
judgement is subordinated to the requirements of performativity and marketing”
(p.222). This atmosphere and institutional ethos is also conceptualised by Apple
(2007) as the proliferation of an ‘audit culture’ that colonises school-life, shaping
consumer-driven and overly-individualistic cultures, while eroding collective values
and ‘thick’ democratic organisations.
27!
In this scenario, schools are forced to account for their efficiency with measurable
results. ‘Educational quality’ is a discursive construct representing an objective
notion that can be observed and measured by testing pupils’ results. Therefore, what
now counts as real and necessary are mainly measurable targets and outcomes. So
institutions shift the centre of attention towards quantifiable outputs and performance
targets. Meanwhile, qualitative processes and immeasurable achievements are left
aside. This occurs within an atmosphere that praises tested cognitive skills (mainly
language, mathematics, and science), narrowing down the meaning and aims of
education. Subsequently, increased curricular uniformity and homogeneity occur,
contrary to expected educational liberty and diversity. This entails a monopoly of the
notion of educational quality that steers school behaviours, understandings, and
decision-making, as is shown in the next section.
Ball (2003) argues that these practices produce opacity and inauthenticity, instead of
the promised transparency and objectivity. It is, according to the author, a
‘paraphernalia of quality’ (1997a, p.260) and an ‘investment in plasticity’ (2003,
p.10). Teachers do not perform authentically; they perform in a way in which they
suppose will be positively judged. As Blackmore and Sachs (1997) point out that:
“Performativity is as much about being seen to perform—like a simulacrum in that
the actual substance or original is lost” (original underline, sec.2). Therefore, tests,
audits, and inspections do not neutrally assess ‘school quality’, but evaluate how well
schools manage to satisfy the external eye. These mechanisms, according to the
author, create routines of training, selection, manipulation and cheating. Schools and
teachers, in Ball’s terms, ‘fabricate’ themselves in artificial ways, leaving aside the
professional priorities and contextual needs. In the words of the author:
Fabrications are versions of an organisation (or person) which does not

exist – they are not ‘outside the ‘truth’ but neither do they render simply
true or direct accounts – they are produced purposefully in order ‘to be
accountable’. (Ball, 2003, p.224)
The effects of these occurrences are complex and profound. Anxiety, insecurity and
guilt grow among school staff.
28!
We become ontologically insecure: unsure whether we are doing

enough, doing the right thing, doing as much as others, or as well as
others, constantly looking to improve, to be better, to be excellent. And
yet it is not always very clear what is expected (Ball, 2003, p.5).
This implies that schools and their professionals face significant ethical dilemmas
concerning their own educational projects, criteria and personal beliefs, as they are
constrained and pushed by competition criteria and cost-benefit norms which
“producers cannot escape” (Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe, 1995, p.1). It is a struggle for
survival, according to a ‘them or us’ logic, as Gewirtz et al. point out. These policy
effects are profound, “it changes who you are”, producing intense professional and
moral dilemmas, it is a “struggle over the teacher’s soul” (Ball, 2003, p.215, p.217).
In this setting there is a paradox. Neoliberalism offers a political rationale in which

subjects appear as empowered ‘autonomous choosers’, ‘self-managers’ and
‘responsible’ for their decisions. Meanwhile, schools and teachers are permanently
constrained by state audits and judgements, market competition and managerial
work. Consequently, even though schools are supposedly autonomous, they are
driven by subtle and unclear, yet permanent ways of control and regulation. So in
spite of devolution policies, educational institutions must render obligation to
external commands and constraints. As Peter et al. (2000) suggest, schools: “will not
only be governed but also, and more important, be self-governed. They will be self-
governed because they believe that they are autonomous choosers” (p.120). This
form of control is the most economic and pervasive effect of governance over
institutions and subjects.
Importantly, while the state keeps steering at ‘a distance’, this scheme shifts
responsibility from the state to local units. Therefore, failure is construed as an
institutional and/or individual malfunction, rather than a product intertwined with its
social conditions. Whitty et al. (1998) calls this the: ‘devolution of the blame’
(p.113). It obscures the responsibility of state policy and intervention, and of other
factors, such as local governance, unequal school resources and students’ social and
ethnic backgrounds. Meanwhile, institutions and staff have to demonstrate good
performance and account for particular outcomes in a constrained context over which
they have little control and few decision-making opportunities (Ball 1994, 2001). In
29!
this context, Ball (1994) explains, “The state is left in the enviable position of having
power without responsibility” (p.81), while schools manage broad responsibilities
with little power. This paradox is maybe the most stressful aspect of this policy
setting, producing what Blackmore (1997) calls ‘institutional schizophrenia’.
3. Policy Effects: Encountering the Expected Challenges?
Policy discourses advocating the market and accountability have promised that these
reforms will bring greater educational quality, equality and diversity. On the basis of
the literature review, I discuss these expected outcomes bringing into account
literature from different places of the world, especially from Chile, England and the
US, as these are countries that have delivered market and performative reforms in
extended ways. In this section, three matters are addressed, referring to the ways
these policies have affected, 3.1) educational quality and diversity, 3.2) social
exclusion and segregation, and 3.3) organisational school life and teachers.
3.1. Educational quality and diversity

There have been heated debates about the effects and implications of market-led
policies in education. Several studies consider whether parental choice and school
privatisation in effect enhance educational quality and diversity. However, it is not
possible to establish conclusive findings. For example, Waslander, Pater, and van der
Weide (2010) carried out an extensive literature review concerning these matters,
and they conclude that empirical evidence for the positive impact of market reforms
on pupils’ learning outcomes is substantially modest. Meanwhile, research outcomes
from several countries converge to indicate that there is a negative impact on social
segregation between and within schools (although the degree and extension of these
effects vary among the literature). In terms of international test results, Cuba, an icon
of state centralised education, has obtained by far the best results of any country in
the region16. And Chile, with a fairly open market scheme, has shown similar
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
16
See, for example, the ‘Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study’ (RCES) carried out in 2008,
and the ‘International Comparative Study of Language, Mathematics, and Associated Factors’, also
delivered by UNESCO in 1998, which show Cuba’s appreciable lead over all other Latin American
countries. Following the same argument, other countries that provide state education in mostly
centralised and non-competitive ways, such as Finland, Canada and some Asian countries (China,
South Korea, Japan) also obtain significantly higher outcomes on international tests, such as PISA
30!
outcomes as other predominantly regulated and centralised countries, such as

Mexico, Costa Rica, and Uruguay17.
Chile’s case has been studied in particular as an open enrolment scheme that has
functioned for over thirty years. There are various pieces of research that compare
private subsidised school pupil learning performance with that of public-municipal
schools, mainly based on national test (SIMCE18) analyses. To date, the research
evidence has been contradictory and there is no clear conclusion that school
competition and privatisation are beneficial. So, for example, Gallego (2002, 2006)
and Sapelli and Vial (2002, 2005) argue that the private subsidised sector obtains
substantially better results in comparison to the public sector, and in a more efficient
manner. The researchers point out that this is because privately subsidised schools
have more direct incentives to compete for funds, whereas municipalities financially
support public schools in the case of enrolment decrease.
On the other hand, a number of studies, such as those conducted by Bellei (2007),
Carnoy and McEwan (2003), Contreras, Bustos, and Sepúlveda (2007), Elaqua
(2009), Hsieh and Urquiola (2003), and Mizala and Romaguera (1998), conclude that
there is very little or no significant evidence that the private sector performs better
than the public sector19. These studies also demonstrate that higher test outcomes in
the private sector are due mainly to the flow of pupils with higher cultural capital to
the private sector and to pupil selection. Moreover, Hsieh and Urquiola (2003) show
that a higher percentage of private sector schools within local areas drives public
school results downwards rather that upwards. Although, in recent years, both public
and privately subsidised schools have improved significantly in national and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Program for International Student Assessment) and TIMMS (Trends in International Mathematics
and Science Study), in comparison with most other countries.
17
See RCES (2008), and PISA (2006, 2009). Although in the PISA reading test (2009), Chile had a
significant advantage over the other assessed Latin American countries.
18
Stands for System for Measuring the Quality of Education (Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la
Educación)
19
Some pieces of research find a slightly positive school quality enhancement in private schools, but
limited to particular cases, as in Catholic schools in highly concentrated urban locations (McEwan and
Carnoy, 2000) and non-profit private schools and conglomerated private schools (Elaqua, 2009).
Meanwhile, McEwan and Carnoy (2000) find less effective results among non-religious private
schools as compared to public schools. Mizala, Romaguera, Ostoic (2004) find that public schools are
more effective than private subsidised schools which attract pupils from diminished socio-economic
backgrounds; yet the opposite occurs among schools with middle-upper social intake.
31!
international tests,20 it is argued that this is due to state support and assistance rather
than market competition.
Beyond the statistical analysis of learning outcomes, core research questions arise
among educational research policy, referring to: how schools respond to parental
choice and public rankings?; what kinds of practices are commonly triggered?; and,
are schools challenged to improve the quality of teaching and learning?. An
illuminating concept among this literature is the notion of living markets, developed
by sociologically informed researchers such as Gewirtz et al. (1995), and later on by
Lauder and Hughes, et al. (1999). This concept suggests that markets do not function
in predefined ways according to neoclassical dogmas. Markets are socially,
economically, politically, and even emotionally imbricated in the social space in
which they take place. Therefore, it is fundamental to study in concrete and
comprehensive ways how educational markets work in practice.
Lubienski (2009, 2006, 2003b), focussing especially on the US, concludes that
schools are not responding to incentives based on competition, as expected. Rather
than innovating within classrooms, schools are reinforcing traditional and uniform
practices. Changes are mainly found in marketing and management strategies, but
not in improving teaching and learning processes. Moreover, schools fear innovation
because of the risk of diminishing enrolment. Surprisingly, innovation and
diversification occur when government intervention takes place, i.e. not through
competition and choice. In the words of the author:
Based on evidence reviewed in this analysis, it appears that there is no

direct causal relationship between leveraging quasi-market mechanisms
of choice and competition in education and inducing educational
innovation in the classroom. In fact, the very causal direction is in
question in view of the fact that government intervention, rather than
market forces, has often led to pedagogical and curricular innovation.
(Lubienski, 2009, p.45)
In-depth qualitative research and mixed methods research with a focus on

institutional practices has provided particularly comprehensive evidence of what
happens ‘inside schools’ within a competitive-based schema. For instance, extensive
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20
SIMCE (2010, 2011), PISA reading test (2006, 2009).
32!
and insightful research carried out by Gewirtz et al. (1995) studied three continuous
competitive areas in London, including data from parents, LEAs and fourteen
schools. One of the main findings is that schools in the research were transforming
the ‘institutional ethos’, moving towards an entrepreneurial culture; although these
changes were not free of dilemmas for staff. This piece of research, together with
other in-depth English studies such as Gewirtz (1996, 1998, 2002) and a longitudinal
study21 (Bagley, 2006; Woods et al., 1998), also show a privileging of academic-
traditional pedagogic regimes and the reinforcement of authoritarian styles of
teaching and management, giving less prominence to personal and social care. In
Gewirtz’s (2002) words, schools are adopting: “a more utilitarian, exam–oriented
approach to teaching, with less emphasis on responding to the interests of the
children, the cultivation of relationships and the process of learning, and more
emphasis on learning outcomes” (p.81, original emphasis). Consequently, school
aims and curriculum are narrowed down, oriented to attain state targets and increase
performance outcomes22.
Researchers examining school responses to the American accountability policy ‘No

Child Left Behind’ converge with similar results. An extensive research project
conducted a survey and case studies in three states23, aiming to explore teachers’
views and classroom practices (Hamilton and Stecher, 2006; Hamilton, et al., 2007).
The authors indicate that testing policies produce particular positive responses, such
as increased focus on student achievement, monitoring progress on learning and
curriculum alignment with national standards. Nonetheless, it is found that these
practices are intertwined with ‘undesired effects’. Teachers, in order to increase
examination scores, reallocate time and resources, realign curriculum priorities,
coach students in test-taking skills, and also cheat.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21
The first research conducted by Woods et al. (1998) was based on school and parent responses in
three local markets over three years. Ten years later, this research was followed-up by further
research, by Bagley (2006), in one of the three market areas.
22
Gewirtz (1996) notes that a traditional approach is not only market-generated, but as she says
“welfarism did enable pockets of progressivism to develop and thrive (…) what our evidence does
indicate, however, is that post-welfarist structures and discourses have produced a climate which is
extremely hostile to progressivism” (p.19).
23
California, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
33!
Other researchers claim that these accountability policies have triggered in limited
cases positive effects; meanwhile ‘teaching to the test’ methods has been an extended
response (see for example, Firestone, Schorr, and Monfils, 2004; Linn, 2000;
Looney, 2009; Popham, 2002; Menken, 2006; Stecher, 2002). Test examinations
tend to dominate daily teacher and student practices (especially in schools attending
poor communities), leaving aside more progressive and creative teaching (Firestone
et al., 2004). Hence, for instance, teachers increasingly employ textbook-driven
methods, drilling exercises, rote learning, and frequent assessments similar to
standard examination formats, along with paying less attention to non-assessed
subjects. From a similar stance, Darling-Hammond (2004, 2007) has critically
analysed NCLB policy, arguing that top-down curriculum prescriptions and high
stakes testing are inappropriate for attending pupil diversity. On the contrary, rather
than standardised measures and approaches, the author suggests that multiple paths
to learning and local criteria must be considered.
Additionally, while ‘rising standards for all’ has justified the device of accountability
policies, studies have shown harmful effects among students, such as low
development of superior order skills (e.g. critical thinking, problem-solving), and a
prevalence of short-term and superficial learning (Black and William, 1998; William,
Lee, Harrison, and Black, 2004). Also, research shows evidence that, a ‘testing
atmosphere’ generates pupils’ stress, anxiety, learning de-motivation and low self-
esteem, particularly for low-achieving students (Cizek and Burg, 2005; Harlen and
Deakin-Crick, 2003; McDonald, 2001). Besides, it is important to notice that test
results should be interpreted cautiously as the expansion of ‘teaching to the test’
methods (and other strategies such as cheating), have led to score inflation, reducing
tests’ validity and distorting results and interpretations (Koretz, 2005).
Another identified policy effect, referring to market-based schemes, is that schools

spend more time, energy and money on promotional and marketing activities (see for
example Gewirtz et al., 1995; Gewirtz, 2002; Lubienski, 2006, 2009; Woods et al.
1998). Furthermore, Bagley (2006) shows that these efforts become more intense and
sophisticated over time, with a more receptive response to parents, yet with a
34!
stronger ‘consumerist style’.24 Subsequently, rather than concentrating on substantive

teaching curriculum changes, schools have intensified their focus on school
reputation, image and use of symbols, such as performance results, school uniform,
the school façade, pupil behaviour (particularly outside the school building), and
school marketing materials, such as brochures and web pages.
Ball (2006) suggests that this market atmosphere “encourages organisations to

become more and more concerned with their style, their image, their semiotics, with
the way things are presented rather than with the way they actually work” (p.12).
This ‘semiotics shift’ cannot be reduced to adding more school propaganda. These
shifting efforts and desires profoundly change head teachers and teachers’ lives and
the way they understand and constitute themselves. It involves a concern with
calculating and investing in easy and visible targets, practising a ‘quick-fix
mentality’, as Gewirtz (2002) notes, while paying less attention to real work (e.g.
pupil needs, teachers’ pedagogical questioning, misbehaviour concerns) and to long-
term aims.
Scholars also point out that the market environment exacerbates differences between
schools on the basis of pupils’ class, race and ethnicity, but does not encourage
diversity in terms of student intake, curriculum or pedagogy. As Whitty et al. (1998)
claim, these policies reinforce “a vertical hierarchy of schooling types rather than
producing the promised horizontal diversity” (p.42). What predominates is not
pedagogical divergences, but class, race, and test result differences, based on a
homogenising curriculum and comparative evaluations on a one-dimensional scale.
Basing his evidence on an analysis of school marketing materials in two US urban
areas, Lubienski (2003a) finds that schools employ subtle symbolic forms of
institutional differentiation, targeting more ‘capable’ students coming from middle-
class families.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
24
The study, carried out in England, shows that school staff are being more welcoming and attentive
to families in general, and are more responsive to parental concerns such as safety and transport.
However, it is argued that these are formal or superficial changes rather than substantive ones.
35!
As in the UK context, other pieces of research show that schools marketing strategies
are embracing elite, traditional and middle class symbols, although mixed in hybrid
ways with a ‘modern’ image and with a welfarist caring appearance (Gewirtz et al.
1995; Woods et al., 1998, Bagley, 2006). Bowe et al. (1994) and Gewirtz et al.
(1995) find that these marketing strategies are an attempt to seduce and attract
parents25, rather than to inform them about relevant aspects, such as school
curriculum, teaching approaches, ethical codes and value-added effects. On the
whole, within a market-scheme model curriculum diversification and school
innovations are “too risky and costly”, as Lubienski (2006) argues. So schools
distinguish themselves through social class symbolic representations designed to
shape enrolment demographics into “a safer and more certain route to strengthening
their market position” (Idem, p.339).
The converging evidence outlined above refers to general policy effects that appear
in the literature. Nevertheless, it is vital to take into account that schools act and
experience educational markets in different ways. Diverse school responses are due
to within-institutional features, such as school history, organisational ethos, manager
and teacher perspectives and actions, internal conditions and resources, student social
class and ethnic intake, along with the school’s positioning in the marketplace in
terms of performance outcomes, reputation and enrolment figures (Ball and Maroy,
2009). Therefore, some institutions are more ‘colonised’ or ‘disciplined’ by market
rationales than others. Some have produced slight re-orientations and others more
far-reaching responses. Furthermore, institutions experiment with different degrees
of competition and pressure, which entails objective and subjective elements. Not all
schools are motivated or feel threatened by the market-performance environment in
the same way.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
25
! Messages and signs are frequently confusing, overloaded and obscure; drawing on Baudrillard,
“detached from the object of consumption” (Bowe et al., 1994, p.42).!!
36!
In a more detailed analysis, Maroy (2004, 2008) and van Zanten (2009), based on a
comparative European study26, identify four types of prevailing ‘logics of action’,
referring to different school responses to market competition (see Table 1). These
logics are influenced by internal school culture, the institutional hierarchical position,
and professionals’ agency. First, according to the authors, those popular schools,
mostly oversubscribed, with a stable positioning, tend to function as passive
‘rentiers’. They usually offer more traditional curricular provision, strongly focused
on preserving high academic results and strict discipline, i.e. they rarely deliver
innovative strategies. Additionally, as these schools enjoy a high reputation and are
sure of being fully subscribed, they employ few or no promotional strategies.
Second, those schools positively positioned, but with unstable enrolment figures,
usually follow an active and offensive ‘entrepreneur logic of action’. These schools
develop more aggressive marketing strategies and offer an attractive curriculum for
middle-class parents (e.g. international curriculum, bilingualism, specialisation in a
subject, such as advanced music or arts), and make efforts to recruit pupils with
higher cultural capital.
Third, intermediate or low performing schools with unstable enrolments, serving a

more socially and ethnically mixed composition group, are identified as employing
‘defensive mobilisation’ logics. This type of institution has less margin to compete,
and tends to emphasise security and discipline, attempting to recruit ‘well-behaved’
students, with parents involved in their education. Also, these schools tend to place
emphasis upon school curriculum ‘diversity’ (with attractive offers) and provide
inner-school pupil ability grouping, as a strategy to attract middle-class families to a
socially mixed student body.
Lastly, low performing schools, with limited resources and stagnant enrolment, have
a prevailing logic of action called ‘adaptive’. Within these schools, it is usual to find
low morale and a sense of resignation (although this is variable). Staff mostly put
effort into resolving daily conflicts and maintaining social peace (‘therapeutic
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
26
! The countries studied are: England (London), Belgium (French-speaking), France, Hungary and
Portugal (Lisbon). The research studies the articulations among state and local policy regulations,
school response in local settings, and inter-organisational regulations. The study entails surveys and
other secondary quantitative data analysis and 14 case studies.!!
37!
approach’), and give greater significance to welfare, pastoral care, and equity27,
paying less attention to academic aims.
Table 1: School leading orientations towards market competition

Closed and stable competition Open and unstable competition
High/ Rentiers: traditional and academic- Entrepreneurial: aggressive
intermediate oriented curriculum, strict promotion, curriculum
hierarchical discipline, little or no marketing distinction, pupil social targeting
position
Intermediate/ Adaptive: focus on social conflicts, Defensive mobilisation: pupil
low hierarchical humanitarian ethics, feeling of ability grouping, attractive
position resignation, less attention to courses, recruit ‘well-behaved’
academic aims pupils, emphasis on security and
discipline
Source: Elaboration based on the work of Maroy (2008), van Zanten (2009)
In sum, among the reviewed literature, there is no concluding evidence to prove the
positive effects of educational markets among quality and diversity school provision.
Quantitative research looking at learning performance, based on test outcome
analysis, yields contradictory findings and provides little evidence of positive results.
Additionally, literature focused on school practices triggered by market and
accountability settings converges on similar school effects. Whilst there may be
particular positive results, such as more parental responsiveness or higher
expectations of pupils’ academic learning, these are in general limited results.
Meanwhile, there is a substantial body of research that identifies problematic
consequences, such as an increase of curriculum uniformity, academic and traditional
pedagogical approaches, employment of ‘teaching to the test’, major investment in
school image, reputation and on quick and visible solutions (instead of substantive,
long-term changes). However, these effects vary, and schools develop different
levels and degrees of responsiveness and efforts at competition depending on their
positioning in the market place, together with other inner school features.
3.2. Social exclusion and segregation

Education markets are based on a competitive rationale, which accepts the existence
of a hierarchical field and requires these differences in order to function. Ball (1994)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
27
The study suggests that, within countries, it is possible to identify dominant logics of action. For
example, in England the ‘entrepreneurial’ logic is more dominant, while in France and Hungary, the
prevailing logic is ‘defensive mobilisation’ delivering strategies of internal pupil segregation.
38!
critically observes that: “the implementation of market reforms in education is

essentially a class strategy which has as one of its major effects the reproduction of
relative social class (and ethnic) advantages and disadvantages” (p.103, also see Ball,
2003). As the author argues, it is a system that is made up of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’
and can function despite a high number of excluded. In the reviewed literature, one
of the most problematic issues regarding market-driven solutions is that these
reinforce social stratification and enlarge inequalities. There is an extensive amount
of international research that testifies to these effects; see for instance Carnoy (1999,
2002), Dupriez and Dumay (2006), Fiske and Ladd (2000), Lauder and Hughes et al.
(1999), Waslander et al. (2010), Whitty et al. (1998)28. Data from Chile, particularly,
shows how an open enrolment schema, with a co-payment funding policy, has
resulted in highly socially segregated schooling, even more so than in housing
segregation (Valenzuela, Bellei, and de los Ríos, 2009).
Parental choice and privatisation are a core part of the market mechanism that
increases social segregation. There is a significant body of research (mostly
influenced by Pierre Bourdieu), coming from England (e.g. Ball, 2003; Bowe, Ball,
Gewirtz, 1994; Reay, Croizer, James, 2011; Vincent and Ball, 2006), France (van
Zanten, 2003, 2005a), and New Zealand (Lauder and Hughes et al., 1999), which
challenges the neoliberal notion that parents always act as self-interested rational
consumers, fully informed, and demanding a neutral notion of ‘educational quality’,
that will lead to greater freedom and equality. Recent studies in Argentina and Chile
also reach similar conclusions (Elacqua, Schneider, Buckley, 2006; Raczynski and
Hernández, 2012; Veleda, 2007).
On the whole, researchers have shown that parental choice is a complex and multi-
dimensional process, powerfully linked to family class identity, social capital, and
historical dispositions. Ball (2003) argues that this market setting provides new
advantages for middle (and upper) class families in order to maximise their
advantages, reassuring social reproduction. For these more privileged families,
particularly, school choice entails an exercise of considering with whom parents wish
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
28
Although this is not a closed debate, for instance, Gorard, Fitz, Taylor (2003), based on an extensive
longitudinal study in England and Wales, argue that since the Reform Act of 1988, social segregation
has declined.
39!
their child to relate, shaping issues of class distinction and social closure. Hence,
school reputation and image is powerfully formed by pupils’ social class and
ethnicity, as families’ educational demands are strongly class-oriented, and not
(solely) quality-oriented, what Ball describes as a “hidden hand of class thinking”
(p.146).
On the issue of school provision, as mentioned already, institutions attempt to shape

their student social intake towards those with school-involved, middle class parents
and excluding ‘disruptive’ and less ‘capable’ pupils coming from more
underprivileged backgrounds. This occurs in subtle ways, in spite of non-pupil
selection policies, as in England and France (Ball, Maguire, and Macrae, 1998; West,
Ingram, and Hind, 2006; van Zanten, 2009). This has produced ‘pupil
commodification’, as Gewirtz et al. (1995) note. Rather than being seen as subjects
of needs, interests and potentials, children are valued, recruited, selected and
excluded according to their ability to produce positive school outcomes. As Gewirtz
et al. write: “The emphasis seems increasingly to be not on what the school can do
for the child but on what the child can do for the school” (p.176).
In effect, educational markets, based on a competitive schema with a standardised

parameter, penalise schools that receive mixed ability pupils, and award those that
exercise selective practices (‘cream skimming’). As Lauder and Hughes et al. (1999)
document, schools strategically target pupil social intake, using all the tools they
have at their reach. This practice turns out to be one of the most powerful
contemporary school improvement strategies. These selective schools guarantee, in a
more efficient and rapid manner, good test results and institutional reputations. On
the other hand, less popular schools attract the remaining, non-selected students. This
schema leads most disadvantaged schools into ‘spirals of decline’, as Levačić and
Woods (2002) show,29 growing weaker while they face financial losses and
experience increasing isolation.
Other pieces of research have shown that segregation not only occurs among schools,
but also inside schools. For example, Gewirtz (2002), and Broccolichi and van
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
29
Based on a longitudinal study of over 300 English secondary schools.
40!
Zanten (2000), referring to England and France respectively, indicate that mixed
ability grouping has diminished, replaced by pupil ability setting, along with courses
for ‘gifted and ‘talented pupils’. This segregatory strategy is used to concentrate
efforts on enhancing school test outcomes in a more focused and directive manner,
and as a way to attract middle class parents towards public schools with mixed social
intake.
In an ethnographic study within two London secondary schools, Gillborn and

Youdell (2000) critically analyse daily ‘practices of differentiation’. The authors find
that senior managers and teachers reproduce and intensify competition and selective
policies within the microsphere of the school. Students, for instance, are habitually
examined, sorted out, publicly ranked and labelled. These strategies are understood
as natural and necessary. The school orderings disproportionately place minority
groups and working class pupils in those groups classified as underachievers.
Additionally, the research provides evidence of unequal resource allocation in order
to boost school performance, strategically investing in those ‘borderline students’,
i.e. intermediate level achievers near the proficient score, while giving less attention
to those with learning difficulties (named as the ‘hopeless cases’)30. The authors
argue that these micro-policies of differentiations and labelling are experienced and
perceived by the students in stressful and even painful ways, yet youth also resist and
challenge them.
There are also significant findings suggesting that educational markets intensify
school hierarchies and performance inequities, linked to a growing phenomenon of
social and ethnic segmentation among schools. For instance, studies emerging from
the UK and New Zealand, such as Lauder, Kounali, Robinson, and Goldstein (2010),
Lupton (2005, 2006), Thrupp (1999), Thrupp and Lupton (2011a), Thrupp, Lauder,
and Robinson (2002), have aimed to examine the relationships between student
social and ethnic intake, and the school’s organisational life and learning outcomes.
These pieces of research provide evidence that pupils’ ethnic and social composition
offers a powerful explanation of differing institutional performance.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
30
These findings converge with other studies; for example, see Gewirtz et al. 1995; Hamilton et al.
2007; Levačić 2001; Woods et al. 1998.
41!
Schools serving mostly poor communities face a range of difficulties that are
significantly different from those schools found in more advantaged settings. The
nature of school environments and tasks vary in terms of, for example, learning and
behaviour problems, family involvement, teacher recruitment, dedication to
curriculum matters, time to plan and monitor, and fund-raising. Disadvantaged
schools are immersed in a much more unpredictable environment, with precarious
conditions, absorbed by complex and stressful difficulties. Meanwhile, advantaged
schools, with mostly middle-class pupils, count on parents’ cultural and economic
resources, and have privileged facilities for managing more efficient day-to-day
routines, controlling and reducing difficulties, and producing an overall supportive
academic culture.
The researchers argue that students’ social composition and school context in general
knit a complex and interactive relationship with school practices and subjectivities,
producing particular school outcomes. In a seminal study, Thrupp (1999) calls this
the ‘social mix effect’. Thrupp argues that students’ social and ethnic mix may
generate only small differences, but has a cumulative and therefore significant effect.
On the whole, this body of literature convincingly challenges the idea, proclaimed by
the School Effectiveness Theory, of a causal relationship between school practices
(leadership, management style, staff performance), and school outcomes. As Thrupp
states: “while student achievement may be school-based, it may nevertheless not be
school-caused” (p.33).
Other pieces of research using case studies, such as Carrasco (2010), Bunar (2010),
Gewirtz (2002), Reay (1998a), Woods and Levačić (2002), van Zanten (2002),
confirm these previous results, while exploring in more depth the effects of market
and accountability pressures. In general, it is found that schools that do not control
pupil intake, serving more mixed or underprivileged pupils, have greater limitations
for responding competitively, improving school attractiveness and implementing
changes. These institutions experience the impact of contextual influences and
market hierarchies, entailing accumulated learning and social problems, in addition
to poor market reputation and stigmatisation. Subsequently, it is shown that
disadvantaged schools especially suffer frustration and resignation, affecting both
students and staff.
42!
Lauder et al. (2010), based on a mixed method research in England (‘Hampshire

Research Primary Schools’ project), explores particular compositional effects on
school processes, school culture, and student progress. A key contribution of this
study is that the authors critically interrogate the apparent neutrality of school
classifications and judgements. They conclude that the effects of socio-economic
inequality are cumulative over time, and that there is also a small, yet significant
class-shaped compositional effect over pupils’ test outcomes, especially in reading.
Consequently, the official league tables of the UK Department for Schools, Children
and Families (based on the ‘contextual value-added model’) importantly vary from
the rankings resulting from the research model, which included class-based
composition variables. On the basis of the data, the authors claim that: “when these
two sets of data patterns are compared important questions are raised about the
reliability of the basis for official judgements about school performance” (p.60).
Therefore, the research provides new data that challenges assessment and labelling
policies, as well as the theory of ‘school effectiveness’.
Gewirtz (1998, 2002) also interrogates labelling policies, contrasting two

comprehensive London case studies. One school is classified as a ‘successful school’
–over-enrolled, performs well in league tables, and serves a socially mixed
community. The other school is assessed as a ‘failing school’– under-enrolled, serves
a poor community, and is near the bottom in league tables. Drawing on post-
structural theoretical notions, the author argues that schools are constituted through a
discursive fabrication of ‘success’ and ‘failure’, placing schools within a hierarchical
understanding, valuing them according to their ability to compete within markets and
show ‘favourable’ outcomes. Gewirtz argues that these are deep-seated effects of
market policy, which are internalised by school communities, creating an
understanding of the desirable and non-desirable school. In effect, in the case study
of the disadvantaged school, failing classifications produced low staff morale,
despite “offering very positive experiences, intellectually and socially, for many of
their students” (2002, p. 113).
In this manner, the author demonstrates the intricate and intimate connections
between school management, the socio-economic setting and prevailing discursive
understandings. This critical analysis takes account of the importance of student
43!
social mix, and of state classifications within a market context. School

classifications, according to the author, instead of neutrally judging school
management, produce the ‘successful’ and ‘failing’ school. In this way, Gewirtz
(2002) unsettles hegemonic school assessments and classifications, based on the
notion that ‘effective management’ leads towards ‘good results’. The author even
suggests that the opposite may occur; i.e. advantaged pupil intake and positive test
results, leads towards ‘good’ management and teaching. In the author’s words:
In fact, if the evidence presented here is representative (and obviously

more studies of this kind are needed) then it would appear to suggest
that the opposite is true: that school ‘success’ contributes to ‘good’
management and teaching. This is because schools deemed to be
successful are likely to attract a significant proportion –what Thrupp
(1998) refers to as a critical mass—of high attaining and undemanding
pupils, they are adequately resourced and can attract talented teachers.
As a result of these things, morale is relatively high and teachers can
focus their attention on developing imaginative curricula. In failing
schools, teachers and managers find that, in the words of one of our
informants, the agenda tends to get hijacked by behavioural and
resource-related issues. In addition, the students demand more of
teachers physically, emotionally and intellectually. As a result, morale
is likely to be low, relationships full of conflict and teachers left with
little energy and insufficient resources to develop appropriate and
imaginative schemes of work, classroom materials and pedagogical
practices (p.!113 − 114).
In sum, the reviewed findings evidence the intensification of social, ethnic and
academic segregation among and within schools. Schools placed within the market-
oriented scenario tend to sort out, select and exclude pupils as a core strategy for
competing. Yet, school functions and logics are polarised in a hierarchical field.
Whilst some schools carry out exclusionary practices within a challenging academic
environment, other schools are designated to serve diverse pupil social intake, and
the most underprivileged sectors of the population, with less academic emphasis. The
studies presented demonstrate the effects of social inequality among institutions and
open a debate about the unequal possibilities attending a school’s ability to improve
and compete within educational markets.
44!
Furthermore, scholars critically question the legitimacy of school assessment and

classification and the scope of schools’ responsibility for test results, taking into
account their social and ethnic composition. It is argued that market and
accountability policies have not only not reduced inequality, but have even produced
and intensified it.
3.3. Organisational school life and teachers

From the literature review emerges a third matter referring to the transformation of
school organisation, entailing the head’s role as manager, internal staff relationships,
and teachers’ professional autonomy. In general terms, diverse pieces of research
conclude that there is little evidence of more democratic relationships and
redistributed power resulting from market-oriented reforms. On the contrary,
scholars, such as Wrigley (2003), referring to the English system, point out that
policies of inspection, competition and public comparison are deeply undemocratic,
entailing teacher surveillance, low-trust culture and superficial school responses.
Ranson (2003) claims that these policies deny agency, i.e. professional autonomy,
creativity and community reflections and debates. In effect, the new discursive policy
stance rarely refers to teacher vocation, professional commitment and moral
responsibility. Consequently, new managerial reforms have profoundly transformed
school relationships and professionalism.
Gewirtz (1998, 2002) and Reay (1998b) study the micro-politics inside schools based
on four London comprehensive schools. These studies show diminishing
collaboration and socialisation within school communities, while individualism,
competition and fragmentation are enhanced among senior managers and teachers,
and among departments31. Staff relationships are predominantly vertical, with a
growing division between teachers and senior staff.
Gewirtz (1996) also explains that accountability and market regimes produce a
‘labour intensification’ and pressure schools to act quickly, in ‘responsive’ ways.
This scenario mitigates teachers’ collective reflection and participation, exacerbating
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
31
Bagley (2006) also argues that competition among schools has increased. In the UK under ‘New
Labour’, the author finds that, in spite of Third Way policies referring to school work as partnership
and collaboration, the evidence reveals an environment in which competition and rivalry has
intensified and continues to discursively predominate.
45!
instrumental thinking and the division of labour among senior managers and
teachers. Findings additionally demonstrate a shifting focus as school managers
emphasise administration and financial aspects, and focus less on learning and
teaching matters. Nonetheless, these are not straightforward changes. Gewirtz (2002)
refers specifically to the stress and dilemmas head teachers have to face, caught
between school’s social contexts (e.g. local demands, pupils’ needs, teachers’ views)
and having to respond to market, performative targets and bureaucratic pressures.
Additionally, studies have reported damaging effects on teacher identity and work
(see Ball, 2001, 2003c; Bullock and Thomas, 1997; Elliot, 2001; Fielding, 2001;
Glesson and Husband, 2001; Whitty, 2003). Reay (1998b) argues that teachers and
students are understood to be instruments for obtaining school targets, not as ends in
themselves. These policies reveal a profound mistrust towards teachers, as they
require a continuous external overseer. Subsequently, it is argued by various scholars
that these policies are leading towards de-skilling and loss of professional autonomy.
Woods and Jeffrey (2002) developed a profound study based on in-depth interviews
with English teachers and observations gleaned from national inspections (delivered
by Ofsted). The study concludes that policies of inspection and standardisation have
produced among teachers’ feelings of insecurity, a sense of powerlessness, and moral
decline, in addition to exhaustion, irritability and overwork. Moreover, the
researchers provide evidence that the ‘technologisation of teaching’ has fragmented
and weakened teachers’ identity and motivation. Teachers perceive that these
policies are leading towards a less creative job, reducing their skills, deteriorating
their vocation, and the attractiveness of the profession. Also, they state that a holistic
teaching approach, involving warm and caring relationships with pupils, were core
values tied to the meaning of their profession, yet they recognise that current
pressures have led to a less emotional, sensitive and empathetic practice. This
reconfiguration of teachers’ identity is described by the authors:
the teacher’s personal identity in the new order is partial, fragmented,

and inferior to that of the old in that teachers retain a sense of the ideal
self, but it is no longer in teaching. The personal identity of work has
become a situational one, designed to meet the instrumental purposes of
audit accountability. Teachers’ real selves are held in reserve, to be
realized in other situations outside school or in some different future
within (p.238).
46!
Ball (2001, 2003c) has confirmed similar findings and suggests that teachers’ selves
are divided and fragmented, producing anxiety, guilt and self-doubt, having to
fabricate themselves in order to perform successfully (see section 2 of this chapter).
Gewirtz (1996, 2002) also alleges that teacher culture and professionalism has
profoundly transformed within a post-welfare regime as they are subjugated and
inculcated into competitive individualism, experiencing a changing nature of labour
intensification. As the author explains: “what appears to be different in this post-
welfare era is the pattern and texture of intensification; that is the nature of the tasks
that are absorbing increased quantities of teacher time and emotional labour and the
climate of surveillance within which those tasks have to be carried out” (2002, p.8).
Research data shows that teachers in this setting encounter significant constraints and
dilemmas among local demands and priorities, performative targets, and personal
beliefs.
Hargreaves is an important author in the field, yet coming from another theoretical
stance, dedicated to ‘school improvement’ and ‘educational change’. His work,
referring mainly to the USA and Canada, strongly criticises ‘soulless standardisation’
reforms, as they push schools into ‘performing training sects’ (Hargreaves, 2003;
Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009). He argues that these policies are limiting schools’ to
produce collaborative reflection and thinking, and innovative projects. In this
manner, the author suggests that policies should put forth a ‘fourth way’ that aims for
the construction of ‘professional learning communities’.
Similarly, Darling-Hammond (2004, 2007) has criticised the No Child Left Behind
Act as it “mistakes measuring schools for fixing them” (2004, p.249). Contrary to
these policies, Darling-Hammond emphasises the need to limit testing data and
“encourage, not punish”, investing into the improvement of inner school conditions
and teachers’ knowledge and skills. She suggests that an external and ‘hierarchical
accountability’ logic should be exchanged for a ‘collective accountability’ rationale.
This shift entails to focus on school community work, assessments through peer and
community review, collaborative reflection and thinking, and building local
knowledge.
47!
All in all, market and accountability policies are transforming school life and the
teaching profession in complex and profound ways. Contrary to policy assumptions,
these policy formulae have not led to more empowered, creative and democratic
organisations. The literature provides evidence of diminishing collaborative work
and staff participation, along with an increase in the number of control systems and
competition within schools, and heavier workloads for managers and teachers.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that research results show a ‘space of
indeterminacy’, as Woods and Jeffery (2002) put it. School actors confront these
policies in different ways, employing reactions and strategies of resignation,
struggle, adjustment and negotiation, regarding personal ethics, school targets, and
management pressures. As Ball, Maguire, Braun, and Hoskins (2011) suggest, within
schools there is constant ‘policy work’, both creative and disciplinary.
3.4 Summary of policy effects

In short, research studying school performance outcomes (mostly quantitative) shows
unclear and contradictory policy effects concerning the improvement of pupils’
learning outcomes, while there are converging findings indicating increases in social
segregation and exclusion. Studies looking at within-school processes and changes
(qualitative and mixed method studies) still provide little evidence of positive
changes. For example, greater responsiveness towards parents, regular monitoring of
pupil learning, are identified in some research as favourable outcomes. Meanwhile,
there is a growing body of studies developed in different countries showing
problematic findings such as increasing curriculum uniformity and a renewal of
traditional approaches, larger educational inequalities and social segregation, and a
decrease in school collaboration and teacher autonomy and participation. Thus,
although accountability and market policies may produce particular contributions,
these are limited, while they entail a substantial cost for schooling and social justice.
Table 2 summarises the main research findings.
48!
Table 2: Effects of market and accountability policies

Educational quality Social justice Organisational school
life
- Inconclusive evidence of - Growing practices of - School managers place
increases in pupil’s test results. pupil selection and more focus on
- Higher expectations of pupils’ exclusion; i.e. increase administrative and
academic learning and habitual of social and academic financial issues, and less
monitoring of learning; yet other segregation among on pedagogical matters.
researchers indicate segmented schools. - Reduction of sociability
expectations. - Inner school and collaborative
- Focus on student performance segmentation, turn from reflection among schools
and academic results, leaving mixed ability grouping and communities; inner
aside pupils’ needs, interests and to pupil setting. competition and
pastoral care. - Resource emphasis on individualism.
- ‘Teaching to the test’; decline of more capable pupils or - Reinforcement of
creative and progressive teaching, ‘borderline pupils’. system of audit and
curriculum narrowed to assessed - Professional dilemmas control, based on vertical
subjects. among integrationist – relationships, surveillance
- Little or no evidence of exclusivist ethics. and low trust culture; less
innovation and diversity - Polarisation in school participative decision-
enhancement, but of social class ethos, ‘instrumental’ making.
recruitment. and ‘expressive’ logics, - Teacher vocational
- Investment in marketing and tied to a school's market weakening, identity
visible and rapid results, rather positioning fragmentation,
than substantive, long-term - Unpopular schools: demoralisation.
changes. ‘spiral of decline’, low - ‘Labour intensification’,
- Culture of ‘performativity’, morale, stigmatisation, stress, anxiety, frustration.
‘inauthenticity’, prevalence of an resignation. - Teacher insecurity and
instrumental/calculative rationale. self-doubt; de-skilling and
- More openness towards parent loss of professional
demands, although mostly autonomy.
referring to superficial changes.
It is noteworthy that, although among the reviewed literature there are converging
results, the degrees and kinds of criticism vary, as do the understanding and scope of
school change. There is a body of literature that is mainly concerned with
standardisation and accountability policies, coming mostly from the USA. From this
perspective, testing information and national standards are necessary, yet they must
be limited in order to support schools, not to sanction them. Scholars have argued
that testing policies produces ‘undesired effects’ as teachers respond differently to
them. Hence, these policies must be maintained, but the conditions, regulations and
incentives must change in order to minimise the negative consequences (e.g. Koretz,
2005; Looney, 2009; Hamilton et al., 2002).
49!
This body of literature, related to ‘school improvement’ approach, critically analyses

the effects of standardisation and accountability policies, and proposes future
directions, emphasising on the need to change schools’ ethos and move towards
‘professional learning communities’ and collaborative reflection and thinking (e.g.
Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2004, 2007). Although market
constraints, policy discourses and pupils’ social and ethnic compositional effects
might be considered from this perspective, these are not core issues involved when
thinking about the possibilities and limits of school change and improvement. It is
important to point out that, unlike a critical policy stance, this perspective, has a
theoretical understanding that school actors are able to overcome policy frameworks
and social conditionings, and act more or less independently of them.
From a critical policy stance, authors such as Apple (2002, 2007), Ball (1998, 2006),
Gewirtz (2002), Lauder and Hughes et al. (1999), Thrupp and Lupton (2011a),
Maroy (2004), suggest a much more intimate and embedded relationship among
prevailing neoliberal discourses and regulations, schools’ unequal market
positioning, and pupils’ social class composition. Therefore, the understanding of the
relationship between social structure and agency differs. A central debate from this
stance is not about how to limit or amend policy incentives and testing schemes, or
about how to enhance school leadership and teachers’ collaborative thinking. The
debate is about the market rationale that underpins today’s dominant educational
model and shapes(?) daily practices in unequal ways, strongly interconnected with
students’ social intake.
Both perspectives (‘school improvement’ and critical policy research) differ from
scholars who have advocated market solutions (e.g. Chubb and Moe, 1990; Tooley,
1996, 2000), interrogating neoliberal suppositions and providing critical evidence of
policies effects. However, from a critical policy stance, I have pointed out that school
change is complex and restricted. Market and accountability policy combinations are
shaping the performing school, as managers and teachers must continuously
compete, market and perform ‘successfully’. The new policy model places schools
within a competitive schema, altering school life, and the teaching profession in
profound ways. This model has enhanced instrumental values such as efficiency,
performance evidence and individual competition, while welfare and social justice
50!
and participatory democracy are marginalised. Moreover, market and accountability

reforms deepen32 a schooling system of differentiation, entailing policies of school
comparison, ranking and labelling.
From this stance, a more radical critique appears. These policies have not only failed
to improve the educational system, but they also create and reinforce social injustice
within the education system. As Thrupp and Hursh (2006) point out: “not only do
[these reforms] divert teaching attention from more fundamental solutions, they are
themselves deeply damaging. They are very much part of the problem, rather than of
any solution” (p. 653). Therefore, the current market education system does not need
more regulations, a correction of school incentives or more school support; it
requires a more radical change in order to move towards comprehensive and ‘good
quality’ education.
4. Chile: Research Setting and Problem
Chile is internationally praised for having stable macro-economic data, progressive

socio-economic growth and a successful worldwide market insertion33. In fact,
Chile’s GNP has tripled since the beginning of the 1990s and poverty has been
reduced from over 40% in 1989 to 15% in 2010 (CASEN, 2010). Nonetheless, as
Solimano and Torche (2008) argue, this growth has come with increasing wealth
concentration, creating one of the greatest inequities in the world; with a 0.50 in the
Gini Index34.
During Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990), neoliberal policies were

extensively applied35; policies which continue to be largely maintained and even
deepened. So Chile’s economic progress has developed amidst a strongly deregulated
economy, with lax labour and environmental regulations, in addition to a fragile
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
32
This competitive and hierarchical ethos is not exclusively an effect of neoliberal policies, but is a
component of a longer history of schooling (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990; Dubet, 2004). Hence, I do
not claim that this is an absolutely novel rationale for schools, but I do maintain that current market
and accountability policies intensify and re-new this kind of thinking.
33
Although mainly based on the exportation of raw goods.
34
While the average among OECD countries is 0.31 (OECD, 2011).
35
These reforms were influenced by intellectuals of the University of Chicago and particularly by
Milton Friedman’s ideas. Within the government, there was a group of economics graduates from this
University, nicknamed the ‘Chicago Boys’, who were the main drivers of these reforms.
51!
social protection system (including housing, education, health and pensions). After
the end of the military regime, Chile gradually consolidated a democratic system, yet
with limitations in terms of political representation, together with monopolisation of
the media, mainly owned by two right-wing corporations. Meanwhile, the
population, agitated by significant social inequities, is becoming increasingly aware
and demanding of their civil and political rights.
The educational model in Chile has an open market system based on a voucher
scheme and large participation by the private sector. In recent years an accountability
regime has been configured, founded over a former education market scheme;
therefore moving towards a post-welfare scheme. As it will be elaborated, national
test results have been significantly unequal depending on students’ social
backgrounds. Students and civil society have not been indifferent to these problems.
Massive protests against market deregulation, poor educational quality and evident
inequities, have occurred during 2006-2007, and in 2011-201236. In this last section
of the chapter, a brief contextualisation of the Chilean setting is presented and later
on the research aims are defined.
4.1. The Chilean context: A historical view

In 1981, in the context of a repressive dictatorship, radical neoliberal reform changed
the educational system. The main policies of this reform were to enhance parental
choice37 and school privatisation, and install a competitive scheme based on a per-
student attendance funding for both public and private schools. Under this model,
private for-profit organisations were introduced into the educational system and were
allowed to freely open-up schools, with almost no state regulation. Also, a
decentralisation process was implemented, transferring the responsibility to manage
public schools from the Ministry of Education to municipalities. In addition, a
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
36
See: Falabella (2008); García-Huidobro (2007), Cabalín (2012).
37
It is important to bear in mind that Chile has a long history of parental choice and private education.
At the beginning of the 19th century, private education developed alongside public education. This
kind of education was mainly provided by religious institutions, although also secular organisations
were also involved (Soto Roa, 2000). In effect, ‘Freedom to provide education’ was officially
recognised in the Constitutional Reform of 1874. Yet the novel change of the 1981 reform was that it
created incentives for expanding private education, based on the logic of competition.
52!
national test (PER-SIMCE38) was created for assessing ‘educational quality’ by

measuring students’ learning outcomes. Meanwhile, school co-payment39 (i.e. mixed
financial formula with state subsidises and family fees) began to function, yet with
limitations. In effect, it wasn’t until 1993 (under democracy) that family payment
was made more flexible and attractive to educational entrepreneurs, allowing private-
subsidised schools and secondary public schools to charge parental fees with higher
price caps. Overall, the main purpose of this reform was to reduce state spending,
encourage private sector participation and liberate the state from social
responsibilities.
With the return of democracy, a centre-left coalition40 named ‘Concertación’,

governed from 1990 to 2010, shaping a new policy stage. Under this government
coalition, the educational market scheme was preserved, while the state assumed a
greater role, entailing higher investment and intervention. Influential policy-makers
of that period, Cox and García-Huidobro (1999), argued that the policy approach was
a mixed scheme that maintained competition and decentralisation elements,
combined with novel policies, entailing an active and supportive state, aiming
towards ‘educational quality and equality’, delivering compensatory measures and
emphasising pedagogical and curriculum aspects. As the policy-makers note:
This [reform] framework combines the criteria of decentralisation and

competition for resources, with the criteria of state initiative and
positive discrimination, employing quality and equality educational
improvement programmes, the introduction of new instruments for
information of public programs and institutions’ assessments, and
opening schools to supportive networks, especially universities and
corporations. (Cox and García Huidobro, 1999, p.26)
Initial policies in the 1990s placed emphasis on recovering a strongly deteriorated

system and gradually improving teacher salaries and labour conditions, after a period
of dramatic fiscal reductions. During this decade, new policies were marked by both
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
38
The first test was called PER (Programa de Evaluación del Rendimiento), which was later
transformed into the SIMCE test (Sistema de Medicación de la Calidad de la Educación), used until
now.
39
Called Financiamiento Compartido
40
The parties integrated within the coalition are: The Christian Democratic Party (Democracia
Cristiana), The Social Democratic-Radical Party (Partido Radical Social Demócrata), Partido por la
Democracia (Party for Democracy), and The Socialist Party (Partido Socialista).
53!
universal policies and compensatory measures. A ‘School Quality Improvement

programme’ (called MECE Program41), for primary, secondary and rural schools was
delivered, financed mainly by the World Bank. These programmes included
supplying educational equipment (textbooks, computers, and didactic materials),
improving school infrastructure and delivering national teacher training programmes.
Additionally, a national curriculum reform was delivered and the implementation of
the ‘Full School Day’ (i.e. longer day schedule and lunch provision). Positive
discrimination initiatives were also carried out, providing external support
particularly to the poorest and most disadvantaged schools.42 Another significant
policy was the creation of a teacher labour law (Estatuto Docente, 1992), giving a
special regulation to teacher labour conditions (salary, bonuses, working hours).43
Along with this change, the Teachers’ Union recovered their right to nationally
negotiate a minimum wage and other labour conditions.
From the end of the 1990s and increasingly from 2000, a new policy shift occurred
towards an accountability regime, led by the Concertación government. National
standards and public assessments tied to incentives commenced, accompanied by a
managerial discourse, enhancing ‘school autonomy’ and ‘head teacher leadership’,
results-based management, and making head teachers and teachers accountable for
measured outcomes. A first key initiative, in 1996, was to publish annual SIMCE44
test results in the media and on the internet. In the same period, regional competitive
school assessment began, (SNED),45 linked to a school collective salary bonus,
awarding ‘academic excellence’.
From 2000 onwards, schools began to be classified mainly according to test results.
Those schools with failing classifications received external support from the Ministry
of Education or private organisations, and were pushed to set outcomes targets and to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
41
Educational Quality and Equality Improvement Programme; Mejoramiento de la Calidad y de la
Equidad de la Educación.
42
The main programme was ‘Programa 900 Escuelas’ (P900), dedicated to providing support to the
900 most disadvantaged schools in the country.
43
This law has been particularly debated because it confers public teachers with labour stability,
hindering dismissals, and also because it establishes an automatic salary raise every three years (i.e.
not linked to performance).
44
SIMCE is based on a census methodology and annually measures 4th graders (nine years old), and
every two years 8th graders (thirteen years old), and 11th graders (sixteen years old) in Mathematics,
Language and Sciences subjects.
45
Performance Assessment System; Sistema de Evaluación del Desempeño
54!
deliver annual public accounts of school results.46 Additionally, a set of national

standards was established called the ‘Framework of the good school management’
and the ‘Framework of the good teaching’,47 inspired by Effective School Leadership
Theory. These standards functioned as the basis for establishing the ‘School
Management Quality Assurance System’ (SACGE48) and the national assessment for
all public teachers (initiated in 2004). This teachers’ assessment system is tied to an
extra payment for ‘outstanding teachers’ and can also lead to dismissal due to
regularly low performance.
Since 2008, a new financial schema has been designed, called ‘Educational
Preferential Subsidy’ (SEP),49 which involves a higher subsidy per student that is
designated specifically for socially disadvantaged children. This policy reinforces
existing accountability measures as school classification and target setting, and
threatens to close schools with systematically low results. Additionally, the recent
opening of a new institutional school inspection system (‘Quality Agency’ and
Superintendence) will consolidate a new post-welfare regime within the Chilean
educational system. Data for this thesis was collected in 2007 (§3), mapping the
initial effects of this new era, hence also identifying important future research
questions.
4.2. The main results of the education model

In this section, key results are presented with reference to changes of school
provision, national test outcomes, and social segregation. In the first place, past
reforms have led to a dramatic decrease in public education. While in 1981 the public
sector made up 78% of student enrolment, in 2010 this percentage was reduced to
42.3%. Therefore, the private sector currently covers more than half of school
enrolment.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
46
This policy commenced with an initiative by the Metropolitan Region, and was later expanded
throughout the whole country. These programmes included ‘Escuelas Criticas’ and ‘Liceos
Prioritarios’.
47
Marco para la Buena Dirección; Marco para la Buena Enseñanza
48
Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Gestión Escolar; this instrument is used as a basis
for SEP improvement plans.
49
Subvención Educacional Preferencial
55!
Table 3: Enrolment distribution among school providers from 1981 to 2008

School provision/ Public schools Private subsidised Private non
Year schools subsidised schools
1981 78% 15.1% 6.9%
1990 59.7% 31.1% 6.7%
2001 53.9% 37.9% 8.2%
2010 42.3% 50.5% 7.2%
Source: Elaqua (2008); Statistical Index 2001 – 2010, Ministry of Education.
According to a study conducted by Elaqua (2008), most of the private subsidised

schools are owned by for-profit organisations. Among all Chilean schools, only 9.1%
are non-profit private schools, versus 30% for-profit schools. Moreover, between
1990 and 2008 for-profit schools grew by 113%. In addition, Ministry of Education
statistics (2010) indicate that 58.9% of private-subsidised schools charge parental
fees. In effect, 4.2% of the GNP corresponds to private investment in education, and
only 2.7% to public investment, evidencing significant financing by families
themselves (MINEDUC, 2008). Overall, the increase of the private sector and the co-
payment formula entails a loss of comprehensive and inclusive education, impacting
upon social segregation, as is shown in the following chart.
Table 4: School enrolment distribution among social-economic groups in 2010

Public schools Private subsidised Private non-
schools subsidised schools
Low 18.3% 4.9% 0.0%
Middle-Low 55.2% 16.3% 0.0%
Middle 23.8% 47.9% 0.0%
Upper-middle 2.6% 29.7% 3.8%
High 0% 1.2% 96.1%
Source: Enrolment 2010, SIMCE 4to grade data, SIMCE and Ministry of Education
According to the data, the public system serves mainly low and low-middle class
children (73.5%), while private-subsidised schools serve mostly middle and middle-
upper class students (77.9%), and the private non-subsidised sector serves upper-
class pupils (96.1%). Recent studies show the presence of social segregation among
schools and growing social homogenisation within schools, caused by middle-class
flow from the public sector to the private and the use of pupil selection (Bellei, 2007;
Contreras et al., 2007; Gonzalez, Mizala, and Romaguera, 2004; Hsieh and Urquiola,
2006; McEwan, Urquiola, and Vegas, 2008). The study of Valenzuela, Bellei, and de
56!
los Ríos (2009) applies the Duncan index of segregation50 to Chile, demonstrating
that socio-economic segregation has steadily been increasing over the last decade
(1999-2008), resulting in a high level of social segregation fluctuating between 0.50
and 0.54 (depending on the school grades). Dupriez (2010), using PISA data (2006),
shows that out of 54 countries Chile ranks as the most socially segregated system
(56.3%), and 8th in terms of academic segregation (53%). Valenzuela et al. (2009)
conclude that social segregation is caused by larger private provision, parental fees
and residential segregation. The variables are ordered according to the degree of their
effect so, importantly, the study shows that privatisation and co-payment policies
have produced a greater segregation effect, over residential segregation.
Lastly, it is important to note that student enrolment has increased, obtaining over
93.2% in primary education and over 70.7% in secondary education. Drop-out rates
have diminished, especially amongst the poorest who were historically excluded
from the education system (CASEN, 2009). During the 1990s and 2000s, national
test results have reached a plateau51, although in recent years there has been a rise
among both public and private-subsidised schools (not the case for private non-
subsidised schools). Additionally, PISA results in 2006 and 2009 showed significant
increases, particularly in languages where the best results of all Latin American
countries were obtained. However, this increase has come together with
accountability policies and the growing importance of test results. Hence, this rise
might be attributable to an increase in ‘teaching to the test’ methods, and not owing
to quality enhancement.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
50
This index estimates the percentage of the 30% most disadvantaged pupils that would be required to
move to other schools in order to achieve a homogeneous distribution among all schools. In this scale
0 is the non-existence of segregation and 1 is the maximum level of segregation.
51
See Bellei (2003)
57!
Figure 2
Source: Statistical Compendium 2002 – 2011 (DEMRE)
In spite of the score improvement of recent years, it is important to notice the

significant gap among different kinds of school provision, which has grown between
the public and private-subsidised sector (16pts/22pts). Furthermore, only the private
non-subsidised sector is classified as being at an ‘advanced level’ (over 280 points),
which means that the expected learning outcomes are achieved. Meanwhile, the
public sector is bordering on the ‘initial level’ (under 240 points), i.e. the minimum
learning outcomes are not achieved.
4.3 Research problem and aims

From the review of international literature and the analysis of test results in Chile,
key research questions emerge. During the 1980s, the Chilean educational model
shifted from a centralised-state model to a market schema. Since 2000 policy-makers
have gradually introduced accountability policies and discourses. In recent years,
particularly, a post-welfare model has been consolidated. The driving regulatory
mechanisms for assuring educational improvement are, on the one hand, market
competition for attracting pupils and, on the other hand, performance competition for
enhancing national assessments. Policy advocates expect that this double pressure
58!
will motivate continuous quality improvement and assure equal standards for all.
However, research coming mainly from England and the USA suggests that these
policy combinations are problematic and may not be sufficient to meet expected
challenges.
In Chile, research into market effects is novel and infrequent. Firstly, there is a set of
quantitative studies that have examined the effects of competition on school quality
(based mainly on SIMCE results), asking specifically if private-subsidised provision
delivers a better and more efficient service than the public sector (e.g. Bellei, 2007;
Carnoy and McEwan, 2003; Elaqua, 2009; Hsieh and Urquiola, 2003, 2006; Mizala
and Romaguera, 1998, 2001, 2005; Sapelli and Vial, 2002, 2005). There is a second
group of studies that have studied ‘parents’ choice’ (e.g. Chumacero, Gómez, and
Paredes, 2008; Elacqua, Schneider, and Buckley, 2006; Elaqua and Fabrega 2004;
Falabella, Seppänen, Raczynski, 2012; Raczynski and Hernandez, 2012). Thirdly,
there are studies dedicated to measuring social segregation effects within the
educational system (e.g. Contreras et al., 2007; Elaqua, 2009; González, Mizala, and
Romaguera, 2004; Valenzuela et al., 2009).
Research into the consequences of the country’s educational market and

accountability model is novel and still scant52. In particular, there is almost no in-
depth research into the practices and effects of these policy changes inside schools
and other institutions. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the effects of recent
accountability policies within educational institutions (schools, municipalities, local
Ministry of Education), exploring the prevailing discourses and daily practices, and
how these results are distributed differently according to the varying institutions’
positions within the educational markets.
General research aim:

On the basis of an in-depth qualitative approach, this thesis seeks to study the policy
effects of the new configuration of the accountability regime in Chile. The study
aims to understand in what ways the performing school is made-up, ‘lived’ and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
52
A unique contribution to this research in the Chilean context is by Carrasco (2010), who delivers an
in-depth study of five disadvantaged schools. The research provides evidence that Chile's novel
accountability policies do not contribute to school improvement. On the contrary, they hinder
professional work and add new forms of stress and constraint to school life.
59!
produced through institutional practices and discourses, entailing schools,

municipalities and local Ministries of Education. Additionally, the study aims to
explore the ways in which these findings vary among different social contexts and
according to the institutions’ positions within local hierarchical markets.
Subsequently, a set of research questions arise:
- Policies-in-action. In what ways are accountability policies put in practice

within an educational market-led scenario? How do schools, municipalities and local
Ministries of Education participate within this competitive arena? What discourses
circulate among institutions related to accountability policies?
- Contrasts among different institutional positioning. How are these

practices/discourses distributed differently among educational institutions? Do
practices/discourses vary according to institutions’ positioning within the educational
markets, and, if so, in which ways?
- Policy Effects. Does the policy combination of markets and accountability

meet the expected challenges of educational quality improvement; promotion of
diverse educational provisions; and equally high standards for all?
The following specific aims emerge on the basis of the general research aim and
leading questions.
Specific research aims:

i. To intensively study a small number of educational institutions’ key aims,
strategies and discourses within a market and accountability regime.
ii. To contrast the variations of those discourses and daily practices that mobilise
accountability policies in different institutional contexts and among different market
positions.
iii. To analyse the effects of accountability policies in the marketplace in terms
of educational quality, diversity and innovation, and social justice.
60!
5. Conclusions
Today’s international policy trends are transforming countries’ education systems,

introducing market and accountability policy arrangements. These reforms have
evolved in complex ways, fusing devolution policies, with centralising state policies;
shaping a new post-welfare era. In this chapter, I extensively review the literature
about the effects of these policies. In brief, I argue that until now there is scant
evidence of the expected benefits of this model, such as continuous school
improvement, educational innovation and diversity, and high standards for all. On
the contrary, various studies indicate damaging consequences, such as a reduction of
school curricula to national tests, little school innovation, a growth in teachers’
workloads and de-professionalisation, and an increase in pupils’ social and academic
segregation among and within schools. Along with these changes, the performing
school is shaped, transforming school practices and ethics towards an instrumental
efficiency discourse and performative competition, leaving aside welfare ethics, and
civic and community engagement.
In Chile since the 1980s a market regime has been introduced, and from the 2000s
this model has been mixed with policies of standardisation and accountability.
However, this national model has scarcely been studied, and most pieces of research
concentrate on statistical comparisons between public and private subsidised schools.
In effect, there are no comprehensive, qualitative studies of how schools respond to
accountability policies within a market scenario.
Taking into account the literature review and the Chilean educational setting,
significant research questions emerge. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to understand,
in the Chilean context, the making-up of the performing school, how it is produced
and resisted within ‘lived markets’, and the involvement of other key educational
institutions, such as the regional Ministry of Education and municipalities.
Additionally, the purpose of the research is it to analyse the effects of these policies,
referring to school improvement, educational diversity and innovation, and social
justice issues. In Chapter 2 I explain the theoretical framework of the thesis, using
conceptual tools derived from Foucault and Bourdieu.
61!
! !
!
Chapter Two
A Theoretical Framework:
Power, Discourses And The Field53
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
53
This photograph corresponds to a children’s assembly in London’s East End in 1932, published in
Time Out London, 26 July 2006, p.12.
62!
!
!
A Theoretical Framework: Power, Discourses, and the Field
Introduction
The central aim of this thesis is to study the ways in which educational institutions
(schools, municipalities, Regional Ministry of Education) produce and practice
accountability policies within educational markets. I have formerly (§1.2) developed
the concept of the performing school, reviewed current education policy tendencies
across the world, and discussed the recent literature around the outcomes of these
policies. In this chapter I briefly establish the theoretical framework of the study.
With this purpose in mind, I firstly position myself within a post-structuralist
approach engaging with Foucault’s productive and pervasive notion of power and
discourse, and I also refer to the notion of ‘governmentality’. Secondly, I pick up
some of Bourdieu’s conceptual tools as a way of linking power with the materiality
of the field. Thirdly, I attempt to employ a dual approach, engaging with both
Foucault and Bourdieu. These theoretical views, at certain points, can be worked in a
complimentary manner, but also they involve conceptual conflicts, which I shall
discuss. All in all, I use these frameworks as essential tools to explore the discourses
and practices linked to accountability policies, and how they vary among different
social contexts and according to the institutions’ positions within educational
markets.
1. Foucault: Power, Discourses, and Truth
As Foucault (1977, 1980) points out, power is productive and pervasive. It is

embedded in knowledge and daily discursive practices, involving social meanings,
desires and actions, reaching the spheres of the social body. This understanding
challenges a traditional notion of a repressive and hierarchical power that a person or
institution owns and exercises against those who do not have power, as a kind of
zero-sum game. Alternatively, Foucault suggests a formative power that constitutes
the subject and the world through discourses. Hence, all people in order to exist
exercise and participate in this discursive production.
Chapter Two: A Theoretical Framework
From this perspective, power is embedded in the generation of knowledge, i.e. power
and knowledge are mutually constructed (Foucault, 1972, 1979, 1980). In Foucault's
words: “power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power
relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any
knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations”
(1977, p. 27). Thus power/knowledge is an indivisible configuration. Knowledge is
not neutrally produced in a way that excludes power circulations, nor does power
work without knowledge. Power/knowledge is produced, circulated and legitimated
as a truth in a specific location. In other words, it forms ‘reality’, producing ‘regimes
of truth’, which are shaped, distributed, sustained and resisted through discourses. As
the author writes: “discourses are not a group of signs (…) but are practices that
systematically form the objects of which they speak” (1972, p.49). Hence, regimes of
truth are constituted within discourses, involving the production of objects,
meanings, and subjectivities.
In order to study the social domain, Foucault proposes a ‘genealogical analysis’

focused on the discourses that give rise to the subject and the world. This involves a
historical analysis, which is not about the object itself, but about the discursive rules,
power tactics, and regimes of truth that name, regulate, and constitute the
object/subject in a specific locality. In this manner, the author explores discourses
and their constitution in modern society. Thus, for instance, he does not study the
mad, but psychiatric discourses about madness, not sexuality, but medical discourses
about sexuality, not criminals, but legal discourses about criminality. The author
particularly suggests that science is positioned as a regime of truth. Likewise, current
educational policy discourses also create regimes of truth (§1), as for instance, the
notion of ‘educational quality’ and ‘school of excellence’, mainly defined by
apparently objective and neutral national test scores (e.g. Ball, 1997b; Gewirtz, 1998,
2002), or for example, the discourses of ‘new public management’, which bring a
corporative language and criteria into educational provision (e.g. Ball, 1990a; Peters,
2001; Peters et al. 2001).
Foucault subsequently critiques objective and modern-humanistic understandings.

There is no ‘real’ or scientific knowledge waiting to be discovered. There is no
dominated or distorted knowledge waiting to be freed, as if power and knowledge
64!
were produced within separate fields. Therefore, separating power from knowledge
for achieving an objective knowledge, as for example Althusser (1977) proposes is
not an ideal solution, neither producing an emancipatory knowledge free of
domination, as Habermas (1974) suggests. Discourses do not describe or represent
the world as if they were are external to the world; discourses constitute the world. In
effect, Foucault (1980) claims: “there is no point in dreaming of a time when
knowledge will cease to depend on power” (p.52). As Bitzman (2000) explains: ‘the
real’ is “an effect of the discourses of the real” (p.28). There is no separation between
the world and discourses; ‘reality’ does not pre-exist discourse. MacLure (2003)
argues: “realities’ are discursive, that is, there is no direct access to a reality ‘outside’
discourse” (p.180). This takes us to a radical notion; there is no external objective
reality, there are only ‘regimes of truth’ that are constructed through discourses.
Foucault recognises the practice of ‘sovereignty power’, i.e. a repressive, direct and
most obvious form of hierarchical power. However, the author argues that, among
modern societies, a more subtle, yet invasive type of power has emerged, which he
calls ‘disciplinary power’. Foucault studies the genesis of this kind of power within
‘disciplinary institutions’ such as the mental hospital (Foucault, 1988), the prison,
and the school (Foucault, 1977). In these studies the author analyses the
‘technologies of power’ that discipline the subject through micro-corrective tactics,
such as the use of time, space, training activities, examinations, inspections and
minor privileges, deprivations and punishments. These may be petty tactics, but they
are persistent and cumulative, producing governable and docile bodies.
Power pervasively occupies the body through technologies of discipline, ensuring

power/knowledge and subjectivity. The person is subjected to relations of power
through knowledge, classifications and judgements. Moreover, power technologies
not only govern, but also shape the subjects, turning them into self-governed
subjects. So for instance, the most powerful effect of the panopticon, as a system of a
permanent overseer, is not that people are afraid to be exposed, but that at the end the
panopticon is internalised within the subject. So it is not that power only acts over
the subject, but that it acts upon the subject itself. As the author says, the subject “is
his own overseer” (1980, p.155). The individual exercises self-control and self-
surveillance. This is the most economic and effective consequence of modern power.
65!
This notion of power is mobile, multiple and persistent, it occupies various spheres,
as it operates within micro-spheres in fragmented and non-egalitarian ways. These
power circulations move within complex and multiple matrices, contradicting an idea
of top-down, structural power. Power can move in direct and obvious ways, but also,
and mostly through covert and pervasive technologies. In this sense, power is
exercised, according to Foucault (1979), in a fragmented and dispersed manner
within micro-spheres.
Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it

comes from everywhere. And ‘Power’, insofar as it is permanent,
repetitious, inert, and self-reproducing, is simply the over-all effect that
emerges from all these mobilities, the concatenation that rests on each
of them and seeks in turn to arrest their movement. One needs to be
nominalistic, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure;
neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that
one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.
(Foucault, 1979, p.93)
In this manner, Foucault problematises a Marxist notion of society as a historical

totality composed of antagonistic opponents, an oppressor/oppressed model, in other
words. He argues against this conception of power as if it were owned by a
privileged person, group or class that wields it against the ‘powerless’. Power is not
restricted to a central apparatus, structure, law or any wider general system; it
functions from diverse points as all sectors participate in its production in the
interplay of unequal and dynamic relations. So, power moves within micro-spheres
producing particular discursive formations. However, power also, at some point, may
be articulated and concentrated, shaping major dominations and hegemonic
discourses (Foucault, 1979)54.
This understanding of power is relevant to today’s prevailing neoliberal scheme, as

policies entail new forms of coordination, influence and control, less hierarchical,
moving from ‘government control’ to ‘governance’, as Newman (2001, 2005, §1.1)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
54
This notion intersects with Mouffe’s (1979) concept of ‘hegemonic discourses’. The author reworks
Gramsci’s theory, suggesting that hegemony refers to the ability of a dominant group to “articulate the
interests of other social groups to its own by means of ideological struggle” (p.181). This concept of
hegemony accepts that there are plural antagonistic interests and conflicts, but there are also dominant
sectors that articulate these different interests into a prevailing hegemonic pattern, favouring their own
interests. As Laclau and Mouffe write, hegemonic formation is an “articulated totality of differences”
(1985, p.143).
66!
observes. From this approach, governance is understood as dynamic and multiple,

moving in a diffuse manner across diverse spheres and levels. Newman explains that
governance theory:
… draws attention to flows of power that travel across the boundaries

of state/society, public/private and economy/civil society. It recognizes
that processes of governing take place in and through families,
workplaces, communities, schools and other sites beyond the domain
of institutional politics (Newman, 2005, p.81).
This notion of governance implies the exercise of power through a tactical

productivity, rooted in Foucault’s (1991, 2006, 2008) notion of ‘governmentality’.
This refers to a later theoretical stage of the author, as he moved from the study of
disciplinary power at an institutional level, towards the study of bio-politics,
referring to the management of the population, the ‘conduct of conduct’. Foucault
defines governmentality as: “an art of tactics, of retaining power over territory and
subjects” (1991, p.94). Then he adds:
it is a question not of imposing law on men, but of disposing things:

that is to say, of employing tactics rather than laws, and even of using
laws themselves as tactics- to arrange things in such a way that,
through a certain number of means, such and such ends may be
achieved. (Foucault, 1991, p.95)
Thus it is a strategical power that is about how things are placed and aligned. It is
pervasive, permanent and obscure, as an omnipresent power. Governance tactics are
played out in education as the state controls ‘at a distance’, intending to guide and
steer dispersed educational provision, setting national targets, regulations,
examinations, and formats for disseminating school performance outcomes (§1.2).
Governmentality implies the exercise of a ‘method of rationalisation’ in Foucault’s

words (2006, p.77) in order to assure the functioning of the political programme.
Rose (1996), following Foucault, claims that governance is not restricted to the state
or certain institutions, but refers to the domain of ‘political rationalities’, rendered as
the thinkable, desirable and practicable. It entails a ‘meaning-making’, as Newman
(2005) also notes. This is the most pervasive aspect of governance.
67!
Neoliberalism, according to Foucault (2006), is not merely a set of economic

dogmas, and certainly not a political-economic reality; it is overall a political project,
with principles, discourses, and practices that creates a social world as ‘true’,
therefore moulding subjectivities among daily life. The organising principle of the
neoliberal project is competition (and risk) that constructs the ‘enterprise society’ and
pervasively enters into the social body and daily life. Hence it is not bounded only by
‘economic activities’. Rose and Miller subsequently argue that governance
technologies under this regime attempt to shape the self’s political mentalities,
forming the ‘useful’ and docile citizen (as opposed to the dependant and passive
citizen), promoting the proactive ‘self-manager’ and the empowered ‘autonomous
chooser’ (Miller and Rose, 1990; Rose and Miller, 1992; Rose, 1996). The ‘self-
manager’ is encouraged to calculate and maximise her decisions, create an enterprise
out of herself, and to be responsible for the consequences of her decisions and
efforts.
In his studies of biopolitics, Foucault (2008) claims that, paradoxically,

neoliberalism has had to produce market ‘freedom’, while governance tactics have
employed technologies of control and coercion, together with discourses that form
the ways subjects should understand and use this freedom of choice. It is a kind of
‘artificially arranged liberty’, as Lemke (2001, p.10) explains, or a ‘regulation of the
economic life’ as Miller and Rose (1990) assert, since economic, social and personal
practices are intimately aligned with the socio-political project. Hence, Rose and
Miller (1992) claim that: “power is not so much a matter of imposing constraints
upon citizens as of ‘making up’ citizens capable of bearing a kind of regulated
freedom” (p. 174).
In education, scholars such as Bowe et al. (1994), referring to parental school choice,
similarly argue that there is a predefined model of consumption, with flowing policy
discourse about how to be a ‘good parent’ and an ‘ideal consumer’. In Bowe et al.’s
words individuals are: “captured by the discourse of consumption and the
concomitant language of choice” (Idem., p.70).55 In other words, there are indirect
mechanisms of control and forms of rationality that constitute the subject and their
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
55
The authors critically refer in this paper to researchers who study parental school choice. See also
Bowe, Ball, and Gewirtz (1994).
68!
‘free choice’. Subsequently, as Peter et al. (2000) suggest, individuals under

neoliberal policies “will not only be governed but also, and more important, be self-
governed. They will be self-governed because they believe that they are autonomous
choosers” (p. 120, my emphasis).
Nevertheless, it is important to point out that within this theoretical stance of

subjectivity and political rationalities, there is also space for resistance, reflexivity
and discursive agency. Individuals are subjected to disciplinary power, and at the
same time, they practice micro-resistance, i.e. constraint and agency simultaneously
go together. Yet this resistance is produced within the limits of subjectivity, i.e.
within the ‘vocabularies’ of discourse. In Foucault’s words: “Where there is power,
there is resistance, and yet or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a
position of exteriority in relation to power” (1979, p. 95).56 Therefore, discursive
agency and resistance operate together and through power circulations and the
available discourses. So power is both enabling and constraining. This stance moves
away from a notion of ‘sovereign agency’ or ‘rational liberating agency’.
Youdell (2006b) argues that “productive power constitutes and constrains, but does
not determine, the subjects with whom it is concerned” (p.517, original emphasis).
These practices involve ‘performative politics’, which entail “discourses taking on
new meanings and circulating in contexts from which they have been barred or in
which they have been rendered unintelligible, as performative subjects engage a
deconstructive politics that intervenes and unsettles hegemonic meanings” (Youdell,
2006b, p.512). So subjects, with differing levels of intentionality, deliver discursive
political practices, naming, interrupting, displacing, and reconstructing discourses.
2. Bourdieu: Field, Capitals and Habitus
Bourdieu states that the social world is a ‘bi-dimensional world’, a ‘double reality’,
which involves materialist and symbolic dimensions (Bourdieu, 1990, Bourdieu and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
56
It is important to note that Foucault in his final theoretical period gives greater significance to the
subject and the possibility of acting and interrogating discourses. The author develops the notion of
the self, shifting from the comprehension of a more coerced disciplinary subjectivation to a more
active ‘care of the self’ (see for instance, History of Sexuality vol. II and III, 1986, 1990, and lectures
at the University of Vermont, 1988a, and at the University of California, 1983.
69!
Wacquant, 1992). These spheres depend on and influence each other; they mutually
constitute themselves. Bourdieu claims that it is necessary to regard both spheres and
their interrelations, going beyond ‘false antinomies’. In this way, the author's
theoretical framework proposes the interdependence of ‘fields’, ‘habitus’ and
‘species of capital’ as an attempt to embrace a ‘total science of society’.
Although Bourdieu’s approach, in some ways, differs from Foucault’s theory, I

suggest that bringing into play both perspectives enriches the research analyses. In
order to understand power circulations and also governance tactics, it is essential to
link them with the field in which social actors and institutions are placed. Therefore,
I am interested in using conceptual tools, such as ‘field’, ‘capital’, and also
‘institutional habitus’, derived from Bourdieu, with the purpose of analysing the
social world and exploring its connections with power technologies, discourses, and
regimes of truth.
The field, according to Bourdieu, is: “a space of objective relations between

positions defined by their rank in the distribution of competing powers or species of
capital” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p.114). Field involves an objective
configuration of relational positions shaped by the distribution of material
regularities. Fields are like ‘social microcosms’ within society as “an ensemble of
relatively autonomous spheres of ‘play” (Ibid, p.17). Each field is endowed with
specific rules, logics, mechanisms, and struggles. Actually, each field is a field of
power, meaning a space of conflict and competition for the establishment of capital
monopoly, authority and symbolic power.
The structure of individual fields is defined by the distribution of different

accumulated species of capital. Bourdieu (2003a) identifies different forms of
capital: economic capital (money or property directly convertible into money);
cultural capital (cultural practices, knowledge and goods), and social capital (social
networks and connections). These are diverse forms of capital that structure and are
structured by the field, which cannot be reduced to economic capital. However,
Bourdieu argues that economic capital plays a key role as it is at “the root of all the
other types of capital” (2003a, p.54).
70!
Within the field, power struggles are framed by the divisions of the field and capital
distribution; power relates to the position that social actors occupy within the field
and the capitals they possess and can activate. Consequently, power is not only
understood – in terms of Foucault as discourses and power tactics – but also to the
positions of actors and institutions within the socially structured space and the
distribution of capital.
Institutions and actors ‘play’ in order to preserve and improve their position within
the field. They deploy tactical mechanisms intending to favour particular interests,
maintaining or transforming social structures and acquiring social advantage. This
involves struggles for the accumulation and monopoly of symbolic and economic
capital, and overall, for the definition of legitimate forms of capital. As Bourdieu and
Wacquant (1992) suggest: “Classes and other antagonistic social collectives are
continually engaged in a struggle to impose the definition of the world that is most
congruent with their particular interests” (p. 14). These are unequal struggles as
“there are various degrees of strength and therefore diverse probabilities of success,
to appropriate the specific products at stake in the game” (Ibid, p.102). Some
institutions/actors are positioned with higher valued capital in comparison to others,
tending to dominate, pushing the field rules according to their advantage.
Nevertheless, these social relations are always mobile and are not free of resistances
and contestation.
In this way, power is not ‘self-reproducing’ as a ‘prime mover’, as Foucault (1979)

suggests, where an authorless discourse is the generator of social reality. Power
flows, producing regimes of truth, but also social actors, located within particular
positions within the field, struggle and play, producing, moving and pushing power
circulations and discourses according to their own logics and social advantage. In
this sense, power is exercised and contested by people and groups in unequal
positions, benefiting certain sectors and interests over others. Thus it is fundamental
to link discourses and hegemonic discourses to the positions of the actors, their
capitals and interests, with the purpose of understanding the constitution of the field
of power.
71!
Bourdieu suggests that, together with the field and species of capital, there is habitus.
As Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) note, habitus: “consists of a set of historical
relations ‘deposited’ within individual bodies in the form of mental and corporeal
schemata of perception, appreciation, and action” (p.16). Habitus is historically
constituted, as a ‘present past’ that is “irreducible to immediate constraints”
(Bourdieu, 1990, p.54). Hence, habitus implies durable and transposable dispositions
governed by past conditions that anticipate practical responses, which are adapted to
the demands of social structures. Consequently, habitus enables actors to interpret,
act and participate in the social world, entailing and shaping the ways people move,
talk and establish their lifestyles and tastes.57
Habitus is a collective production, a ‘socialised subjectivity’ (Bourdieu 2011a,

p.211) mostly shared among those agents located in similar positions within the field.
Therefore, there is a correspondence between social structures and mental structures,
i.e. between social actors’ positions within the field and their habitus. There is a
propensity to internalise, embody and reinforce the social structures in an
unproblematic way. Habitus adapts to the socially ‘correct’, the ‘appropriate’, the
‘reasonable’, thus the thinkable and the expected. Therefore, habitus varies according
to the position of reference of the actor, pre-adapting daily practices and forming the
‘possible’ and ‘impossible for us’. As Bourdieu writes:
This disposition, always marked by its (social) conditions of acquisition

and realization, tends to adjust to the objective chances of satisfying
need or desire, inclining agents to ‘cut their coats according to their
cloth’, and so to become the accomplices of the processes that tend to
make the probable a reality. (1990, p.65)
So habitus adapts to class conditions in a roughly coherent and harmonious manner,

and produces ‘distinctive practices’ coordinated among those with similar social
positions. In this manner, social actors deliver daily practices within a ‘common-
sense world’, understood as natural and even necessary. They operate through a
practical sense, beyond intentional and conscious calculations. Subsequently,
Bourdieu critically breaks with the neoclassical economic assumption of the rational
agent who carries out cost-benefit calculations and makes decisions according to the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
57
See The distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Bourdieu, 2007.
72!
individuals own benefit. As the author writes, individuals are: “reasonable, instead of
rational” (2011a, p.9).
The notion of habitus, according to Bourdieu, is the connection between social

practice (agency) and capitals + field (structure). Individuals are not determined by
their position within the social space, nor are they entirely free, conscious, and
rational agents. Habitus and field relate in two ways. On the one hand, it is a relation
of conditioning as the field structures habitus. As a result, habitus harmoniously
embodies the field, implicating a tendency to guarantee social orders and regularities
over time. On the other hand, it is a relation of ‘cognitive construction’, since habitus
constitutes the field as a natural and meaningful world, conferring logic, significance
and contestation. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) illustrate these ideas, suggesting
that agents act as players in a game. In their words, social actors perform:
in the manner of the ball player endowed with great ‘field vision’ who,
caught in the heat of the action, instantaneously intuits the moves of his
opponents and teammates, acts and reacts in an ‘inspired’ manner
without the benefit of hindsight and calculative reason. (Bourdieu and
Wacquant, 1992:21)
Thus Bourdieu (1990) argues that actors play in a ‘collectively orchestrated’ manner,
without compulsory rules or a universal conductor. Habitus adapts in advance to
objective conditions, as a ‘self-regulating mechanism’. Actors participate within the
field through complicit and pre-adapted ways. Consequently, the world is understood
as natural and indisputable, and dispositions tend to be perpetuated and reproduced.
Yet habitus is also creative, inventive, but within the limits of the field. As the author
says, habitus is “conditioned and limited spontaneity” (Bourdieu, 2011a, p.211), or in
other words, “durable but not eternal!” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p.133).
In spite of Bourdieu’s declared intentions that his social theory attempts to reconcile
this traditional dualism between structure and agency, his theory has been criticised
as deterministic, leaving scant space for individual agency (see for example Jenkins,
2010). Nonetheless, scholars such as Reay (2004) have argued that the author’s
notion of habitus is an enriching conceptual tool, with great potential to explore the
mechanisms by which social divisions are reproduced and transformed. Although
73!
Reay is conscious that the term can be used in deterministic ways, she explains that
habitus should be understood as a concept that holds a permanent tension between
opportunities and constraints.
In effect, in the education field Bourdieu’s concepts have offered insightful

theoretical findings, related, for instance, to parental choice, class strategies and
ethical tensions (Ball, 2003b; Crozier, et al., 2008; Raveaud and van Zanten, 2007),
childcare choice, class dispositions and maternal dilemmas (Vincent and Ball, 2006;
Vincent, Ball, Kemp, 2004), parents’ approaches to child-rearing, social capital and
social advantage strategies (Lareau, 2002; Reay, 1998b, 2004).
Lastly, I would like to refer to the concept of ‘institutional habitus’ derived from
Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, recently used in educational sociology research (e.g.
Carrasco, 2010; Meo, 2011; Reay, 1998b; Reay, David, and Ball, 2001; Reay,
Crozier, and Clayton, 2010). Reay et al. (2001) suggest that the notion of habitus is a
useful concept in order to analyse the ways in which an institution shares a collective
habitus. It is argued that, since habitus is produced and shared at a collective-class
level, analogously members of the same institution may practice a common habitus.
This habitus is the product of a specific institutional positioning within the
educational field, and also an institutional accumulation of past and present
experiences, augmented by the impact of pupils and staff’s social and ethnic
composition. In other words, an institution’s field location, its volume and kinds of
capital, and members’ class position strongly influence a school’s daily
organisational life, configuring a common matrix of dispositions, aspirations,
classifications and practices, i.e. shaping a school ethos.
Consequently, institutional habitus tends to adjust to the school positioning in the

hierarchical field and to reinforce its location. Nevertheless, habitus is also
contingent and dynamic, conceived as a mediator between structure and practice. So
it describes not predetermination, but a notion of an open system of dispositions.
Importantly, in this sense, institutional habitus goes beyond the idea of an
‘organisational culture’, since it offers a conceptual tool with which to study the
complex amalgam of organisational life and daily practices with wider structures,
and how these interrelate and mutually shape and transform each other.
74!
The concept of institutional habitus contributes to expose and critically analyse

members’ shared expectations, understandings, routines and attitudes, which are
deeply imbricated in school life. However, from a critical view of the concept,
Atkinson (2011) points out that it is a misunderstanding to transfer the notion of class
habitus to an institutional habitus. Individuals of the same social class have similar
positions within a field, yet within an institution members have different positions.
Thus, it would contradict Bourdieu’s theory to postulate that there is a shared habitus
among actors with different positioning. Atkinson has an important point here;
habitus within institutions does not work in a coordinated and homogeneous way. On
the contrary, within institutions there are multiple, conflicted and disparate views.
However, I argue that it is necessary to take into account a multi-layered conception

of habitus (Bourdieu, 2007). So from a broad perspective of the educational field,
members of an institution can be understood to share collective dispositions as a
product of common historical-economic-social conditions. But, at the same time,
within the school (analysed as a micro-field), there are antagonisms, differences and
strategies of distinction, marked by different roles and positionings. Hence, this is
not to suggest that there is a kind of unique and consistent habitus within schools.
In short, I argue that institutional habitus is a concept that enables an understanding

of institutions historically and in relation to the broader field. Moreover, this notion
contributes to understanding ways in which school members adjust to the
institution’s field positioning, and naturalise, maintain and transform these social
orders. So this conceptual analysis does not overlook the fact that institutional
habitus is dynamic, as individual habituses are. Additionally, the analysis examines
the production and exercise of a collective habitus within institutions, but taking into
account different members’ roles and positions, and the inner disputes and
differences.
3. Conclusions: Reworking Foucault and Bourdieu
Foucault and Bourdieu share some theoretical sensibilities, as well as opposing

views. In this last section I briefly identify some of their complementary and
75!
conflicting theoretical perspectives. I will work in a space of productive tensions

drawing on both sets of ideas – rather than attempting any resolution.
Both authors’ theories in some ways interconnect. For instance, they mutually refer
to a productive notion of power that works through complicity. They suggest that
power circulates in complex and messy forms through fields or micro-spheres and
not between two clearly defined oppositions. Through the theorists’ research, they
are both interested in understanding these particular fields or micro-spheres, leaving
aside trans-historical laws or single explications. In addition, the generation of
knowledge is essential for constituting the subject, which is experienced as natural
and true, refuting in this way the notion of the rational, self-interested agent, as a
homo economicus. Consequently, agents regulate or govern themselves, not requiring
an external oppressor or any general conductor. Both authors also accept that,
together with the production of habitus or discourses, there is resistance and agency,
but these are produced within the boundaries of the field or the available discursive
repertoire.
The central theoretical dilemma among these views, I suggest, is the relation between
the material and non-material world. Both authors consider these dimensions, whilst
understanding and explaining them in different ways. Foucault explores social
happenings through the rules of discourse and power/knowledge, as they constitute
the world. Thus, it is not that Foucault does not consider the material world, but he
analyses it through discourses. From this approach there is no ‘outside’ of discourse.
As Hall (2005) suggests: “physical things and actions exist, but they only take on
meaning and become objects of knowledge within discourse” (p.73).
On the other hand, Bourdieu claims that there is a double world, a material and
symbolic world, i.e. fields and habitus. Both dimensions depend on and influence
one another; they “function fully only in relation to one another” (Bourdieu and
Wacquant, 1992, p.19). Nevertheless, they continue to be two dimensions and not
one. According to the authors, the field, as a system of objective relations, exists
independently of the habitus. In the authors’ words: “they are systems of relations
that are independent of the populations which these relations define” (Ibid., p.106).
Thus, there is an objective ‘outside’. From this stance, Bourdieu criticises the notion
76!
of power as an open and capillary power, constituted by discourse and

power/knowledge. He insists that power moves within a field, involving an
historical, accumulated structure, tending to persist over time, shaping common
patterns among those with similar field positions.
I do not pretend to resolve these theoretical divergences, but I am interested in

pointing out key conceptual understandings for this particular research. First of all, I
establish that the social world is constituted through discourses and regimes of truth.
Subjects are produced by these discourses, entailing self-governance. Discourses
work through particular spheres in fragmented ways, but they are also articulated,
forming hegemonic discourses within the field. Simultaneously, these discourses and
regimes of truth are resisted and struggled against as subjects interrupt and
reconfigure discourses.
In addition, I bring into play an understanding of power, as a pervasive and

productive power that moves in complex and multiple ways. These forces operate
within particular fields, shaping power circulations, concentrations, and unequal
struggles and competing interests, together with the fabrication of power tactics and
governance mechanisms. These discourses and power flows are inter-dependent with
the social divisions of the field and capital distribution. Discourses and the field form
a co-constructive relation, they mutually constitute themselves. Therefore, on the one
hand, discourses constitute social structures as they construct, reproduce, maintain
and transform social reality. And at the same time, social structures constitute
discourses, according to the existing social formations, prevailing class divisions,
and species of capital.
All in all, in this chapter I briefly outline the theoretical framework of the research.
This conceptual account involves a dual approach as I bring into play aspects of
Foucault’s theory alongside aspects of Bourdieu’s perspective. For the purpose of
this thesis, I use these theoretical tools in order to study how accountability policies
within an educational market scenario are enacted within specific educational
institutions, examining how discourses and governance technologies are produced,
maintained and changed, paying attention to who speaks them and under what
conditions. Furthermore, I intend to analyse the links between discourses and the
77!
field, as an intent of ‘relational thinking’ as Bourdieu suggests, embracing both

discursive and materialist dimensions. Additionally, the notion of institutional
habitus contributes to explore daily school life practices and flowing discourses, and
how these vary according to institutions’ positioning and capitals within the
hierarchical educational market.
78!
!
!
CHAPTER THREE
Methodological Framework: Post/Critical Social Research
!
Methodological Framework: Post/Critical Social Research
Introduction
This thesis is conceptualised as a piece of critical social research within the field of
policy sociology. This analytical standpoint intends to take a critical perspective on
social and political issues, linking events in diverse spheres and assuming a
commitment to social justice matters (Ball, 1994, 1997a; Ozga, 2000). From this
perspective I put into play modern and post-modern theoretical flows, continuing to
employ Bourdieu and Foucault’s theory, and some Habermasian concepts. I also
engage with social policy analysis, understanding policy as discourse and texts, and
using the policy cycle framework as a key analytical tool (Bowe et al., 1992; Ball,
1994). Additionally, I develop the research design, the methodological and ethical
research approach, and the data analysis tools. In short, in order to analyse how
accountability policies are viewed and practised within school public markets, I
outline a qualitative methodological stance, examining three local ‘networks’ of
educational institutions, entailing regional Ministries of Education, municipalities
and state subsidised schools. In line with a comprehensive and holistic approach,
diverse methods are employed in order to collect research data about these
institutions, such as in-depth interviews, documentary analysis and first-hand
observations.
1. Post/Critical Social Research
Critical social research attempts to go beyond describing social happenings. The

main purpose is to generate critical thinking, together with a commitment to social
justice issues. In order to propose this research framework, I combine modern and
post-modern notions as they both contribute to critical research (Popkewitz, 1999). In
this section I first refer to a general framework of critical research, and then I
specifically on a critical policy analysis approach.
80
Chapter Three: Methodological Framework
!
Following Habermas (1971, 1974), the production of knowledge is a crucial political

activity within society. The production of knowledge is a complex fabrication,
intertwined with ethical, political and economic issues, generated in a specific
historical setting. This view rejects an understanding of an objective, disinterested,
and irrefutable knowledge, even if it has ‘scientific’ status. Conversely, knowledge is
guided by social interests and loaded with ethical values, as Habermas suggests;
placed and produced within a particular field and class positions as Bourdieu points
out; and, as Foucault argues, framed by discursive matrices and power struggles.
Among different types of knowledge, Habermas proposes the generation of a critical

rationality. This rationality exposes prevailing orders and power relationships, and
reflects upon how they are built, reproduced, and transformed. Furthermore, it
criticises authoritarian relations, dominant ideologies, and unjust situations, while
attempting to trigger social struggles and ‘emancipation’. Although Bourdieu does
not define his work as a ‘critical’ approach, he engages in some ways with this
perspective. Bourdieu claims that sociological research should de-naturalise social
structures and unmask the mechanisms that perpetuate and ensure the established
order and classifications (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Bourdieu, 2003b). The aim
is to critically examine the social divisions and question the obvious and ‘normal’,
avoiding monopolistic knowledge. This approach is underpinned by a desire not to
collude with the dominant order, the temporal authorities, and economic and political
elites.
I find these critical tools useful. However, I argue against the modernist task of
‘revealing’, ‘uncovering’ or ‘liberating’ the distorted world, as a search for an
objective reality. From a post-structuralist approach Foucault argues:
It is not a battle ‘on behalf’ of the truth, but a battle about the status of
truth and the economic and political role it plays. The essential
political problem for the intellectual is not to criticise the ideological
contents supposedly linked to science, or to ensure that his own
scientific practice is accompanied by a correct ideology, but that of
ascertaining the possibility of constituting a new politics of truth. The
problem is not changing people’s consciousnesses – or what’s in their
81!
!
heads - but the political, economic, institutional regime of the

production of truth. […] The political question, to sum up, is not error,
illusion, alienated consciousness or ideology; it is truth itself.
(Foucault, 1972, 132-3)
Thus, instead of intending to unmask social structures or ideologies, the political

effort is to interrogate discourses, unsettle hegemonic truths, and destabilise the
present (Britzman, 2000; Youdell, 2006a). This opens the research analysis up to
alternative and creative possibilities, breaking up knowledge, reforming it, replacing
it, and forming other possible groupings. As Foucault suggests, in one of his
interviews, intellectuals must disturb truth:
The work of an intellectual is not to shape others' political will; it is,

through the analyses that he carries out in his own field, to question
over and over again what is postulated as self evident, to disturb
people's mental habits, the way they do and think things, to dissipate
what is familiar and accepted, to re-examine rules and institutions and
on the basis of this re problematization (in which he carries out his
specific task as an intellectual) to participate in the formation of a
political will. (Foucault, 1988b, p.265)
Or in Bourdieu’s terms, social research looks to transform the world by transforming

the symbolic system, which conserves the social orders (Bourdieu, 2003b). Hence,
rather than taking social orders and knowledge for granted, the task is to open them
up to criticism and change.
In addition, according to a critical research stance, researchers have a political

responsibility for opening up the research process to a ‘public discussion’ as
Habermas (1971) claims. The challenge is to engage diverse actors in a
communicative interaction about political issues and general interests. This brings
into play a participative discussion employing critical thinking. It is a way to re-
politicise the public sphere and break with a monopolistic instrumental rationality
that legitimates social orders. As Ozga (2000) emphasises, it is necessary to
encourage constant conversation among the educational community, challenging
common sense, exposing injustices, and triggering social change.
82!
!
Policy analysis
Social policy analysis is a complex task. Policies are produced in contexts of
multiple struggles, negotiations and contestation, competing for certain interests and
values (see for example Ball, 1994; Ball et al. 2011; Dale, 1994; Gale, 1999; Ozga,
1987, 1990, 2000). Far from being clear and consensual, policies are highly complex,
containing contradictions and gaps. This analytical position implies a different
approach from a positivistic rational approach. It is contrary to an idea of policies as
neutral and unproblematic, which are organised in linear phases in order to solve
problems efficiently. It is a critical perspective that “has the potential to challenge
these depoliticised tendencies” (Ozga, 2000, p.7).
Prunty (1985) argues that a policy is: “the authoritative allocation of values” (p.136).
Policies involve selected values and interests, mapping schools’ possibilities and
limitations. Their effects are not distributed homogeneously; they carry interests that
benefit certain groups, but not others. Drawing on Habermas, Prunty points out that
educational policy analysis must question social policies, explore and reflect upon
the context in which they emerge, and make explicit the values and assumptions that
sustain policies.
According to Dale (1994) and Ozga (2000), critical policy analysis questions
dominant policies and reflects upon how they are built, expanded and changed. This
kind of practice challenges legitimated assumptions and dominant beliefs that
nourish policy. It is necessary to identify the main interests that support policies and
to contrast them against policy results, considering material and non-material
outcomes and the distribution of benefits. Thus, policy analysis implicates the
exposure of policy effects and social injustices that are produced, reproduced, and
sustained. Ball (1994), in a similar way, states that the task is to examine the ‘moral
order’ of policies and the existing patterns of social inequity. Overall, the analyst
should explore: Who do policies benefit? What do they give priority to? What values
do they legitimate? What are the material and symbolic effects?
In his book Education Reform: a Critical and Post-Structural Approach (1994), Ball
proposes an approach to policy analysis within the field of ‘sociology-policy’. The
author brings into play modernist notions of agency and post-modern notions of
83!
!
constraint, analogous to Bourdieu’s dual approach. Ball argues that agency and
constraint are not isolated concepts. On the contrary, they are implicit in one another.
Agency will always be framed by constraints, and constraints will be resisted and
rebuilt through agency. Therefore, policy analysis must take into consideration both
dimensions and their interaction.
From this framework, Ball (1994) claims that policies should be understood as text
(referring to agency) and discourses (referring to constraint). Policies are text in so
far as they induce action in each local context, bringing into play historical practices,
cultural meanings and beliefs and opposing interests. Although policies are devised
with initial intentions, they are permanently negotiated, reinterpreted and re-
contextualised in various ways, producing diverse political consequences through
‘secondary adjustments’. As Ball et al. (2011) suggest policies are not merely
implemented, but enacted. Consequently, policies are always incomplete; policy-
makers cannot entirely control the meanings of the text nor totally predict their
effects.
Policies are also discourse. Even though there are complex variations in each local
context, societies frame interpretations, systems of thought and disciplinary
practices. In other words, readers are constrained by a shared discursive context. For
these effects, Ball (1994) uses Foucault’s concept of discourse, as a discursive
constraint.
We do not speak a discourse, it speaks us. We are the subjectivities,

the voices, the knowledge, the power relations that a discourse
constructs and allows. We do not ‘know’ what we say, we are what
we say and do. In these terms we are spoken by policies, we take up
the positions constructed for us within policies. (Ball, 1994, p.22)
Thus, discourses produce and are embedded by power relations, shaping dominant
policy discourses. These discourses move through diverse spheres, within macro and
micro levels of governance, shaping fragmented and also hegemonic discourses,
regimes of truth and ‘erudite knowledges’, like neoliberalism and management
theory (§2.1, also see Ball, 2008; Ball et al. 2011). On the whole, this perspective of
understanding policy as text and discourse contributes to resolving the dilemma
84!
!
between agency and structural social constraint by linking texts and discourse, and
exploring diverse spheres of governance. It also gives attention to dominant patterns
and also to possibilities of resistance and change.
This approach challenges a linear understanding, as if policies ought to be examined

according to sequential stages; policy design, implementation, assessment, and
adjustment. On the contrary, in the understanding that policies are complex and
mobile, Ball and his colleagues state that there is a policy cycle constituted mainly by
three contexts; the context of influence, the context of policy text production, and the
context of practice (Bowe et al., 1992; Ball, 1994).
The context of influence refers to the setting in which policies are devised. This
implies the economic, social, political and historical factors that knit the context in
which policies are constructed. This context is placed within social networks,
involving political parties, pressure groups and social movements, which struggle for
power and for influence over policy decisions (Bowe et al., 1992).
The context of policy text production is related to the devising of policy contents,
which can take various forms: legal texts, policy documents, official speeches, and
videos among others. This context refers to the initial desire of a policy, usually
based on a (dramatic) problem, together with an ideal solution, and promising
augury. Behind these policy texts lie assumptions, competing interests, ambiguities,
contradictions, and omissions. Furthermore, they embody the explicit and implicit
struggles and conflicts of their production and interpretation.
The context of practice refers to the production of policy as a continuum activity.

Policies are not static texts that are carried out by school members responding
‘correctly’ or ‘incorrectly’ to the established intentions of policy-makers. Policies are
put in practice through daily life in complex social environments, which produces a
dynamic and ‘messy’ process of unpredictable results. Therefore, actors continuously
produce, recreate, and contest policies, according to their own understandings,
contexts, interests, and material possibilities.
85!
!
Later on, Ball (1994) added two other contexts: context of outcomes and of political
strategy. The first context refers to the effects of policies on social justice, equity and
individual freedom, and in terms of the accomplished goals initially proposed. The
other context, of political strategy, refers to the set of political and social activities,
which may arise in response to a policy and which are intended to remedy
inequalities (Gale, 1999).
As shown above, policy cycle theory is an analytical tool that recognises different
spheres and contexts of policy circulation. Policies are ‘translated’, produced,
exercised and rebuilt among diverse spheres in an interactive and nuanced way.
Policies are constantly constrained, practised and changed, and their different
contexts (influence, production, practice, outcomes) function and interact at
simultaneous moments58. In this sense, the word ‘cycle’ can be misleading,
suggesting an idea of sequenced stages; rather than a cycle it seems to refer to
contexts of policy circulation or of policy trajectories.
All in all, this perspective challenges a ‘technical rational’ approach, offering a

complex and non-reductive understanding of policy analysis. Policy analysis
involves the examination of official policy texts, but also the whole policy process
which includes the context in which it emerges, the daily practices in which the
policy is enacted, the outcomes, and the ongoing interpretations and adjustments to
the initial policy. This analytical approach examines different spheres, agents and
institutions, and their specific local contexts and practices. Thus it brings together the
diverse local practices and discourses, as well as global and dominant trends. As
Ozga (2000) suggests, it attempts to link particular micro spheres of policy activity
with a ‘larger picture’.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
58
The context of policy outcomes could be an exception to the idea of simultaneous policy contexts,
because it refers to the effects of a policy, involving a notion of sequence as it requires a ‘before’. But
it can also be understood as a permanent and simultaneous context as policy production always
produces different kinds of effects with ongoing outcomes, added to the effects of other policies of the
moment.
86!
!
2. A Methodological Approach
In this thesis I use a qualitative framework focusing on a small number of case

studies, and employ discourse analysis tools. This perspective enables me to
thoroughly explore the discourses, power struggles, and governance tactics that
function through policies and daily practice within the educational field. The
research aim is to understand the connections between these practices and the
broader political context, as well as to make use of theoretical tools (§2) for
illuminating such relationships. The research examines multi-focuses involving
different actors and levels of governance. This scheme (see Diagram 2) entails the
various institutions in the Chilean educational system: Ministry of Education,
regional offices and provincial departments of the Ministry, municipalities, public
schools, and private schools and their owners.
Figure 3: Chilean institutional network in education
Ministry of
Education
Regional Ministry
of Education
Province
Department
Municipality
Private School
Owner
Municipal
Schools Private
Subsidised
Schools!
87!
!
I call this a network study, since the thesis explores the practices and effects of
performative policies among the different social actors and institutions, at micro,
meso and macro level spheres.59 The research includes three network case studies
within different boroughs, entailing three municipalities, four municipal schools, and
two local Ministries of Education (more detail is provided further on). In this way, I
separately examine each institutional case study, and on the other hand, I explore the
interrelationships among the institutions (local Ministry, municipality, school).
Case studies are an empirical inquiry, which examine a complex phenomenon in a

‘real-life context’, as Yin (1994, 2004) observes. It is a study in a particular natural
scenario, quite different to an experimental study or survey using controlled variables
and predefined categories. Stake (1995) also insists on the importance of intensively
examining a problem within a bounded unit (e.g. a person, group, institution, policy,
or event). As the author notes, “the study of the particularity and complexity of a
single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances” (p.2).
This method entails a holistic understanding of the studied unit, including for
instance, the historical and specific context, describing detailed routines and critical
happenings, capturing diverse actors’ thinking and feelings, and examining the
production and use of concrete ‘cultural artefacts’. What is particularly important to
case studies, and to qualitative method strategies in general, is that there is a central
focus upon how individuals understand, organise, and judge their social world and
the ways they intervene in it (Canales, 2006; Silverman, 1997; Merriam, 1988).
Subsequently, within schools, this approach aims to understand in a complex,
comprehensive and multi-layered way a specific case, providing the richness of
detailed daily school life and its dynamics.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
59
!This method resonates to Ball’s work, as he has recently studied ‘policy networks’ in education and
the social interrelationships among diverse institutions/agents in the public and private sector (see
Ball, 2012; Ball and Junemann, 2012). In this manner, the author builds the informal and dynamic
construction of networks, employing an ethnographic approach in order to analyse ‘governance in
action’. In this thesis there is a focus on examining educational networks and their interrelations.
However, the aim is not to study emerging networks, but to understand how accountability/market
policies are put in practice among established institutions, similar to what Ball (1994) suggests as the
study of ‘policy trajectory’ among the multiple spheres of the educational system.!!
88!
!
From this methodological approach, it is fundamental to not only analyse in an

inductive way the micro-processes and specificities within each case study, but also
to study the relationship between these happenings, the policy landscape, the social-
cultural space and the institution/individual’s location within it, along with the
constituting effects and responses to this context. In other words, the aim is to study
the relationship between the concrete practices (action), social conditions (structure),
and their consequences.
In this thesis, the case studies enable me to explore educational institutions, entailing
members’ views, observing how they enact and experience accountability policies,
and examining the complex relationship of institutions with the broader phenomenon
of educational markets. Additionally, this research stance also seeks to have a
dialogue with and to contribute to the production of the theoretical framework.
Therefore, the case study strategy offers an interactive examination between
inductive and deductive approaches, i.e. between the conceptual tools and the
empirical data, which is a central challenge for the development of the thesis.
A case study strategy requires a flexible and complex design that embraces multiple
methods in order to gather diverse evidence to understand fully the specific
happenings, and the disparate and even opposing views within the same case study
(Canales, 2006; Silverman, 1997, 2001; Stake, 1995). This is a ‘methodological
polytheism approach’, as Bourdieu suggests (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). The
proposition is to use diverse ways of approximating the social reality, with the
purpose being to complement different sources and perspectives, enriching the data
analysis. As Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) point out: “we must try, in every case,
to mobilise all the techniques that are relevant and practically usable, given the
definition of the object and the practical conditions of data collection” (p.227).
In the thesis, for example, I employ in-depth interviews, systematic informal

conversations, first-hand observations, and document analysis. The combination and
interactional analysis of all these sources provided me with rich data for each
educational institution. Also, it is important to mention that the research design is
flexible and emergent, and the process of data collection has been open to new data.
According to the progress of the research and emergence of new information, the
89!
!
overall design has been reviewed and adapted in accordance with the ongoing
process and research aims. For instance, during the data collection I discovered that
interviewing primary teachers of Year 4, and also SEN teachers, was central as they
both played a key role in preparing children for national tests60.
Finally, this research project attempts to generate findings that go beyond the specific
studied institutions, in order to establish some degree of generalisation. In spite of
the advantages of case study methods, due to the small number of the ‘sample’, the
validity and generalisation of the results must be discussed. The priority in a case
study is to understand daily practices and discursive and social complexities, rather
than observing large representative samples producing general conclusions. The
contribution from case study strategy and qualitative methods in general, is to
recognise and deeply analyse phenomena that occur in some places and may occur in
similar ways in other places. As Youdell (2006b) claims, case studies: “do not
contain, expose or reflect any universal truth, but these petite narratives do resonate”
(p.513).
Additionally, an important conceptual distinction is developed by Yin (1994), as the

author claims that the understanding of generalisation is not a consensus. He
suggests that there is ‘statistical generalisation’ based on representative samples that
estimate results in an established universe. Yet there is also an ‘analytic
generalisation’, as research outcomes are not generalised to a population, but rather
to a theory, thus increasing the robustness of the theory. This second notion is
consistent with the purposes of case study research. According to these aims, in this
thesis research I attempt to comprehensively describe and explain the complex
effects of accountability policies within educational institutions, so as to contribute
and illuminate sharper understanding of how markets are socially produced and
practised.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
60
Tests on Year 4 are particularly important as official school classifications are based on those
results (not on further school grade test results).
90!
!
3. Data Collection and Selection Criteria
The research project entails three network case studies; each one examines the
practices and power relations among the educational institutions of a borough,
involving the Regional Ministry, municipalities, and one or two schools. The
institutions and social actors implicated within the research are deliberately selected
according to the research aims (information-oriented sampling). I use ‘multiple case
study method’ (Yin, 2004) which embraces different types of institutions
(wealthy/disadvantaged, large/small, urban/rural). Hence, I do not select a singular
case study because of its uniqueness, but on the contrary I select ‘ordinary’
institutions placed within different conditions. By studying this variety of
institutions, I increase the validity of the findings, providing a stronger support for
‘analytic generalisation’. In the following section I present the criteria for selecting
the case studies61 and interviewees, and the details of the employed methodological
tools and of the data collected.
3.1. Selection of case studies

Regional Ministry. The research is developed in two Chilean regions. One is the
metropolitan region (where Santiago city is located), which is the biggest region in
Chile, with approximately 6 thousand million inhabitants, where most of the
economic and state political activities take place. The other region is called General
Bernardo O’Higgins, has a smaller population, approximately 800,000 inhabitants,
and has a significant percentage of rural population (29%) and agricultural activity62.
I selected these two regions in order to explore different regional contexts.
Municipalities. I selected three municipalities in order to understand institutions that

work under different resource conditions and that are governed by different political
approaches. For selecting the municipalities, I use the municipal categorisations
employed by Serrano (1999), and the data base of the Department of Administrative
and Regional Development (2007). Importantly, from the social reforms of the
1980s, municipalities have had differentiated resources as they charge local taxes
(e.g. licences for commerce, for the functioning of an industry, for the use of cars).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
61
Throughout the data chapters (§4-8) I provide further details of case study context.
62
Source: Censual Survey, 2002, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile.
91!
!
Consequently, municipalities differ in terms of their budget. The selected

municipalities are the following (all with pseudonymous names):
Table 5: Selected Municipalities

The Eagle White Hill The Canelo
Region Metropolitan Metropolitan General Bernardo
O’Higgins
Population* Large (274.035 Medium-large Small (6.472
inhabitants) (121.282 inhabitants) inhabitants)
Rural population 0% 0% 68.39%
Poor and 1.02% 9.33% 15.5 %
indigenous
population**
Total budget*** $81,068,930 $11,680,656 $775,390
Budget per $295.83 $96.31 $119.81
inhabitant
Budget 1.58% 16.65% 73.80%
dependent on
central state
Municipal staff 726 441 17
employees
No of schools 10 schools (6 15 12
managed by the
municipality and 4
are outsourced)
SIMCE Spanish, Medium level Low level (238pts.) Medium level
th
4 grade*** (263pts.) (258pts.)
SIMCE Math, Medium level Low level (233pts.) Medium level
4th grade (258pts.) (250pts.)
Political stance Conservative Right Mixed stance; Mayor Left wing (Socialist
wing (UDI) is right-wing (UDI), party)
and the Educational
chief is in the
Communist Party
*Large, over 249,767 inhabitants; Medium-large 249,767 to 72,707 habitants; Medium 72,707 to
15,687 inhabitants; Small, under 6,584 inhabitants.
**CASEN, (2006)
***Ministry of Education categories: high level over 281 points; middle level between 241 and 280
points; low level less than 240 points.
Schools. The selected schools have different characteristics regarding students’

socio- economic background, national test performance, and official school
classification63 (see Table 3. All schools are identified by pseudonymous names).
Although this research study is developed within the public sector, in 1996 the Eagle
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
63
According to the fourth grades’ test results, municipal and private-subsidised schools are classified
as ‘autonomous’, ‘boundary’, ‘failing’, receiving a ‘proportional’ Ministry supervision. In other
words, those schools that have lower test results receive closer and more frequent Ministry
supervision and guidance.
92!
!
Municipality decided to conditionally transfer four public schools to private

associations managed by teachers. Therefore, one of the schools is privately
managed. Additionally, I have included a school in a semi-rural sector in order to
explore in what ways performative policies can affect school practices, in spite of the
fact that the Ministry of Education does not officially classify it.64
Table 6: Selected Schools

The Eagle School High Hill Low Hill The Canelo
school school School
Municipality The Eagle White Hill White Hill The Canelo
Official school Autonomous Autonomous Failing No
classification classification
SIMCE 4th High level Middle level Low level Low level
grade, (285pts.) (277pts.) (232pts.) (238pts.)
language*
SIMCE 4th High level Middle level Low level Middle level
grade, (290pts.) (273pts.) (239pts.) (248 pts.)
mathematics
Economic class Middle-upper Middle-middle Low Low
group**
Percentage of 18.7% 55% 81% 92%
socially
disadvantaged
pupils***
Pupil selection Yes Yes No No
Size/Enrolment* Large, 1400 Large, 950 Medium, 240 Small, 28
*** pupils pupils pupils pupils
Grades Primary and Primary school Primary school Primary school
secondary school
Rural/Urban Urban Urban Urban Rural
School manager Municipality in Municipality Municipality Municipality
partnership with a
private
association
*Ministry of Education classification: High level over 281 points; middle level between 241 and 280
points; low level less than 240 points.
**SIMCE categorisation of the socio-economic level of schools.
***Measure of the Ministry of Education according to SEP law; it includes a set of economic and
social family indicators.
****Ministry of Education classification: Small, under 45 students; Medium, under 400 students;
Large, over 800 students.
3.2. Research tools

A case study method requires a comprehensive and multiple-layered data collection
strategy in order to cover and capture the complexity of each unit of analysis.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
64
Rural schools are usually not classified by the Ministry of Education due to the small number of
assessed children, i.e. the results have a low level of external validity.
93!
!
Throughout the research I employed multiple methods, such as documentary

analysis, interviews, and non-participant observation techniques. These techniques
were applied within different institutions and involved diverse social actors. These
sources and techniques serve to complement and enrich the analysis according to the
research aims. Below I present the specific data collected.
Document analysis. The analysis of documents was a key research strategy in order
to understand the institutions’ contexts, and also to analyse in detail institutional
plans, examining institutional aims, strategies, activities, and budget priorities. This
analysis provided evidence of ways in which institutions attempt to respond to
accountability and market policies. I could also note the ways similar aims and
strategies were reproduced, borrowed and changed among top-down institutions,
from the Ministry of Education, to municipalities, and then schools (§5). In addition,
this analysis was a useful tool for mapping ‘official discourses’ among institutions
and how these show themselves in formal documents. A document analysis of
central government texts was also undertaken in order to obtain a contextual
understanding of the discourses related to policies of accountability and school
management. The following documents were collected and analysed:
Table 7: List of Analysed Documents

Institutions Documents
Ministry of - Model for Assuring School Management Quality (SACGE)
Education - ‘Framework for good head teacher leadership’
- National System of Performance Assessment (SNED)
- School Council Guide
- Institutional Educational Project (PEI)
Regional Ministry - Institutional Strategic Plan
of Education - Annual institutional Plan for School Supervision
- Instruments designed for schools and other relevant documents
Municipalities - Annual Plan of Municipal Education (PADEM)
- Annual plan of Education
- Annual performance review
- Instruments designed for schools and other relevant documents
Schools - Institutional Educational Project (PEI)
- Annual plan
- Self-assessment of the Model for Assuring School Management
Quality (SACGE)
- School web page, other school advertisement documents
94!
!
In-depth interviews. Interviews were conducted through a semi-structured

conversation, triggered by key research issues. I invited interviewees to talk freely
about their points of views, daily work experiences, and specific examples of
meaningful events that contributed to the reconstruction of subjective understandings
of the research topic. Interviews were undertaken in flexible ways; respondents
naturally expressed themselves, engaging in self-reflexive thinking as I brought up
research questions, problems and hypotheses in play, and also introducing new
questions according to emerging issues that the respondent mentioned. Additionally,
as I visited the studied institutions during the field-work several times, I also had
systematic informal conversations with different institution members. These
conversations nurtured the interviews and the understanding of the case studies in
general.
Different individuals were interviewed in this research, such as Regional ministers of

education, mayors, chiefs of municipal education, Ministry school supervisors, head
teachers, heads of school curriculum and teachers. The main topics of the interviews
were: (i) views and understandings about policies of accountability, i.e. how actors
interpret and value them; (ii) how the institutional model is put in practice, i.e.
institutional aims, priorities, strategies and daily practices, and (iii) the effects and
critiques of these policies, in terms of educational improvement, institutional and
professional autonomy and social justice. These are transversal topics for all
interviewees, although they are adapted according to each social actor’s role and
institution.
The interviews lasted between one and two hours. They were all digitally recorded
with the consent of participants. All interviews worked quite fluidly, and in general
terms all interviewees talked openly about their personal experiences. However,
some topics were difficult to capture, particularly those related to social justice issues
that may go against (or above) legal regulations (e.g. pupil selection). I mainly
collected data related to these issues (§8) after the third month of the fieldwork,
through ongoing informal conversations and also shadowing institutional heads, as I
observed key episodes related to these matters.
In summary the conducted interviews were:
95!
!
Table 8: Summary of in-depth interviews

Interviewees Total
Regional Level
Secretary of the Regional Ministry of Education 2
Ministerial Local Supervisors 4
Total regional level 6
Municipal Level
White Hill The Eagle The Canelo
Mayor 1 - 1 2
Chief of Municipal 1 1 1 3
Education
Members of the 3 2 - 5
Municipal Education staff
Members of the 2 1 - 3
Municipal Administrative
staff
Total Municipal level 7 4 2 13
School level: High Low The Eagle The Canelo
Hill Hill
Head teachers 1 1 1 1 4
Head of school 2 1 2 - 5
curriculum
General Inspector 1 1 - - 2
Teachers 4 3 2 1 10
Total school level 8 6 5 2 21
TOTAL 40
Additionally, in an initial stage, I conducted eight interviews with relevant social

actors at a national level, such as Ministry of Education policy-makers, a member of
the National Municipalities’ Association, a representative of the Association of
Private Schools, a leader of the National Teachers’ Union, a representative of the
High School Student’s Union, and a president of the National Parents’ Union. These
interviews served to provide a broader view of the national discussion about the
current educational model. However, later I decided to focus on the case studies and
not incorporate the analysis of these interviews into the research.
Non-participant observations. This method was conducted as it contributes to

understand how policies are put in practice in daily life. Non-participant observation
entails a passive observer during meetings or other routine activities. After the
observations I usually talked with the involved actors, asking for their opinions and
views about recent events, and this routine was particularly enriching. The purpose
of these observations is to illuminate the comprehension of the case study contexts,
the emerging issues, and daily work dynamics.
96!
!
The rationale for exploring this organisational space was to look at the functioning of
institutions and the type of interactions among them. I observed 11 meetings between
and within institutions (all digitally recorded), including meetings between: the chief
of municipal education and the school head teachers; the school supervisors and the
head teachers, and the chiefs of municipal education and the chief of the Ministry
Provincial Department. These observations were fruitful for observing the power
relations in situ between the institutions and the recurrent topics that animated the
meetings.
Table 9: Meeting observations

Meeting typology High Hill Low Hill The Eagle The Canelo Total
Regional/Provincial 1 -* 1 2
Ministry with school
head teachers
Municipality with 2 1 1 4
school head teachers
and/or head of school
curriculum
School staff 2 2 1 -** 5
Total 7 2 2 11 (32
hours)
* The Eagle School, since it is privately managed, it does not attend the meetings with the local
Ministry of Education.
** As The Canelo rural school has only two teachers, they deliver their meetings together with the
other teachers of the borough, at the monthly meeting with the local Ministry of Education.
In addition to the meeting observations, I shadowed the chief of White Hill

Municipal education and the Head teacher of Low Hill School for three days, using
detailed field note registrations of all relevant events and conversations. I was able to
carry out this strategy as I rapidly established a close relationship with these two
people, and they both appreciated the experience, wanting to show me the daily
difficulties they faced. Nevertheless, the other municipal and school heads I asked
for permission to shadow often felt uncomfortable with the idea, so I preferred to
observe only the institutional meetings. With hindsight, I do believe that I asked
them at too early a stage, at the first interview, attempting to be transparent about the
fieldwork plan. However, if I had asked them after several school visits, they may
have consented.
In Chile qualitative studies are usually limited to in-depth interviews, and shadowing
is rarely used as a research method. In this research I demonstrated that shadowing
97!
!
methods have great potential for understanding institutional daily life and policies-in-
action. I think its further use and development can entail significant contributions to
Chile's educational research.
3.3. Fieldwork stages

The fieldwork was divided into three stages. In the first stage (March - June 2006), I
collected and analysed Ministry policy documents and interviewed policy-makers,
along with representatives of other important organisations. In a second stage
(October – December 2006), I selected a set of institutions as possible case studies
and made contact with the institutions in order to attain permission for the research.
Additionally, I carried out the first interviews with the chiefs of the municipal
education. In the last stage (March – July 2007), I carried out the fieldwork within
the case studies, including interviews, documentary analysis, meeting observations,
and shadowing. At the end of the fieldwork I had a closing conversation with the
head of each institution and with members of the senior teams, sharing a general
analysis of the institution and of the research insights that emerged on the basis of
the recollected data.
4. Data Analysis
The data was subjected to a discourse analysis, which brings into play a dual
approach embracing both a discursive and material sphere. It is an analysis that goes
beyond formal statements. It explores discursive formations and power technologies,
and the connections with the field and the social speaker. This approach engages
with Foucault’s and Bourdieu’s theory, and also with ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’
following van Dijk and Fairclough’s work.
Discourse analysis is concerned with analysing and exposing the circulation of

power/knowledge, the use of governance technologies and the formation of particular
versions of truth. Hall (2005) and Priori (1997), following Foucault, stress that
discourse analysis examines the statements and rules of a discourse formation. As
Hall points out, discourses: “prescribe certain ways of talking about these topics and
exclude other ways – which govern what is ‘sayable’ or ‘thinkable” (2005, p.74). As
also Ball (1994) observes: “Discourses are about what can be said, and thought, but
98!
!
also about who can speak, when, where and with what authority” (p.21). Hence, this
analysis examines what can and cannot be said (and thought) and in what ways
discourses authorise subjects to speak (when, where, and how). Additionally, there is
an interest in looking at discourses of resistance, competing narratives and power
struggles within and among institutions.
Discourse is not homogeneously used since it is a social-historical phenomenon that

is constituted, valued and distributed in different ways within the social structure. As
Bourdieu (2003b) suggests, linguistic forms are produced within and for the field and
the social positions of the speakers. Thus, the use of language and the social
conditions in which it is produced are interdependent spheres. Even the simplest
linguistic exchange, as Bourdieu claims, is knit within a complex web of social
positions, accumulated capitals, and historical power struggles. As he shows:
In short, if a French person talks with an Algerian, or a black American

to a WASP, it is not two persons who speak to each other but, through
them, the colonial history in its entirety, or the whole history of
economic, political, and cultural subjugation of blacks (or women,
workers, minorities, etc.) in the United States. (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
1992, p.144)
Bourdieu (2003b) claims that there is a linguistic habitus, which implies a propensity
to move and speak in particular ways according to the particular field and social
trajectory of the actor. Within a field there are ‘linguistic markets’ which impose
specific censorships, classifications, and laws of acceptability that are authorised and
legitimated according to the position of the speaker in the social structure. Thus,
linguistic habitus expresses the class habitus, in terms not only of economic class,
but in relation to social, political, gender, ethnic, national and generational divisions.
Hence, through language exchange, history, class and social struggles speak.
Together with the constitution of social divisions through language, there are also
class struggles that move, push and re-signify linguistics laws and classifications.
Overall, the research analyses micro-power tactics, discursive rules and versions of
truth, along with resistance and contestation. Additionally, I attempt to map power
and discursive circulations and link them with the field of power and positions
occupied by the agents or institutions. The purpose is to examine how the world is
99!
!
produced and reproduced, and therefore how discourse and the field mutually
constitute themselves. This approach engages with a ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’
following van Dijk (2000, 2005) and Fairclough (1995, 1998). These authors suggest
an approach that embraces both the discursive sphere and institutional materiality.
Emphasis is placed upon linking discourses with local interactions and wider
contexts and social structures. The analysis asks how discourse and society co-
construct each other. It is a way of exploring connexions among daily discourses
(classifications, naming, discursive regularities and breaks, rituals, among others)
and the production, maintenance, resistance and transformation of power hierarchies
and hegemony.
This type of analysis looks at the interconnections between discourses and a broader
context, taking into account the social positions of the subjects, the power tensions,
the institutional practices and interest groups. Furthermore, this framework presents
an explicit critical commitment, interested in questioning and ‘de-naturalising
dominant ideologies’, exposing social inequalities and mechanisms of reproduction,
and challenging the orders that give privilege to elite power and dominance.
In concrete terms, in order to analyse all the data collected I coded the material,
which comprised of interviews, documents, meetings, and field observations. For this
purpose, I delivered an ‘open coded’ method, first identifying key themes and
categories, following an inductive analysis (rather than imposing a priori
classifications).
Later, I connected the analysis among the case studies using diverse methodological
sources, identifying similar patterns, and contrasting the findings among institutions.
In this way, I gradually knit the extensive data recollected, identifying core issues,
which gave shape to the data analysis chapters (§4 to 8). These responded to the
main research aims and questions, although other topics also emerged. For example,
in Chapter 4 I discuss how school members interpret official school assessments and
classifications, and the dilemmas that appear, contrasting these judgements with
individuals’ own understandings of the school’s quality. This was not a planned issue
in the initial research project, yet it emerged during the data analysis as an important
problematic knot.
100!
!
In each chapter, as I develop a core topic that emerged from the research, I select and
show extracts of evidence (from across the data) that enables the reader to understand
educational actors’ views and practices. In some chapters, I select key case studies
that offer enriching and contrasting evidence of the specific research problem or
question (§4,5,7), on other occasions I used data from all case studies (§6,8).
Finally, this analysis was delivered in a flexible and non-linear way, going back and
forth between the case studies, the official policy discourses, and the theoretical
framework. Therefore, I moved between an inductive analysis, reading, listening and
analysing in detail the data; and I sought to conceptualise the findings within a
theory-driven reasoning, relating the research outcomes to theoretical tools.
5. Ethical Framework
As a researcher it is crucial to think and discuss ethical issues as I became an

‘intruder’ into people’s personal experiences and subjective views. Hence, a
framework is required entailing an ethical stance, commitment and protocols, yet this
task does not finish here. It is an ongoing task to think, reflect upon and take
decisions referring to ethical matters.
This thesis is grounded in the ‘Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research’
(2004) defined by the British Educational Research Association. From this approach,
a key principle that leads the research is an ‘ethic of respect’ for all those that
participate directly or indirectly in the research. As I contacted and invited mayors,
chiefs of municipal education, head teachers, and teachers to participate in the
research, I shared with them, in general terms, the research purpose, questions, and
policy discussions that are at stake (related to market and accountability policies).
Also, they were notified about the ways the research results might be used and
reported, and I asked for permission to publish the collected data.
Although the lack of time was sometimes an initial concern for participating in the
research, all participants who were contacted voluntarily desired to take part in the
study, wanting to speak in an open way about their personal achievements,
experiences, daily problems and frustrations, as well as offering their opinions about
101!
!
current policy changes. The only methodological strategy that did make some
participants uncomfortable was my shadowing them. So out of respect for
participants I only used this technique with those with whom I had built a closer
relationship. In the other cases participants felt more content with meeting
observations only.
Importantly, I also assured all participants of the preservation of their confidentiality

and anonymity; in effect all names of institutions and people are changed, using
pseudonyms. A crucial issue that emerged during the fieldwork was to keep
confidentiality within each case study. As I gained the trust of staff members over
time, I collected information about diverse points of view, including institutional
stories, gossip and criticisms among colleagues. This was highly delicate information
that could negatively affect the work of institutional members. Hence I was
extremely careful to maintain the confidentiality of the collected data. During the
interviews, I did sometimes ask about important issues or conflicting views that had
arisen from the fieldwork. However, I was careful to suggest these matters in a
general way, without referring to details or to specific sources. On the whole, I
assured voluntary informed consent65 would be a condition for any interview or
observation, informing participants of the research and their rights.
At the end of the fieldwork I meet with the head of each institution, and usually two
or three other senior members. In most cases (particularly with schools) participants
had initial expectations that the research would conclude with recommendations for
the institution. Nonetheless, I clarified at the beginning of the study that the research
purpose was not to find key strategies for school improvement, but to understand
how policies were enacted at a micro-level. Hence, these closing conversations of the
fieldwork aimed to give general insights into the research findings, and participants
shifted their expectations, hoping that the research results could be published to give
policy-makers feedback about how policies are experienced in ‘real-life’.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
65
With the first interviews, I handed out a printed copy of the voluntary informed consent to the
respondents and asked them to sign it. However, this is not a usual practice in the Chilean context, and
instead of generating confidence on the part of the interviewees, it usually generated surprise and even
suspicion of such formal and detailed information. Therefore, with later interviews I decided to orally
inform respondents about the research consequences and their rights. This resulted in a much more
effective strategy.
102!
!
6. Conclusions
All in all, this research draws upon both post-structural and critical theory. From this
perspective, I am concerned to understand everyday life and its constitutive aspects,
but also to produce critical knowledge and thinking about alternative policies. In
order to respond to the research aims, I undertake qualitative strategies, using case
study inquiry techniques and multiple methods, such as interviews, documentary
analysis and non-participant observations, attempting to capture in a holistic, intense
and comprehensive way how institutions put into practice accountability policies
within a market scenario. The data analysis of the research examines the discourses,
regimes of truth, and power circulation within the multi-layered spheres of
governance, including the Regional Ministry of Education, municipalities, and
schools. In addition, the analysis examines the interconnections between these
discourses and the social world, and how these contribute to maintain and transform
social orders.
103!
PART II
RESEARCH FINDINGS
104!
CHAPTER FOUR
Narratives of School Identity within the Marketplace1
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
This image is a map of schools’ location, labelled red, yellow or green, according to their national
test (SIMCE) results. This was a policy delivered in 2010, under Sebastián Piñera’s government.
Although official school classifications and the use of this kind of map are still available, the use of
colours assigned to each school on the map was cancelled due to public controversy and criticism.
105!
Chapter Four: Narratives of School Identity
Narratives of School Identity within the Marketplace
Introduction
In Chile both private and public schools are situated in a competitive marketplace
where they are expected to increase student enrolment, position themselves
favourably in national league tables and cultivate an overall positive school
reputation (§1.4). The aim of this first data analysis chapter is to examine the
narratives of school identity (Ball and Maroy, 2009; Ball et al. 2011) within this
market competition schema, i.e. to study how schools, with different market
positioning, produce and make sense of their institutional identity. In addition, these
school narratives are studied in order to comprehend in what ways staff members
internalise, exercise, resist and recreate hegemonic policy discourses, examinations,
and official school classifications, and how schools produce their own ‘story-telling’.
Furthermore, the following analysis explores the extent to which state assessments
and categorisations provoke school staff to compete and improve their market
positioning, as expected by neoliberal advocates, and/or use them to reinforce their
sense of positioning in the hierarchical field.
Following and reworking Foucault (1979, 1980), I argue in this chapter that
discursive rules circulate within educational markets that constitute and discipline
school institutions, through school categorisation, divisions and public
dissemination. Market technologies employed in Chile (§1.4), such as vouchers,
national tests, public league tables, ‘SIMCE maps’ (as shown on the first page of this
chapter), and official school classifications2, position and subjectivise institutions to
compete within the marketplace by “the power of rational classification”, as Foucault
calls it (1979, p.34). Year after year, through the national SIMCE tests, the political
ritual of school examination and ranking dissemination is fulfilled. Scientific
power/knowledge assesses schools and submits its diagnosis, as the doctor to the
patient, the teacher to the student, the judge to the criminal. The omnipresent
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2
As ‘successful school’ (escuela autónoma), ‘borderline school’ (escuela frontera) or ‘failing school’
(escuela prioritaria).
106!
‘experts’ issue the final verdict for schools, defining them as the ‘efficient’ or
‘inefficient’ school, the ‘successful’ or ‘failing’ school, the ‘over-subscribed’ or
‘sinking’ school, the ‘better-than’ or ‘worse-than’ school.
These regimes of truth are produced by outsiders, who lay claim to knowing better
than the schools themselves, ‘who they are’, ‘what can they be’ and ‘what they will
never be’. These disciplinary discourses emerge as scientific, neutral and standard for
all schools, circulating as ‘judgements of normality’. These disciplinary
classifications divide, compare, and award or punish schools, by both “totalizing and
individualizing forms of power”, as Kenway points out (1990, p. 174).
To understand how educational markets work from a Foucauldian perspective, it is

essential to study the relationship between the subject and truth, i.e. how the subject
is constituted through truth, as an ongoing activity. Thus, it is of critical importance
to analyse how schools are produced, named and categorised within the marketplace
and how members understand and make sense of the institution. Youdell (2011,
2006a, 2006b) argues that categorisation is a core disciplinary technology, which
must be carefully analysed in order to understand the constitution of the subject. The
author, following Butler, claims:
Butler suggests that ‘[b]eing called a name is ...one of the conditions by

which a subject is constituted in language’ (Butler 1997a:2). Butler is
not arguing here that a pre-existing subject is given a name, rather that
this naming is a prerequisite for being ‘recognizable’ (Butler 1997a:5,
original emphasis) as a subject. As such, ‘[o]ne comes to ‘‘exist’’ by
virtue of this fundamental dependency on the address of the Other’
(Butler 1997a:5). (Youdell 2006, 44).
In this way, Youdell (2011, 2006a), studying the constitution of students’ identities,
argues that individuals are shaped, recognised and self-recognised through
categories, allowing them to exist, make sense, act and also resist through discourse.
From a similar perspective, Gewirtz (1998, 2002) has developed relevant studies
with an institutional scope, exploring how schools are produced through official state
107!
classifications within a competition-based scenario, where discourses of ‘success’

and ‘failure’ are deployed (§1.3.2).
In this chapter I examine schools’ narratives of identity, as a collective, although not

unified, production of school identity. Ball and Maroy (2009) employ this concept,
suggesting that:
By this we mean all the accounts through which members of the

establishment proclaim the specificity of their school. This identity
could, in various ways, be linked to its past, its social or institutional
characteristics, its pedagogical philosophy or its more general ideology.
(p.111)
School members talk, scrutinise and produce the institution. These narratives are a
kind of permanent elaboration of a collective school self3, as the intimate social and
political identity within frameworks of truth, as a response to a need for school
members to constitute and understand the school. These narratives are produced
individually and with (and against) others. Within a school flow narratives about the
institution’s meaning within the field, which are shared, struggled and negotiated
overtime. In effect, some speakers are more likely to be heard as ‘to be true’ than
others.
As subjects share a common institution, market positioning and school history, they
shape and circulate school narratives (Ball. et al., 2011). School members are
situated within these discursive formations that constitute, discipline and constrain
them, although they also play ‘the game of truth’, producing, contesting and moving
prevailing discourses and rules (Foucault 1983, 1988a, 1997). It is also important to
clarify that there are collective narratives about the school identity, but these are
neither monolithic, nor do they represent a unified consensus. On the contrary, as
Ball et al. (2011) argues, within institutions there are disparate school versions,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3
Foucault in his last theoretical period develops the notion of the self, shifting from the
comprehension of a more coerced disciplinary subjectivation to a more active ‘care of the self’ (§2).
108!
contradictory expectations, and embedded incoherencies, which entail a permanent

and tactical work within institutions in order to articulate a common school story.4
Using Bourdieu’s work, school discursive identities are tied to their positioning and
kinds and volumes of capital within the marketplace. The production, embodiment
and dynamism of school identity is shaped within a market-field where institutions
are hierarchically ordered, classified and positioned according to their specific
symbolic, cultural and economic capitals, producing differentiated school
categorisations, as capitals are variously valued. Thus, to analyse school identity
narratives it is crucial to examine the links between institutions’ market positioning
and the web of power relations, with their subjectivities, categorisations and
differentiations, what Bourdieu (2003b, 2011a) calls the ‘sense of positioning’.
Bourdieu (2003b) argues that categories (such as school official classifications)

represent symbolic systems of power that tend to reinforce power relations, class
divisions and institutions/agents’ positioning within the marketplace, i.e. that
constitute the structure of social space. Thus, the generation of market ‘information’
and school classifications are far from neutral; they work as symbolic divisions
generated by ‘instruments of domination’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p.13). Yet
symbolic power is also moved, interrogated, displaced and reinvented by agents,
within the field boundaries, as I will show on the basis of the data analysis.
In this chapter I will work specifically with data collected at schools as they are
directly examined and judged by state technologies. I select pieces of data from three
of the four school case studies,5 using mostly school managers’ interviews, exploring
identity narratives and the sense of market positioning, and how agents constitute,
reinforce and resist school labels. The chapter is divided into three sections. Firstly, I
examine how members of a relatively high performing school (High Hill School)
‘talk’ and identify themselves according to their market positioning and confer
legitimacy upon official market technologies. Secondly, I analyse a private-
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4
The authors declare that head teachers and entrepreneurs in particular invest a significant amount of
effort into joining up diverse discourses, points of views and policies into an institutional narrative,
articulated, ideally, by an ‘improvement plot’. See also Ball and Maroy (2009).
5
I do not work with data from the rural school, but I will mention similar discourses and resistance
that occur with the school located in a disadvantaged area (Low Hill School).
109!
subsidised school (The Eagle School), in which, whilst officially classified as

successful, staff strongly sense the insecurity of their positioning within a highly
competitive environment, producing anxiety and an endless desire to control teaching
staff. Lastly, I study the discourses within a disadvantaged school (Low Hill School)
and the micro-counter-discourses which partly resist state categories of a ‘failing
school’. All in all, the aim is to analyse how schools produce themselves through
prevailing market/state discourses, assessment technologies and dissemination
rituals. Furthermore, the purpose is to debate how policy discourses and state
classification influence school morale, and how these encourage school improvement
and/or reinforce school inequities.
1. High Hill School: The Continuous Narration of Success
The High Hill Public Primary School is known as a ‘traditional school’ for girls,
founded in 1928, with an overall positive reputation within the borough. It is
classified by the Ministry of Education as an ‘autonomous school’, i.e. ‘successful’,
with ‘good’ learning outcomes that does not require external support. The school
mainly serves students from a ‘middle-middle’ socio-economic background,
according to the Ministry classifications (§3.3.1), and most parents work as skilled
workers, not professionals. The school is ranked second in SIMCE scores on the
Spanish test and third on the mathematics test of all 15 public schools of the
borough;6 and has relatively positive test outcomes at a national level, above the
country’s average scores.
The school is located in a central area of the city, and it serves students coming from
White Hill borough, as well as other boroughs of the city. The school has a high level
of student enrolment (average 1000),7 however, during the last five years there has
been a drop in enrolment of around 5% per year.8 Teachers explain that this school
had a selective tradition, but that nowadays “we have to receive whatever [student]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6
Also, it is ranked 8th of all 31 state subsidised schools of the borough, private and public. These
league tables are based on Spanish test at 4th grade. Source: National statistics, Ministry of Education
Web page.
7
Corresponding to the highest enrolment within the borough. Source: Borough statistics 2007.
8
Source: Borough statistics 2007.
110!
arrives”, as a mathematics teacher commented. Nevertheless, in some grades, mostly

Year 4 and 5, there are waiting lists, but not in Pre-Kinder and Kinder.
In general terms, a discourse of enduring and deeply rooted school success circulates
within the school. This discourse of success is symbolised within the school building.
In spite of the worn appearance of the school building (as with many public schools),
there are key symbols of a ‘successful school’, such as the many school trophies
placed in the reception area, together with various framed school awards and
photographs of well-known people that have visited the school.9 Also, there is a
bulletin board, hanging in the main school corridor, which announces the latest
school awards. Similarly, the school’s blog reports successful outcomes together
with pictures of triumphs and celebrations, immortalising moments of victory and
glory.
Mrs. Carmen has been working for over twenty years on the school’s management
team and for the last five years she has occupied the head teacher position. As she
talks about the school she employs a discourse of ‘success’ in academic and other
areas.
We have made important achievements, and this is something to be

proud of. We have academic excellence10, the best [national test] scores,
the best gymnasium in the borough, the best library… We have received
various prizes, such as the one in science; we got first place. And that is
a reason to be proud of ourselves and plus it raises students’ self-
esteem. Research evidence shows that it [positive self-esteem] is a very
important catalyst for good learning. (Mrs. Carmen, Head teacher)
Later she adds,

This school has very good SIMCE11 results; teachers are excellent; they
are highly committed to teaching. So, we always have good SIMCE
results.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9
For example, an ex-Minister of Education and a Chilean writer.
10
A state prize given to the 25% of the ‘best quality schools’ of every borough, according to
governmental standards and measures. This prize involves augmenting school staff salaries.
11
Stands for ‘Measurement System of Educational Quality’. This test assesses Year 4th, 8th and 10th in
Spanish, Mathematics, Social Science and Natural Sciences. The results of every school are
disseminated yearly in the media.
111!
The speaker ‘talks’ a school of success, stating that the school has achieved several
objectives, such as obtaining high test scores, winning awards, including the
‘academic excellence’ award (given by the Ministry of Education). The Head teacher
contends that school morale is high, as she says these results are a reason for school
pride, including student pride. Moreover, she affirms that these outcomes improve
students’ self-esteem and consequently promote positive learning outcomes.
This is a positional discourse, it is a discourse of success because there are ‘others’

that are unsuccessful or are less successful. It is a comparative discourse, in which
she makes explicit the advantaged positioning in the social space; “we have
academic excellence, the best (national test) scores, the best gymnasium in the
borough, the best library.” The Head is aware of the school’s symbolic and material
capitals and knows how to show and talk about them, constructing the narrative of
the successful school through ongoing discourses. In this way, test scores are
understood and employed as objective proof that describes and catalogues the school,
reaffirming the notion of the ‘successful school’.
This narrative of success is broadly exercised among school staff members,

involving school managers and teachers. For instance, a teacher who began to work
in the school only a year ago comments:
I have always been told that this is the best school, the best in White
Hill [borough]. And yes, student discipline is better here, girls are more
docile, well-behaved, and parents are more preoccupied with their
children’s progress (Primary Teacher, Year 3)
There is a collective knowledge that circulates and is transmitted from generation to

generation, as a continuous discourse that collectively forms a prevailing school
identity narrative, as this teacher shows. The Head of School Curriculum also
comments:
What occurs is that the girls that arrive here have to be High-Hill-
School- girls. That’s the difference, we transform them, here we educate
ladies, and [we educate them] pedagogically, obviously. In fact, I don’t
know if you know that we have the best SIMCE scores in Year 8 and 4.
112!
We have maintained school excellence, the only school that has

maintained more than 1000 students enrolled. You see? And sometimes
we are oversubscribed. We had a waiting list in Kindergarten and in
Pre-Kinder. So, it makes me feel happy. [Although] I get annoyed when
they [colleagues from other area schools] bother us when they tell us –
Eeeyyyy, the teachers from High Hill, here they come (teasing tone)—
but we have earned our place, and that is important, we have identity.
And that is good; we have it. (Head of School Curriculum, Teacher of
Year 1 to 4)
The speaker claims that the school has a strong school identity of educating ‘ladies’.
Girl pupils have to learn “to be High-Hill-School-girls”, as a distinctiveness of the
school identity that confers school pride. This involves a gendered and classed notion
of ‘appropriate’ pupils, which operates within the school discourses, constituting ‘its
ladies’ and ‘its success’.
In addition, it is understood that the school has the highest student enrolment and
ranking positioning. Interestingly, these school ‘truth-tellings’ are not so true, or put
in other words, school data is strategically placed and compared with other schools,
making them appear successful. This school does not have ‘the best scores’ within
the borough, as there is another public school that continuously achieves higher test
scores. Moreover, this school has good results in Spanish tests in Year 4, but lower
results in Mathematics, particularly in Year 8. Additionally, this school ranks
favourably amongst the borough’s public schools, but when the school is compared
with private subsidised schools, it is ranked at a middle/upper level (8th of 31), i.e.
not ‘the’ best-ranked school. In addition, as mentioned previously, student enrolment
has decreased in recent years, and the school does not have waiting lists in Pre-
Kinder and Kinder. Nevertheless, the Head of School Curriculum highlights that
student selection was practised in the past, mentioned as a present and ongoing
symbol of success and distinction. The speaker explains that the recent decrease in
school enrolment is due to a drop in national birth rates, as well as a general decrease
in public school enrolment, i.e. not because of any fault on the part of the school.
Interestingly, although the school is ranked second, or third, or on some occasions,

eighth place in the borough’s league tables (depending on who it is compared with),
and even though student enrolment has gradually declined, it is still named and
113!
constituted by the school staff to be ‘the best’ school. To understand this discourse it
is important to consider the school’s pathway, since discourse is accumulated
historically. This is a school that has traditionally been well-recognised. As the Head
teacher says, referring to the school’s success, “it is given historically”. Therefore, it
is not that the school has a blank self-identity waiting every year for test scores and
enrolment numbers to determine school self-assessment. On the contrary, there are
complex and multiple socio-historical conditionings that intertwine in creating
school identity. In other words, the school narrative has its specific setting of
production, which involves its own historicity.
In this sense, market symbols and categorisations reinforce and legitimate these
school identities of success in sophisticated ways, deepening and naturalising the
notion of success within a comparative market matrix. In no way do I suggest that
speakers are lying, cheating or purposely changing school assessment information. I
say that they truthfully believe the school to be the well-known, public, traditional,
and ‘best school’ of White Hill borough. It is believed to have (had) long waiting
lists, while test assessments are tacitly (not deliberately) and confidently understood,
placed and exhibited as a symbolic capital, maintaining and re-producing the notion
of success. As Bourdieu (2011b) explains, these are a “collectively concerted make-
believe” (p.173); ad hoc representations, which have a practical and convenient
social function.
Market categorisations, symbols, numbers, scores and ‘objective information’ are

alive, i.e. they are not unilaterally imposed as immobile, fixed data. School members
playfully and creatively rework these supposedly neutral judgements and
classifications within the ‘game of truth’, adjusting them tactically to their
triumphant narratives and historical dispositions of a successful school. In other
words, the successful past is still present in active and continuous ways. These
productive narratives about the school are significant components of its historically
constructed school identity, (re)produced and circulated both individually and
collectively, affecting what it means to be a student, teacher or a school manager of
the High Hill School.
114!
The preceding data also shows that speakers maintain that positive school outcomes
are a product of the school’s good work and effort. For instance, the Head teacher
says: “We have made important achievements, and this is something to be proud of”.
So it is the “we” that has produced these “several achievements”, i.e. the school is
responsible for students’ successful outcomes. Similarly, a Head of School
Curriculum explains that some students come from “ill-constituted families, with
strong emotional problems, nevertheless we transform them [students] and educate
them as ‘ladies’ within the school identity”. As the other Head of Curriculum of Year
1 to 4 added: “these are our achievements (...) yet this involves an enormous amount
of effort and staff exhaustion. We get the most out of the girls, because we are really
demanding of them”. These ‘school achievements’ may produce “exhaustion”, but
they also generate “pride” and “happiness” in the school community, boosting
overall school morale.
This school does serve an important percentage of socially disadvantaged pupils

(55%, §3.3.1, Table 6), yet it ranks as the public school with the second lowest
number of disadvantaged students in the borough (for instance, the other case study
from this same borough consists of over 80% disadvantaged pupils). Moreover,
parents appear to be particularly motivated and committed to their daughters’
learning performance, e.g. there is high parental participation to improve school
infrastructure, and also many of them come from other boroughs and travel
sometimes long distances so their daughters can attend a ‘traditional’, well-assessed
school. Nevertheless, student social composition differences and other family
advantages are removed from the school’s narrations. Some school-context features
are mentioned, such as the ease of working with only girls and the school’s historical
tradition, yet they do not appear as crucial explanations of school success. This
discourse reproduces and fits comfortably with the prevailing policy discourse of
‘schools can make a difference’, ignoring broader contextual inequities (§1.3.2).
This discourse of success is linked to a meritocracy discourse; there is a sense of

deservingness based on highest results. For instance, the school has recently received
a budget from the Ministry in order to enlarge and improve the school library. Within
this context, the Head teacher comments: “we must have the best library, as we are
115!
the best school in the borough”. Similarly, as it is shown in chapter 8, staff expect
and demand well qualified teachers contracted by the Municipality, for the school. It
is a discourse based on a matrix of competition and comparison with the ‘others’,
which is intertwined with a notion of meritocracy, i.e. the school deserves better
opportunities. In this way, this discourse legitimates and consolidates the school’s
advantaged positioning within the marketplace, as market categories and self-identity
reaffirm that the school merits institutional privileges.
In conclusion, the High Hill School generates a school narrative of success and pride,
which is made available and reinforced through national policies of school testing
and labelling. These policies strengthen the school’s sense of advantaged positioning
within the marketplace. These technologies empower managers with a discourse of
deservingness and on the whole raises school morale. Moreover, school narratives
tactically remove, exclude, and reassemble market ‘information’ in order to reaffirm
a historical notion of school quality.
In other words, the school plays ‘games of truth’ to carefully protect the maintenance
of its genealogically successful discourse formation. It is the narrative of an
outstanding school, in spite of failing outcomes, such as enrolment drops and
decreasing test performance. So it is not the straightforward internalisation of
‘objective’ social structures, nor the idea of a passive disciplinary subjectivation.
School members rework prevailing regimes of truth and symbolic classifications in
creative and sophisticated ways, investing narrative efforts in maintaining the story
of the school’s advantaged positioning.
On the whole, this school is located within a scenario in which the social world order
and symbolic classifications are broadly consistent with the discursive formation of
the school identity. However, there are bits and pieces of failing school figures that
do not match with the narrative of a successful school, yet these inconsistencies are
easily adjusted, silenced or justified in order to maintain the storytelling of the
traditional-ladies-successful school. Thus market categorisations and divisions are
not only unproblematic for the school staff, but, furthermore, they are re-used to
116!
reaffirm an historical self-understanding of the school. In Bourdieu’s terms12, the

school works and moves within the marketplace as a ‘fish in water’, i.e. “it does not
feel the weight of the water, and it takes the world about itself for granted” (Bourdieu
and Wacquant, 1992, p.127).
2. The Eagle School: The Sense of Insecure Positioning
The Eagle School has been a private-state-subsidised school since 1997 (it was
formerly a municipal public school), run by a private association of fifty members,
all current or former teachers of the same school. This school has a good reputation
in the area and receives students coming mostly from the same borough. The
school’s pupils are classified as a ‘middle-upper’ social-economic group and 46.5%
of its intake are socially disadvantaged pupils, according to the Ministry of
Education Bureau13 (§3.3.1). Most parents work as skilled workers, although there
are a few that are (low paid) professionals. The school is well known for having
high-test scores and has more financial resources than the other municipal schools, as
the school charges parental fees (in the secondary school section) and receives extra
resources from the Municipality.
The school is classified by the Ministry as an ‘autonomous school’, i.e. a school that
demonstrates ‘good quality’ outcomes and therefore does not require close
supervision or support from the Ministry or any other external institutions. Its test
scores are above the national average, it is ranked third of all 14 subsidised schools
in the borough and it is fully enrolled.14 Although this school has positive figures in
terms of student enrolment and test scores, its sense of positioning is insecure. This
self-governing school is now responsible for its own management, and no longer
dependent on the Municipality administration.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
12
Bourdieu uses this metaphor to analyse the relationship between habitus and the field. In this case, I
use it for understanding the relationship between the schools’ identity narratives and the market field.
13
Borough statistics, 2008.
14
Borough statistics 2007; league table ranking for SIMCE outcomes in Spanish and Mathematics,
Year 4.
117!
Mrs. Pamela was a teacher of the school while it was public (managed by the
Municipality), and when the school’s management was transferred to a private
teacher association she was promoted as the head of the school. On the one hand, she
argues that working at a self-managing school was initially inspiring, “it increased
teachers’ self-esteem”; “we thought why not? We were capable of doing it”.
However, on the other hand, self management involves stressful responsibilities, the
school leadership has to address many issues and respond to diverse demands. As she
says:
Now I’m in charge of enrolment figures, of attracting students, and we

must self-finance. It is difficult for us. The school next door, which is a
municipal school, was fixed recently [its building], and many parents
came to ask us how come this other school had improved so much;
many wanted to leave, because they though it looked prettier. And of
course it was paid for by the state. But we don’t have money for all that.
Now we were lucky that parents stayed, we really had to talk them out
of the idea [of leaving], parents realised that we are better, and finally
most of them stayed. (Mrs. Pamela, Head teacher)
Mrs. Pamela feels the pressure to increase school enrolment and test outcomes, and
additionally generate profits for the school owners. A private business rationale has
been inserted into a historically public school. This sense circulates within the
school, as for example a Special Needs Teacher says:
It’s important to ensure that parents don’t leave. You know that if
student enrolment decreases, a classroom can be shut down, so then,
you have one colleague less in the school. And you know, they [school
managers] make you know it. I make jokes with my colleagues – Don’t
you dare say something to a parent that might leave! Heehee! and
remember that one student less here and over there, means one less
colleague —. I tell them we have to treat students as jewels, they are our
future, they bring us our money, thanks to them the school owners pay
our salaries (Special Needs Teacher)
The above quote shows the ongoing sense of risk and fear (ironically mixed and
obscured with humour), which is extended to all the school staff - fear of, for
instance, parents exiting the school and consequently teachers losing their jobs.
These risks and fears work, as Lazzarato notes (2012), as an economy of ‘little fears’
or of ‘molecular insecurity’ (p.120, cf. Deleuze and Guattari, 1980). These are key
118!
technologies of neoliberal regimes, which the author calls ‘financialization of risks’,

introducing small, yet continuous degrees of “economic and existential precarity into
the lives of individuals” (p.119). In this manner, individuals have to individually
confront risks, within a state of ‘equal inequality’ (using Foucault’s term), meaning a
setting of constant competition, made-up (necessarily) of differences.
Risk and fear, in the school, are experienced individually, and also socialised and
shared collectively. The senior management tactically uses this school atmosphere of
fear as a power technology, and also teachers among themselves produce this feeling
of risk, enhancing, for instance, a market discourse of client satisfaction. The
responsibility and consequences of failure are individual, but strategic association
among staff is required in order to avoid personal consequences. For example, the
idea that we must all care about parents being satisfied for the collective good and
safety of school members. On the whole, these are discourses that shape and
constitute the school identity as a ‘good’ school, but a momentarily good school,
with an endlessly insecure self, involved in a ‘risky business’. Hence, this situation is
very much one of the Hayekian ideal notion of market functioning, powered and
disciplined by the combination of on-going self-interests and desires, and of fears of
possibly losing the advantage.
This sense of anxiety and uncertainty is generated within the intangible openness of
the educational market, described by the Head teacher, Mrs. Pamela, as an area with
strong competition between the private and public sector. In this way, the school
staff is very aware of school competition and of ‘the others’. For example, Mrs.
Pamela comments:
Every day there are more [state subsidised] private schools in this
borough that can charge more than us and that can select students from
primary level. The Blue Sea School (nearby school with higher test
results) starts charging [parents’ fees] in Pre-kinder, and they have
parents with much better incomes than ours, but, they appear as
‘middle-upper’ [same as the Eagle School]. Many [parents] prefer our
school because it is free in primary school, but as there are families with
more economic difficulties, there is always a percentage that leaves in
secondary because they don’t want to pay (parental fees are charged in
secondary). And now almost all municipal schools [i.e. public schools]
119!
have secondary schools that are cost-free for them [parents]. (...) The
most important thing now is to see how we improve ourselves with the
same resources and outperform others. (Mrs. Pamela, Head teacher)
The school identity is built on the basis of market evaluations and comparison
against ‘the others’. ‘The others’ represent a school threat that puts the school ‘future
at risk’ (Ball, 2003b).15 Among the school staff there is a cognitive market map
where there are visible and identified schools which have better, similar or worse
performance than their school, and which charge parents more, the same or less than
they do. This is a discourse of competition, the rationale of overcoming the other.
Interestingly, the assessment results produced by the state, that supposedly should
trigger school self-assessment, critical reflection and further improvement strategies,
is rather linked to staff complaints of uneven conditions of competition and of
inaccurate social class and school judgements. For example, Mrs. Pamela alleges that
the school appears as serving a middle-upper economic-social group of students, as
does the other school (Blue Sea School), yet in reality she points out that her school
serves lower middle-class families. This social composition difference is put forward
to explain their poorer outcomes. Consequently, she states that it is erroneous to
interpret that the Blue Sea School is of superior quality to the Eagle School.
Improvements at other schools are also bad news for the Head teacher. For instance,
the fact that most primary municipal schools of the borough expanded their supply of
places to include secondary school age (i.e. pre-kinder to Year 12 in the same school
building) was a new threat for the Eagle School, as secondary students could flow to
the free public sector. Also, the school, according to municipal policies, cannot
charge parental fees within primary school (only within secondary school), nor can
they select students. These equity regulations are understood as unjust as the Head
teacher has the duty to compete within the market in order to attract more students,
while other private, subsidised schools can select students and charge parental fees.
Thus equity regulations hinder, they are counterproductive to school strategies for
advancing positioning within the marketplace (§8.1).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
15
In Chapter 7 Ball develops the concept of risk within the ‘openness of the market’, particularly
referring to the ‘risks’ of middle class parents in choosing schools for their children.
120!
According to this account, the market-field is experienced as unfair and some school
measures are misleading (e.g. students’ economic grouping), leading to inaccurate
interpretations of school performance. Thus the sense of risk and insecurity moves
the school towards a rationale of competition, but mixed with frustration and doubt,
i.e. not directly motivating ‘quality improvement’ as expected, nor enhancing pro-
equity practices (I continue to analyse this issue in chapter 8). I am not suggesting
that the school does not carry out improvement measures or innovative projects. In
fact, the Head of School Curriculum is concerned to and attempts to develop
different kinds of curriculum initiatives (for further examples see §7). Nevertheless,
these practices are related to professional convictions, and are not triggered by
market competition.
In addition, the sense of insecure positioning is linked to a feeling of distrust towards

school staff, together with a profound desire to augment power technologies. Mrs.
Pamela (as well as other school managers) is concerned about teachers’ performance
and of finding new ways to assess teachers, and aligning staff to assessment policies.
As she says: “Some [teachers] do whatever they wish; it shouldn’t be like that. We
don’t have a clue about what they are doing [within classrooms].” School managers
have a strong sense of uncertainty about what is happening inside classrooms. They
have the feeling of being powerless, while teachers appear to them as powerful;
“they do whatever they wish”. While there is awareness that teacher quality has a
potential impact on the performance of pupils, as well as future pupil recruitment.
This is linked to the desire of school managers to embody a permanent overseer that
always observes, knows and (ideally) controls what teachers are doing. It is a kind of
‘political utopia’, as Foucault (1977) calls: “a perfect eye that nothing would escape
and a centre towards which all gazes would be turned” (p.172). This situation is
intensified by the fact that the school is owned by a private association made up of
fifty teachers, most of whom still work in the school. This management schema is
supposed to enhance teacher collegiality, a principle that inspired this self-governing
school project. Nevertheless, as there are teachers that are also school owners, Mrs.
Pamela feels constrained and frustrated that she does not have complete power over
121!
the school staff. For instance, she feels she cannot easily dismiss teachers,
particularly those who are also school owners. As she says:
For the [school] project, you have to make decisions based on which
people are useful and which aren’t, as in any private corporation. But
here I can’t, there are teachers that have a double role, they are workers
and owners at the same time. The original idea was that this
[management model] was going to generate stronger involvement and
commitment. And that happens in a specific group, the motivation and
commitment, but it’s a small group [of teachers] that is conscious that it
is your responsibility, that if we do it better, it will be better for all of us.
Yet, there is another group [of teachers] that don’t care, they want to
receive their profits and that’s it. (Mrs. Pamela, Head teacher)
So while Mrs. Pamela claims that being able to dismiss teachers is a significant
advantage of the private self-governing school (unlike at municipal public schools),
she cannot make use of this crucial power tactic since there are teachers with a
double role of workers and owners. Conversely, the collective-management schema
troubles her, as it turns out to be a limitation for school competition and it weakens
her positional power. As she observes:
It’s that there are too many [school owners], that’s the problem. They
[owners] are very difficult to manage, and you have to make decisions,
important decisions. It would be much better with a group of three or
four people [school owners], and no more than that. It’s like that in
other [self-governing] schools, which were formed after us (Mrs.
Pamela, Head teacher)
In other words, to compete in an insecure scenario, having to take continuous and

quick decisions, the Head teacher alleges that a small and more controlled
management board is better, together with a hierarchical and loyal structured staff.
This schema appears as more consistent with the market demands associated with a
private corporation style, more responsive and efficient; contrary to the current sense
of messiness and uncontrollable staff. This approach opposes the idea of a more
democratic and collegiate management style. Furthermore, this desire for control is
mixed with the idea of introducing a tougher and strict private management style,
(for further examples see §6.5); as the Head of School Curriculum says:
122!
If a teacher doesn’t improve, [he or she must be] fired, just as with
students, they don’t learn, they flunk, out [of the school]; if he [teacher]
does it [his job] bad, that’s it, he just must go to work somewhere else.
We are a private school for a good reason.
Within this setting, the school management staff agreed to employ a person to be in
charge of ‘school assessment’ whose specific mission is to assess teachers’ practices.
As I interviewed the person in this new position (she had been working in the school
for five months), she explained:
We assess teachers using a very objective format, with more than 30

observable indicators. We have been very careful about doing this very
well and in an orderly manner. The problem is that if a teacher [that is
also a school owner and is poorly assessed as a teacher] is fired, she has
a voice and a vote [within the school council]. We have this kind of
duality. And some of them [teachers] are very traditional, they don’t
study, they don’t renew themselves, they just want to retire. (...) Here
each teacher should follow the lesson plan. While the classes are done
properly, everything should be OK. But for many teachers, we don’t
know what they do. They act as owners of their classrooms; they don’t
like you to go into their classrooms. But we just have to assess them,
just like that, I just go in [the classroom], I don’t care, and now we are
changing that habit. We have to assess them every semester, now,
everybody. (Head of School Evaluation)
According to this testimony, the speaker reproduces the discourse of distrust towards
teachers and the desire to closely and exhaustively observe, scrutinise and control
school staff. It is a kind of obsession for control that expands throughout the school
management staff in order to (try to) manage risk. The answer to this concern is to
design a “very objective format”, which serves as a rational solution for assessing
teachers and to improve teachers’ practices.
This aspiration of control is merged with a discourse of ‘student-centred’ education

and ‘reflexive teaching’ similar to the mix prevailing in Ministry of Education
discourse. The Head of School Evaluation talks passionately about the importance of
using innovative pedagogical practices with a constructivist approach. Additionally,
she emphasises the significance of “talking with teachers, thinking together, you
know, give them real feedback, it must be helpful, that’s all the sense of assessing
ourselves”. Therefore, it is a combined discourse that praises and seeks a hierarchical
123!
organisational schema, and simultaneously brings into play discourses related to

teacher’s reflection practices and a student-centred approach. In this way, teachers’
assessment acquires a key role at a micro level, as a ‘solution’ to multiple policy
issues mixing teachers’ control and ‘reflexivity’.
To sum up, this case study refers to a school with a relatively advantaged positioning
within the marketplace. Nevertheless, there are politics of ‘little fears’ at work
(Lazarrato, 2012), fears of fulfilling a ‘risky business’, mixed with anxiety for both
generating ‘excellence’ and for failing. The school identity in this case is similar to
what Rose (1992, 1996) has called the ‘entrepreneurial self’; senior managers
construct the school as an ‘entrepreneurial being’. It is an institution within an
uncertain setting, where members exercise a permanent calculation of how to
achieve/maintain an advantaged position, how to reduce risk, how to overcome
others, and assure a thriving future. Although in all case studies in this research the
sense of fear and risk are present, I argue that in this particular case study it is most
evident as part of the school identity, possibly because it is the only self-governing
school responsible for its finances (the other school case studies are managed by the
Municipality).
These feelings of insecurity and risk are linked to a profound enduring dissatisfaction
coming from the senior managers (in spite of positive outcomes), together with a
sense of being powerless and a perception of lack of control over ‘outsiders’, such as
other competing schools and parents (who choose and exit), and ‘insiders’, such as
school teachers. A schema of entrepreneurial individualised responsibility pushes
school members to distrust, blame, persuade, and control colleagues in an attempt to
reduce personal risks. This occurs within a sort of hybrid institution with different
allegiances at work and complex relations in play; between overlapped roles: of
school owners and their profit interests, staff-teacher and their labour stability
purposes, and senior managers and their intent to generate a ‘school of excellence’.
This setting produces a kind of management obsession with continuous control,

implying an endless desire to scrutinise and rule all school practices. The circulating
management discourses produce fear and praise a hierarchical style, similar to a
124!
private corporation approach, as a solution to achieving a ‘responsive’ and efficient

school management. Other research has also suggested in similar ways that pressure
for competition moves schools towards more fragmented relations, less collegiality
among staff and a decline in teachers’ participation within school decision-making
(e.g. Gerwitz et al., 1995; Gewitz 2002; Reay, 1998b). On the contrary, in this case
study, collective decision-making and equality regulations are understood as a
limitation for successful management within the market. (Although at the same time
school managers complain of teachers’ collaborative thinking and participation.)
Thus the market competition ideal of a dyad of risk and freedom, in this case study,
works more like a dyad of risk and (desire for) control. In this way, risk and
authoritarianism fit together, instead of risk wedded to a democratic/collegial
management style. Paradoxically, far from the notion of a self-governed school that
is believed to produce an empowered institutional identity, it is an insecure, divided
and powerless identity. All in all, following Bourdieu’s metaphor, this school
identity lives as a ‘fish in the water’, but with a permanent feeling that at any
moment an ‘invisible hand’ will come and spill all the water. As Reay et al. (2010)
argues: “fitting in is also problematic” (p.120).
3. Low Hill Primary School: The Troubled Identity in a Disadvantaged

Positioning
The Low Hill Primary School is located in an inner city area of the metropolitan
region with high rates of unemployment and criminality. It is an under-subscribed
school, with low-test performance outcomes (ranked in the last position of the
borough’s league table).16 The school receives a high percentage of the area’s
disadvantaged children (81% are ‘socially disadvantaged’,17 §3.3.3) and many of
them, according to the Head teacher, have complex social problems, such as
domestic violence, child abuse, and parents in prison.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
16
Communal statistics, 2007
17
Ibid, 2008
125!
The school is classified by the Ministry of Education as a ‘failing school’. This

school classification refers to state-subsidised schools, which receive external
support for ‘school improvement’, as they are identified as institutions that fail to
achieve minimum state quality standards and have high percentages of disadvantaged
students. In particular, for four years this school received technical support from an
educational consultant. In spite of this extra guidance and support, the school did not
improve its test scores. Moreover, after four years of external support, the school’s
test results dropped slightly.
Mrs. Susana is the head teacher and was one of the founder teachers over forty years
ago. She has worked in the same school since she was an undergraduate student. In
general terms, she is dedicated to the school and to the students and families’
wellbeing, and takes an overall community approach. Similarly, among the school
staff there is, overall, a strong interest in serving highly disadvantaged communities.
This belief is central to the school; in this way teachers make sense of the school’s
daily work and its professional ethics. For instance, interviewees usually start their
interviews by detailing the difficulties they face day-to-day and declaring a
significant vocation and commitment to working with this kind of deprived
population. As a teacher says:
This is hard-core poverty; here you have to teach kids everything,

everything, to wash their face, their hands, talk properly. Families are
hardly present. We have a lot of parents that are delinquents, drug
addicts. (...) But, you know, I like working here. Here kids need a lot of
support, a lot, they need love, care, to feel your concern. That’s so
important. I have friends that ask me: how do you work there?! Heehee.
But I feel a strong vocation. It’s difficult, not just anybody can work
here. We say that when somebody makes it through the first 3 months, it
means that they are going to stay. Really, many [teachers] come here
and quickly run off. (Primary Teacher, Year 4)
The teacher ‘talks the school’ proudly, it is a difficult and challenging milieu to work
in, “not everyone can do it”; and it is felt that it is a socially important job as they
serve highly underprivileged children that especially need community support and a
loving environment.
126!
Nevertheless, at the same time, the ‘sense of positioning’ of the school within the
marketplace is at the very low bottom, a position which is rationalised through
league tables and state classification as a ‘failing school’. As I will show in this
section, these vocational ethics discourses, and the comprehensive contextual
understanding of the school create strong tension within a market scenario,
producing surveillance, together with resistance, frustration and struggles for
recognition. State examinations and judgements are both legitimated and resisted,
displacing and re-assembling discourses of what it means to work in an unpopular
school.
Mrs. Susana is strongly constrained by the need to improve test results and uses
diverse strategies in order to improve performance outcomes, aiming particularly to
change the school categorisation of ‘failing school’ to ‘borderline school’ (i.e.
intermediate level)18. She and her school colleagues, in general terms, legitimise and
are concerned about test scores, league tables and school classifications. For
instance, the Head teacher observes that: “[SIMCE] is a good assessment, any
measurement is not bad”, “It allows us to improve, if not we would not know how
we are doing’. Similarly, the Head of School Curriculum asks: “How can we
improve if we do not have [assessment] feedback?”, “Schools cannot be conformist
about what they do”. National assessments are understood as formative information
that genuinely records students’ learning performance, which (at least partly) is owed
to school quality, and helps schools to be aware of their virtues and faults and
consequently orientate improvement actions. These are the regimes of truth that
circulate within the school, as school members learn the market-performance
language.
These truths circulate as scientific, rational, and neutral. They constitute and
constrain the understanding of the self. However, within this disadvantaged scenario,
these disciplinary classifications and judgements of school failure are not practised
smoothly and continuously. They are also problematic, triggering difficulties for
giving meaning to the school and its daily work.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18
In Chapter 5 we see how Mrs Susana mobilises diverse efforts and resources to improve national
test scores.
127!
The [school] results haven’t been good as to numbers, as to scores, in

spite of colleagues’ enormous efforts year after year to change results.
But last year was when we had our worst crises with the SIMCE test.
Not just because the results decreased, but because we started to
despair. There came a moment when we started to question ourselves.
Because we have worked so hard during these years and we didn’t
achieve what we had set out to achieve. A general desperation started, it
was a unique discontent. (Mrs. Susana, Head teacher)
Mrs. Susana has trouble making sense of the SIMCE ‘verdicts’. She tries desperately
to reconcile contradictory perspectives in order to understand the school, but the
puzzle is yet unfinished, the pieces do not fit. It is difficult to articulate one coherent
and heroic school identity narrative under these circumstances. On the one hand,
Mrs. Susana feels that she and the teachers’ make an enormous effort and sacrifice to
provide the best education to the school’s pupils. For example, faithfully
implementing governmental programmes, working late in order to fulfil different
kinds of government assessments and planning formats, working at weekends on
extra-curricular activities, teaching children with learning difficulties individually,
talking personally to parents, working with other social services to provide family
support, etc. On the other hand, and in spite of their efforts, the school is classified
by the state as a failure, a bad school, where children do not learn, and therefore, a
school that does not accomplish its main raison d'être. These are ‘judgements of
normality’ at work.
These contradictory evaluations describe the clash between two discourses; the
Ministry’s managerial discourse and the school’s vocational discourse. These two
discourses involve opposing ways of understanding and assessing schooling.19 While
the first discourse refers to a standardised reality and assesses schools (only) through
observable and quantifiable outcomes, the other perspective emphasises the
comprehension of particular contextual features and non-measurable daily efforts,
commitments and affectivities involved in schooling. These are not only clashes
between the Ministry and the school narratives, but are also clashes working
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
19
In a similar way, Gerwitz et al. (1995) and Gerwitz (2002) analyse English clashes between a
professional-ethical regime (linked to a comprehensive ethos) and an entrepreneurial-competitive
regime.
128!
internally within Mrs. Susana herself. The Head teacher presents a divided self20 that
confronts multiple and contradictory discourses. As Kenway (1990) notes,
power/knowledge: “divides people from themselves and others” (p.174).
These opposing assessments produce confusion, doubt and despair; “we have worked
so hard during these years and we didn’t achieve what we had set out to; so, we
started to question ourselves”; as Mrs Susana comments. As I talked with her she
showed me a folder and a notebook where she has the borough’s league tables, the
school’s scores of past years, and all sorts of statistical analysis that the school staff
had done. While she looks and reviews the papers, trying to explain the school test
results to me, I could imagine how she asked herself again and again: ‘Why? Why do
we have low scores? Why can’t we achieve good scores if we do our best?’ These
are interrogations that cast doubt on the value of the school and therefore on her own
professional identity. These are interrogations that attempt to understand the school
and try to put together the divided pieces of the puzzle, i.e. of the profound
understanding of a school’s meaning and value.
Following Bourdieu (2003b), this schema of school evaluation is a system of

differentiation that works as symbolic violence. State authority names the school and
symbolically locates it at the lower end of the social space, where ‘they ought to be’.
These symbolic power technologies deepen the sense of disadvantaged school
positioning. The school serves students coming from poor backgrounds, thus the
institution’s sense of its low positioning reinforces, through symbolic power,
students’ class divisions and positioning. One of the most difficult moments for Mrs.
Susana, a couple of years before I interviewed her, was when the regional Ministry
Head of Education harshly criticised ‘failing’ schools and made a public plea in the
media to all parents to withdraw their children from these schools. As Mrs. Susana
remembers:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20! This!notion!is!connected!to!Bourdieu’s!concept!of!the!divided%or%torn%habitus!(Bourdieu!and!
Wacquant,!1992),!developed!by!Reay!(2004).!
129!
We head teachers were insulted by Mr. Andrew [Regional Ministry

Head]. I would like to tell him to his face. We were insulted.
[Paraphrasing Mr. Andrew:] That bad performance schools are useless
from the head teacher downwards; that they [the Ministry] have to get
rid of them. He can’t say that. He doesn’t know the job we do here. In
that meeting, you know... I went to the toilet, I went to cry. (...) He told
us that, that we were useless, head teachers, teachers. I have given my
life for this school. His words really offended me.
This episode turned out to be, not a silent or hidden symbolic violence for Mrs.
Susana, but rather a harsh and obvious form of violence. The regional authority was
telling her that all her commitment and effort was useless, the school was a non-
school21 and she was a non-head-teacher. It was a non-worthy, bad, fearsome school,
from which children and families should flee. The failure was individualised on the
school level. The Regional Head’s stance directly questions Mrs. Susan’s head
teacher identity. She is named, exposed and made visible as a failure, while the
political nature of examination and the whole larger educational system is rendered
invisible.
As Foucault (1977) states: “The punishment must proceed from the crime; the law
must appear to be a necessity of things, and power must act while concealing itself
beneath the gentle force of nature” (p.106). The school staff performed the crime, i.e.
the problem is intrinsically embedded within the school. In this way, state/market
evaluative categories are violently imposed, while crucially leaving aside contextual
features. Power and Frandji (2010) claim that these policies of division, comparison
and labelling ignore broader social inequities, constituting an ‘injustice of
misrecognition’ (p.388).
That day, after Mr. Andrew’s words, Mrs. Susana remembers she could not contain
her emotions of sadness mixed with anger. She went to the bathroom and she cried;
these are the affectivities of the market at work. I can imagine her crying with anger,
crying with frustration, hiding silently in a bathroom, while Mr. Andrew kept loudly
talking to the head teachers’ audience. Her more than forty years of professional life
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21
I am reusing this concept from Youdell’s work that discusses the implicit discursive production of
the non-student and the non-teacher within educational market and performance schemas (Youdell,
2011).
130!
were questioned by the highest regional authority of the Ministry of Education,

questioned by the state in which she believed in and to which she gave authority and
legitimacy.
However, as Mrs. Susana cried that day, she was resisting the imposed symbolic
power system, resisting the discursive monopoly of the state to define successful or
failing schools. She felt the imposition, the violence of being classified as a ‘bad
school’. She felt it was an unfair accusation towards herself, towards a ‘non-guilty’
and well-meaning head teacher. Her tears were a protest against competing schemas
and standardisation policies that blame schools, which deny the complex nature of
working in disadvantaged contexts. Her tears were a protest, a ‘politics of feeling’, as
Youdell (2011) terms it, a political productive power that resists power/knowledge
settlements through the deployment of feelings.
In addition to the above, Mrs Susana’s feeling of disdain and exclusion in response
to the regional Ministry discourse is mixed with a feeling of rejection of her ‘old-
vocational style’. Mrs. Susana grew up, was educated and worked during the 1960s
and 1970s within a comprehensive-republican educational framework, known as the
‘Estatuto Docente’ in the Latin American context. This understanding involves a
faithful commitment towards the state, together with a strong vocational devotion,
opposed to a self-interested rationale.
A good professional works because he has to, it’s his duty, it’s what he
feels is right; my work is always the same. I always work the same. I am
not going to work more or less because of an incentive or a prize. We
were the best teachers, the old ones, those who now they [the
government] want to fire, because of our vocation. We have dedicated
our life to education, and not for money. The older teachers, we had a
miserable salary, we were the best. And now they want to fire us
because we are too old. (Mrs. Susana, Head teacher)
131!
The quoted fragments illustrate the conflicted self this head teacher experiences. In
different ways she experiences state classifications and market competition as
symbolic violence and as a rejection towards her vocational commitment and the
school staff’s daily job and efforts.22
Thus the data does not show a school identity smoothly adjusting to its positioning
within the social structure, as Bourdieu’s theory suggests. It is neither a disciplined
subject, coerced by policy power technologies in a Foucauldian sense; nor
alternatively, do the school staff resist and emancipate themselves from the market’s
hostile judgements, in Habermasian terms. On the contrary, the data suggests a
troubled school identity, which is triggered by the encounter between the i)
prevailing managerial-market discourse, ii) the school’s micro discourses and its own
historicity, and iii) practical conditions in a disadvantaged context, involving scant
symbolic and material capitals for competing within the marketplace.
These encounters produce a strong feeling among the staff members that they cannot
follow and account for policy demands within a competing landscape. Consequently,
the hegemonic performative/market discourse does not fit easily within an
underprivileged scenario and troubles school narratives in general. As the Head of
School Curriculum, for instance, claims:
We don’t have the students that the Violeta Parra [School] has, nor
those of the Antonio Varas [School], nor those of the 248 [School]. We
don’t have [those type of students], we are not even close to the
resources, the buildings, the parental commitment [these other schools
have]; it’s very different. They’re very different, the parents that
participate at the 248 [School], at the Violeta Parra [School], at the
Antonio Varas [School], are much more committed [to those schools].
(...) Here parents never come [to the school]. At the beginning of each
year, students come into the school and we have to call their parents so
they can come and enrol them, because they [parents] don’t even know
if their [child] passed the year or not. (...) It’s very difficult to work
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
22
This feeling of frustration connects to what Dubet (2004) has referred to as the end of the republican
elite school, which was treated as a ‘sanctuary’ sphere, where teachers had a high status, positioned as
the state’s ‘secular priests’. Nowadays, this understanding of schooling and of being a teacher has
changed; teachers are examined, measured, questioned and criticised. As Dubet notes: “the
organisation of the [school] corporation grows while teachers have the impression that they are a piece
of a blind machine that ignores them.” (p. 28, my own translation)
132!
here, in this area, because of the social reality. We can’t, we can’t do it

all. They [Ministry of Education] want everything to be solved through
education, but we can’t, we can’t with the home overcrowding, with the
problems of social housing, drugs, its very wearying. It’s very different
to work at the Violeta Parra [School] that has a lot of resources and they
select [students]. Here all good schools select. A kid doesn’t enrol if he
doesn’t have a good profile. And they [high performing schools] also
get rid of them [students], and we receive what is left behind [lo que
botó la ola], all of it. Everything. We work with the most disadvantaged
population, we receive all the troubled kids [niños cachos], those that
nobody wants. (Head of School Curriculum)
This discourse clamours for contextual understanding, for justly assessing the school.
The bottom line is that schools cannot be judged and compared if contextual features
are not seriously considered first. It is unfair to disregard broader school settings.
The speaker sketches the hierarchical order of the market-field, describing the key
capitals that are distributed unequally among schools. He explains how schools have
differentiated positioning, in terms of, for example, economic resources and students
and families’ cultural capital, as well as in terms of ‘privileged practices’, such as
pupil selection and exclusion (§8.1).
The Head of School Curriculum ‘calculates the gap’ between the school’s social
reality and the national school targets and standards. The result is an
incommensurable distance. So he tells me, and himself, “we just can’t, we can’t with
all of this”; in other words, the school cannot solve the broader social inequities.
These arguments challenge the classification of school failure, to tell the school truth
and demand a comprehensive understanding of the school and of its uneven market
positioning23. Moreover, this narrative is also his internal self-dialogue, as he asks
himself to be understanding and forgiving with his constrained and complex
positioning.
Additionally, there is also a rejection of the criterion of parental choice (i.e. students’
enrolment figures) as a sign of school quality. As a SEN teacher says:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
23
The speaker’s claims echo with claims raised by scholars who have studied school performance in
different settings and with diverse social and ethnic pupil composition (e.g. Lupton 2006, Thrupp and
Lupton 2006, Thrupp 1999, §1.3.2, §8.3).
133!
Mrs. N: Parents prefer to pay a bit more, three, four thousand pesos [£2-
3.00 approximately.] just to go to a private [subsidised] school.
AF: And what do you think about that?
Mrs. N. It’s wrong, they are not choosing because of quality, it’s a
status thing. You know. The uniform, the name, the fact that it isn’t
municipal. And many times these [schools] are a lot worse than this
school. We here give a lot of support to children with learning
problems, we give personalised attention, we have small classes, we can
work really close to each student. (Special Needs Teacher)
Both of these previous quotes represent the school’s prevailing circulating discourses
that interrogate state examinations and also market indicators (enrolment figures) as
legitimate indicators of school quality. Furthermore, these discourses position the
school’s failing results as a problem external to the institution, i.e. outcomes owed to
pupils’ low cultural capital and ‘wrong’ parental choice, not because of school
failure. These narrative explanations again work as tactical understandings that
manage to disregard the judgement of ‘school failure’.
A further attempt to find answers and explanations for divided and contradictory
school narratives (fraught with national assessments and classifications) is developed
through moving the blame from the school towards pupils and their families, as they
are positioned as the main cause of outcome failures.
Mrs. Susana: Look, I’ll show you something [she opens a notebook with
various calculations based on school test scores], if you observe here the
highest score in [Spanish] was 298, [and] on a national level 308, and in
my class 298. That means that the school justifies itself, that the school
teaches the curriculum and that the child that had the highest score was
the best student, or not? In [Spanish], you notice, in Mathematics we
had 281 the highest [score], and the national average was 302, and in
natural sciences, the highest was 308 and we had 302. So, we are not
sooo bad! In effect, our lowest [score] was 149; that is a boy with
learning problems, I tell you that boy has problems with calculating, he
could have had that score. And the highest was 281, and in Mathematics
the lowest was 125 and the highest 282. But if these lowest [scores] are
these [children] that I tell you, these are pupils with attention deficit,
with learning problems. What I would like from SIMCE or if you can
tell them [policy-makers], is that they should give us the results of each
child.
AF: Per child?
Mrs. Susana: [Yes], so we could say, ahh this one had these results
because of learning problems, ah this one because of attention deficit.
134!
And it would draw our attention if a good student had bad results. But
now we don’t know how each student is assessed.
AF: But you have your own [school] assessments?
Mrs. Susana: Yes, but I would like to know who had bad results and
who had good [results]. Because in that way we would know what
happened. And we wouldn’t question ourselves so much.
Later she adds:
That way I tell you I would like one by one [to know the individual test
scores]. That way, with psychological results from the social worker
[reports], I would say this is this child’s problem, what else could I say?
And also maybe the best student could have bad results, and I can say,
but what is happening? (...) Also in that way we could make parents
responsible, and tell them: look this is how your son is; how many
school meetings did you attend during the year?
These quotes suggest ways in which school members creatively and strategically
deliver diverse test-score calculations and move numbers from one place to
another,24 seeking to deconstruct and reconstruct school assessments and
classifications. Mrs Susana notes that there are high-performing pupils within the
school (based on test score information). Even though these cases are few and far
between, she claims that it is enough to show that the school performs well. As the
interviewee notes: “That means that the school justifies itself, the school teaches the
curriculum”.
On the other hand, it is understood that the cause of learning failure is not the school,
but the children and the families. Hence, individual high scores work as tiny and
partial achievements that reward the institution with satisfaction, since they serve as
proof that there is no institutional failure, but the failure lies with the pupils and their
families. In this way, low-performing outcomes are explained and the school is
excused from its responsibilities. Hence, the same national test scores that had named
the school as a non-school, now, as they are resettled, enable the staff to justify and
understand themselves as a ‘proper’ school. This is the re-working of school
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
24 So, as in the first case study, staff re-work in creative ways ‘objective information’ and state
classifications. !
135!
narratives as a strategy of survival for making sense of the school and as a kind of
self-defence for school honour.
Overall, there are at least three tactics that enable staff to produce collective
narratives as an attempt to understand and make sense of the school’s ‘failing’
assessments and classifications. Firstly, there is a counter-discourse as staff
interrogate comparative assessments and call for the recognition of social
inequalities, i.e. to take into account that schools’ starting points for competition are
asymmetrical, and that it is impossible to employ ‘judgements of normality’ among
such uneven school contexts.
Secondly, parental choice is also contested as an illegitimate assessment of school

quality, since it is argued that parents generally choose in uninformed ways, guided
by school social status, class intake, and generally non-pedagogical criteria. Thirdly,
school narratives blame pupils and families for performance failure, and furthermore,
they demand more sophisticated assessment technologies, such as the dissemination
of individual pupils’ test scores, in order to personalise blame in a more exact way.
These mixed answers became a kind of relief for school staff, after “too much
questioning”, as Mrs Susana observes.
One could argue that school staff are avoiding their responsibility to try and ensure
academic progress for every child. In effect, there is scant critical analysis of the
school’s performance and staff are confident that they are carrying out an excellent
job. Nevertheless, from a broader view, the crucial aspect here is to note that
educational policies do not necessarily trigger transparent school self-assessment and
accountability processes, nor do they motivate school improvement. On the contrary,
school members faced with state assessments and classifications feel frustrated and
disconcerted. Subsequently, they invest considerable amounts of effort in order to
recreate school narratives for centrally avoiding the blame and stigmatisation as
‘failing schools’.
136!
Interestingly, these school narratives do not appear out of nowhere, they reproduce
state policy strategies using similar vocabularies. So as the central state employs
‘politics of blame’ (Whitty et al., 1998) against ‘failing’ schools and praises
‘successful’ cases, the staff also steer blame, but towards ‘failing’ students and
families, and praise ‘successful’ pupils and families. Subsequently, although policy
discourses have emphatically attempted to make schools account for their outcomes,
school members, just like the state, devolve blame to others, avoiding institutional
responsibility. Thus, policies of accountability do not automatically produce school
responsibility. On the contrary, they may trigger increasing strategies of self-defence
and blame towards others.
All in all, this case study exemplifies a troubled school identity situated within a
disadvantaged positioning in the market place25. Following Bourdieu’s metaphor, the
school works as a ‘fish in a shallow puddle’, i.e. with just enough water to survive,
but positioned as an enduring, struggling identity. While encounters between state
school classifications and schools’ own micro-discourses develop smoothly in other
schools, in this case they are problematic.
This implies a conflicted identity that confronts the ‘self against the self’, fraught
among coexisting identities, involving: the managerial school constrained to
compete in the marketplace and to be successful in state examinations; the
community centre school serving deprived students and families, and the
public/republican school serving the state mission of educating all children equally
for the good of the nation.26 These entangled identities, tensioned by market pressure
and accountability policies, and within a disadvantaged setting, demand an enormous
amount of energy in order to make sense of the school. Therefore, this school staff in
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
25
Although I have not used data from the Canelo School (rural school case study), I maintain that the
school identity developed within that school has similarities with this case study. The Canelo School,
in similar ways experiences a ‘divided self’, as market and state classifications also define the school
as a ‘failing’ school, in spite of the head teacher’s strong commitment. In this rural school,
particularly, the sharp decline of student enrolment is a conflicting factor.
26
Tenti Fanfani (2006, 2008) analyses Latin American teachers’ identities. He argues that teachers
involve professional, vocational, and political-worker identities. All of these are internalised and
contested identities, which are part of teachers’ collective consciousness. Although he refers to an
instrumental rationality, linked to the professional identity, he does not especially consider a
managerial identity.
137!
addition to all the difficulties they confront daily, serving underprivileged

communities, have to attempt to accept and make sense of negative state assessments
and classifications, and translate them into a relatively coherent, believable and
positive narrative in order to continue to exist as a school.
4. Conclusions: School Accountability or Reinforcement of School Positioning?
Market artefacts, such as school vouchers, national test scores, league tables and
official state classifications, produce regimes of truth around what defines a school as
‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘efficient’ or ‘inefficient’, ‘successful’ or ‘failing’. These policy
artefacts work as power technologies that label, sort and differentiate schools as
rational and objective truths, claimed as benefitting education (§1.2). They place
institutions within a standardised competing schema, telling them who they are and
what they are capable of being.
In this chapter, I analyse the links between market and state technologies and the
school narratives in three school case studies. I examine in what ways school staff,
focusing mainly on senior managers, employ regimes of truth for producing school
identity and in what ways these truths are contested and recreated. Furthermore, I
examine if these power tactics enhance strong and ‘distinctive’ school identities,
school accountability and, consequently, school improvement, or if on the contrary,
they trigger the reinforcement of their market positioning and school justifications
for under-performance indicators.
Rose (1992) suggests that power technologies entail deep affects, defining
“categories and explanatory schemes according to which we think ourselves, the
criteria and norms we use to judge ourselves, the practices through which we act
upon ourselves and one another in order to make us particular kinds of being”
(p.161). According to the data analysis, all three case studies show how prevailing
accountability and market discourses are reproduced and exercised within schools.
Policy discourses work as productive power that constitutes a particular meaning for
schooling and specifies the differences among them based on a competitive ethos.
138!
Schools are subjectivised and recognised through hierarchically ranked identities,

according to who is above and who is beneath them. In this way, individuals employ
a positional discourse, based on a matrix of competition and comparison with the
‘others’. This is the reach of the ‘economy’ into more of the ‘social’, bringing into
play its techniques, values, and sensitivities. Market technologies discipline school
managers and teachers through promotion, competition, standardisation,
classification, and petty punishments, accepting and naturalising school hierarchies
and inequities. Meanwhile, power relations are obscured and the whole technological
apparatus of school assessment is understood as disinterested and transparent.
This competitive and hierarchical ethos that shapes the understanding of the school
is not exclusively an effect of neoliberal policies, but also a component of a longer
history of schooling. Competition and differentiation has been at the heart of
schooling since its birth, constituting its role within society (Bourdieu and Passeron,
1990; Dubet, 2004). Therefore, I do not claim that such ranking is an absolutely alien
phenomenon for schools, but I do maintain that current educational market policies
introduce new technologies with more sophisticated and detailed ways of organising
competition and distinction among schools, which intensify and reinforce school
inequities. Drawing on Bourdieu, these policies involve a: “symbolic support of the
social order; they consecrate social divisions by inscribing them in objective material
distributions and subjective cognitive classifications” (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
1992, p.114). Thus, neoliberal technologies produce a symbolic intensification, and
consequently a material intensification of school divisions, working as symbolic
violence, while appearing as an objective rationale.
Gewirtz (1998, 2002, §1.3.2) states that these discourses of performativity and
markets construct schools as a ‘success’ or as a ‘failure’, strongly affecting school
morale. Hence, school assessments and labelling have powerful and deep effects
within institutions. Although I follow this argument, the data at the same time brings
new insights into looking at ways in which staff strategically play, debate, replace
and move scores, classifications and rankings, in order to generate successes,
conserve a historical sense of positioning, as well as to justify or separate themselves
from low performance indicators. So market examinations and classifications are far
139!
from being accepted and uncontested forms of power and knowledge. Individuals are
both disciplined by market technologies, but also actively committed to make sense
of a complex scenario involving hegemonic policy categories, the particular
institutional historicity, personal beliefs and commitments, and the practical and
material conditions in which staff work.
The data exemplifies ways in which agents scrutinise, talk, explain and (attempt to)
master themselves in very different ways within the ‘games of truth’. Members
exercise ‘technologies of the self’, creating, individually and collectively, school
narratives as a way to understand and make sense of the school and their individual
practices within the school. The production of a school identity is an enduring and
dynamic activity, transmitted, circulated, negotiated, and re-created within
institutional historical discursive formations. Following Foucault (1997), school
members are compelled to know, understand and explain themselves politically.
They are eager to produce and tell truths, as a vital and ethical necessity for school
recognition, survival, and for the maintenance of school self-existence. Nonetheless,
these struggles remain unresolved, in tension.
The rules of the game for state subsidised schools have changed, bringing to the field
new market and performative rationalities that clash with school-accumulated
historical dispositions and differentiated market positioning. Within this setting, the
activity of ‘story-telling’ implies different levels of energy, effort and stress. In all
case studies, agents attempt to put together fragmented and even opposing data,
discourses and historical identities. However, the intensity of this job and the internal
tensions that emerge are uneven among the case studies. In the first case study, the
High Hill School, the production of school narratives are much more easily
articulated and adjusted. Meanwhile, the other case studies entail more problematic
identities, particularly the most disadvantaged school. The results of this last case
study illustrate conflicted, unsure and divided identities, demanding of school staff a
significant amount of effort in order to invest in narrative work.
140!
On the whole, I argue in this chapter that state/market assessments and

classifications do not motivate a strong ‘unique’ school identity among diverse
providers, nor do they enhance school accountability for carrying out school
improvement, as expected by neoliberal advocates. I will use four arguments to
support this statement:
- Self-satisfaction and blame. In all three case studies the interviewees

express a generalised satisfaction with their own performance, and, moreover,
they perceive that they do a better job than other competing schools. This
positive self-assessment occurs in all schools, those classified as ‘successful’
and those classified as ‘failing’ institutions alike. Meanwhile, in all case
studies, it is understood that the causes of under-performing results are not
the responsibility of the school staff, but are due to other factors, such as
children’s lack of ‘suitable’ cultural capital, limited parental involvement in
learning activities, or restrictions for dismissing teachers. Additionally, the
decrease of student enrolment is also justified as a phenomenon due to
external causes, such as a national birth-rate drop, lack of transportation
access, or ‘uninformed’ parental choice.
So, successful school outcomes are mostly understood as a school

achievement, while failing outcomes are disregarded and assigned as foreign
responsibilities. Moreover, schools invest significant efforts in constructing
explanations and justifications of unsuccessful results, reproducing ‘policies
of blame’ towards others, such as children, families, or teachers. In
conclusion, the case studies provide evidence that market/state examinations
and judgements do not trigger critical self-assessment, responsibility and
accountability for school performance. On the contrary, school members use
market data for legitimating and celebrating success, as a school merit, while
defending and excusing themselves from failing categories, and moving
‘school blame’ towards others.
141!
- Reinforcing symbolic divisions. State assessments and

classifications operate as truths that define the value of schools, head
teachers, teachers and pupils. In this manner, these devices significantly build
the self-esteem, reputation and social dignity of schools, entailing an
emotional dimension. Among the case studies, there are diverse types of
atmosphere and school morale, affected by official school classifications.
Whereas the first case study (High Hill School, recognised as a successful
school) has high school morale, in the other two case studies, there are
feelings of incomprehension, despair, anxiety and hopelessness, particularly
in the Low Hill School. (Although mixed with alternative explanations for
school ‘failure’). On the whole, school labelling reinforces the sense of
success among advantaged schools, while it awakens negative feelings within
disadvantaged schools, reinforcing their sense of positioning within the
marketplace, rather than motivating them to change and improve.
- Insecure school identity. In all the studied schools, although

especially exacerbated in the second case (The Eagle School), a market
competition schema produces a continual sense of insecurity, fear and anxiety
of failure. It is the production of a restless and dissatisfied identity, prefaced
upon openness to an unpredictable market. As an attempt to manage risk, the
school government increases its desire to control, creating new mechanisms
of power over school staff, as a kind of obsession for management control.
This management approach is linked to the notion of an efficient, hierarchical
and authoritarian corporate style. All in all, market competition in this self-
governed school, rather than motivating a strong identity and diverse
provision, reinforces an insecure and dubious identity, never sure of what to
do in order to achieve or maintain an advantaged positioning.
- Narrowed to numbers. The school exercises of interpreting state

assessments are mainly reduced, in all cases studied, to comparing scores and
ranking positions, together with a concern for the features of the ‘other’
schools (e.g. buildings, social composition, location, school schedule etc.).
Although among the collected data there are reflections upon school
142!
improvement and innovations, it appears that these are not triggered by

market classifications. In other words, market information and
categorisations stimulate schools to compare themselves based on a
competing ethos, focusing on quantifiable data, rather than stimulating
innovative thinking and quality improvements.
All in all, contrary to neoliberal assumptions, the analysed policies reinforce schools’
historical unequal positioning and also introduce, in different ways, an endless sense
of anxiety, insecurity, and an overall school ethos of competition and hierarchy.
These are core subject formations for individuals within the neoliberal project
(Lazarrato, 2012). Overall, as Foucault notes: “The public execution did not re-
establish justice; it reactivated power” (1977:49). So, rephrasing the author in this
educational context, and combining this statement with a Bourdiean analysis, I
maintain that –Schools’ public examinations and classifications have not re-
established educational quality, but activated and re-activated uneven symbolic and
material divisions. —
Having analysed the ways school staff understand their school and its positioning
according to market and performative indicators, I will go on to examine institutions’
and individuals’ main aims and aspirations within the educational system.
143!
!
CHAPTER FIVE:
The Intensification of Performativity Among Educational
Networks27
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
27
These images correspond to school materials for preparing pupils for national tests, and Ministry of
Education booklets and other policy artefacts.
144!
!
The Intensification of Performativity Among Educational Networks
Introduction
As a shared aim, all case study institutions aim at least in part, to increase national
test scores. This is a crucial task in education markets, since these outcomes are
disseminated by the media, transformed into public league tables, define schools’
official classifications, and are also linked to school awards and staff bonuses. As I
show in Chapter 4, school test outcomes and classifications are key elements that
shape and vex school members’ identity and self-understandings. In this chapter I
describe and analyse the targets and micro-policy strategies employed by educational
institutions for performing successfully in national assessments. Most importantly, I
explore institutional discourses and everyday practices in relation to testing policies;
in Foucault’s sense, to examine the detail, the mundane, the dull drone that becomes
routine.
I find, on the basis of the data analysis, that prevailing policy discourses circulate
among institutional networks and pervade different kinds of institutions, private and
public, wealthy and disadvantaged, and on the macro-, meso- and micro-levels.
These discourses, together with state technologies, pervasively steer institutional
priorities and practices, penetrating the daily life of institutions. In this manner, the
data shows the ways in which municipal managers, head teachers, teachers, parents
and students are entangled in performative activity, in reproductive and creative
ways (Ball 2001, 2003c; §1.2).
Additionally, I point out that local educational institutions (Regional Ministries,

municipalities, schools) reproduce and even deepen testing policies, employing
micro-policy tactics such as the setting of measurable targets, narrowing the
curriculum spectrum, ‘teaching to the test’, and strategically investing resources in
assessed subjects. More than a local ‘contextualisation’ of national policies, case
studies deliver policies that exacerbate assessments and mechanisms of control,
bureaucracy and curriculum reduction, in order to raise school test scores in an
145
Chapter Five: The Intensification of Performativity
ongoing struggle to accumulate successful institutional reputation. Consequently,

what is defined by policy discourse as ‘minimum state standards’ pervasively and
extensively steers institutional desires, efforts and discourses. Thus, far from an
expected institutional devolution and market diversity, the case studies provide
evidence of dominant centralising practices and logics within a performative culture.
Furthermore, I suggest that this performative culture is coupled with hierarchical and
authoritarian historical dispositions. In this setting, agents ‘make sense’ of state
assessments and standardised policies, while old and new forms of control and
authoritarianism are produced and extended. At the same time, this performative
culture is developed in an insecure, anxious, scarcity-mentality atmosphere, which
intensifies local managerial technologies, endlessly seeking to scrutinise and control
school staff (§4.2).
In this chapter, I first broadly analyse the prevailing institutional aims, discourses
and strategies related to standardising and comparing policies. Later, I discuss four
type of strategies employed within educational institutions in order to improve state
assessed outcomes. These strategies are related to: curriculum standardisation and
test training; managerial work and post-bureaucracy; parental and student
involvement in competition regimens, and lastly, persuasion tactics and authoritarian
dispositions. This chapter is based on the data acquired from all the studied
institutions, involving the two Regional Ministries, three municipalities, and four
schools.
1. General Panorama: Aims, Strategies, and Performativity
All institutions, within the studied educational networks, including the Regional
Ministries of Education, municipalities and schools, are entangled in performative
activities dedicated to increase schools’ SIMCE test results. The institutional
practices and efforts for improving these outcomes are justified within the
educational arena by discourses that make sense in accordance with these actions.
Polices of standardisation, comparison and accountability are valued in general terms
as positive, as truths that tell us ‘who we are’, ‘what aims we aspire to achieve’ and
146!
‘what we should improve’. Moreover, the accomplishment of state standards and the
achievement of positive tests scores are understood, within school vocabularies, to be
synonymous with school quality, as a neutral and consensus notion, and are also
linked to enhancing equal opportunities.
It is our duty to achieve [national] standards, to target them. Assure that

our children and youth speak properly, that they are capable of reading
comprehensively, delivering basic mathematical reasoning; these are
basic tools for life, it is an issue of opportunities, for going to
University, for work, or whatever they wish; if not, what alternatives do
they have? (Head of School Assessment, The Eagle Municipality)
I think the truth, speaking in a very personal way of these sectors so

economically, socially, politically deprived, is that offering a
prescriptive [national] curriculum allows us, in a sense, to have a clear
idea of what is happening inside schools. Our schools, I would say, have
had too much liberty in terms of curriculum, in terms of delivering the
[national] curriculum. This leaves you at the free will of schools. If you
have a superbly trained teacher, committed to his or her students, his or
her class will have a really good performance. But, if you find yourself
with a person [teacher] that is tired because of the passing of the years,
or for whom education simply does not represent a social commitment...
And unfortunately, the results which we [Municipality] have are very
bad, because the curriculum allowed these children to pass to fourth
grade without mastering basic concepts28. (Head of Municipal
Curriculum, White Hill Municipality)
AF: Do these [accountability] policies contribute?; or not?; or do they

hinder your work?
Mrs. I: Look, we can stay in an eternal explanation [for justifying
failing outcomes]... but these policies hold head teachers responsible,
they must account for their results... your question surprises me really.
AF: It’s that other head teachers have suggested criticisms of that kind.
Mrs I.: Yes, mm, right, there are always people who criticise. But I
don’t agree. We can’t ask less for these children, we can’t believe that
they are not capable [of accomplishing state standards]. (Municipal
Head of Education, White Hill Municipality)
According to the above quotes, it is understood that aiming for state standards and
increasing test results contributes to improving educational quality and equality
(extending job and educational opportunities). Also, it is argued that these national
standards and a highly structured curriculum are especially necessary in
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
28
There was a law during the 1990s that banded pupil grade repetition in Years 1 and 3.
147!
disadvantaged sectors, since there may be teachers with less teaching abilities and
less commitment to their jobs. While these regimes of truth prevail, interrogations
and criticisms of these policies are ‘surprising’, as a Municipal Head of Education
comments. Criticisms of accountability policies are linked to indolence and low
expectation of pupils from poor backgrounds.
These discourses around standards and accountability policies are also related to
historical notions of a centralised, hierarchical and benign state.
I think the model is good. The Ministry, there has to be a head. I think
that the Ministry of Education has to give all the guidelines, there has to
be a head looking over everything, looking everywhere. And at the
same time they should be suggesting the course of action to the
Provincial [Ministry], and then to the municipalities in charge of the
schools. (Head teacher, Low Hill School)
I think that it must be like that, there must be an institutional pedagogy,

in the sense that all the people that work in education have to move in
the same direction, and that we are ruled by ethics, by a pedagogy in the
‘Framework of Good Management’, of ‘Good Teaching’. It has to be
like that and it should have always have been like that. (Head of
Municipal Education, The Canelo Municipality)
I consider that it would be excellent to have a Superintendent, who

would assess all schools, it inspect them seriously. That is much needed.
Notice that before it was like that, we had a Superintendent that would
supervise from Arica [north] to Magallanes [south], but later on with the
dictatorship that was closed and with that the thing got all messed up.
It’s a real pity. We [teachers] have lost the sense of being professionals,
that’s why now people look down on us. It wasn’t like that before, we
had our status, and we were respected. (Primary teacher, The Eagle
School)
The above quotes express a rationale that legitimates and values a centralised and
hierarchical model; linked, interestingly, to a kind of nostalgic welfare state where
teachers were respected. According to these discourses, there is an established order
that ought to be followed, where the Ministry of Education (i.e. the state) is the
starting point. The Ministry must be “looking over everything” as a permanent
overseer, while the rest of the institutions must follow it. There is significant
legitimation and trust deposited in the Ministry of Education.
148!
The interviewees refer to the necessity of following the same aims, guidelines and
ethics, established by the ‘Framework of Good Management’ and of ‘Good
Teaching’, which are standards defined by the Ministry of Education. Thus there is
an understanding that the purposes of education must be standardised and
scrutinised, as if these followed neutral and unquestionably good criteria for all.
Conversely, the notion of disaster appears opposed to homogeneity, as a fear of the
disorder of things. Overall, for most interviewees, standardising and accountability
policies are viewed as good and necessary in an apparently unproblematic way.
Nonetheless, praise is mixed with the identification of critical discourses, as I will
show further on.
The institutional strategies for improving school performance outcomes are

summarised in the following chart (based on documentary analyses of institutions’
annual plans and interview data). These strategies involve: ‘teaching to the test’
practices; curriculum reduction; increasing institutional assessment and bureaucratic
control; student and parental involvement in test preparation; student sorting and
selection, and giving priority to investment in the assessed subjects and grade years.
This analysis shows the ways in which all educational institutions, from top to
bottom level, deliver diverse strategies for performing advantageously for state
assessments, judgements and classifications. As a consequence, schools, at the lower
level of the educational schema, are heavily overloaded with performative tasks and
activities, which are devised by the central Ministry, the local Ministry, Municipality
and by themselves.
149!
Table 10: Institutional strategies for improving school performance
Institutions / Pupil learning support Training teacher & external Family Managerial work
Items school support involvement
CENTRAL
MINISTRY
- Compulsory national test - National teacher-training in - Assurance Management Model of
for assessing school curriculum implementation School Quality (SACGE)
‘quality and equity’ - National assessment of School
(SIMCE, Year 4,8,10) performance (SNED), collective bonus for
- National test for Higher high results
Education entrance (PSU, - Teacher assessment, individual bonus for
Year 12) high results
- Standards of ‘Good teaching’ and ‘Good
head teacher’
LOCAL
MINISTRY
Metropolitan - Regional tests Year 1 and - External support of private - Call for - ‘Management commitment’ (test target
Ministry 4 agencies for improving ‘failing parental exit setting)
schools’ from ‘failing - Reading commitments Year 1
- Investment and school support schools’
for improving ‘promising
schools’
Regional - Regional tests Year 4
Ministry
Institutions / Pupil learning support Training teacher & external Family Managerial work
Items school support involvement
MUNICIPALITY
The Eagle -SIMCE trial test; 3 per - Teacher training and prescribed - Campaign to -Balanced Scorecards’ and the ‘Holistic
Municipality year, Year 4, 8 and 10 lesson programme for enhancing enhance parents Performance Scorecard’
-PSU trial test, 5 per Spanish language and to read with their - Centralised revision of school term
year Mathematics abilities, Pre-kinder children exams
-Scholarships awarded to Year 4
to the best 100 students - Private consultancy, hired to
of year 12 for preparing set up a reading encouragement
PSU exam courses programme
- Contracted geometric
programme
- Teachers’ assessment bonus
White Hill - SIMCE trial test, Year - Monthly workshops of school - Unique format of class planning
Municipality 4,8, 10, twice per year curriculum heads for SIMCE
- PSU trial test, Year preparation
12, twice per year - Workshops in Spanish and
Mathematics for Year 4 teachers
The Canelo - SIMCE trial test, Year - Monthly workshops for SIMCE - Extension of SACGE to all schools
Municipality 1 and 4, twice per year with school teachers - Head teachers assessment, benchmark
over 250 points SIMCE
Institutions / Pupil learning support Training teacher & Family involvement Managerial work
Items external school support
SCHOOLS
The Eagle - Subject teachers from Year 5 to 8. (not - Homework test guides - Unique format of class planning
private primary teachers) - Parental meetings for - Verification system of class
School - Creation of libraries within classrooms preparing SIMCE test planning revision
- Grade level tests - ‘Parental Commitment’ - Teachers’ assessment on the basis
-‘Silent reading’ every morning; of quantifiable indicators
monthly reading quizzes
- SIMCE workshops
-Summative/quantitative assessment
emphasis
- Annual celebrations of SIMCE results
with students.
High Hill - ‘Best’ primary teachers allocated at - Homework test guides - Unique format of class planning
School Years 1 and 4 - Parental meetings for - Verification system of class
- Secondary teachers allocated in preparing SIMCE test planning revision
primary school
- Student setting in Year 4
- SIMCE workshops
- Grade level tests
emphasis
Low Hill - ‘Silent reading’ - Homework test guides - Unique format of class planning
School -Student setting, and private lessons for - Parental meetings for SIMCE - Verification system of class
preparation planning revision
emphasis
The Canelo -Summative/Quantitative assessment -Homework test guides
rural School emphasis -Parental meetings for SIMCE
In general terms, it is possible to note, on the basis of table 10, that

institutional strategies focus particularly on Spanish language and
Mathematics, and on the nationally assessed grade levels (Year 4, 8, 10, 12).
Institutions particularly give priority to Year 4 (9 years old), as the test
outcomes of that grade are crucial for informing official school classifications.
Subsequently, institutions employ all sorts of strategies in order to improve
these performance outcomes, as institutions tactically invest effort, time,
energy and resources in these particular assessed subjects and grade levels.
The interviewees, on the one hand, pedagogically justify these kinds of

practices, following the Ministry’s discourses, pointing out the importance of
placing emphasis on ‘foundational learning areas’ (Language and
Mathematics) so subsequently pupils may more effectively learn other
subjects. Additionally, it is argued that schools should particularly stress Year
1 to 4 as they are crucial for creating the cognitive basis for future learning.
These are the pedagogical arguments that justify the devised performative
activities.
Meanwhile, there are also strategic reasons for increasing test scores, aiming
to improve schools’ visible outcomes within the marketplace, as the following
quote illustrates:
We had never worked for the SIMCE in previous years. Here we used
to carry out school lessons as we were supposed to. We delivered the
[national] plans and programmes as the Ministry demanded, but we did
not specifically prepare children for taking a test. But when did we start
to get worried? To be worried, let’s say, because it’s not that before we
were not concerned about learning outcomes, [we started to get worried]
when the Ministry started to label schools as good or bad because of
SIMCE results. (Head teacher, Low Hill School)
The interview extract illustrates a head teacher’s concern for the way the
Ministry judges and classifies the school (§4). Consequently, school actors
deliberately invest effort in order to increase test scores, and assure a positive
school classification and overall school reputation. Moreover, the next quote
illustrates ways in which human and material resources are unevenly
153!
distributed, since managers give priority to the most ‘profitable’ areas, such as
Year 1 and 4 and the nationally assessed subjects (Spanish, Mathematics,
Science):
Mrs. O.: Last year we didn’t perform so well, especially in

Mathematics, so this year I was assigned exclusively to fourth grade and
to working with those teachers. I would visit them in their classes, then I
would meet with them; it was hard work with them.
AF: Why especially with fourth years?
Mrs. O.: Well, I also worked with other year grades, of course; but, we
must put our main efforts where it most matters [donde las papas
queman], we have to do our best for them [Year 4], they are our
presentation card, where we are most visible; you understand?
Later she comments:
The most emblematic teachers are in Year 4, I put the best ones there;
it’s strategic. So then, in November [the month in which students are
nationally assessed] children speed through like trains. They [teachers]
work very well with children; they got them really prepared for the end
of the year. Now, Year 1 is also another strategic year, so they can read
properly from the start. I also allocate good teachers there, all
specialised in Maths or Spanish. So once I have Year 1 and 4 covered,
in Year 2 and 3 I can put teachers that are not so capable, but finally we
can help them on the way. (Head of School Curriculum, High Hill
School)
Another example of these strategic performative practices is given by the Chief of

Municipal Education of the Canelo borough. Although he is in charge of twelve
schools, he works most closely with the two largest schools. These are the most
visible and known schools in the borough, located in an urban area, which can attract
most students. The municipal head supervises only these two schools twice a year
and meets personally with these head teachers to assess the accomplishment of bi-
annual targets. He explains that these are the schools that receive most community
attention: “that’s why I’m focused on the bigger ones, I’m not focusing on the
smaller ones; I don’t lose myself in that”. Hence resources are allocated unevenly
distributed, as education managers calculate and invest in the more profitable items
in order to achieve visible, successful state-measured outcomes (§8.2). This kind of
reasoning is displayed as legitimate within the current setting.
154!
All in all, the prevailing policy discourses (§1.1) have spread among the educational
networks, steering the institutions’ aims and daily practices. Even though there are
discursive resistances and interrogations, there is an overall complicit, legitimised
and expanded discourse about educational priorities and notions of ‘good schooling’.
Educational managers deliver diverse strategic behaviour to produce visible and
successful school outcomes according to state assessments and rankings, and to
improve schools’ general market image.
Consequently, school management is markedly narrowed and led by these motives.

As Ball (1997a, 2001, 2003c) maintains, performative and market policy
technologies have disciplined schools into new kinds of ethics and practices,
provoking a process of ‘exteriorisation’, as agents must calculate, invest and perform
in order to show others their achievements. It is, in Ball’s words, a “paraphernalia of
quality” (1997a, p.260) and an “investment in plasticity” (2003, p.10). In the next
section, I shall analyse these concrete performative strategies in more detail.
2. Exam-oriented Curriculum
All case studies, in similar ways, focus on preparing pupils for performing
successfully on national tests. For instance, both the Ministry of Education and
municipalities deliver teacher training courses and workshops for heads of school
curriculum and teachers in relation to curriculum implementation, mostly with
emphasis on Spanish and Mathematics. Some of these courses are explicitly for
training teachers for SIMCE test preparation. The White Hill Municipality, for
example, delivers workshops for Year 4 teachers, particularly for reviewing test
exercises. Additionally, prescriptive lesson-by-lesson programmes of literacy and
numeracy are implemented (e.g. LEM29 of the Ministry of Education, FPPS30 of The
Eagle Municipality).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
29
Stands for Literacy and Mathematics Programme (Lectura, Escritura y Matemáticas).
30
Educational programme aiming to strengthen cognitive and moral skills during children’s early
school years. This programme is hired by a Spanish consultancy office, which delivers training
courses and gives teaching material.
155!
Schools also give priority to the nationally assessed subjects, and assiduously train
pupils for standardised tests. The use of test exercises is increasingly prevalent
during classes, workshops, and as homework. Among the regional Ministry,
municipalities and schools’ staff, booklets circulate for SIMCE/PSU preparation,
test-exercises, reading comprehension quizzes and working-guides, which are
bought, self-made and found on the internet; shared as precious material31 (examples
of these test booklets can be found on the front page of this chapter).
All four schools have also positioned these subjects during the morning school
schedule, so pupils are more “concentrated and awake”; this is another way of giving
priority to these subjects. Then, during the afternoon, it is expected that schools
deliver diverse student workshops. With the extended school-day policy,32 schools
have the opportunity to design and add courses/workshops autonomously, as a policy
of ‘curriculum flexibility’. Nevertheless, the studied schools, in addition to
compulsory courses, also use this extra time for delivering ‘SIMCE workshops’, for
preparing the national test. Thus, instead of using this extra time for diverse and
creative activities, they have given priority to reinforce the assessed curriculum
contents.
Additionally, the Regional ministries and municipalities deliver trial-tests annually,

and at the same time, schools have also changed their term tests into evaluations
similar to standardised tests.
We deliver [school] tests that are very similar to SIMCE tests, for
example, they have multiple choice answers, we include the answer
‘none of the above’, we use a separate answer sheet, and students must
use a pencil, just like for the SIMCE test and PSU33 test. So these
details are important, so children get used to these mechanisms,
understand the logic of the tests. Now we also ask teachers to combine
easy questions with more difficult questions, so children do not get
quickly frustrated. We also teach children strategies for taking the test,
for example not to stay too long on one question if they don’t know the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
31
Teachers, in common ways, complain that this has entailed a significant increase of time and energy
preparing and assessing students’ work-guides and homework, involving working extrahours at the
school and at home. It also involves using additional resources for photocopies, which is a scant
resource in municipal schools.
32
Jornada Escolar Completa
33
University Selection Test
156!
answer, and that they must analyse each answer choice (...) We have
thought about hiring an external service to apply trial-tests and submit
individual student scores. In that way we won’t be ignorant when we
show up to take the test. (Head of School Curriculum, The Eagle)
We have a set of tests, borough tests of SIMCE and PSU. So we deliver

yearly trial-tests; which is very good because it familiarises students
with the test. Plus the tests are then available to teachers, so they can
use them for lesson work. (Chief of Municipal Education, Canelo
Municipality)
As described above, the aim of these trial-tests is to train students for the national
test, to “familiarise” students, to learn the “mechanics of the test”. In other words,
these are ways of ‘teaching to the test’, which are common practices that have been
found in other countries with accountability policies, such as the USA and the UK
(see §1.3.1).
This exam-oriented approach is also mixed with competing pedagogical methods

linked to offering “fun” incentives, as a Head of School Curriculum teacher
describes:
Colleagues invent all kind of things; they are really creative. We do it

like kind of games. So in the SIMCE workshops we make sure they
[pupils] have fun. We offer incentives and prizes, and tell them we have
to maintain our school excellence. (Head of School Curriculum, High
Hill School)
The aim of preparing children for national tests is also expanded to pre-school
education, which has historically been less directive-oriented than traditional
schooling. A common policy turn is to move teaching reading and writing from First
grade to Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten, as in The Eagle School and High Hill
School. For instance, a teacher comments:
They are not only drawing and painting in Pre-school. Things have
really changed. Now they [teachers] pressure children since Kinder.
Kindergarten teachers were much lighter before, and the teacher-
assistants were only taking care of children, but now they do a lot of
work-guides and alphabetisation. So in Year 1 children arrive much
more prepared, there are some kids that arrive already reading (Primary
Teacher, The Eagle School)
157!
This micro-policy is a kind of performative colonisation to those grades that are not
nationally tested. The quote illustrates how a more traditional educational approach
has expanded, legitimised by testing discourses; where kids playing and ‘just’ being
taken care of is underestimated.
Importantly, not only are classroom teachers entangled into delivering these kinds of
test training strategies, but also special educational needs (SEN) teachers. The
Ministry allocated them as part of a special needs policy in order to attend to this
group of children, supporting them in classrooms and also through individual
lessons. However, the case studies show that school managers allocate SEN teachers
to also deliver ‘SIMCE workshops’ and/or individual lessons particularly for
preparing children for national tests. This school strategy not only contradicts the
national policy and takes time away from the SEN teachers’ workday, but moreover,
they must work with big groups of children, based on homogeneous and standardised
teaching methods, functioning contrary to the principle of attending to students’
diversity. This produces certain contradictions among SEN teachers:
Maybe we prepare them for the test, but it’s not so terrible. The aim of
education is not that. But it is just another tool; the thing is how we take
advantage of that. And it is also good, to repeat, talk, and that the
children get to be super experts [super a caballo] on those types of
exercises, that they get to understand those types of exercises. And
that’s not bad, that kind of training. In my SEN classroom, I can really
work as I like, in a more personalised way, with concrete material, in a
more significant way. (SEN Teacher, Low Hill School)
Here, the SEN teacher distinguishes between preparing for the test and “education”;
“the aim of education is not that”. Nevertheless, she argues that it is necessary,
according to the imperatives of the current educational system. So she strategically
divides her job in order to resolve this tension. On the one hand, she teaches in the
classroom, preparing children for national tests, engaging in more abstract and
homogenising work, and on the other hand, she delivers personalised and significant
teaching in her SEN classroom. So she is both a traditional teacher, in the SIMCE
workshop, and an innovative SEN teacher, in her private SEN room. This resonates
with the notion of the ‘bilingual headship’, addressed by Gewirtz et al. (1995, §1.3),
158!
as it was found that comprehensive and market school management styles coexist,
yet in fraught ways.
Finally, there is also an identified strategy related to sorting, selecting and excluding
students within the school, which is carried out in the SIMCE assessed year levels.
These sorting practices are delivered together with a narrative of “personalised
education”, “attending to diverse learning needs”. Within the Low Hill School, for
instance, while the SEN teacher delivers individual lessons to the children with
learning disadvantages in Year 4, the Head teacher teaches literacy to those children
with advantaged learning results, and the School Inspector teaches Mathematics to
the same advanced group. So through this strategy the senior school staff not only
attempt to increase the learning outcomes of those pupils with most difficulties, but
also to achieve a high maximum individual score (which is published as SIMCE
data). In this way, the school can tell the story of a ‘good school’ with micro-
successful results, even though the school is labelled as a ‘failing school’ (§4.3).
Together with these daily life strategies for test preparation, there are different views
among institutional members. On the one side, educational actors declare important
contributions to these kinds of teaching practices. For instance, municipal members
suggest that these practices raise standards among unequal contexts, putting pressure
particularly on schools with less able teachers. The Chief of Curriculum in White
Hill Municipality exemplifies this argument, explaining that thanks to the municipal
reading targets, now all primary schools devote 15 minutes every morning to silent
reading. According to her, these kinds of ‘school rituals’ have improved pupils’
reading comprehension abilities, and therefore test outcomes.
Additionally, interviewees argue that test training entails cognitive challenges in

more sophisticated ways:
Notice that now, for example, we make children carry out inferential
reading, because SIMCE asks those kinds of questions. So it’s not only
descriptive questions, explicit questions, but also inferential, which you
have to deduce from the text. These are implicit questions, and that is
good because that makes children think, deduce, it’s a more complex
level. In the Rural Centre [a group of rural teachers] meetings we share
159!
pieces of reading texts and design questions together, these kinds of

questions. (Head teacher, The Canelo School)
It is also emphasised that the test results offer accurate information about children’s
learning progress and outcomes, which serves as useful data for informing teaching
plans.
Delivering trial-tests helps students to loosen up, but also, the point of
all assessment is to improve learning outcomes, to obtain on–time
results for improving. So we have implemented an information basis for
students’ learning progress, for improving scores steadily with efficient
and opportune decision-making. That’s the point of delivering these
borough tests, and of any assessment. (Chief of Municipal Education,
The Eagle Municipality).
You know what changes with all this? It is that we don’t do things
intuitively, without planning and assessing. That’s the main message of
SACGE34. We must assess, then collect evidence, and then, on the basis
of that [data], plan. And really, if you think about it, it’s logical. But,
things were not that way before. Now we assess and tabulate the results,
we analyse in detail the results, we analyse the percentage of correct
answers and of incorrect answers. I have a teacher that does all that
[quantitative analysis]. And on the basis of that information we make
decisions. It’s not like, “ohh kids had really bad results, let’s go over all
the curriculum content again”. No. The question is, on exactly which
questions did children make mistakes? Why? What did they answer?
Then we reflect upon the results, I ask head teachers to reflect on their
results, and to look for remedies. So they repeat the exercises, but not
the whole test, only the questions on which they performed badly.
(Chief of Municipal Education, The Canelo Municipality)
These extracts refer to the collection of exact, detailed and abundant data, which
screens pupils and reveals to the school staff the micro-successes and micro-failures
in order that they know which specific tactics to employ. Interviewees emphasise that
knowledge-based data enables institutions to identify weak areas and specifically
amend incorrect answers. This rationale links to a new kind of ‘curriculum
management’, defined as rational, professional, and non-intuitive. Ozga (2011) calls
this approach ‘governance by numbers’, as educational management (at a global,
national and local level) is prevailingly focused on and driven by assessment
information.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
34
‘Quality Assurance Educational Management Model’ (Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad de
la Gestión Escolar).
160!
On the other hand, there are also controversial opinions about the effects of these
policies. So while some interviewees value these strategies as intellectually
challenging and quality enhancing, other social actors interrogate and criticise them
and the ways in which they are reproduced within microspheres. The following quote
is an example of critical interrogations, although mixed with views that support
performance policies:
It’s that they are still doing the same and that is exactly what the
Penguinos [secondary students’ social movement] told us: No more of
the same! [No más de lo mismo!]. But there they [pupils] are, every
afternoon, tired, hot and again and again with Mathematics and
language lessons all day. They are terribly bored! Youth are now active,
curious, they want sports, art, music, technology, they need to move,
think. And you know, that for increasing [national test] scores, things
like creativity and concentration are really important. Music, for
example, really helps kids to concentrate, be rigorous, self-disciplined.
Those are really important things to learn for life! Or chess, we have
been thinking of organising a chess championship in the Province. You
learn a lot of logic, which helps for Mathematics, calculation. (Ministry
Supervisor, Regional Ministry)
This Ministry Supervisor critiques curriculum reductionism and the exacerbation of

test training practices which leave aside other learning areas, such as sports, arts,
social-emotional education, hence, hindering a holistic education. He suggests
emphasising other non-assessed areas (e.g. music, chess). However, interestingly,
these alternative teaching activities are valued and legitimated only in so far as they
are able to increase national tests scores. Thus, critical discourses and alternative
practices are suggested, but mixed with truths that legitimise performative
discourses. The effects of giving priority to certain subjects over others, provokes
resentful feelings, particularly among teachers who deliver non-assessed subjects, as
is illustrated in the following quote from a Physical Education teacher:
They put me on the afternoons, when Gym should be taught in the

morning, in that way kids start the day well, alert and concentrated. (...)
you know they take out students [when they are in Gym classes]. For
example, the SEN teacher, when they’re going to give reinforcement
classes, they just come and take them [students] out. I tell them –“I’m
going to take out kids in Language classes to do some [physical]
exercises, heehee. Would you like it? Hee”— Or sometimes they punish
the girls [students] by making them clean up their classroom, so they
161!
arrive late at Gym classes; while they [other teachers] don’t lose a
minute of their lessons. I then tell my students I’ll give you a grade 2
(i.e. F-) if you arrive late. (Physical Education teacher, High Hill
School)
The interview extract shows ways in which teachers of non-assessed subjects are
marginalised, which also affects their sense of being less valued within the school.
Also, school actors suggest criticisms related to the reinforcement of a traditional
pedagogical approach, particularly related to standardised assessment schemas that
do not attend to diverse learning abilities, and reduce the possibilities of offering
“significant experiences” and “competences for life”:
Unfortunately, learning experiences, significant learning is mostly

unmeasured by standardised tests. So now we are in a system that must
be measured and validated. I think that, because of my professional
training, because I am an SEN teacher, we should assess more abilities,
competences for life and cognitive abilities. But, because we are in a
system where everything must be measured, in a way, it’s the least bad
option we have, and we have to accomplish it as a school. I mean we
can’t be rebellious and say that we don’t care about SIMCE or say that
it doesn’t reflect what we are, because it is also a way of validating
ourselves before the school community. In the end we are in a system
that is installed and we have to respond to it. (SEN teacher, High Hill
School)
This quote shows how school actors critique standardising and competing policies,
but also accept and practice them, as the testing scheme is “the least bad option we
have”, “the installed system”; thus a kind of resignation discourse is employed. SEN
teachers appear to be particularly critical, as they point out that standardising policy
goes against their professional principles, although they are also constrained by
having to increase the school’s performance results.
They [primary teachers] prepare them [pupils] for the [testing] pressure,
especially those in years 3 and 4. That concerns me that teachers try to
get all kids to take a good SIMCE test - that is impossible. There will
always be 5, 6, 8 [children] that have different learning rhythms. (SEN
teacher, High Hill School).
There is a contradiction in the authorities. The Ministry talks a lot about

diversity assessment that is a notion commonly used among SEN
teachers, but it is not useful for SIMCE [preparation]. You lose all the
162!
diversity assessment. Here we don’t select. Some [pupils] are very

scatter-brained, others are slow, mostly abandoned at their homes;
nobody helps them. That limits you [as a teacher]. We assess in a
differential way. I can be teaching [only] the vowels until May. (SEN
teacher, Low Hill School)
This criticism is considered mostly problematic in poor and disadvantaged settings as

it is argued that these are contexts with greater variations among students’ learning
skills.
The problem is the academicism, I mean, it’s OK, but the problem is
what you leave aside. For municipal education, for us, we serve the
most disadvantaged children, these children come from really poor
sectors. So tests can’t be the only aim. As I told you, these children need
care, close support, they need to feel they are important in life, that they
can learn, do things; we have children with very low self-esteem. These
are important things for them. It’s not that the other aspects are not, of
course, they have to learn to read, and all that, it’s just that there are
other things that are also important. (Primary teacher, Low Hill School)
You need time, time to work with kids, go step by step, don’t expect
that they will all go as fast as you would like to, that they will all
accomplish the targets at the same time. These children are different.
You know what, for example, I’ve discovered that if you read the test
questions aloud, they respond correctly, so they know, they know the
answers; it’s not that they don’t know, it depends on how you ask. They
have difficulties comprehending written instructions. (Head teacher,
The Canelo School)
These quotes illustrate the tension for school staff between test targets and teaching
values in a disadvantaged school setting. The quoted primary teacher feels that
testing policies constrain the possibility of attending to local educational needs,
within a value-based curriculum and through attention to pastoral care , which
appears to be particularly important within unprivileged settings. Also, the Head
Teacher of The Canelo School gives examples of ways in which these assessments
dismiss children’s needs, knowledge, abilities, and learning rhythms within a
disadvantaged context; “children are different”. Moreover, it is argued that school
competition pressurises children, causes them stress, and harms the quality of
education.
163!
In summary, within the institutional networks studied, schools, municipalities and

the Regional Ministry of Education deliver diverse strategies in order to increase
national test performance outcomes. The strategies identified in this section are: i)
training teachers for preparing standardised tests; ii) highly prescriptive programmes
of literacy and numeracy; iii) priority resource investment into nationally assessed
subjects and grade levels; iv) training students for standardised tests through classes,
workshops and homework; v) use of school free-time for preparing SIMCE/PSU
tests; vi) teaching writing and reading to Pre-school rather than in Year 1, using
traditional alphabetising methods; vii) allocation of SEN teachers to prepare students
for national tests; viii) school assessments with similar format to standardised tests
with multiple responses; ix) SIMCE and PSU trial-tests; x) quantitative analysis of
test results and feedback, and xi) student sorting and setting.
It is important to consider that educational actors identify and value the benefits of
state examination and standardisation. For example, it is argued that standards and
tests pressure all teachers to adopt good practices (such as silent reading), demand
high cognitive skills for all (e.g. inferential reading), and encourage schools to
systematically monitor and give feedback to teachers’ work and children’s learning
outcomes. Nevertheless, these recognised strategies for improvements are carried out
at the expense of other identified effects. While interviewees reproduce regimes of
truth, approving policies of standardisation and comparison, they also criticise them,
referring to curriculum reduction, ‘academicism’, a decrease in significant learning
experiences, limitations and dilemmas serving children with diverse skills, alongside
a tendency to standardise and accelerate learning processes.
Overall, the delivered strategies have intensified a traditional pedagogical approach

and an exam-oriented curriculum, related to exact and quantifiable knowledge,
repetitive training exercises, and competition among classmates. These findings
mirror similar policy effects in other places of the world, as the extended
employment of ‘teaching to the test’ practices (§1.3.1), and also the use of traditional
rather than innovative pedagogical methods (Gewirtz, 2002; Lubienski, 2006, 2009).
164!
3. Standardisation, Managerial Work and Inner-competition
A ‘managerial policy discourse’ (Clarke & Newman, 1997; §1.1) emerges among the
interviewees, similar to the policy discourse of the ‘Quality Assurance Educational
Management Model’ (SACGE, §1.4), implemented by the central Ministry during
the research data collection. This discourse praises rational and planned decision-
making, based on observable and measurable evidence, where ‘nothing is left to
chance’. Everything is calculated and coordinated in order to achieve good learning
results, as opposed to the idea of intuitive school management. Added to the SACGE
national management technology, a set of managerial technologies is devised by the
Regional Ministry, municipality and schools. For instance, the Regional
Metropolitan Ministry of Education implemented a system of ‘Management by
performance’ where each school must establish quantifiable targets related to
Spanish and Mathematics. Additionally, each teacher of Year 1 in the region has to
make a list of the children in each class, and at the end of the year give the names of
those children who did not learn how to read, and a technical explanation for each of
these failures.
The Eagle municipality also implemented the ‘Holistic Performance Scorecard’ in all
public schools. This model originated in the USA among companies has now been
adopted in schools. The main principle of this model is that ‘measures drive results’.
Thus it is believed that organisations must set quantifiable aims in order to
accomplish them, those goals that are not measured will be left behind and therefore
not achieved. Another example is The Canelo Municipality, although it did not create
extra managerial devices, this institution did expand the implementation of the
SACGE to all schools. This management tool is compulsory for all low performing
urban schools, according to central Ministry policies. Consequently, only two
schools in The Canelo borough qualify for the programme, yet the Municipal Head
decided to make it compulsory for all municipal schools.
Overall, schools have to set and accomplish not only national aims and standards, but
also regional and municipal aims and standards, thus following national, regional and
municipal bureaucratic technologies. Through these various management
165!
technologies, schools must plan yearly and quantify targets, define assessment
indicators, and subsequently audit and assess their students and school staff. So
again, these are examples of performance management techniques.
Teachers’ assessment has also expanded among institutions as another local

managerial policy. While the central Ministry delivers a national, compulsory
assessment, schools now also deliver teachers’ assessment. In this way, schools have
introduced new technologies using assessment forms and observable indicators as a
means of control over the classroom space (see The Eagle School, §4.2). In a similar
way, I found that schools create micro technologies and artefacts in order to
standardise and control teachers’ practices, attempting to ensure consistency among
the national curriculum, lesson planning and teaching.
There is a general aspiration of homogenising teachers’ practices. It is expected that

teachers of the same subject and grade level are simultaneously implementing similar
aims and contents of the national curriculum, making similar progress. Particularly,
the standardisation of student evaluation is a popular tactic among educational
institutions, as a mechanism of control; especially in those nationally assessed
subjects (Spanish, Mathematics, Social and Natural Science). For instance, The
Eagle Municipality supervises all public schools’ term examinations of the SIMCE
assessed subjects. The Chief of Municipal Education points out that most schools
were failing to properly prepare lesson materials and student evaluations. All this
material is then reviewed in order to standardise the municipal assessments. As the
Head of Curriculum Education explains:
Teachers cannot give just any test; it is first assessed by the Municipal
department of evaluation. We discovered that assessment was one of the
teachers’ weakest areas. They don’t know how to properly assess
learning outcomes, how to make an evaluation scale, a rubric evaluation
chart... And that’s important. If not, how can we trust school grades?
How can you know that a 7 [grade] in one school is the same 7 [grade]
in another? (Chief of Municipal Education, The Eagle Municipality)
166!
The Eagle School and the High Hill School35 also establish standardised grade level
tests in all the nationally assessed subjects.36 Additionally, these term tests and
SIMCE test results are given by course and subject and these are made public within
schools. Consequently, schools produce and disseminate comparative outcomes
among course levels, replicating a system of competition within schools on a small
scale. In other words, schools have comparative information among courses about
students’ learning outcomes, producing micro-competition among teachers. While
senior staff value these micro comparative policies as positive, teachers show more
critical concerns; as, for instance, I illustrate in the case of the High Hill School:
Mrs. C.: A healthy competition emerges [with comparative SIMCE

scores among courses of the same grade level]. If you don’t assess, how
can you notice that something is not working well? How do you reflect
upon your work? How do you deliver a reflection?
AF: How was it before, twenty years ago, was there less reflection?
Mrs. C.: No, reflection was on the basis of... well there wasn’t any head
of school curriculum at the time. That new position was brought in to
tidy up the situation; this also came together with external exams, which
we didn’t have before; so the situation required us to act in this way.
AF: For the best?
Mrs. C.: Yes, these practices are implemented to seek a set of remedies.
If we don’t have a good diagnosis, an objective perspective, how can we
improve? (Head teacher, High Hill School)
They [senior staff] announce the [SIMCE test] scores, then we applaud,
and then they say how well each grade level did. Inevitably you
compare; whether it’s done with that aim or not, you compare. And then
they ask them [assessed teachers] why they think they got those results.
So, she [teacher with lowest score] tells about, for example, all the
troublemakers, all the special needs children, all those with problems.
She receives them all if they send them to her. The SIMCE test is more
difficult for her because it is taken by all the challenging kids. (SEN
teacher, High Hill School)
On the one hand, it’s good, you know exactly how children are doing,
but sometimes teachers can feel really down, those with low results, it’s
really depressing for them. I think that anybody would feel sad, it’s
heart breaking after all the effort and work you put in; it could happen
to anyone. (Primary teacher, High Hill School)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
35
The other two schools had only one course per grade level.
36
While the other school subjects are understood as ‘subjective’, it is not possible to assess
comparatively among classes of the same grade level.
167!
Just as the High Hill School Head teacher values the ability to produce more exact
information within the school, in order to reflect upon teachers’ work, teachers also
talk about the negative effects of being compared and the risk of feeling low, a
personal failure, in spite of significant effort and work. Overall, the data evidences
that the expansion of competition occurs not only among schools, but also among
school departments, course levels and teachers. Gewirtz (2002) calls this happening
the creation of ‘internal markets’, transforming the school ethos and teachers’
interrelationships.
Lastly, although interviewees praise ‘professional’ and ‘rational’ management styles,

they also criticise the increase of bureaucratic work, suggesting it to be meaningless.
As I show in the following quotes, this sense of excessive workload is felt by
individuals in a variety of positions, including municipal managers, head teachers
and teachers:
It seems Kafka-esque the amount of bureaucracy! It’s terribly bulky, it’s

just not compatible with doing things right, for the good of education.
It’s all insufferably slow; you want to cry, laugh and then strangle
yourself. (Chief of Municipal Education, White Hill Municipality)
Many times they just don’t let us carry out our pedagogic work, because
they [the Ministry] ask us for things, they ask us for too much. JEC
[Full School Day], school reports, School Council, delivering the
academic school report, administrative report, plus annual financial
report. Also, they invite us to participate in head teachers’ meetings and
the meeting of the school owners, meetings of the Ministry Providence.
(Head teacher, The Eagle School)
Lesson to lesson plans, I think it’s too much, the books [Ministry
programmes] already come with lesson planning. It’s a waste of time.
You get overwhelmed [te pilla la maquina] with these infamous plans,
the [Ministry Supervisor] wants learning aims and assessment
indicators. We are full of work, two days for planning for the whole
term. I know what I will do; sports, games, I know, so those planning
forms are hateful!!!! You have to write everything, the aims, the
achievements, the... you handle it, (...) because games, for example, I
know, I have to teach students, for example, to play handball,
basketball, [rhythmic]?, gym, rhythmic dances, I know it, I know how
to do it, but I have to take it and write it down. Jump, run, it’s always
the same, and go over and over again, so they [the students] incorporate
it. It already comes in the books, themselves [the Ministry] did them
168!
[curriculum programmes] and they are really good; why write it again?
(Gym Teacher, High Hill School)
All in all, the data presents a set of bureaucratic artefacts and practices following
annual, monthly and daily plans, assessment instruments and indicators, devised by
the Ministry, municipality and school. So, interestingly, local institutions must not
only follow the Ministry bureaucratic technologies, but they also feel they should
continue to set up new sorts of managerial technologies. Consequently, institutions
tend to produce and reproduce micro-policies within institutions, intensifying the
tactics for controlling individuals.
Interestingly, a centralised and bureaucratic management style, concerned with

planning, following the national curriculum and an imperative that all teachers teach
in synchronised ways, are all reinforced with post-bureaucratic policies, so as to
achieve successful, measurable learning outcomes in the same way. So these are new
ways in which formerly centralised, bureaucratic management styles are renovated in
new market settings. So the ‘old’ bureaucracy is merged and renovated through new
post-bureaucratic technologies.
Contrary to neoliberal beliefs of achieving more efficiency, the data shows that
institutions are increasingly entangled in bureaucratic work, which involves
significant amounts of time, energy and work on tasks which people feel are
redundant. As Ranson (2003) explains, accountability policies are placed within the
hierarchical practices of bureaucracy, having to demonstrate the attainment of targets
and standards through ‘objective’ information (rather than proving ‘procedural
correctness’). Thus, bureaucracy keeps on working as a core state technology, in
spite of market policies and rhetorical claims for efficiency (Cunill, 2004).
4. Entangling Students and Parents in the Competition
From the data also emerges ways in which educational staff involve and
energise parents and pupils in the competition activities - for instance,
congratulating them for national test outcomes, drawing their attention
towards low results, asking them to train for tests and giving prizes for
169!
successful results. These tactics occur both in subtle ways, and in explicit and
direct ways. The following quote illustrates the manner in which actors push
each other to improve test scores:
There is pressure with scariness, especially in fourth grade. Here there is

pressure, at a good rhythm, from teachers to students, year teachers to
parents, parents to students; among everybody! They want everything to
go well, but it’s progressing at a good rhythm. (Primary teacher, The
Eagle School).
In effect, in all school case studies, staff propose to parents concrete tasks for them to
undertake, such as homework preparation for national tests (see e.g. Canelo School,
§6.3), or send parents trial-tests results asking them to reinforce the particular areas
in which the pupils under-perform (The Eagle School and High Hill School). Schools
also involve parents in performative activities through developing a discourse of the
‘good’ and supportive parent. For instance, High Hill School asks parents to sign a
‘commitment letter’ to support the learning progress of their child:
It is crucial to have your [parents’] collaboration and support for your

child’s school success. (...) We are sure we will count on your support,
so as to maintain our excellent academic results that give prestige to our
students. This year the fourth graders take the SIMCE test: together we
will make our best effort. (Excerpt from parents’ commitment letter)
The quotation from this ‘commitment letter’ shows tactical ways in which a school
makes families feel responsible for maintaining and improving school scores, as a
‘dual responsibility’, i.e. not only a school responsibility.
There are also daily exhortations that flow within schools, attempting to drive
parents and students to prepare well in standardised tests:
I tell our students, only you will win with attaining good SIMCE results.
The only ones to benefit are you, not me. You will have to apply to
secondary school, and then [if your primary school is prestigious] you
will be able to choose any school that you wish. (Head of School
Curriculum, High Hill School)
We give talks to parents. I go and speak to them, related to school
identity, to their love for the school, giving priority to fourth year
[parents], the year in which they take the SIMCE test. Thereby, parents
170!
realise the importance of their efforts in improving academic outcomes.

(Head teacher, Low Hill School).
These are examples in which school staff attempt to pressure parents and students,
make them feel that improving SIMCE results is a self-generated goal that they must
accomplish.
There are also all kinds of awards the schools give students in order to motivate them
to study for national tests. For instance, The Eagle Municipality rewards the 100
most ‘outstanding’ students of Year 12 by buying them a University Selection Test
(PSU) training course. This technology benefits these 100 students, but overall it
benefits the Municipality, since it is a mechanism to increase school test scores.
Also, schools provide diverse kinds of material and non-material prizes. For instance,
the Eagle School organises a celebration for students with hotdogs when SIMCE
scores increase, and awards students diplomas and congratulates them on the web
page. The High Hill School offers students a school day trip and to add a grade of 7
(maximum grade) if they increase SIMCE tests. As the Head of School Curriculum
comments:
Mrs. O.: We invent all type of prizes [for students] to motivate them,
attempting to make them take the SIMCE [test] seriously. For example,
we tell them that if they increase SIMCE scores we will offer them a
school trip, or give them a grade 7.
AF: How is that?
Mrs. O.: In 8th grade, if SIMCE scores increase by 5 points, we offer
them a 7 [grade] to the whole grade level, as an award, in the respective
subject. So, if they increase in Mathematics, a 7 for Mathematics, if
they increase in Language, a 7 in Language.
AF: Does it work?
Mrs. O.: Yes, they are really taking it seriously and they pressure each
other, among their other classmates. It’s a collective pressure that makes
it more fun. (Head of School Curriculum, High Hill School)
Although these technologies are delivered in different ways in each school, those in
more disadvantaged areas have more difficulties delivering these tactics, as in the
Low Hill School:
171!
I speak to the children, I talk with them, explain to them the importance
of the SIMCE test for themselves and the school, that they must take it
seriously, to think through each question, be on time that day, that they
must treat with respect the test administrator. We did a great job last
year [preparing the test], we hoped to have good results. But after the
SIMCE test [application]... I’ll tell you, during the SIMCE, it was
horrible. One third of the students didn’t want do the test, another third
were shouting, moving around, there was even a boy that started to
insult the test administrator, calling him a ‘faggot’ [marquita], imagine
that! While the other third remained quiet, taking the test. (Head
We send home reports and we ask students to bring them back signed
by their parents. We analyse child by child the weakest aspects, and we
have meetings with parents, asking them to reinforce these areas,
exactly those in which they perform the lowest. But it’s difficult, as I
have told you, here parents barely come, and they are always the same
ones - 1, 2 or 3 who participate, the rest hardly appear. I can tell them 1,
2, 3 times to come to meet me, so we can talk about their child, but they
don’t come. Even if you go to their homes they may not receive you!
Really! (Head of School Curriculum, Low Hill School)
Although all case studies attempt to deliver, in one way or another, these
‘motivational’ tactics, clearly parents and students do not commit and respond in the
same ways.
All in all, the concept of ‘performativity’ is extended beyond school staff. The cited
data are examples of ways in which educational institutions involve parents and
students in performative activities, employing awards, threats, persuasion and
requesting specific tasks, such as practising test training exercises at home. Schools
tactically situate families and students as being responsible for improving test scores
and engaging them in performative practices. Moreover, school discourses attempt to
make parents and students feel that increasing measured outcomes is desirable for
them.
The institutional practices and discourses show subtle effects of self-governance

among schools, and reproduce the effects to parents and students. So, although
policy-makers expect that parents and students ‘consume’ schooling and demand
‘high quality provision’, conversely, they are encouraged to produce school
172!
provisions and contribute to enhancing the school’s image within the marketplace
(also see §6.3).
5. Persuasion, Control, and Authoritarianism
Persuasion is another core tool institutional managers and Ministry school

supervisors declare to be important. These strategies are used, although it is felt by
actors that they do not have enough direct coercive power to be able to close a
school37 or (easily) dismiss public teachers (since they have a labour regulation,
§1.4).38 For instance:
You have to take it and sell it. [If] They don’t like it, you have to
explain it to them and they’ll eventually like it. I don’t come to control
you, I come to teach you about how you can do it right, and period,
nothing else. [Teacher] assessment is heavily resisted. It’s a complicated
issue (...) people are angry, but later on they’ll like it. These things
depend on the quality of personal relationships, on your social abilities.
I always have to try to persuade positively, having good social abilities
is key to this job. (Head of School Assessment, the Eagle Municipality)
We must guide schools and from that perspective there is a type of

‘authoritarianism’. But we must do it in a way that it allows us to
transform those processes that we find must be reinforced, and
consequently modify our abilities and management to favour those
processes. Currently, we talk not only about education in general, but
also about ‘transformational leadership’. I mean I modify systems
because I want to be able to convince others that they are the best. It’s
not that I am the boss and the buck stops here or that the authority has
determined ‘X’ and I am passing it on. As Supervisors are convinced
that there are certain processes that are positive and are good, I do not
go to the school and impose it on them at all, they have to do so. No.
Every time that a new programme appears we call schools, invite them
and explain it to them. (Ministry Supervisor, Metropolitan Ministry
Region)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
37
During the fieldwork, the idea of a policy of school closure had just been circulating on the media.
The new ‘Quality Agency’ (recently created in October, 2012) has now the faculty to close schools.
At the moment the institution is defining the criterion for closing a school.
38
This regulation demands a legal procedure in order to dismiss a public teacher, unlike in the private
sector.
173!
These quotes illustrate the tactic of convincing and seducing school staff with the
‘benefits’ of national or municipal policies and programmes (e.g. Management
improvement programme (SACGE), Literacy and Mathematics programme (LEM),
National Teachers’ Assessment. This strategy emphasises the power of words for
persuading schools to use and practice specific policies, rather than forcing, directly
controlling, or sanctioning schools.
From this perspective, personal relations and social abilities are key resources, as
interviewees point out. Thus, while schools are supposed to be autonomous and
decide their own strategies in rational and professional ways, Regional Ministry and
municipal staff push schools to implement centralised Ministry programmes.
Moreover, there is quite a tricky and unclear discourse, a kind of covert
authoritarianism. While speakers note that they “convince” and “teach” school staff
and are, in quotation marks “authoritarian”, they suggest that they “invite” school
staff and do not impose on them.
Also, social agents employ power tactics, such as pressures and subtle threats,
towards other actors as is illustrated in the following extracts:
When the SIMCE results are shown by the media they appear to be the
government’s responsibility; so, if municipal schools have bad scores
the government is performing badly. But it is not the Minister who runs
lessons, and it is not the Regional Minister Head who runs schools.
These are the school and municipality’s responsibilities, right. That’s
the Achilles heel that we have. I have talked with some mayors –“hey
look, have some concern, even if you have to invest, be creative in the
way you do it, reinforce the students that are going to take the SIMCE
[test], strengthen the students that are going to take the PSU [test], if
they perform badly, you will have to assume a political cost”— If that
district performs badly it will also have repercussions for us, because
[people will ask] ‘what does the Ministry do?!’ (Head of Regional
Ministry)
I brought all head teachers here to my office, we had a private meeting,
it was really fruitful. I heard them, we analysed each one of their
schools, I showed them all the statistical data from their school, SIMCE
[test], enrolment, school external support, expenses. (...) I offered them
my support, but at the same time I asked them for a commitment, a
commitment to improve their results. It’s a vice versa thing, they can
ask me for things, but they also have to improve, I told them –“I trust
you, but I am watching you”—(Major, White Hill Municipality)
174!
These are examples of delicate pressures and threats, such as the Ministry Regional
Head’s threat to a mayor noting that he may lose votes because of failing school
results, or the White Hill Mayor telling a head teacher that “I trust you, but I am
watching you”. Thus, school performance outcomes are tactically used as a way to
push, threaten, and control educational actors (as I also show in section 3 regarding
parents and students).
I also argue that these persuasion tactics are developed within a context of historical
authoritarian dispositions, which are acknowledged by interviewees:
Because it’s our culture. Not of the Ministry of Education, but how the
state of Chile was built, the state as a hierarchical state, disciplined. It’s
not a horizontal organisation and indeed it never will be. Here the
President says ‘A’ and it is ‘A’. Could you imagine that a Minister
Regional Head could go and tell her [President] another thing? (Head of
Metropolitan Ministry Region)
I don’t know why we are like that, we simply are. Always scared of the
authority, of what they are going to say or think. When an authority
comes here, everybody runs and gets really nervous. And well, we
always obey what the authority says, it’s part of our culture I suppose.
(Music teacher, High Hill School)
I think it’s good [the accountability policy], if not, Chileans just don’t
work; it’s part of our idiosyncrasy. We need somebody there to be
pressing us, telling us what to do; if not, people just rest on their laurels.
(SEN teacher, Low Hill School)
In fact, Chile has a long tradition of centralised and authoritarian regimes (Loveman,
2001). Lauglo (1996) argues that a ‘bureaucratic centralism’ is commonly rooted in
developing countries, particularly post-colonial states; it is the “legacy of colonial
rule” (p.19). As speakers note, within this ‘Chilean culture’ individuals defer to the
authorities legitimate power to make decisions and “pressure” them. Overall, these
historical dispositions fit in with standardisation and accountability policies and the
performative strategies described previously.
175!
Nevertheless, I argue that within a market setting versions of authoritarianism have

been transformed. In a context where institutions have to show results and are
accountable for them, the data demonstrates, within different educational institutions,
a strong sense of anxiety and disempowerment. Individuals feel that they depend on
others (parents, students, teachers, head teachers, mayors) to achieve successful
school outcomes. This schema is broadly experienced as an unfair scenario, as
people feel they are not responsible for school performance as many other actors are
involved. Hence, as I have demonstrated, in order to achieve these desired results,
individuals carry out practices of seduction, threat and blame towards others. The
following observed situations illustrate this emotional atmosphere:
Conversation between the Chief of Municipal Education (Mrs. Isabel)

and a professional in charge of a ‘positive school environment’ (Mr.
Max) in the office of the educational department. Mr. Max is talking
passionately with Mrs. Isabel. He points out that the instruments of the
Ministry that intend to improve school practices, for example the
national teachers’ assessment and the ‘Management by performance’,
are manipulated by school staff without really producing changes. He
claims that head teachers “cheat” as they establish low school targets,
attempting to assure that they will achieve the proposed performance
outcomes. “We should put more pressure on head teachers”, he says; the
Ministry means “are too soft”. Mrs. Isabel agrees and says “schools still
function as they did under the dictatorship. The problem with education
is that it lost control”. Later on, Mrs. Isabel continues to tell me, “Head
teachers act as landlords [dueños de fundo], they don’t like anybody
getting in their way, they act as absolute sovereigns. They do whatever
they wish. It is very difficult for them to accept that somebody comes
and tells them what to do. The problem is that we lost control. We have
to push them where it hurts; work as in a private enterprise. If you don’t
do your job well, goodbye, you’re fired”. (Field notes, White Hill
Municipality).
Conversation between two Ministry Supervisors and a person in charge

of Special Needs Education in the Municipal Education Department;
having lunch in a restaurant after assessing the Low Hill School. The
conversation is focused on criticising the recently assessed school and
specifically the school senior staff, according to the speakers, had
blamed the children and their families for the school’s low-test results
instead of assuming their institutional responsibility; “it is outrageous”,
as a Supervisor says. Later, they criticise the non-compulsory measures
of the system, as for instance one person referred to a school with very
low-test scores, who was asked by the Ministry of Education to receive
an external consultancy, but as this was not compulsory the school
176!
rejected the “opportunity” to receive the external guidance. This is also

considered to be “unacceptable”. Then they criticise the national
teachers’ assessment; as a Supervisor claims –“it’s a joke, teachers
don’t even care, they laugh about it; not until the third failure can they
be fired and plus they are paid (an indemnity)!” Then they continue to
criticise the legal limitations for firing teachers. (Field notes,
Metropolitan Regional Ministry and White Hill municipality).
The data fragments illustrate a feeling of powerlessness that emerges from the
educational managers, mixed with an apparently limitless desire for severe, direct
control over other institutions and employees that are located on lower or parallel
levels of the system. From the scenes described, it is possible to infer concern over
not being able to steer and control school staff more extensively. As the speakers
critically suggest, head teachers do “whatever they want” as “landlords”, without
following superior orders. Moreover, there is an impression that schools do not take
education policies seriously, and they even cheat and laugh at the authorities’
demands. Furthermore, there is a kind of frustration and sense of losing authority and
power (see also The Eagle School case study, §4.2). This occurs even though, as I
have shown previously, schools tend to follow centralised practices and logics.
In this way, the current policy strategies are assessed as insufficient and “too soft” to
be successful in making school improvements. In these conversations, the main
problem identified is the “the loss of control” and the idealised solution is to use firm
mechanisms “that hurt”, such as dismissing people. This style is associated with
speakers in private sector management, where you have to do things a certain way, if
not, you are fired, i.e. involving hierarchical relations and severe measures. The data
also shows a strong distrust towards others as if people work only according to
external dis/incentives, leaving aside notions of professionalism, and internal and
personal commitments (similar to policy discourse assumptions, §1.1).
In sum, this last identified institutional strategy refers to subtle and indirect power
tactics, such as persuasion, pressure and threat, using the power of words; i.e. not
direct and explicit power sanctions. These practices are mixed and coupled with
historical authoritarian and hierarchical dispositions. Nevertheless, these historical
practices are renewed and transformed within a competing setting. The data shows an
177!
atmosphere of anxiety, frustration, distrust and sense of powerlessness among

educational managers. The solutions that emerge to these feelings are a strong desire
for harsh and severe measures, which individuals link to a private sector style.
6. Conclusions: Performativity in the Chilean Context
Power constraints and prevailing policy discourses flow among institutional

networks and pervasively trespass on different kind of institutions, private and
public, wealthy and disadvantaged, and at regional, municipal and school levels.
Individuals produce and circulate within institutions notions of ‘good’ schooling;
linked to the idea of achieving high-test scores, symbolising a place where teachers
effectively teach and students successfully learn. Moreover, it is understood that
standardisation and accountability policies contribute to the country’s education
quality and equality, and those who invest efforts towards standardised and
competing aims are committed to students’ learning and future wellbeing. This
discourse ‘makes sense’ of accountability policies as actors also relate them to a
nostalgic notion of a centralised, hierarchical and protective, welfare state.
As is shown in this chapter, state/market technologies steer institutional priorities,

penetrating institutions’ daily life. The data analysis identifies four types of
institutional strategies for competing among these state assessment technologies,
which are explained below39:
- Institutions deliver an exam–oriented curriculum along with a whole set of

strategies in order to raise school test scores. These pedagogical practices
reinforce traditional teaching methods, related to mechanical learning,
repetition, competition, pressure and positive reinforcement. These methods
reduce significant experiences for learners and narrow down the national
curriculum, in particular, pushing aside non-measured learning areas.
Additionally, these institutional practices involve uneven resource allocation,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
39
As I point out in Chapter 4, it is important to mention that these are not absolutely novel and
original practices, i.e. I do not argue that traditional methods, competition ethics and bureaucracy
within educational institutions are new. Yet I do point out that national assessments and ranking
policies have intensified these measures, mixed and reinforced by hierarchical and traditional
historical dispositions.
178!
as agents invest human and material resources, time and energy into the
nationally assessed subjects and grade levels in order to boost visible school
performance outcomes. Consequently, less priority is given to the non-
assessed subjects and non-assessed school grade levels. These research
results engage with international studies with similar findings (see section
§1.3.1).
- Institutions devise new controlling methods (audits, tests, incentives) and
bureaucratic artefacts (planning formats, assessment tools, achievement
indicators). Institutions, therefore, have to account for measurable targets, not
only to the central Ministry, but also to the regional Ministry, the
municipality and senior school staff. Subsequently, bureaucracy keeps on
working as a core technology, in spite of efficiency discourses.
- Institutions engage parents and students in performative activities, for
instance, making them train at home for national tests, celebrating together
and giving prizes for positive achievements, or threatening or pressuring
them to prepare for assessments. Consequently, parents and students, instead
of being outsiders who choose and demand school quality, are, at the same
time, made to comply with school competition, immersed into a competition
rationale, held responsible for school results, and pressured to ‘collaborate’ -
producing and showing positive school performance.
- Individuals persuade, convince, pressure and threaten one another, in
order to improve school test outcomes. In a market-competitive setting, there
is a growing atmosphere of insecurity, anxiety and sense of powerlessness, as
people feel that they have to account for results that are not entirely under
their control, so that they depend on other people; for example, pupils’
capitals, teachers’ abilities, head teachers’ effective leadership, the Mayor’s
disposition towards investing in education, etc. Subsequently, there is a
strong desire among a variety of individuals to assess and control others, and
also to blame them and deliver severe and harsh measures. These practices
are also mixed with an authoritarian and hierarchical culture, recognised by
interviewees as having historical roots within Chile.
179!
The effects of the described strategies are thorough and saturating. Not only does the
central state constrain school aims and practices, but the regional Ministry,
municipalities and school managers also sharpen, reproduce and multiply power
technologies and institutional artefacts, pushing one another to enhance school
results. It is a sort of intensification and replication of managerial policies, from the
national level down to classrooms, including even home practices. There is a
contagious and cumulative effect, as different layers of the educational network
practice, increase and push each other in order to increase school performance
outcomes.
Educational agents view these micro-policies in different ways. On the one side,
positive contributions are identified, such as putting pressure on all teachers
(particularly those perceived as less able and unwilling to improve) to teach in more
academically challenging ways, and encouraging them to monitor and give feed-back
to pupils’ learning progress. On the other hand, in spite of the fact that individuals
are involved in these disciplinary practices and that there is overall agreement with
performance technologies, there are also critical views regarding the effects of these
policies. The main critiques are: i) ‘academism’; ii) reduction of teaching innovation
and significant learning experiences; iii) limitation of ethics and value-based
education; iv) speeding-up pupils’ learning processes, particularly problematic in
disadvantaged settings with diversity learning styles and needs; v) augmentation of
teachers’ internal divisions, competition and low morale in cases of under-
performance, and vi) and an increase of bureaucracy and increased workload.
These research findings, within the Chilean context, show the pervasive effects of
state technologies functioning within educational markets. The case studies explore
the ways in which a performative culture has developed in Chile (Ball, 1997a, 2001,
2003c; §1.2). Individuals invest daily efforts, energy, thoughts, bodies and souls into
these competing activities. The everyday practices aim to produce visible and
successful school outcomes according to state assessments and rankings, and to
improve schools’ general market image. In spite of the critical and dissonant voices
mentioned, the research outcomes show that school management is markedly
narrowed and steered by these competing motives. The key point is not (only) the
180!
kind and extension of the delivered practices, but, above all, how the performing
subject is reworked by the policy technologies within a market rationale. Hence, the
way subjects think, plan, calculate, and the meaning they confer on their actions.
All in all, this panorama is far from the idea of an open, diverse and deregulated
example of a market model, as the Chilean case has been characterised. On the
contrary, the data shows a strongly homogenising setting. Instead of opening and
diversifying educational projects, school aims are narrowed down to nationally
quantified, comparable and visibly assessed outcomes. Consequently, what is
defined, by policy discourse, as ‘minimum’ state standards pervasively and
extensively steers institutional desires, efforts and discourses. In this way, I continue
to demonstrate, as in Chapter 4, the means by which state technologies pervasively
guide educational institutions. Even though there are variations, the data shows
diverse and expanding performative efforts and a prevailing competing rationale
among different types of education institutions. These findings confirm previous
research related to the effects of testing, accountability and market policies within
schools, showing similar patterns (§1.3).
In this chapter the analytical focus is on institutional discourses, aims and strategies
in order to attain state standards and school advantaged ranking positioning, based on
data of all case studies. In Chapter 6 I concentrate particularly upon three case
studies, in order to understand in more detail how these performative tactics function
to form a messy and extensive ‘living market’.
181!
CHAPTER SIX
The Messy and Extensive Market
182
!
The Messy and Expansive Market
Introduction
Markets in education are understood by neoclassical economics as a sphere where
providers and consumers come together in order to sell and buy good educational
services, motivated by principles of competition and self-interest. However, research
in sociology and anthropology has interrogated these universal assumptions,
contributing to the study of markets by exploring the concrete practices of
individuals. Bourdieu (2000, 2003b, 2011a) argues that markets are not pure abstract
spheres where the forces of supply and demand interact in harmonious ways,
adjusting themselves mutually in order to define a set of goods and services, quality,
price and distribution. This abstract conception fails to describe the particular
historical conditionings and dispositions under which markets emerge and the ways
in which they operate. Also Foucault (2006, 2008, §2.1) contributes to this
discussion, as he studies with a historical perspective the production of markets
under liberalism and neoliberalism, through particular technologies, rationalities and
subjectivities.
Scholars coming from educational sociology propose the notion of ‘living markets’
(Gewirtz et al., 1995; Lauder and Hughes et al. 1999; §1.3.1, §3.1). This concept
suggests that educational markets are messy and complex, as they are socially
embedded and their concrete production entails multiple contextual factors.
Therefore, the study of markets requires a comprehensive approach examining how
they are socially produced and experienced in the local arena.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the local educational policies used to
improve school performance outcomes in three case studies, and to examine how
these policies are intertwined with the functioning of the markets, the diverse actors
involved, and the attendant struggles and interests. I have selected for this, objective,
data from three different kinds of institutions: the Metropolitan Regional Ministry,
the White Hill Municipality and The Canelo School (rural school). Data from these
institutions enable me to analyse the diverse ways in which education policies are
183!
Chapter Six: The Messy and Expansive Market
disputed and changed, and how market artefacts and symbolic outcomes are used for
multiple purposes.
All in all, I point out that educational markets are much more complex than their
narrow definition as a bi-dimensional sphere consisting of school suppliers and
parental consumers with clear aims and interests, the operation of which will lead to
an overall public good. Instead, competition involves the interplay of diverse and
unexpected fields, interests and actors/institutions, which interact, couple and
struggle. Consequently, market incentives do not necessarily motivate the
achievement of education aims in a straightforward way. On the contrary, they can
mislead them within an amalgam of mixed and complex interests. Meanwhile, a
competition rationale powerfully flows among institutions, disciplining individuals’
practices and discourses, which work within and beyond the supposed boundaries of
the education marketplace; including for instance a rural school, the local Ministry of
Education, and students and parents. Therefore, market competition exceeds the
market itself.
1. The Metropolitan Regional Ministry: Aiming for Symbolic Power and

Distinction
The Metropolitan Regional Ministry of Education is in charge of the largest region of

the country, which has 752 public municipal schools and 1,818 private state-
subsidised schools.40 Therefore this Regional Ministry manages the country’s largest
education budget. The head of this region, Mr. Andrew, is a member of the Socialist
Party (a ‘renewed’ left-wing political party of the Concertación). He was an active
Teacher Union leader during the military dictatorship and since the 1990s he has
worked for the Ministry of Education under the Concertación government. He has a
privileged position among the other Ministry Regional heads, as he worked at the
Ministry’s national level, and has strong networks among politicians and policy-
makers. Mr. Andrew, additionally, is well known by the media and there were
rumours that he wanted to continue his political career as Minister of Education.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
40
Ministry of Education data, www.mineduc.cl
184!
Given the above, the Metropolitan Regional Head is advantageously positioned

within the field. I argue in this section that he develops a variety of strategies in order
to maintain and increase this positioning, and also to distinguish his management
from other institutions. Mr. Andrew focuses intensively and narrowly in order to
produce and display school improvements within his region, differentiating his
management from the other regions. This has led him to create a set of state
technologies and artefacts, mobilising head teachers, teachers, and public and private
subsidised school managers to boost school test results.
Interestingly, the Ministry of Education regulates and supervises the functioning of

the educational market, but it is not in charge of managing schools. Nor does it
participate officially in the educational market. Nevertheless, I argue that Mr.
Andrew is an example in which an individual leading an institution can compete
within education markets, employing available discourses and policy technologies in
order to accumulate the market’s symbolism of success. !
As Mr. Andrew manages the largest region of Chile, he knows that whatever he does
significantly impacts on the rest of the country. Within a traditionally centralised
system, this Regional Ministry Head is recognised for generating regional policies,
changing and on some occasions rejecting central Ministry policies. He broadly
follows the policy discourse of the national Ministry, referring to quality standards,
equal opportunities, accountability policies, and positive discrimination measures.
Nevertheless, he takes this discourse much further. While the government and
Parliament have been discussing ways of strengthening accountability policies, he
has begun to increase and expand these policies and to use private organisations for
supporting ‘school improvement’.
The main regional aim, according to Mr. Andrew, is to reduce educational inequities
among schools. As it is spelt out in a regional document:
[Regional aim] To improve the learning results in Spanish and

Mathematics among poor students of the region in order to reduce the
gap in the SIMCE results and to enhance students’ higher education
enrolment (Quality). Thereby, we will positively channel the
185!
economical and material resources towards the lower income sectors

(Equity). (Statistical Panorama Document, 2007)
Mr. Andrew emphasises that this is an aim exclusive to his region, concerned not
only with improving national test outcomes, but also on reducing the gaps between
the test scores of the poorest and the richest sectors of the region. Mr. Andrew
strongly criticises the central Ministry policies as they fail, according to him, to
improve the quality of education. In this way, he stresses the differences between the
central Ministry policies and the regional polices he delivers. As Mr. Andrew points
out:
Schools are completely unpunished, the damage they have caused the
kids is terrible, they should be sent to jail. I’m not exaggerating, because
the damage... Having students, more than 50% of students who cannot
read in Year 4. Who’s going to compensate that child in 20 years’ time
for all the damage these schools have caused him or her? (Mr. Andrew,
Head of the Metropolitan Regional Ministry of Education)
Later he adds:
It’s that they [the central Ministry of Education] give them [subsidised
schools], hundreds of useless programmes, they are useless, schools
really don’t care. They [Ministry] have to be demanding, putting on the
pressure; it is not enough with these light [Ministry] programmes. And
the market is either the solution; I don’t think that it is enough just with
the market. I don’t think that. Schools need a lot of supervision, strong
supervision, regulation, high standards, demanding. All children in Year
1 should be reading. That’s a minimum. That is something that we
demand here [at the Regional Ministry], but it is not the same in other
places. If a child isn’t able to read in Year 1 we provoke a scandal. It
should be like that. The terrible thing here is that those things don’t
scandalise people. You realise that? In municipal schools, if that occurs
nobody gets scandalised. But in a private school it’s a drama, everyone
asks why? What are we going to do? Who is responsible? That is being
accountable, responsible for what we do. We have to go forward, make
these kinds of changes. (Mr. Andrew, Head of the Metropolitan
Regional Ministry of Education)
Mr. Andrew expresses a strong commitment to improvements in education and at the

same time criticises the policies at a national level as being too ambiguous, “lazy”,
“light” and “undemanding”, incapable of improving underachieving schools. In this
186!
way, he constantly distinguishes himself from the central Ministry. His is a tough
and critical discourse towards educational provision for the poorer children of the
region, producing a discourse of ‘zero tolerance’ towards schools with low results.
As a solution, Mr. Andrew proposes increasing accountability policies, which means
demanding high results from schools in unprivileged areas, together with giving
schools external support for improving school test outcomes. In his words:
We must assign them (low performing schools) more tasks, applying the
logic of quality to all schools. They must all meet minimum
requirements, if not, they have to be shut down, they must ensure the
fulfilment of the standards (...) especially public schools. Because when
these are not fulfilled there are a whole bunch of children that lose out.
And you can’t solve this problem by sending them to private schools
after they have lost out, when the damage has already been done. Many
times this damage is irreversible. (Mr. Andrew, Head of the
Metropolitan Regional Ministry of Education)
The Regional Ministry Head claims that his management has the objective of
achieving better results with a clear focus on Mathematics and Spanish, particularly
during Years 1 to 4. By the following year (2008) it is proposed that all primary
schools will significantly increase their SIMCE scores in comparison with 2007, and
that high schools must increase ten points including 30 points in the PSU (University
Selection Test) and increase students’ enrolment in higher education. He also points
out the importance of maintaining the enrolment numbers in public schools, or if
possible, increasing the figures (in a context where there has been a strong decrease
of enrolments in recent years).
To achieve these targets, Mr. Andrew has developed a series of local policies. Firstly,
he has established a system of ‘management by performance’ where each head
teacher must establish targets of quantifiable achievement for Spanish and
Mathematics. Each Year 1 teacher in the region must also make a list of the children
in each class, and at the end of the year, give the names of those children who do not
learn how to read and submit a ‘technical explanation’ for each of these failures.
Regional standardised training tests are also administered to children in Year 1 and 4
to measure the levels of reading achievement.
187!
These local policies illustrate how the dominant discourses and strategies suggested
by the National Ministry have been increased in scope and depth, through the use of
regional tests and management tools with regional test score targets. Also, these
policies increase the focus and efforts in two areas of the curriculum, Spanish and
Mathematics, especially during the first years of schooling. Hence, these local
policies enhance methods of control, increase bureaucratic tools, and reduce the
spectrum of the curriculum.
Moreover, an improvement policy has been created, outsourcing external support for
improving all ‘failing’ schools within the region (66 public and private subsidised
schools). This task is delivered by private organisations (e.g. consultancies,
universities, foundations, NGOs). This programme was first called ‘Critical School
Programme’, and later ‘Priority School Programme’. In this way, each low-
performing school receives intensive external support for four years with the
commitment of improving their educational test results (as for example the Low-Hill
School received). According to the local policy discourse, schools in the private
sector have the freedom to seek the most appropriate methodologies to improve their
results in the national tests. This programme began in 2001 as a regional initiative;
Mr. Andrew was the first to introduce the privatisation of external support for
‘school improvement’, and the first to design a school intervention programme with
one clearly focused aim; to improve test scores. (The previous national compensatory
programme, ‘900 School Programme’, was more holistic in terms of its aims and the
Regional Ministries, not private institutions, carried out the schools’ technical
support.)
Mr. Andrew is keen on showing the positive test results of this regional programme,
especially when it was first assessed (2005), as this was a way to legitimise his
policies as successful, competing with national policies as applied in other regions.
Within a centralised Ministry organisation, he has significant power struggles with
the policy-makers of the Central Ministry. Therefore, showing positive test outcomes
is important in order to achieve policy legitimacy and, consequently, a higher
regional budget and more autonomy in managing the Regional Ministry.
188!
The results, disseminated by the media, were that 44 of these schools improved
national test results after four years, but 22 did not improve, in spite of receiving
extra support for school improvement, while 8 of them showed declines from their
initial scores. Moreover, researchers have argued that during the first years those
schools with extremely low-test scores usually boost their results as they receive
external support, but these outcomes are not maintained over the long-term (Muñoz
and Vanni, 2008). Thus, over the years, the Head of the Regional Ministry was able
to show some successful results from his local policies, but at the same time a
significant number of schools did not improve, particularly over the long-term. This
means that regional policies were questioned by the media and by the general public.
Given this scenario, Mr. Andrew has produced new policy tactics in order to achieve
higher symbolic achievements and generate new discourses that enable him to justify
these failures. So in addition to the ‘Priority School Programme’, the Regional
Ministry decided to focus on twenty public high schools with middle level
achievement:
[The new programme will select] High-schools that work properly, with
adequate standards, but that have not achieved competitive standards
that enable them to compete with the private sector or to turn into a
renowned public school like the ‘Instituto Nacional’. This strategy’s
objective is to position these schools by 2010, as prestigious institutions
recognised for their efficiency. This challenge coincides with the
(country’s) bicentennial, thus we have named them ‘Bicentennial High-
schools’. The criteria for selecting these institutions specify that they
must be institutions of certain tradition, able to achieve excellence in the
short term (four years). (Statistical View document, 2007)
The Regional Head decides to invest effort and resources in a new group of schools
with the ‘ability’ to improve and compete in the marketplace. These schools, named
‘Bicentennial Schools’,41 are described as schools with “certain traditions”, “able to
achieve excellence in the short term”, located in an area with easy access, and with
relatively high number of middle-class families.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
41
This name refers to the anniversary of two hundred years of the country’s independence from Spain.
189!
This policy tactic is a form of ‘educational triage’ as Gillborn and Youdell (2000)
call it (for other examples, see §8.2). That is to say, the Regional Head sorts out
schools (‘successful’, ‘borderline’, ‘failing’) and focuses on those borderline cases,
most ‘promising schools’. This illustrates a priority to achieve visible and quick
outcomes that awards the institution with symbolic prestige, although the Ministry
should be keen on regulating and providing support to all schools, with particular
emphasis on those most disadvantaged institutions, according to the central
government’s policy. Moreover, Mr. Andrew leaves aside what he has established as
the regional equity aim. Thus, although he passionately refers to targeting to reduce
gaps among schools’ test scores, in a contradictory manner; he focuses efforts on
those most ‘promising’ schools.42
The regional policy plan, expressed in the former extract, alludes to the ‘Instituto
Nacional’ as the reference for an ideal school. This was the first public school
created after the country’s independence (1810) and the creation of the republican
state. The purpose was a school for educating young men who came from elite
Chilean families in order to prepare the future political leaders of the country. To this
day, it remains a highly prestigious emblematic public school, over-enrolled and very
selective, and its scores on national tests make the top rankings. Overall, it is the
Chilean icon of a public school of excellence that makes possible the meritocratic
dream. Making use of a competitive model, most educational managers, like Mr.
Andrew, endeavour to create one (or more) ‘Instituto National’ under their authority.
These schools offer a visible success that converts into symbolic capital for the
regional manager. In other words, if he transforms two or three schools into other
‘Instituto Nacional’ examples, he gains symbolic prestige as a successful educational
manager.
In addition, while the Regional Head underlines the success of school improvement
as a result of his regional policies, he also argues that there are some schools that did
not improve, that are ‘non-improvable’. Faced with this situation, there is a final
local policy used by this regional head. Through his discourse, he insists that he
would like to be able to close ‘bad schools’, as public or private ‘hopeless cases’.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
42
Similar to what Gillborn (2008) conceptualises as ‘gap talk’.
190!
Nevertheless, he does not have the legal tools to do so. Thus, through the media, he
has called on all parents to withdraw their children from these ‘failing’ schools and
choose schools with high performance scores instead. Later on, he sent a letter to all
parents at three specific schools with low-test outcomes (two public and one private
subsidised school). In his words:
Mr. Andrew: Parents have no knowledge of the situation [when schools

are ‘bad quality’], if they did [know], they wouldn’t have them
[children] in those schools. I’ve told them [parents], - “Do you know
what? Look.”- I’m talking about concrete examples. I start off asking
them, what do they consider important for them, for their children. They
generally answer, -“I want them to do better than I did”-. Simulating a
dialogue with a parent: Mr. A.: “Your son doesn’t know how to read in
Year 4.” Parent: “It’s that he [son] has problems.” (Mr. A.:) –“No, the
problem is that the school is bad.” (Parent:) –“This school treats him
very well, they give him lunch.” It’s all those type of answers. (Mr.A:) –
“We’re going to close it [the school]” (Parent:) –“We’re going to take
over the school if you close it.” That’s the kind of answers they give
you. In fact, they have taken over schools, but anyway we have been
able to close them.
AF: How?
Mr. Andrew: Through other means, because of infrastructure issues,
non-payments, etc.
This quote exemplifies again a local policy that differs from the national policy
discourse, as the central Ministry (under the Concertación governments) has never
claimed that parents should choose/exit ‘bad’ schools. Mr. Andrew demands that
parents understand ‘good’ schooling as schools with high-test scores, i.e. according
to what Bernstein43 defined as ‘instrumental order’, despising an ‘expressive order’,
such as schools that treat children well or give them lunch. And the speaker expects
parents to be ‘conscious’ and ‘responsible’, meaning to act as ‘rational’ consumers,
and move their children from under-performing schools to ‘successful’ ones. This
policy tactic could be interpreted as a final attempt to exculpate himself for not
improving performance outcomes at ‘low-performing’ schools, after he harshly
criticised central government policies for not doing so. This discursive tactic allows
him to shift his responsibility for school failure not only towards school managers,
but also towards parents.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
43
See Ball and Maroy (2009).
191!
On the basis of this data, it is argued that Mr. Andrew strategically and exhaustively
experiments with different ways of investing regional resources, hoping to raise
school test scores; which presumably is what he understands to be his professional
mission. For example he: a) employs accountability policies, adding bureaucratic
tools to school control; b) implements school testing for reading ability in Years 1
and 4; c) focuses on Spanish and Mathematics in Years 1 to 444; d) hires private
organisations to provide external support for school improvement; e) invests and
focuses first on deprived schools with low test scores; f) develops a new local policy,
investing in ‘borderline’ schools that are more likely to succeed within the
educational market, and g) calls upon parents to exit ‘failing’ schools and choose
‘good’ performing schools. The key point is the disciplining role played by the
market which judges a particular range of ‘solutions’ to be possible and others not.
Even with the Head’s cited agenda to increase test scores for reasons of social
justice, the ‘solutions’ are all performative and market-orientated.
The Regional Head is involved intensively in ‘playing the game’ of the educational
marketplace, despite the fact that this local Ministry is in charge of supervising and
regulating all regional schools (i.e. not managing them). These micro-policies are
part of the extensive effects of performance management, ‘steering at a distance’.
The employed strategies show ways in which the Regional Head uses state/market
artefacts (e.g. test scores, league tables, school classifications, awards) in order to
attain successful outcomes, which allows him to gain political prestige, distinction
and legitimacy (within and beyond the educational field).
Even though the local Ministry does not manage schools, is not responsible for
school funds, and does not compete within the educational marketplace, this
Regional Ministry is an example of how market and performative technologies
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
44! Interestingly, the Regional Ministry, instead of assessing and regulating schools as an external
regulator from an independent position, the institution management also delivers strategies, as training
tests, in order to increase regional test scores. The Regional institutional delivers a kind of self-
cheating mechanism. While the central Ministry ‘objectively’ assesses schools, claiming that schools
must be accountable for their results, the Regional The Ministry simultaneously trains schools for
improving national test results. Hence, the ‘external regulator’ of the market is also an active player,
attempting to show favourable outcomes.!!
192!
extend to institutions and actors that are not formally placed in the schooling market.
All in all, the data offers evidence of the complexities of the marketplace and how
different aims, fields, interests and individuals come into play within the field of
competition.
2. White Hill Municipality: Learning, Reputation, and Money
White Hill is a large borough located in the Metropolitan Region. The Mayor of the
Municipality is a member of a rightwing political party45, while the Head of
Municipal Education, Mrs. Isabel, is a member of the Communist Party. She is a
French teacher who has been working for four years in this position. Previously she
worked in a public school in another borough. This municipality is responsible for
managing fifteen public schools, nine of which do not achieve the minimum
benchmarks established by the Ministry of Education; while three are in the category
of ‘academic excellence’. The private sector has rapidly grown in this borough
during the last 15 years and now represents 58% of school coverage. Meanwhile,
student enrolment within public schools has sharply decreased (as part of a general
tendency in the country). This implies a significant reduction in state subsidies for
public schools. Within White Hill Municipality, student enrolment decreased by
27.34% between 2000 and 200646. Therefore, it is a borough that is strongly
challenged to compete for more state subsidies in order to be more efficient and
avoid increasing municipal debt. In this section, I show the institutional tensions
among economic and educational interests and the involvement of other institutional
factors.
Mrs. Isabel, the municipal educational chief, feels strongly committed to improving
students’ learning performance. As I talk with her, she repeatedly speaks of the
difficulties of working in a poor inner-city area with a reduced budget, added to the
difficulties of working in a municipality run by a Mayor from an opposing political
party. “It’s a very hard job”, she repeats to me several times. In spite of this scenario,
she also insists on her strong vocation as a teacher and her devotion to working with
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
45
Union Democrata Independiente (UDI)
46
During the same period, at a national level, this decrease amounted to 11.30%. Source: PADEM
Document, 2010.
193!
disadvantaged schools. She feels genuinely committed to improving students’

educational experiences and to contributing to a more equitable education system:
With this [municipal education], I hope all students have the

opportunity to decide for themselves and not just be satisfied with a
little, nor feel that they are doomed in life. What depresses me is when
people say that there is no hope for these children; that it’s too late for
them to learn. Unfortunately, that is the general feeling due to what they
have learnt in these schools. But, I don’t believe that, I am convinced
that we can improve education. Maybe everyone thinks I’m barmy, but,
then again, without a utopian goal, nothing makes sense. (Mrs. Isabel,
Chief of Municipal Educational).
To achieve this commitment, Mrs. Isabel aims centrally to improve SIMCE national
test scores. Specifically, she refers to the importance of improving ‘fundamental
subjects’, such as Spanish and Mathematics “that are the basis for achieving future
learning”. Thus, she follows the government’s policy discourse and targets, and links
this discourse to her vocational and social commitment, justifying in this way her
focus on national assessments.
From this stance, there is an attempt to improve ‘educational quality’ and produce
long-term changes, working “closely” with head teachers and teachers, in a
“reflexive way”, as the Head of Municipal Curriculum argues. The aim, as the
Curriculum Assistant also notes, is to assess and train “more rigorous, more
demanding and innovative teachers”, which requires dedicated and systematic school
assessment through, for example, school visits and workshops. Mrs. Isabel expects
that these strategies will improve test scores (on a long-term basis), and consequently
help to improve the school’s reputation, attract more parents and, ultimately, raise
municipal funds and reduce overheads.
Overall, Mrs. Isabel mixes her sense of social commitment and ‘utopian’ ideas, with
accountability discourses, translating her social-pedagogical view into standardised
targets, as legitimate evidence of quality and equality improvement. In this way, she
is able to make sense of her vocation/ideological stance within a competitive schema.
194!
Her discourse is a pedagogical version of educational competition, which is

distinguished by the educational staff from an economic version that is developed
within a non-educational field by the Mayor and the senior municipal management.
The Mayor and his management team share the same priorities as the educational
department (to increase national tests and enrolment figures). However, they have
different narratives for these targets, placing emphasis on dissimilar matters,
stressing in particularly the schools’ image and reputation and budget efficiency. For
instance, the Mayor argues:
I think that schools can improve by adding a bit of management (...) We

want to promote our schools, change the perception that the community
has of our schools. We have a borough of 15 kilometres; we have 15
municipal schools, and more that 50 private and private-subsidised
schools. There is fierce competition – without considering that if you
cross over to Clauston [Borough] there you have another bunch of
schools, then you cross over to Aryton [Borough] and you have another
bunch of schools. So obviously, the competition in which we find
ourselves does not allow us to let schools look slow, old, poorly
assessed and named with numbers. Hence, we have to step up, have a
distinction in each school, we have to show a proactive management,
modern, dynamic. Because, whether we like it or not, that’s how it is.
There may ultimately be different philosophies, but at the end these
things are motivated by the same principles as any market. (...) So we
have to present ourselves to the external world as a competitive
management in comparison with others. It has to be aggregated value. !
This quote reflects a different understanding of schooling and market competition to

that of the speakers from the Municipal education department. The Mayor is
concerned about the construction of the school's image, especially towards potential
parents. All visible school features become crucial in the construction of the
institutional image, from the schools’ building façade to their league table
positioning. The aim is to change the notion of public schools understood as
bureaucratic and old-fashioned institutions, and make them appear to be proactive
and efficient institutions linked to private values.
In general terms, the senior management team advocates economic-managerial

strategies, such as: advertising schools; boosting the appearance of school discipline;
implementing attractive curricular subjects; auditing schools, and awarding students
195!
and teachers for ‘good performance’ (§7.2). Additionally, the management team is
worried about making education more efficient and they are constantly arguing that
education implies “too much cost”; it is a harsh and uncomfortable duty for a
municipality to provide public education. The Municipal Financial Administrator,
Mr. Alex, claims, for example, that education “is too expensive for the
Municipality”, “we have to pay over 100 [million] Chilean pesos, just to pay
teachers’ salaries”, “there are a lot of things we stop doing because we have to pay
off education debts”. This concern has increased in light of the decline in student
enrolment in recent years and the consequent increase in the Municipality’s debt.
Additionally, the Mayor uses a managerial discourse insisting on a new management

role for head teachers, arguing that they “have to act as owners of their schools, they
have to be worried about everything that occurs within them (...), as if schools were
their own homes, they must be in charge of all the bills”.
The data shows that there are two (micro) fields within the Municipality formed, on
the one hand, by the educational department and, on the other hand, by the Mayor
and his management team. Although in general terms both municipal spheres agree
on the same targets (increase enrolments and test scores), they produce different
educational discourses, make sense of market policies in different ways, and
subsequently devise dissimilar strategies. The following quote from the Head of
Municipal Curriculum (of the educational department), boldly describes this power
struggle:
Mrs. A: It’s that they [the Mayor and senior managers] come from
another planet. You have to talk to them in another language, practical,
economics, concrete. I feel sad for Isabel because they don’t take her
seriously, they don’t respect her. I tell her you have to make them
respect you, don’t expose yourself in front of them. She exposes herself
too much.
AF: How?
Mrs. A: Typically, her style. I adore her, she’s a lovely person, but you
know how she is.
AF: Like when she talks about human rights?
Mrs. A: Right, just like that, values, human rights, the meaning of
education, you know, like Isabel is. And they laugh about all that (...) I
feel sorry for her; I couldn’t take her position. It’s really hard. But she
196!
has learned to confront them better; she’s doing it much better now. She
has to go in more prepared, with a tougher style and concrete
arguments. (Conversation with Head of Municipal Curriculum, field
notes)
The confrontation of these two languages represents this power struggle between the
economic vision and the education stance. This speaker continues to explain these
differences from a critical point of view:
These guys [the Mayor’s management staff] are only concerned with
results, results, results. Now, immediately. They don’t understand what
education is. They have a very limited vision [vision chata]. They think
all teachers are bad. They don’t know that changes are slow, all the
effort and work you have to invest to achieve tiny changes. I don’t talk
to them. No! I just leave that to Isabel and it’s better that I don’t [talk to
them], because if I did I would end up yelling at them! (Head of
Municipal Curriculum).
The education department emphasises that school improvements are complex and
slow, i.e. schools require systematic external support and reflection upon their daily
practices, involving long-term and more costly solutions. On the other hand, the
senior management team stresses changing the schools’ image, attracting parents and
achieving economic efficiency, using a pro-market discourse. The deployed
strategies are based on a much more mechanical and simple understanding of school-
life, seeking economic and short-term strategies in order to achieve quick and visible
results, which reward the Mayor with prestige and symbolic/political power.
Consequently, the education team has strong disputes with the Municipal managers
as the latter allocate scant resources to these long-term strategies while they devote a
large budget to other aims, such as school advertising. Many of Mrs. Isabel’s projects
are rejected with the simple answer “we don’t have the money”, as she explains. So
there are several initiatives planned by the Education Head that have not been
fulfilled, as the Municipality does not finance them. For example, activities such as
teacher training courses or taking days off school (without students) so school staff
can dedicate their working day to reflect upon their institutional practices and design
improvement strategies. Also, Mrs. Isabel has asked for the dismissal of particular
head teachers or teachers in cases where she argues that they are seriously hindering
197!
the wellbeing and performance of school. However, this requires a severance

payment and the Municipality is usually not willing to pay it for dismissing them
(particularly those most ‘expensive’ teachers who have many working years). As
Mrs. Isabel explains:
Mrs. I: I have wonderful ideas as an education manager. For example, I

have requested 1 million [Chilean pesos] to be distributed to different
small projects, such as a Mathematics teacher-training programme,
which I still haven’t paid for and has yet to be approved. And the way
we teach Mathematics from a problem-solving perspective is of great
importance, connected to the students’ real lives and that is crucial for
improving [national test] scores. But, I don’t know Alejandra, I have
been thinking a lot about this and it seems that I have to be tougher,
harder and more daring.
AF: Why?
Mrs. I.: Because there is never any money.
AF: But, it’s difficult to battle against that.
Mrs. I.: I think I’ll have to get even tougher. There are always more
urgent issues, so they never approve the request for money.
AF: So you mean there is money available?
Mrs. I: There is also an issue of willingness involved; I have thought I
should impose myself more. For example; that teacher I told you about,
we should’ve fired her ages ago, I had been saying that for a long time
because she has harmed that school.
AF: What’s the issue with that teacher?
Mrs. I: She’s crazy and is off on [medical] leave all year round. That
school’s scores are currently decreasing because they have been asking
for that from us for a long time. Do you know what? I’ve thought a lot
about it, I’m a very relaxed person, but I think that there is a lot of male
chauvinism going on here.
Overall, this Head of Municipal Education is strongly constrained by managerial

practices, following efficiency criteria and economic strategies. She has to ‘use their
language’, become ‘bilingual’ (§5.2) and legitimise her good work by increasing test
scores. On the other hand, she feels committed to a ‘pedagogical approach’ linked to
more costly, holistic and long-term solutions. However, this approach is a
marginalised position and she feels that she is ‘losing the battle’. She has restricted
resources and the pedagogical rationale has mainly narrowed down to improving test
results, attempting to find visible outcomes. This version of educational aims enables
her to convey and make sense of both logics (economic/pedagogical) within the same
institution.
198!
These power disputes are also intertwined with gendered management styles. Those in
top positions, in charge of allocating money and of manoeuvring the core education
policies, are mostly all men. Meanwhile, those on the education team, who do not have
the autonomy to manage municipal funds, are mainly women. As Mrs. Isabel says:
“They should be grateful to us. They can’t deny that we are all really hard-working
women, committed to improving these schools. We stay every day, working till late”.
Moreover, she alleges that “Mr. Alex [Financial Administrator] says that I’m a cry
baby when I ask him for money” and that she must be “tougher” to be able to negotiate
with Mr. Alex. In effect, Mrs. Isabel claims that:
They [Municipal management governors] would like me to be bossy

with head teachers, snap my fingers and give them orders. But I’m not a
chief, I’m not authoritarian, I have a different style. (Chief of Municipal
Education)
In this context, in order to be a manager you must seemingly employ a ‘macho style’, a
tough language, in order to defend and achieve management aims. Although
chauvinism is a complex, enduring and pervasive problem, it is intensified within a
market scenario. Authors such as Blackmore (2006) and Gewirtz (2002) argue that
managerial institutions reinforce and legitimate these gendered images of leadership
within a competing field. Mrs. Isabel has to negotiate and battle for an educational
budget in a context where a ‘macho language’ is hegemonic, and related to measurable
outcomes and an authoritarian attitude. On the other hand, it is felt that this setting
despises a ‘feminine’-emotional language, concerned with the quality of processes
involving results that are not immediately visible (i.e. non-profitable and non-
observable results).
Lastly, there are also political interests tied into this education management. While the
Mayor and his management team apparently prioritise economic rationales, many of
their decisions are also informed by political criteria. The Mayor has to maintain and
improve his political reputation, as part of his political career. A core strategy for
accumulating political capital is to achieve symbolic power through the schools’
reputation for success. The Mayor must be able to show visible, fast and, hopefully,
economical solutions within his four years of governance (crucial for his re-election).
199!
In effect, the Mayor refers to the ‘successful’ schools in his speeches and yearly
accounts, and is photographed for the glossy and colourful school brochures.
Hence, the Mayor uses the available education market symbols and artefacts (e.g.
schools’ scores and league tables) that are rendered as successful management
indicators, i.e. contribute positively to the Mayor’s reputation. The discourses and
strategies deployed by the Mayor overall demonstrate the market as a technology of
government in Foucault’s sense, working upon ‘the conduct of conduct’, part of a
market repertoire, offered to, hence constituting local policies and discursive
formations (Foucault, 1991).
Additionally, the Head of Municipal curriculum and other municipal and school
employees observed several times that it is well known that the head teachers and
teachers of the same political party as the Mayor are “well protected” and have special
privileges; e.g. they have extra school budgets, personal bonuses, ease in hiring or
dismissing staff, and immunity from being fired. Also, there are several cases where
the Mayor hires people to work within schools as a way to reward them for ‘political
favours’ (e.g. working for his political campaign), although new school personnel are
not required. Meanwhile, the Mayor in the last two years has dismissed teachers who
actively participated in organising teachers’ strikes. As he said to me, “you cannot let
teachers destroy their own schools”, arguing that teachers’ strikes causes pupil
enrolments to drop, since parents move their pupils to the private sector (with almost
null strikes). This data, not only suggests forms of corruption47and illegality, but more
crucially for this analysis, it shows how the political, economic and electoral interests
of municipal administrations couple with market rationales.
To sum up, the data offers evidence that educational markets do not work in
straightforward ways to favour education aims. This case study shows that within
institutions there is a complex combination of diverse interests, logics and versions of
market aims, linked to educational and non-educational fields that twist and constrain
school objectives. Market ‘regimes of truth’ and policy technologies effectively steer
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
47
Many of these practices are openly known as common practices among most Chilean
municipalities, however they are scantly supervised and controlled.
200!
educational management targets, narrowed down to increasing test scores and student
enrolment. Nevertheless, there are games of truth as individuals produce different
narratives regarding education aims in order to articulate and make sense of policies in
different ways.48
In this case study, two versions of education aims are identified, the economic and
pedagogical version. Even though both discourses, in general terms, aim towards the
same targets, the meanings and policy tactics and emphases are dissimilar, leading to
different policy versions and micro-practices. In this way, different inner institutional
fields (educational, economic and political) come into play, tied to diverse political,
electoral, economic and educational interests. These diverse fields, logics and interests
intersect, couple and clash with each other, involving institutional power struggles,
which are also infused with hierarchical and gendered management styles.
Due to this complex power struggle, the Municipality’s pedagogical field is in a

marginalised position. It is strongly constrained by the market competition schema,
the political/electoral aims, efficiency rationale, and by a ‘macho’ management style.
The educational manager, Mrs. Isabel, is constrained and disciplined by these power
struggles, battling to position municipal schools advantageously in an efficient
manner, and at the same time, attempting to uphold a pedagogical version that
justifies and gives sense to her practices and personal commitments. The education
field in the Municipality is coupled and subjugated by economic and political fields.
Within a market schema, visible outcomes (and fast and economic strategies) are
legitimised as useful, while commitments to long-term, complex changes and non-
profitable targets are unworthy. Thus, a pedagogical criterion is not at the heart of
education management, it is strongly constrained by economic and politicised
interests; producing new versions of educational aims.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
48
Ball et al. (2011) suggests that school actors deliver ‘policy work’ within institutions, making-
meaning, translating and articulating disparate policies. School staff are not passive receivers of
policies, but active players who produce in creative, sophisticated and disciplined ways public polices
in local settings (§3.1).
201!
On the whole, I argue that the prevailing political/economist/macho vision is in a

hierarchical and overriding position not only because it is delivered from the top
positions of the Municipality, but also because it involves a legitimised discourse
within the educational market, and operates as a licensed discourse, coherent and
consistent with the current market model.
3. The Canelo School: Strategies for Survival
The Canelo School is located in a semi-rural area, and has 28 students from Kinder
to Year 6, who work in a two-classroom building. Some children travel long
distances, arriving by foot or by donkey. Two teachers work in this school, one of
them is also the head teacher and lives at the school. In the past years the school has
maintained test scores slightly below the national average, although these fluctuate as
few children are tested (Year 4 usually numbering four or five children). There are
no public league tables within the borough and schools are not officially classified by
the Ministry of Education. In the Canelo borough there are twelve49 municipal
schools (eight of them are rural) and there are no private schools. In the 2000s,
student enrolment decreased dramatically, as parents preferred to move their children
to larger public schools in nearby cities. School drop-out is the main concern of Mrs.
Simona, the Head teacher. As she nostalgically remembers, 20 years ago around 45
children attended the school. The Head teacher dedicates all sorts of strategies to
avoiding higher numbers of drop-outs:
I have many ambitions for this school, like fixing the bathrooms, and
[improving] children’s communication skills. For this [purpose], I have
two computers. And it’s important that parents realise these things, so
they send their children to this school, and not to others [schools]. Now
there is more transportation to other schools in the city. That is my
major aspiration [to maintain enrolment]. (Mrs. Simona, Head teacher)
Like The Canelo Municipality, The Canelo School is marked by resource limitations,
due to low enrolments. Consequently, in recent years there has been a policy of
‘rationalisation’ that has led municipal managers to close three rural schools and to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
49
Five schools’ test scores are unpublished, due to the small amount of children that are tested (less
then three). The Canelo School’s results are published on the Ministry web page.
202!
dismiss five teachers. Rural schools are expensive for Municipal managers, since they
have few students. As a result, there is a prevailing economic criterion for closing
schools, and this decision implies a loss of the educational and welfare state services
belonging to rural communities.
According to the Mayor, this decision was made because there were overstaffed
schools compared with the number of students; “The numbers did not fit”, as he says.
This was a very unpopular measure according to the Mayor, as many people
(particularly parents) were against these municipal decisions. Yet, as the Chief of
Municipal Educational explains, “it’s a survival strategy; we don’t have any other
choice”. Thus, the reduction of expenses is understood as an evident and inescapable
strategy. This Municipal rationalisation policy is a constant threat for Mrs. Simona and
her colleagues. They are very aware that the school is vulnerable to closure. As she
says:
At any moment they [Municipality] can close it, the school has many
problems. Our office, for example, was badly constructed, with light
materials. Every winter it gets wet in here and every year a handyman
comes and he just makes superficial repairs. They should build it all
again, but they won’t, they won’t invest anything here for permanent
solutions. (Mrs. Simona, Head teacher)
Within this setting, Mrs. Simona sees preparing children for the SIMCE test as
crucial. Increasing test scores is a tactical way of legitimising the necessity of the
school, and therefore avoiding its closure. The Canelo Municipality has established a
common aim for all schools - to achieve over 250 points on the SIMCE national test
(similar to the average national score). The school, together with the Municipality,
delivers strategies to train children for the national tests - for example, fulfilling
teacher workshops, training tests, and homework sheets for working with parents
(§6.2). For Mrs. Simona and her colleagues, it is essential to overcome these test
scores. As she argues:
203!
It’s fundamental, we have to pass the 250 [test scores], we are really
down in enrolment figures, so on that side we don’t have anything to
gain. SIMCE scores are our last chance, it’s the only way to make them
not close the school, and if we get good scores, it means we are doing
things right.
This quote illustrates the pressure on the rural school to increase test scores in order
to keep the school ‘alive’. Test scores function as a core symbolic capital that enable
the school staff to demonstrate that the school is worth maintaining. The teacher
assistant, Mrs. Marcela, explains that an important amount of time and energy is
invested in test preparation. A small number of children take the SIMCE yearly test
and the teachers dedicatedly prepare them for it. Mrs. Marcela claims that this
situation is very stressful, as “we depend on them [children of Year 4]”. In other
words, it is felt that the school’s survival depends on those four or five children’s
abilities to take the test successfully.
Additionally, Mrs. Simona explains that the children’s parents mainly work in
agriculture, and some of them may keep their children at home working, instead of
sending them to school. In this way, she also uses test scores for motivating and
persuading parents to bring their children to the school. As she notes:
I show parents the good results, I tell them “look, see, this is why you
should bring your children, because here your children learn”. This
proves it is useful bringing them, because they learn. And they must
bring them [children] everyday, because if they don’t bring them they
will miss curriculum content. That happens a lot, and makes our results
decline. (Mrs. Simona, Head teacher)
Test scores are used as an indicator of ‘good’ and necessary schooling, as a tactic to
persuade parents to bring their children to the school, and also, in subtle ways, to
threaten (or blame) them if they do not bring them, as test scores could decrease. In
this way, parents are also involved in the market discourses.
Furthermore, in order to improve test results, Mrs. Simona ‘motivates’ parents to

invest extra resources in the school (e.g. books and photocopies of test exercises),
and to do homework with their child. This is a further extension of market and
performance management into the home and the pedagogical dimension of parental
204!
and childhood life. Mrs. Marcela comments that this has also been stressful for
parents. In effect, she remembers that two years ago the school’s scores decreased,
provoking irritation among parents:
Mrs. Marcela: they were very angry. [imitating parents] “that the school
is bad”, “look at the results”. That is the problem we have. There is a
kind of depression when we don’t get good results, it goes together with
the image, basically. Right, it’s because of the image.
AF: So parents complain because of results?
Mrs. Marcela: Yes, they get really involved. They are concerned
because the materials, photocopies and the books that we use in the
school are expensive. So, when the school doesn’t get such good results,
parents would say, “but why, if we invested so much, why didn’t they
[scores] improve, if we gave you [teachers] all the conditions to make
progress with the children”. They see all what they invested and feel
that they [resources] were not used properly. (Conversation with Mrs.
Marcela, field notes)
This anecdote shows how teachers involve parents in the competition rationale, as
they ask parents, for example, to pay for photocopies of test-exercises and work on
them at home. At the same time, the narrative gives evidence of ways in which
parents are also involved in this competition rationale. They prepare their children
for national tests, and what is more, become emotionally committed to the
competition. Hence, parents also are caught up in market regimens of truth and in the
production of the school in performative ways. They are school consumers and
producers at the same time (§5.4).
Also, Mrs. Simona talks about the meaning of these test results for her as a teacher:
They are important also for boosting our self-esteem. No teacher would
like to work in a school that has bad results. If you get good results, it
makes you feel good about your work, to want to keep at it. And so
people can know that we are doing things right. (Mrs. Simona, Head
teacher)
Thus, achieving good test scores involves a hegemonic truth that assesses the school
and teachers’ value; it is crucial for legitimating good or bad schooling (and
parenting). In this way, test scores significantly build the self-esteem, reputation and
social dignity of schools, as a kind of school identity (§4).
205!
Overall, the school staff strategically aim to enhance test outcomes, focusing on a
small group of children that will take the national test, including parents in these
performative activities as well. Despite the fact that the rural school does not
compete directly with other schools nearby,50 it is an institution that strongly
competes for increasing standardised assessment outcomes.
This competition is delivered for diverse purposes and not specifically for increasing
enrolment numbers. For instance, it competes as a way to prove to municipality
managers that the school is worth maintaining; to show parents the value of their
children attending the school and to encourage them to give greater educational
support through homework. Competition is also a way of building the self-esteem of
school professionals; it makes them positively understand themselves as educational
workers. Subsequently, school staff competition is triggered by state technologies
(more than by market reasons), in order that the school be understood as good and
legitimate by the community, parents, municipality, and by themselves, as head
teacher or as staff.
Additionally, these discourses show that there is little or no reflection from the
interviewees regarding the increase of public school closures. It is a discourse driven
by economic survival and a competition rationale, surrendering to the decline of
public schooling. There are no discourses on behalf of school managers regarding
either the ethical and political implications, nor the option or need to reverse this
situation through other non-competitive means.
4. Conclusions: The Messiness of Educational Markets
In this chapter I attempt to illustrate, through extracts of data, the complexities and
‘messiness’ of the composition of education markets, including the involvement of
diverse social actors and institutions, the interests, power struggles and discourses
that come into play, and the effects of a pervasive rationality of competition,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
50
Although the school does compete in a general way with city schools because parents leave the
rural area and go to urban schools.
206!
exceeding the expected boundaries of the market. In effect, the boundaries between
the state, economy and civil society change, and are managed, in part by the state.
The data shows that educational institutions of different kinds (e.g. regional Ministry,
Municipality, and the rural school) are broadly aligned to standardised targets in
quite homogenising ways, aspiring to achieve an advantageous position, by
increasing national test scores and school rankings, attracting parents and improving
schools’ overall reputations (§5.1). Nevertheless, there is not one agreed version of
education aims within a market schema. Alongside the intertwining of various
narratives, aims, agents and spheres, there are diverse versions of education aims,
just as there are internal institutional tensions. In general terms, there is a prevailing
version of schooling underpinned by an economic version, which stresses producing
visible, low-cost and fast outcomes based on a mechanical understanding of school-
life, and dominated in the context described here by a ‘macho’ management style.
Alternatively, there is a pedagogical version that, although in agreement with
performative and markets targets, defends long-term, more costly solutions and the
understanding that school improvements are complex and slow.
The tensions among these approaches are experienced in all case studies (shown
particularly in the White Hill Municipality), developed in very different ways,
although the pedagogical stance is in a, more or less, marginalised position.
Education managers (e.g. Head of White Hill Municipal education, the Head teacher
of The Canelo School) are placed in strongly constrained positions, stressed by
competing-managerial logics, economic cuts and having to serve electoral interests.
Furthermore, this prevailing market/economist/macho discourse of education works
in hegemonic ways, not only because it is developed by senior positions, but largely
because it is legitimatised as coherent and consistent with the current market model.
On the whole, in these sites a pedagogical discourse of education is coupled with a

market/economic discourse, narrowing down education policies to the enhancement
of measurable targets. This approach involves mostly superficial school changes
rather than ample and profound changes, putting at risk welfare aims as well (§7, §8).
In this way, education is colonised by market logics and rules. This is what Jessop
207!
(2003) calls ‘contingent ecological dominance’, which refers to the ‘capacity of a

given system in a self-organising ecology of systems to imprint its development logic
on other systems’ operations’ (p.25). This concept does not refer to an absolute and
hierarchical domination of one field (or system) over another. It is a ‘co-evolving
situation’, always contingent and historically variable.
Additionally, market practices are intertwined and constrained by non-educational

fields (such as the political and economic), together with the mixture of multiple and
disparate interests, e.g. pedagogical, economic, political, symbolic and emotional.
Hence, education markets are not only mobilised by educational and economic
motivations, as expected, but by a much more complex amalgam of discourses and
interests that go beyond an economic rationale.
For instance, the Regional Ministry Head and the Mayor of White Hill attempt to
accumulate symbolic capital through successful school reputations and favourable
league table positioning, which legitimise them as victorious managers and
politicians; the Head of municipal education at White Hill also tries to improve
school performance outcomes, which also validates her work within a setting where
she is questioned as an authority; the Head teacher at The Canelo School51 wishes to
legitimise the survival of her school (as well as her own job), and retain a positive
self-understanding as a head teacher; and finally parents are also concerned about
their children’s school reputation, which serves as a symbolic capital for applying to
secondary school.
Most profoundly, the market configuration not only steers, in hegemonic ways,
school aims and institutional strategies, but introduces an overall expanding market-
competition ethic, called by Ball (2006) a ‘new moral economy’ (§1.2). This implies
a process of ethical and social transformation that flows within and beyond the
education market. The state deploys discourses and creates symbolic capitals (e.g.
test outcomes, official categories, awards) that are understood to convey the true
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
51
The Low Hill School case study is known as a ‘sinking school’, with significantly low student
enrolment. Thus, in similar ways to The Canelo School, it does not strongly compete against other
schools for new enrolment, but it does compete for improving test results as a way of legitimising the
school in the eyes of other institutions and the community, and allows the staff to positively self-
understand their work and efforts (§4, §7).
208!
meaning and worth of schools, school managers, teachers, and also parents and
children. In this way, I argue that state technologies trigger competition that goes
beyond market purposes. The state, through policy technologies, produces a
symbolic capital that is disputed within the field and exceeds the market itself.
Competing practices for state-symbolic capital involve institutions that participate in
the marketplace, as well as other segments.
These findings are different from other pieces of research, such as Woods et al.
(1998)52, which have found that schools located in less competitive areas engage less
with competing responses, such as for instance emphasising academic performance.
Nevertheless, the results of this research show that performative activities may be
tied to market aims, such as recruiting pupils and augmenting vouchers, but they are
also tied to other interests, working independently of market incentives. The local
Ministry of Education, rural school and parents are a clear example of this situation,
since they are not expected to compete for student enrolments.
Market and state technologies transform the ‘political rationality’, as Rose (1992)
sustains, involving a way of understanding schooling and of being a professional.
Individual practices are a way to be or aspire to be recognised as a ‘good’ Regional
Ministry Head, Mayor, Head of Municipality Education or rural head teacher. The
way of being a professional and directing a school is profoundly transformed.
Nevertheless, while agents are constrained by market/performative discourses and

technologies, they also employ them as accomplices, in strategic and ‘self-
enterprising’ ways. Individuals are neither totally subjugated, nor naive actors. They
are disciplined within market schemas, yet simultaneously they strategically use the
market artefacts and symbolism, more or less consciously, for diverse purposes (e.g.
self-promotion, gain political/electoral advantage, school ‘survival’, etc.).
Hence, market competition exceeds the market itself. These pervasive effects show
the power of governmentality (Foucault, 1991); as the ‘art of governance’ that works
through indirect tactics, expanding through dispersed networks, embracing
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
52
Research situated in England.
209!
institutions, schools, municipalities and the local state (Clarke and Newman, 1997;
Newman, 2001, 2005; §1.1.2).
On the basis of the data analysis developed above, I interrogate the idea that
educational markets and the state are separate entities. It is thought by many
neoliberal thinkers that while markets enable parents to choose schools freely, the
state regulates ‘minimum’ standards of quality and equality, in positive, neutral and
transparent ways. Nevertheless, the evidence shows that state artefacts (e.g. national
tests, league tables, awards) are crucial for organizing markets and making them
work. State technologies generate competitive aspirations and meanings, and offer
sophisticated tools for deepening and expanding competition rationale. State
technologies activate and mobilise markets, and make them vivid.
Following Jessop’s work (2003), I argue that markets (i.e. capital accumulation) and
the state are not independent entities. On the contrary, as I have demonstrated, state
technologies accomplish a key role in the constitution of educational markets. The
state is not just another actor within the market or the regulator of ‘minimum’
national standards, but a core producer of ‘living markets’.
All in all, market and performative policies have deep and expanding homogenising
effects among educational institutions, involving diverse fields, agents, discourses,
policy versions and interests. The data illustrates the complexity, messiness and
social ‘embeded-ness’ of the markets (i.e. the interplay of diverse individuals,
institutions, aspirations, discourses, among others), and reveals that the roles of
provider, consumer and state-regulator are not entirely clear and differentiated within
the market. In agreement with Bourdieu, markets in practice have a much more
complex nature, rather than the abstract, tidy and reductive economic conception
imagined by neoliberal thinkers. And in a Foucaudian sense, markets generate
formative effects, changing individuals’ ways of thinking.
In the next chapter, I examine ways in which institutions attempt to differentiate

themselves within the market, exploring policy effects in terms of school autonomy,
‘diversity’ and innovation.
210!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Interrogating School Market Diversity53
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
53
These images show school marketing devices, they are all taken from Chilean school web pages.
The newspaper clipping says “Two schools for sale. Facilities”, and a mobile phone number is given.
211!
!
Interrogating School Market Diversity
Introduction
In chapters four, five, and six, performative practices are examined, showing the
homogenising effects triggered by standardising and comparative policies. In this
chapter, conversely, the emphasis is on searching for institutions’ local management
and educational ‘diversity’. Since 1981, the Chilean Constitutional Education Act54
decreed a decentralisation reform transferring public school management from the
state to municipalities and adding new incentives for increasing the private sector
(§1.4). This reform was, and still is, defended with arguments of ‘educational
freedom’ and ‘diversity’, so as to avoid state monopoly.
In this setting, questions arise such as: Are there diverse educational provisions and
management styles among the case studies? What is the nature of ‘institutional
diversity’ within a market schema? Do social actors perceive that they work in
diverse and autonomous ways? In what ways does this school ‘diversity’ develop in
different locations and market positioning? In this chapter, I wish to reflect upon
these questions, using data from all three municipalities, and also refer to their
respective schools, aiming to interrogate the notion of school diversity within a
market schema.
1. The Eagle Borough: The Cult of Excellence
The Eagle Municipality is an institution placed in a privileged position within the

education marketplace. It represents one of the boroughs with the five highest
income levels and national test outcomes in Chile. The Municipality is in charge of
ten schools, six of which are directly managed (one of them is a special school), and
four are ‘contracted schools’ outsourced to teachers’ private associations. Most of the
students who attend these municipal schools live in this borough and belong to
middle class families. All municipal schools, save one, have ‘academic excellence’
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
54
Ley Orgánica Constitucional de la Enseñanza (LOCE)
212!
Chapter Seven: Interrogating Market Diversity
(a state award), achieve test scores above the national average, and are at their
enrolment capacity. The Mayor who runs this municipality belongs to a right-wing
conservative political party (UDI55). Mrs. Carolina, who previously worked in a
private foundation, heads the municipal Educational Corporation. The Municipality
finances 65.5% of the total educational expenses of the borough, while the rest of the
funds come from state subsidies. Nationally, this municipality directs most funds
towards education, the national average of municipal contributions being only 30%56.
It is important to mention the dense and strong networks this municipality has with
diverse institutions, right-wing politicians, corporations, and national and
international educational foundations, facilitating different kinds of support and
resources. For example, Mrs. Carolina explains that she is in close communication
with the Regional Minister; if she has any kind of inquiry or concern she says that
she just calls him directly. At the same time, unlike the other case studies, she points
out that the Municipality is autonomous from the Ministry:
We have autonomy. I understand that they [the Ministry] do that in

other municipalities, bypassing them; that’s something you hear that
happens all over the country, but that doesn’t happen here. There are
different types of realities. Probably this borough has more resources
which allows us to have more professional staff and to deliver
innovations (Mrs. Carolina, Head of Municipal Education)
In this setting, the Chief of Municipal Education uses her position to directly negotiate
with the Ministry and maintain a high level of institutional autonomy. Mrs. Carolina
portrays the Municipality as an “exemplary municipal management” and wishes it to
be a model for the rest of the country with regard to learning outcomes, sports, and
SIMCE and PSU national exams. In effect, the municipal mission is expressed in the
following way:
We will become the management model of municipal education in

Chile and we will have students who are proud to study in our schools
(Municipal Plan Document).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
55
Democratic Union Party
56
Statistics of Secretary of Regional Development, 2009
213!
The quotation tells of an ambitious municipality seeking to be positioned as a

successful and distinguished management organisation at a national level. In effect,
Mrs. Carolina claims that the Municipality has the duty to be innovative and is well
ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to delivering pioneering policies. These
assertions are built on the basis of a hierarchical and comparative analysis; ‘success’
involves being better than the ‘others’.57
This case study is an example of an organisation that pursues distinction based on an

ideal of ‘schools of excellence’, employing intensive test training mechanisms and
curriculum reduction (§5.2), mixed with a strict disciplinary code and conservative
values. In addition, this municipality is well known for delivering self-governing
school policies and privatisation policies within the public sector that are proclaimed as
‘revolutionary’ initiatives.
In 1996, the Mayor encouraged the privatisation of public school management,

transferring them to for-profit teachers’ associations. The Municipality freely lends the
school buildings to the teachers’ private associations for a period of 8 years, but the
Municipality reserves the right to intervene in the schools’ affairs and to carry out
changes if schools do not comply with the required state standards. The argument is
that teachers will more efficiently manage their own school than will the Municipality.
It is expected that teachers as direct school players will be more motivated and engaged
in school improvement. Besides, when state schools are outsourced to the private
sector, the public teachers’ labour code is exempted; subsequently private school
managers have autonomy in hiring and dismissing teachers, and do not have to
automatically increase teachers’ salary every two years as in the public sector.
In addition, all private contracted schools and one public school employ a ‘co-funded
policy’58, entailing parental fees in secondary school; and at the moment, the municipal
board is considering expanding this policy to other public schools. Simultaneously, the
Municipality advocates a non-pupil-selection policy and adds new equity restrictions to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
57
Other case studies, with an advantaged position in the market also employ this discourse of
‘distinction and success’ in similar ways, the High Hill School, for example (§4).
58
Known as ‘Financiamiento Compartido’
214!
the national law; as private schools by law can select students, yet within this
municipality, contracted private schools cannot select students during primary
education, i.e. only from high school. Mrs. Carolina supports non-pupil-selection and
points out that she is proud of the fact that municipal schools achieve high academic
outcomes, while they do not select students; as opposed to other municipalities that
achieve high test scores by discriminating against certain students.
Nevertheless, the Municipality does not operate any enforcement mechanisms in order
to ensure that schools do not select students. So, the Municipality in practice devolves
to schools the decision to select pupils or not (§8.1); meanwhile, the Municipality
boasts of following non-discrimination policies. The Chief of Municipal Education
tactically employs this policy discourse of non-selection as a way to distinguish the
municipal management from other boroughs, and also as a way to justify the fact that
municipal education is not nationally ranked in the top position, in spite of investing
high funds.
In terms of educational outcomes, in order to achieve ‘schools of excellence’, the

Municipality has delivered several school programmes, with close school assistance,
and has invested a large budget in schools. Specifically, the Municipality employs a
whole set of strategies to reinforce and improve test scores, such as lesson-to-lesson
pre-designed educational programmes for Spanish and Mathematics (contracted to a
Spanish consulting group), teacher-training courses, systematic trial tests, management
audits, teacher and student awards, class reinforcement for children with learning
disabilities (§5.2).
Additionally, the Municipality introduces other educational projects and aims that
enable staff to distinguish the results from the ‘minimum’ Ministry standards. This
involves hiring a set of external services and programmes that are implemented within
schools and are carried out by national and international organisations. For instance, a
special programme has been implemented in which English teachers have been sent to
work in New York public schools. Also, there is a proposal to foster the integration of
ICT in classrooms through a programme created by a prestigious Chilean university.
215!
Sports are also important; many sporting workshops are being carried out in schools
and competing in regional competitions is encouraged.
A programme called ‘Junior Achievement’ has also been implemented, which was
launched by a USA-based private foundation in charge of developing students’
business abilities and their ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ and which also “allows students to
envision the global aspects of the working world”.59 The organisation claims that it is
“Committed to the principles of market-based economics and entrepreneurship and that
the programme seeks to ‘help prepare young people for the real world by showing
them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make
their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the
workplace”.60
The municipal management also strongly emphasises ‘valued-based education’. Even

though public schools are secular, many of them have religious names related to
Catholic saints or popes. In municipal ceremonies it is quite common to see a Catholic
priest together with local authorities delivering some prayer or blessing. Mrs. Carolina
expresses concern about the perceived lack of value-based education of the children
and adolescents who live in the borough. She also refers to certain topics, such as
school violence, bullying, juvenile delinquency, and drug and alcohol addiction. She
argues that the family is an institution that is in crisis, since there is a lack of family
support towards children. According to her, parents have changed their values and have
lost authority over their children; this situation hinders pupils from internalising social
and moral virtues. Therefore, Mrs. Carolina claims that it is necessary to have special
moral support from schools.
This is the reason that two programmes have been adopted; one is called ‘Let’s keep
growing, the adventure of life’, in addition to a governmental drug addiction
prevention programme. Also, a Programme of Values has been created so that:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
59
Municipal Plan Document
60
See http://www.ja.org/
216!
All students of our schools learn virtues in a conceptual manner so that

later in life they may live and internalise them and their behaviour and
actions will always be oriented towards a path of righteousness, sobriety
and honesty. We aspire for our students to be healthy, happy, have solid
and protective families; a clear objective in life and that finally they
may be a positive contribution to their environment. (Municipal Plan
Document)
The Municipality has designated a person in charge of values education in each school
and has also devised a values programme for all schools. This programme defines eight
values that are practised monthly during orientation workshops. Teachers must plan
their lessons in a cross-curriculum manner, implementing these values. Every month
each school holds a special ceremony awarding a prize to a student from each class
who has shown his/her behaviour to be outstanding according to the “value principle of
the month”. The established values are: i) prudence; ii) responsibility; iii) work, effort
and order; iv) honesty and obedience; v) solidarity; vi) patriotism; vii) respect, and viii)
optimism.
The government of the Concertación created an ethics and value-based curriculum,

referred to as the ‘cross-curriculum’,61 which has the purpose of teaching ethics in a
transversal manner in all subjects, similar to what is proposed by this municipality.
However, the chosen values vary considerably, because the values of the official state
curriculum are more progressive, including citizenship, democracy, diversity and
inclusion, gender, environmental care and human rights. The Municipality, however,
stresses the more conservative and patriotic values and work ethics linked to discipline,
obedience, effort and responsibility.
Additionally, the Municipality management has planned to implement the

methodology of ‘Performance Scorecard’ in all the municipal public schools; this is
part of an education management method to achieve ‘schools of excellence’ (§5.3).
This management technology introduces a logic of ‘new public management’ (§1.1),
as schools must plan and quantify all their aims, and permanently audit and assess
their teachers, students, and parents. Interestingly, the central Ministry devised a
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
61
‘Curriculum transversal’
217!
Management model (SACGE) for public schools, but the Municipality implements
this other alternative model. This is another example of municipal initiatives that are
different from the central Ministry.
The Eagle School follows the municipal approach, similarly employing a discourse
of excellence, strong discipline and particularly stressing entrepreneurial education
(the Municipal programme ‘Junior Achievement’ is carried out within the school).
The Head teacher, Mrs. Pamela, describes the school mission as being to “Educate
enterprising people, creative, with work competences that achieve entrance into
University”. It is a school that attracts ‘middle-middle’ class students according to
the Ministry bureau, most parents having technical, rather than professional, degrees.
In this context, a significant aim is to prepare students for University selection exams
and also ‘schooling for work’.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the school is privately managed, defined as a self-
governed school that devises its own goals and school curriculum, its relation with
the Municipality is not without tension. The Municipality delivers a set of guidelines,
programmes and educational tools for schools in addition to national aims and
standards. Consequently, in spite of a pro-autonomy school discourse, the
Municipality follows a tight and close management style, guiding school aims,
strategies and activities in order to increase test scores and assure positive
positioning. These centralising municipal policies entail strain, as one Head teacher
claims:
What happens is strange. We have autonomy; we are relatively

autonomous. We have our work plans, our action plans, but the
Municipality also has its own plans and wants, in a way, all schools,
privately contracted or public, to follow the Municipality’s plans of
action. So suddenly we find ourselves wanting to fulfil our own action
plans and the action plans of the Municipality! So we really feel like…
and as well, we have to accomplish what the Ministry and the Province
[Provincial Ministry] establishes. (Mrs. Pamela, Head teacher, The
Eagle School)
218!
This Head teacher claims that the school is overloaded with municipal aims and
activities, which, added to the school’s undertakings, jeopardises school
autonomy. In addition, she claims that there is a set of organisational bodies
that also constrains the school.
You think that there is not so much supervision (from the Ministry), but
on the other hand there are a whole lot of boards that are compulsory,
like the famous School Council with all its members.62 And we have a
School Directory, the school stakeholders, the senior staff, plus the
School Council! So every time we have more and more boards, and plus
we have the Co-funding Council. A council here, another one over
there, the Municipality, then the [Ministry] Province... So, at the end
you say: who takes the decisions here? We have to ask all Chile! (Mrs.
Pamela, Head teacher, The Eagle School)
The speaker points out that the school is trapped in a web of power struggles. Despite
the fact that the school was privatised and is supposedly autonomously managed, the
school has to be accountable to a variety of institutions and actors, such as the
Ministry, the private owners, parents, School Council, among others.
The Head teacher must also assure school profits for the stakeholders, which is
another management concern (§4.2). Also, the Head of School Curriculum,
particularly referring to the municipal education programmes notes:
Mrs. L: The Municipality gives us a lot of support, financial resources.

So, we try to maintain the most positive relations.
AF: And all these programmes that they deliver into schools, have you
ever rejected any? Or had any type of problem, like you wouldn’t like to
implement it?
Mrs. L.: No, we take them on; my choice is to deliver them. It’s better
to be on the good side with the Municipality. And they aren’t bad
contributions [municipal programmes].
AF: You have always wanted to carry them out?
Mrs. L: Yes... but... we have had our doubts, we discard them because
of the fact that they [the municipal programmes] involve resources that
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
62
Includes municipal, teachers, parents, and students’ representatives.
219!
we wouldn’t otherwise have access to. There are other interesting

programmes, like the Feuerstein method that we like. [But] Financial
resources are very important. Here we try to maintain our autonomy, be
the most successful possible, the key is [school] management... So well,
the Municipality analyses, assumes, buys and submits [curriculum
programmes to schools]. We have the language programme, chess,
geometry, and during the first [school] term the Corporation Foundation
[assessment]. We have to carry it out, all that. What is the difficulty?
Everything must be right, the plans and programmes we accomplish.
We are bombarded with programmes! They [Municipality] always think
that these are great solutions that are better than what teachers do. Some
[programmes], we have subtly changed them, articulating them all
together. Always with a clear aim: to improve and achieve better
learning outcomes. Now the idea is to prove that; we are able to prove
and [in effect] we have good [national test] results. (Head of School
Curriculum)
This quote illustrates the implicit hierarchical relations between the Municipality and
the school. Although the Municipality offers ‘optional’ education programmes for
school improvement, it is felt by school staff that a rejection of a municipal programme
implies an act of disrespect towards the Muncipality, putting at risk the school’s ‘good
relationship’ with the Municipality. Also, the quote shows a subtle irritation with the
lack of school autonomy and with the Municipality’s scepticism towards school staff,
as she says: “They [the Municipality] always think that there are great solutions that
are better than what teachers do.”
This case study exemplifies ways in which a private subsidised school is constrained
from diverse angles, involving national state policies, assessments and league tables,
municipality policies, and market demands and profit targets. Thus this data offers
evidence of the ways in which the private sector is subject to continual constraints,
oversight and intervention, far from the notion of management freedom in private
school management. In spite of an emphatic school autonomy discourse, the Chief of
Municipal Education, Mrs. Carolina, centralises the main local guidelines and school
interventions in order to improve school outcomes. There is also a sense of risk
expressed by the municipal management involved in leaving schools to run themselves,
220!
as it is believed that they need close assistance and guidance in order to improve school
test scores.
To sum up, the Chief of Municipal Education, Mrs. Carolina, competes within the
field, not only to increase students’ enrolment and municipal funds, but also to achieve
a distinguished institutional position, with a reputation as a pioneering and successful
municipality. As I have shown, municipal policies exacerbate performative tactics,
managerial tools and centralising mechanisms, with privileged resources, funds and
networks. The Municipality employs a whole set of strategies to reinforce and improve
test scores. In addition, the Municipality implements a set of programmes that boost
the schools’ image, and at the same time, distinguishes schools from other public
schools, such as in English language from Pre-school to Year 12, ICT, sports awards,
and entrepreneurial youth programmes.
While the municipality management attempts to achieve outstanding performance

outcomes, it also distances itself from the central and regional Ministry of Education.
In effect, it does not employ all the Ministry programmes, weaving together different
local policies, initiatives and ethics, and building a reputation of distinction and
uniqueness. For example, the Municipality promotes the privatisation of public
school management and conservative value-based curricula, unlike the government’s
policy approach. Hence, it delivers alternative management and curricula policies
from the Ministry of Education. 63
It may be argued that this municipality offers ‘diverse’ and ‘autonomous’ local
policy initiatives within the marketplace. In fact, Chilean authors, such as Espínola
(1997a) and Raczynski and Marcel (2009), have strongly criticised the lack of real
municipal autonomy in practice. They argue, however, that a small group of
municipalities, mostly those with higher budgets, known as ‘elite municipalities’, are
able to perform in autonomous ways, delivering local policies.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
63
This management style has similarities with that of the Head of the Regional Metropolitan City,
who also attempts, like the Ministry, to deliver innovative initiatives, (§V).
221!
Yet despite the fact that this case study does deliver local initiatives that do not
emanate from the central government, I argue that this format of distinction
represents neither a curriculum innovation, nor novel policy alternative to the central
Ministry’s approach. On the contrary, it entails the continuity and deepening of state
aims and standards and neoliberal policies, such as outsourcing policies, managerial
values, parental fees, non-enforcement of non-selection practices on pupils. These
local policies are part of a market strategy with which the Municipality aims to
distinguish itself from the central state and be recognised at a national level as a
pioneering education institution.
All in all, although this municipality delivers diverse local policies, different from
the central state, the nature of this diversity is a neo-liberal-conservative approach
that fits into the current market schema.64 Thus, whilst the Municipality represents an
‘elite municipality’ with a high budget that carries out diverse and autonomous local
policies, it is constrained by the market model. The Municipality is also disciplined
within the market, delivering and investing in performative activities. Policy
diversity in this case does not put at risk the institution’s market positioning. On the
contrary, it is a carefully delimited ‘diversity’ that enhances the Municipality’s
positive reputation and market position.
This analysis indicates that devolution policies, where municipalities are supposed to
manage schools autonomously and freely, are not so easily fulfilled, even in
privileged contexts. Furthermore, it is also shown that the Eagle School (private
contracted school), in contrast with municipal pro-school autonomy discourses, is
also strongly constrained not only by the market schema and the state, but also by the
Municipality and other agents (e.g. school stakeholders). Therefore, this ‘network
data’ continues to show how the feeling of risk within a competing schema pushes
institutions, like the Eagle Municipality, to increase systems of control over school
staff, instead of granting institutional autonomy (§4.2, §5.3, §6.1).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
64
Similar to what Apple (2000, 2002) describes as the alliance between neoliberal and conservative
ideology.
222!
2. White Hill Borough: Fabricating School Diversity
The White Hill Municipality, as described in Chapter 6, is in an insecure position

within the marketplace. In recent years there has been a significant increase in the
private sector within the borough, while public schools have gradually dropped
enrolment figures. In fact, one public school was recently closed due to the lack of
enrolled pupils. The municipal Mayor, Mr. Carlos, is focused on improving the
image of schools (§6.2) as a strategy for attracting parents and reversing the
enrolment decline. A central aim of his is to create ‘school distinction’, struggling
against the perception of massive and uniform public schools. The following quote
illustrates the Mayor’s vision:
Mr. C: Schools lose students [enrolment] because the public school

image is frequently an anachronistic one - that school named by a
number,65 kind of grey. So in a way, we proposed, and I will give you
the publicity material, I don’t know if you have seen it; the
advertisements that we have, calendars, magazines?
AF: Yes, I got them; thanks.
Mr. C: We want to promote our schools, change the perception that the
community has of our schools. We have a borough of 15 kilometres; we
have 15 municipal schools, and more that 50 private and private-
subsidised schools. There is fierce competition. (…) But, whether we
like it or not, people move according to the principles of the market.
How does a parent choose a school for his child? He chooses with a
criterion, with the same criterion that he chooses the retail store where
he buys, and the same criterion for choosing a mobile phone company.
AF: What is that criterion?
Mr. R: The criterion is the one that gives you the best service. Right? Its
cost-benefit. Those who offer you the most serious image, an image... I
mean, the criterion that operates today, our logic, it’s about that. So we
have to present ourselves to the external world as a competitive
management in comparison with others. It has to be aggregated value.
Whether we like it or not. Somebody may say... but I am not referring to
education, [municipal] education has to keep on being free of charge,
public, but let’s present ourselves for a moment as a sphere where
people can prefer us. To be competitive among those 50 schools within
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
65
Public schools in Chile are named by a number, private subsidised schools are not.
223!
the borough, and with the more than a hundred [schools] that we have
within the borough that are our direct competition. So, let’s try to give
schools some identity. Some [schools] with sports, others with a music
band, others with academic excellence. We have to look for identity,
and that must be attractive at the moment of [parents] making decisions.
We have to differentiate in very specific ways; obviously we want to
achieve that differentiation.
The Mayor, Mr. Carlos, strongly emphasises the idea that a key strategy for
competing in the marketplace and attracting parental choice is to change the public
school image. The aim is to change the understanding of public schools as
bureaucratic and old-fashioned institutions, and make them appear to be “proactive”
and “efficient” institutions informed by private values. He claims that public schools
have a gloomy and inefficient image, where school uniformity is negative and
unattractive for parents. Under his management, he has pushed head teachers to
invent a school hallmark; give schools a “plus” (sports, music, academic excellence,
etc.).
Hence, ‘school diversity’ is a municipal policy, used as a market strategy in order to

make schools appear as unique products. As Mrs. Isabel, the Chief of Municipal
Education argues: “this hallmark is their combat weapon for every school”.
Interestingly, in this borough not all schools have high test scores, so school
distinction is tactically not based on the discourse of ‘school excellence’, as in The
Eagle Municipality. In the White Hill Municipality, distinction amounts to offering
different curriculum emphases, hoping that parents will feel attracted to schools with
at least one outstanding feature. Therefore, head teachers have to choose or invent
school hallmarks, which are advertised in the municipal brochures. It is a school
distinction put in practice in a kind of deliberate and artificial way. Meanwhile, the
idea of schools simply teaching in a holistic manner, without any particular highlight
is played down.
The emphasis on school image is an organising discourse within municipal

management. For example, the Human Resource Manager declares:
224!
The image issue; I would like to invite you to see two or three schools,
so, you can see the schools’ images, note the differences, the school
entrances, the [schools’] street signs, how they receive you. In the
meetings (with head teachers), I tell them: “come on”, “gear up”, “it’s
your image”. How they receive people… We have taught them: “good
afternoon”, “good morning”; how to answer the telephone, basic things.
And everybody [referring to parents] notices these things, if they
greeted you, if they let you in or not, or if they didn’t let me [the parent]
talk with the head teacher. Parents say –“they didn’t let me talk with the
head teacher”.— It’s fundamental that head teachers understand that
they have to attend to people, everybody; they are hired for that. (...) I
am very concerned about parents, the vision parents have of the school;
if the head teacher is walking around the school screaming, the ways
teachers talk.
Later he adds:
I notice those things. Those are the little things that must be corrected. I
call schools and notice how they answer (the telephone), I listen to what
they’re saying in the background and if there is anything that catches
my attention, I talk to them immediately and to head teachers. I also
send people (secretly) to schools and ask them to make an appointment
with the head teacher to find out whether they’re being met by him/her
or not. (Municipal Human Resource Manager)
The former quote refers to the fabrication of school image (Ball, 2003c, §1.3.1). All
visible school features become crucial in the construction of institutional image.
Thus, for instance, the deteriorated school’s street-sign, the way a telephone call
from an unknown person is answered, and as the speaker exemplifies, the graffiti on
bathroom walls that is seen by a parent. These discourses show the relevance that is
placed on school image, and also the mechanisms used to control these aspects; e.g.
school inspection, listening on the telephone, sending people secretly as a kind of
‘client spying’.
225!
It is not that the cleanliness of schools, or the politeness and openness of school staff
to parents are unimportant issues. Undoubtedly, they are significant.66 However,
what appears as relevant to the research are the meanings and market justifications of
these micro-policies. These issues are put at the centre of school aims for attracting
parents, moving towards a customer-friendly style. Meanwhile, substantive curricular
changes and pedagogical innovation are not mentioned as a priority among senior
municipal managers.
Concretely, these market strategies are accompanied by a set of tactics for boosting
the school image. For example, introducing English lessons from pre-school,
enhancing the use of ICTs in classrooms, and implementing school workshops for
preparing students for regional sport competitions. Additionally, as has been
mentioned, schools have defined hallmarks, and increasingly the Municipality has
invested a significant amount of resources in school advertisement, such as
calendars, leaflets, and municipal magazines. These marketing measures are focused
on creating the appearance of successful and distinctive schools. It is an effort to
advertise schools, to make them saleable and attractive within the market.
Interestingly, these marketing artefacts simultaneously involve mixed symbols of the

private sector with values of the public sector. So on the one hand, the Municipality
attempts to create an image of a private traditional school, for example, involving a
discourse of academic emphasis and hierarchical discipline, employing private
school symbols such as school badges, increasing English subject school hours and
offering specialised workshops for talented students. On the other hand, welfare
values are used and exploited, referring to benefits public schools offer and which
private schools do not necessarily provide, such as personalised support for children
with special needs, networks with social services, among others. Thus, there is an
attempt to privatise the image of public schools, and simultaneously, there is the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
66
Woods et al. (1998), based on a study of English schools, find that under a market scheme school
staff tend to be more open and inclusive with parents, although at the same time school managers are
faced with dilemmas of growing school ‘exclusiveness’.
226!
replenishment of public values, but translated into individual benefits the state can
deliver to citizens.67
Ironically, although the Municipality designs these market strategies, attempting to

create ‘distinction’, the image of schools is quite standardised. Far from creating
diverse market educational provision, the image of the ‘successfulness’ is similar
among schools, in terms of educational features, values and symbols. Subsequently,
market competition attempting to capture parental choice also homogenises
schooling provision, not only state policies and assessments.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that these local initiatives do not respond to

collective parental expectations or proposals, nor are they related to a school
innovation project led by a group of teachers. Instead they are based on assumptions
of what parents prefer, following clichés of an attractive school. Thus, rather than
institutions attempting to respond to parents’ diverse schooling demands, there is a
kind of collective common sense that classifies parents’ school preferences, as a kind
of imaginary prediction of parents’ tastes that guides management policies. For
instance, the Mayor’s discourse imagines that parents choose schools just as they
choose any other product in a market; they like a “serious image”, with a distinctive
hallmark. Interestingly, competition strategies seem more intuitively led, rather than
being based on rational calculation.
Both school case studies within this borough have their own strategies of distinction.
The High Hill School creates a discourse of ‘school of excellence’, mixing the idea
of a high academic exigency, tied up with a strong disciplinary code; as the
Curriculum Head says:
Mrs. O.: We are very demanding, very demanding (...) that speaks well
of us, but it entails a huge effort. We are very demanding
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
67
In Ball’s book Education Plc: Understanding private sector participation in public sector
education, he analyses the discursive use of public and private values and the ways these are
strategically combined and used in both the private and public sector. So, interestingly, not only are
private ethics used within the public sector, but also public ethics within the private sector in order to
advertise institutions (Ball, 2007).
227!
AF: Demanding with what?

Mrs. O: In everything, in clothing, for example, girls with polished
nails, I take the polish off; I tell them to lower their skirts, I sometimes
even pull them down, I even let out their hems, just like that. This
school is called Superior Girls School. That’s our hallmark. Here we act
like ladies, and that is the way we trace the school guidelines.
The school has a strong identity that mixes these two values, high academic
standards and discipline (§4.1); as a kind of ‘ladies’ discipline’, where girls must be
tidy, docile, and studious. In fact, only women teachers are hired, as the Head teacher
emphasises “men establish another kind of relationship with students”, referring to a
tougher relationship. Additionally, the Head teacher emphasises the importance of
value-based education, collaborative problem resolution and the emotional support
the school offers students, owing to the lack of family support for many.
High academic expectations are crucial for the school. For example, frequent tests
are administered from Year 1, and term assessments are particularly important. These
entail written tests and also ‘solemn dissertations’, as students must dress formally
and deliver oral assessments (from Year 5). Also, there are honour roll photos of the
best monthly student, given to the students with the highest grades and school
attendance. Successful results in national test scores and in sports and academic
contests are also significant. In addition, the school has a special emphasis on music
education and has a well-known choir.
Furthermore, the Head teacher and Head of Curriculum declare that they are in
favour of the Ministry’s curriculum approach and that they promote an innovative
education. They talk about the significance of ‘learning to learn’, from a ‘student-
centred’ approach, aiming to educate people according to a globalised and
knowledge society, particularly giving importance to the use of TICs in classrooms;
all nomenclatures that circulate within the Ministry’s policy discourse. On the whole,
this case study combines these diverse discourses and technologies entailing: ‘ladies’
discipline’; special emphasis on music; pedagogical innovation; frequent tests;
228!
‘solemn dissertations’, and honour roll photos, etc., all of which function as symbols
of a ‘school of excellence’.
The other school case study of this borough, the Low Hill School, represents a strong
contrast to the previous school. The emphasis of this school is to offer pastoral care
to children who come from deprived sectors. As the Head teacher says:
I don’t know if you have noticed, these children suffer a lot. They arrive
here with terrible problems. I don’t know if I explain myself. It isn’t that
we don’t challenge these kids, but we do it with love, in a different way.
Because we can’t in spite of their problems... they come loaded with
strong emotions.
Later on she adds:
Our aim is not only to increase SIMCE scores, we are concerned with
values that children learn to be honest. Because these children come
from convict parents, delinquent parents, of promiscuity and the fact
that we achieve a pleasant environment among them is already a great
achievement. I don’t know if you have noticed, but these children don’t
give major problems, they are always really attached to you, wanting to
tell their problems, or their physical pains, that they have a stomach-
ache, and we always take into account all their aspects. Because if he
says –“hey Mrs. I have a stomach ache,” I wouldn’t say go away, I tell
him, --“tell me, what did you eat?” I mean we have a concern for every
child of this school. So this is something we have gradually achieved.
(Mrs. Susana, Head teacher, Low Hill School)
According to the Head teacher’s discourse, the main school aim, that gives the school
its identity, is the social and emotional support and containment it offers children
(§4.3); as she says: “we do it with love, in a different way”. In fact, the Head teacher
invests significant amounts of time and energy in counselling families and children
related to social problems, such as domestic violence, child abuse, delinquency, drug
addiction. She and the senior staff in general also have a personalised relationship
with each student. School staff normally know the students’ names, family histories
and school records. As I visited the school several times, I observed that it was
229!
typical to find the Head teacher or General Inspector talking with a pupil about a
family problem, or giving emotional support to a student or to a ex-student, or
attending parents, offering them help and pointing them towards other community
services.
Additionally, the senior staff and particularly the Head teacher, has introduced a
‘Christian-humanistic’ approach, although public schools are supposed to be secular.
In fact, every morning the Head teacher leads a prayer together with all the students
and school staff. As she explains:
In the morning, I don’t know if you have seen that, we do a spiritual

reflection, and we talk a lot about God. Why do we do this? It is not for
inculcating a belief or a religion. It is so children feel that they have
somebody with power that is always protecting them. So in moments of
desolation, which are many, they can turn to God and ask him for help.
And you can see that there is silence [at that moment], there is respect,
and the children feel the desire to communicate [with God]; that it is
very important and it is a wonderful achievement. (Mrs. Susana, Head
This public school could be understood as a ‘diverse project’, offering a religious

emphasis and delivering responsive action towards parents’ demands and contextual
priorities. Nevertheless, the municipal staff, in general terms, assesses this school as
unsuccessful. During the fieldwork it was common to hear the Head of Municipal
Education and the Head of the Municipal Curriculum criticising the school, as it is a
school that focuses on attending students’ social necessities, instead of giving
priority to academic skills and test outcomes. For instance, the Head of Human
Resources in his interview claims that Ms Susanna is “a veeery good person, very
good’ [ironic tone of voice]…Too good! She’s like a mother for those children and
for the teachers.” In contrast, he says that he expects a head teacher to have “A
strong character, for demanding, demanding [student] attendance, more discipline. In
that way she [Ms Susana] could boost the school. Being demanding, independent of
the context in which the school is located”.
230!
Thus, the notion of ‘school diversity’ within a market schema is not just any kind of
diversity. There are permitted and forbidden diversities. The school ‘diversity’ of the
Low Hill School is a non-market diversity that attempts to respond to the
overwhelmingly disadvantaged social reality. This concerns the municipal staff as it
does not follow the neoliberal notion of a school that competes and attempts to
distinguish itself from other schools in order to achieve an advantaged position in the
marketplace.
It is important also to note that in effect this school has left aside educational aims as
a first priority, having difficulty in meeting both educational objectives and particular
social demands and conflicts. Consequently, this case study illustrates the inequities
among schools produced by increasing student segmentation between schools,
instead of involving the expected ‘school diversity’. Hence, rather than a ‘horizontal
differentiation’, policy effects seem to enhance ‘vertical distinctions’, as Whitty et al.
(1998) argues, referring to other countries.
Overall, the question that emerges from these case studies of the White Hill Borough
is about the notion of ‘school diversity’. The data from the Municipality shows that
school diversity is reduced to spending more time, energy and funds on image
promotion and marketing, rather than on substantive teaching improvement,
curriculum projects and responsive practices to parents; similar to findings of other
research (e.g. Bagley, 2006; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Lubienski, 2003, 2009; Woods et
al., 1998, §1.3).
School diversity within this Municipality appears more as a superficial and artificial
offer, as schools are forced to create their own hallmark, in order to avoid the notion
of public school sameness. Moreover, the notion of the good and attractive school is
produced according to the market imaginary of the municipal staff, while there are
neither ‘rational’ strategies for eliciting parents’ demands, nor room for parental or
teacher participation in leading changes.
231!
In addition, the two schools presented, rather than exemplifying ‘school diversity’,
illustrate significant school inequities. While the popular school offers a strong
academic programme and a strict disciplinary code, the unpopular school located in
an unprivileged sector places emphasis on pastoral matters. In this way, the first
school follows the cliché of the school of excellence, i.e. it illustrates the
homogenised notion of the ‘successful school’, and not necessarily the idea of a
responsive, diverse and innovative school. On the other hand, the second case study
school is overwhelmed by the social reality, leaving aside academic aims, while
having reduced opportunities to offer another kind of ‘diverse’ educational project.
And although this school has produced a particular provision for the community
according to its own context, this is an educational offer that is rejected by the
Municipality, as it does not entail the form of ‘school diversity’ that is competitive
within the marketplace.
3. The Canelo Borough: The Decline of Rural Education
The Canelo Municipality is a small borough of the Regional City, mostly rural and
semi-rural. The Mayor is a member of the Socialist Party, and the Head of Municipal
Education, Mr. Rodrigo, is a former sports teacher who has been working in that
position for over 10 years. He is the only professional in the educational department.
This municipality has 12 schools, of which eight are rural. The national assessments
of five of these rural schools are not published, as they do not have enough students,
thus the results are not representative. There are no private schools in the borough.
However, throughout the last decade student enrolment has decreased dramatically,
as families have moved to urban areas or have transferred their children to larger
schools in nearby cities.
This is a municipality marked by resource limitations. It depends fundamentally on

the state’s social programmes and funding. This resource limitation is a key
restriction for municipal management, as the Mayor observes:
232!
We are legally autonomous; however, we do not have the resources to

put our programmes into practice, and we should be able to manage
them. Financing comes mainly from governmental programmes that
arrive at the office. The Municipality is running out of money. Here, we
don’t manage wealth, we manage poverty.
The Municipality suffers the effects of the unequal distribution among

municipalities, having scant resources in order to carry out local initiatives, restricted
to the government’s programmes. Therefore, institutional autonomy is strongly
limited to national programmes. Besides, as the Mayor says, there are nearby
boroughs with more funds that finance school transportation and attract their students
(especially those who live near the borough boundaries). Hence, neighbouring
municipalities compete among themselves, but with unequal conditions, since, for
instance, this municipality cannot fund a school bus.
The Chief of Municipal Educational, Mr. Rodrigo, is primarily dedicated to solving

administrative and financial issues, in addition to having to address a multiplicity of
emerging school problems. So, for example, he ensures that school teachers fulfil
their labour schedule, calling schools or visiting them. This is crucial, as he explains
that in rural areas teachers are alone and there is nobody else to supervise them. Also,
for instance he has to supervise and manage the maintenance and improvement of
school buildings; so if there is an infrastructure problem in a school he personally
goes there to assess it. Additionally, in isolated areas, Mr. Rodrigo claims that it is
very important that municipal authorities attend school events, celebrations and/or
competitions, “accompanying them”, “making them feel that they’re not alone”. He
alleges that these issues are time-consuming and that he has scant time and resources
for school education improvements.
The municipal educational management is centred on the application of Ministry

policies and programmes, with no local curriculum initiatives. However, in some
cases Mr. Rodrigo expands these ministerial programmes more than is required. For
instance, in the case of the management school programme (SACGE), which the
Ministry expected to be applied among low scoring schools, he decided to apply it in
233!
all schools. Additionally, this Chief implements core strategies for increasing test
results (§5.2, §6.3). In order to do so, systematic workshops are carried out to
reinforce Spanish and Mathematics for all the teachers from the borough and tests are
taken in Year 1. Additionally, he invests extra resources to support the two largest
and most visible schools of the borough that are located in the central city.
In addition, there has been a policy of ‘rationalisation’ that has led to the closing of
three rural schools and the dismissal of five teachers (§6.3), due to student enrolment
decreases. Economic criteria are to the fore in decisions to close schools, reducing
welfare state services in rural communities. Meanwhile, the municipal staff feel that
there is “no choice”. According to the Mayor, these decisions were taken because
there were overstaffed schools compared with the number of students. Closing
schools was a very unpopular measure according to the Mayor; many people
(particularly parents) were against these municipal decisions. On the other hand, Mr.
Rodrigo did not totally agree with these decisions, he explains that he had to abide by
the Mayor’s decision and close the schools, and dismiss those teachers. Mr. Rodrigo
also notes that these decisions were not only economic, but also met political criteria,
as in one case the Mayor dismissed a teacher who was right-wing, and had
participated in the electoral campaign of his opponent.
Like the Municipality, The Canelo School employs ‘survival strategies’ dedicated to
maintain student enrolment such as attempting to obtain external resources, and
applying the national curriculum (adapted to multi-level classrooms), with the hope
of increasing national test results. Offering diverse or innovative educational
programmes was not an issue that appeared among the data.
Finally, it is important to stress that Chile’s hierarchical and centralised schema

particularly affects this municipality; as the Mayor claims:
In Chile state devolution does not exist, municipalities do not have

autonomy. Everything comes extremely regulated from above. (...) We
Mayors don’t have much information. [Ministry] supervisors go to
schools, but us, we don’t have a clue what is happening. We are merely
234!
cashiers of the educational system. That is what we municipalities are

doing. And the [curriculum] plans and programmes they all come from
above, we have very limited autonomy.
Similarly, Mr. Rodrigo, the Chief of Municipal Education, points out:
The Ministry comes, gets into our schools, tells them what to do and we
don’t even know. They [the Ministry] just passes by; they go and see
the guests [the schools] without greeting the host [the Municipality]!
Therefore, the Municipality not only lacks institutional autonomy owing to scant
resources, but also because of centralising policies (national targets, educational
programmes, annual plans, etc.) and because of daily hierarchical interactions
between the Ministry and the Municipality. The interviewees describe a strong
Ministry that supervises and intervenes in schools, passing over the municipal
authority. Thus, instead of the idea of a ‘distant state’ or of indirect governance
practices (§1.1), the data shows that state tactics are mixed, using simultaneously
distant power strategies and direct state interventions.
In summary, within the Municipality there is a tendency to reduce expenses as a

survival policy. The Chief of Municipal Education is absorbed by basic labours
related to administrative work and bureaucratic control. It is an educational
management that counts on weak pedagogical assistance towards schools, focused on
implementing programmes of the central Ministry with almost no local initiatives.
The main municipal strategies are limited to investing scant municipal resources in
preparing schools for standardised national tests, particularly in the most visible and
largest schools. Thus, the Municipality does not offer ‘diverse’ educational provision
which is particularly different from the state’s curriculum policies, as is expected by
advocates of municipal reform.
Additionally, this scenario calls attention to the predominance of an economic

discourse together with a feeling of resignation to closing down schools. There is an
absence of a discourse regarding the importance of public education and of the
235!
municipality’s responsibility and contribution towards most rural and isolated areas.
It is a kind of municipal surrender towards its welfare commitment with
(unprofitable) rural communities.
4. Conclusions: School diversity or distinction?
This chapter explores local educational and management policies that are designed to
differentiate institutions from one and another. While all the case study institutions
are captured within a performative logic, with its uniform effects (§5), there are also
differentiating features. In this chapter, I have attempted to identify the most
characteristic aspects of these schools and analyse the nature of what is understood as
‘school diversity’. In these conclusions, based on the data presented, I respond to
three main questions: What is the meaning of ‘school diversity’ within the market
schema? Do ‘municipalisation’ and ‘privatisation’ trigger institutional diversity?
Does ‘institutional diversity’ develop in equitable ways?
i) Thinking about ‘school diversity’ within a market framework

All case studies, in one way or another, involve distinctive policies and educational
programmes. In effect, there is no doubt that all institutions are unique and different
owing to particular institutional features, such as the institution’s history,
geographical location, student demographics, and institutional budget. However, the
aim of this section is to examine in what ways ‘diversity’ is developed in a market
schema.
The data illustrates local educational management policies that respond to contextual
features, market strategies, and personal beliefs or convictions. Examples of
distinctive features that emerge among the case studies include: school privatising
policies (the Eagle Municipality); the promotion of entrepreneurial values (The Eagle
School); a Christian approach in a public school (Low Hill School); the mix of
‘ladies’ discipline’ with high academic standards (High Hill School). Certainly, not
all institutional policies are controlled and centralised in the exact same ways.
236!
Nevertheless, the interesting point is to understand the nature and constraints of these
local policies in relation to national policies and the overall educational model.
I argue that these ‘institutional diversities’ fill in policy gaps that are non-
standardised, nor are they assessed school issues. In effect, state policies strategically
select and centralise certain school targets and, simultaneously, make flexible other
school matters. In this way, local policies emerge, such as religious education, strict
disciplinary codes, conservative values, ‘schooling for work’, the formation of
entrepreneurial spirit, and outsourcing policies. These local policies may be
distinctive to Ministry guidelines or even oppose a specific national policy.68
However, this does not mean that ‘school diversities’ are free and open options.
Local policies and ethics, overall, assemble and fit into a market schema. They do
not dispute or threaten standardised national priorities, nor put at risk the institutions’
market positioning. Hence, it is a framed diversity within the permitted boundaries of
the market. Meanwhile, local initiatives related to a democratic comprehensive
school agenda are reduced and troubled.69
The notion of diversity that emerges among most case studies (The Eagle
Municipality and School, White Hill Municipality, and High Hill School), is
employed as a strategic market tool, a way to distinguish schools from (common)
public schools and attract more parents. In general, these market strategies in a
similar manner shape a stereotype of ‘good schooling’, providing for example,
English classes from Pre-kinder, ICT equipment, sport training courses, music
workshops, strict discipline, and a general image of uniformity and order. There is an
overall attempt to create an image of successful schools that is linked to the notion of
elite-private schools, employing symbols of exclusiveness, tradition, hierarchy, and
pro-activeness. Nevertheless, this school market image is mixed at the same time
with the welfare ‘benefits’ and values of a public school (e.g. a free education, non-
selection policies, support for students with special needs, and social benefits).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
68
For example, the Eagle Municipality’s value-based curriculum agenda.
69
In effect, the Eagle Municipality’s policy of non-selection among private contracted schools was the
only local policy related to social inclusion aims. Nevertheless, this policy was not supervised nor
enforced among schools; consequently it was not actually applied.
237!
In addition, there are local policies that are delivered in order to enhance not only the
schools’ positive reputation, but also the municipalities’ image (§6). For example,
the Eagle Municipality explicitly aims to distinguish itself from other municipalities,
carrying out pioneering policies in order to position themselves as a leading and
successful educational management reference within the country.
These efforts emphasise the creation of a favourable school image, fabricating

visible changes and investing in marketing. It is a calculated and mostly artificial
process, as diversity is forced as a market strategy. Efforts are invested in fixing
aspects of the school scenario in order to produce and exhibit ‘success’, leaving aside
deeper, long-lasting, and substantial transformations. (§1.3.1, §6.2).
Moreover, although education markets are supposed to trigger curriculum diversity

and market ‘niches’, managers tend to use similar images, symbols and tactics. So,
ironically, far from creating diverse education provision, the production of school
images are quite homogeneous, pointing to similar educational approaches. As
Gewirtz (1998, 2002) argues, the notions of ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ schools
are prevailing discursive constructions.70 Consequently, school provisions mostly
converge as a cliché of successful schools, fulfilling quite similar offers. In other
words, market competition attempting to capture parental choice, not only
homogenises state policies and assessments, but schooling provision as well.
Alongside institutions experimenting with pedagogical innovations or responding to
parents’ diverse schooling demands, there is an attempt to make public schools look
like private schools, hoping to capture more parents, particularly middle class parents
that choose private schools.
In effect, ‘school diversity’ is more like a ‘school (class)distinction’. Various authors

argue that, rather than schools ‘informing’ parents about their curricular and
pedagogical approaches, they plan marketing strategies so to attract advantaged
pupils, coming from families with higher cultural capital (e.g. Bagley, 2006; Fisk and
Ladd, 2000; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Gewirtz, 2002; Gorard et al., (2003); Lauder and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
70
See also the idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parents.
238!
Hughes et al., 1999; Lubienski, 2006; Waslander, et al. (2010), Woods et al., 1998,
§1.3).
Meanwhile, there are institutions that are marginalised from market competition,
such as The Canelo Municipality, The Canelo School and the Low Hill School.
These institutions produce a kind of survival strategy that illustrates the inequities in
the education system. They try to subsist within a precarious setting, attempting to
respond to family and student demands and needs, and simultaneously, to survive
within the marketplace. These institutions expend most of their energy in responding
to bureaucratic work, state benchmarks and to the community and families’
immediate needs, all strongly restricted by their tight budget. Therefore, they have
significant limitations for offering attractive and ‘diverse’ school provision.
Within a market schema, this kind of ‘caring’ management is understood as troubling

and unsuccessful (e.g. Low Hill School), as it lacks high performance outcomes and
appealing initiatives. Thus, there is a dominant understanding of ‘school diversity’ as
a distinction strategy for acquiring an advantaged position in the marketplace.
Conversely, when institutions attempt to respond to community needs within
restricted conditions, this is interpreted as (individual) school failure.
ii) Do municipalisation and privatisation policies trigger institutional autonomy

and diversity?
Advocates of the ‘municipalisation’ and ‘privatisation’ reforms of the 1980s propose

that, as municipalities and private foundations are not run by the state, they are able
to offer diverse and innovative school provisions, closely connected to local demands
and needs. However, as I have shown, according to the research data, municipalities,
as well as the private school case study, are tightly aligned with Ministry discourse
and targets, constrained by performing successfully within a competing schema. This
is a prevailing discourse that has embedded the case studies, despite the different
political positions of municipalities and the particular approach of the private
239!
school’s governors. This policy discourse pervasively penetrates and articulates the
municipalities, the municipal schools, and the private subsidised school.
In order to make my point about this question, I offer two examples in which I
contrast case studies. In the first place, it is thought by reform advocates that
municipalities (run by elected Mayors) are more autonomous than the Regional
Ministry of Education. However, unexpectedly, the data shows that it is not possible
to sustain this argument. For instance, The Eagle Municipality, like the Metropolitan
Regional Ministry, are strongly constrained to increase national test scores and
league table positioning. Both have also increased outsourcing policies, and attempt
to deliver a pioneering educational management (§6).
Moreover, both institutions reproduce and intensify accountability and managerial

policies, re-centralising power at the local level. Although The Eagle Municipality
does introduce bits and pieces of policies with new flavours compared with state
policies (e.g. conservative values, entrepreneurial programme), the Ministry also
adds extra curriculum programmes, e.g. for drug prevention, sex education, ethic-
indigenous curriculum programmes. Overall, is this municipality more autonomous
or diverse than the regional Ministry? The answer is no.
Secondly, it is expected that a private school is more autonomous, responsive and

diverse than a public school. Nevertheless, the data offers counter-arguments. The
private-contracted Eagle School, as the Head teacher claims, is constrained by
diverse institutions and actors, such as the central Ministry, the Municipality, the
school stakeholders, and parents’ council, among others. In particular, the school
management is concerned with responding to the Municipality’s performance
demands and accomplishing the school’s profit targets. Meanwhile, the Low Hill
School attempts to respond to students’ and families’ social needs, introducing
communitarian support and a religious approach. So, is the private school
management more autonomous, responsive and diverse than the public school? The
answer, again, is no.
240!
Consequently, rather than the idea of municipalities and private school governors
diversifying state policies, they reproduce and intensify national policies. In other
words, despite the political, geographical and economic differences between the
municipalities and private owners, head managers are faced with the discipline of
competition (or survival) within the educational field, and tend to respond in
homogeneous ways (§5).
In addition, these management policies introduce municipalities’ political-electoral

aims so as to assure the Mayor’s re-election, and benefit the interests of private
school stakeholders, putting at risk educational criteria within schools (§4.2, §6.2).
Thus, contrary to predictions made via neoliberal theories, the case studies
demonstrate that there are no direct links between institutional devolution and the
expected autonomy and diversity.
iii) Diversity or inequity?

The data shows evidence that municipalities work under unequal conditions. Despite
the fact that this is well known, it is important to emphasise these inequities under a
competitive regime. These inequities are not only based upon differences in human
and financial resources, but also involve the tension and frustration that head teachers
in disadvantaged contexts face daily.
While the Eagle Municipality aims to be a national model of education policies, the
other municipalities are dealing with a feeling of unfair competition, with difficulties
associated with recruiting and retaining well-qualified teachers, with high
percentages of children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, and with strong
internal pressure from the Municipality administration to cut expenses and close
public schools (§6.2, §7.3). Hence, these inequities place school management in
different positions within the marketplace, clearly affecting options for
‘differentiating’ themselves and competing advantageously.
241!
The Chief of The Canelo’s municipal education, for instance, only hires one
municipal teacher (for a couple of extra hours) to support the two most visible
schools of the borough for national test preparation. That is to say, the Chief focuses
management strategies mainly on a limited range of schools. Meanwhile, the White
Hill Municipality brings much more intensive technical support to schools through
the staff, added to an extensive marketing plan. The Eagle Municipality, with a much
higher budget then the other municipalities, displays enriched and diverse resources,
such as technical assistance of private foundations, teacher training courses, teacher
exchange programmes to the USA, and interdisciplinary professional attention to
students with special needs, among others. This municipal ‘diversity’ gives evidence
of the inequities among municipalities.
Finally, it is important to note that among the analysed discourses there is no

discourse referring to comprehensive schooling. This may be explained by the fact
that Chile has a long history of free school choice, added to three decades of an open
education market model. The data illustrates that the concept of the public school is
reduced to individual social benefits. Meanwhile, most evidently in the White Hill
Municipality, there is an attempt to privatise the image of public schools in order to
make them more attractive, rejecting the notion of public school sameness.
Additionally, economic criteria have prevailed, leading to public schools closures, as
in the Canelo and the White Hill Municipality, while there is little reflection upon the
meaning of the decrease of public school coverage.
I continue to argue in the next chapter that the possibility of formulating a discourse
about social justice does not fit smoothly with the current educational model. On the
contrary, municipal chiefs have generated a sort of devolution of social justice issues
towards schools, avoiding their responsibility to assume welfare duties.
!
242!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Problematic Social Justice Issues in a Market Regime71
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
71
The image shows a school league table in the newspaper. The title reads: “The Best of
Santiago.”
243!
!
Problematic Social Justice Issues in a Market Regime!
Introduction
Social justice issues have been a transversal axis throughout the data analysis of this
thesis. I have analysed the ways public policies assess, divide and classify schools,
legitimating educational inequities (§4), the unequal conditions under which schools
compete for achieving state standards (§5) and for providing ‘market diversity’,
while welfare values and commitments are diminished (§7), and in consequence, the
unequal impact on children’s opportunities. In this last data analysis chapter, I
continue to argue that in Chile, social justice issues, linked to comprehensiveness,
solidarity, and welfare ethics are problematic for social actors functioning within
educational markets.
Gewirtz (2002), following Iris Marion Young, suggests that the analysis of social
justice matters involves two broad interconnected dimensions: distributional and
relational justice. The first, mainly employed in conventional literature, refers to the
distribution of goods among individuals in a society. The second dimension, which
must be taken into account together with concerns for distributional justice, draws
attention to the nature of the social relationships that structure society, entailing a
focus on institutional rules, practices, procedures, symbols and language. In
Gewirtz’s words, relational justice: “is about the nature and ordering of social
relations, the formal and informal rules that govern how members of society treat
each other both at a macro level and at a micro-interpersonal level” (p.140, original
emphasis).
The data shows prevailing tolerance towards social injustice among different
educational actors. The ethics of comprehensive education appear to hinder
institutions’ ability to compete in the marketplace. In addition, it is found that
municipal policies, in order to compete advantageously, maintain and even intensify
school local hierarchies and divisions. So, as some schools are strategically
supported in order to boost and show performance outcomes, other schools are
systematically neglected.
244!
Chapter Eight: Problematic Social Justice Issues
The case studies provide evidence of ways in which institutions’ local policies (and
not consumers) strategically regulate the expansion of certain sections of the market
and the decline of others. Moreover, the production of unequal school treatment rules
effectively enhances market competition and institutional reputations, achieving
rapid and visible institutional victories (in spite of being partial attainments). These
differentiated policies affect in dissimilar and increasingly polarising ways the
experiences of school staff and the development of an institutional habitus (§2.2).
In this chapter I attempt not only to examine the inequities of resource distribution,
but also the implicit and explicit relational rules and assumptions that sustain these
inequities. The analysis of the interconnections among schools is essential for
analysing social justice issues from a larger perspective. Prevailing governmental
discourses have individualised the understanding of schools and their outcomes
(§1.3.2). Nevertheless, on the basis of the data analysis, I argue that there is an
interdependent relationship among schools, and therefore between educational
‘success’ and ‘failure’. Success and failure are two sides of the same coin that enable
market competition to function. In other words, ‘successful’ schools are so, at least
partly, because of ‘failing’ schools. Moreover, market competition works thanks to
the existence of success and failure. This relational understanding is imperative in
order to rethink school outcomes and public policies in general.
To undertake the analysis of this topic, I use data from the White Hill case studies
(municipality and schools) with the objective of illustrating some of the social justice
dilemmas these institutions face, (although I note that similar happenings occur in
the other case studies). The White Hill Municipality is located in a large borough of
the Metropolitan Region, composed mainly of lower-middle class and working class
areas. The Municipality faces fierce competition from the private subsidised sector
(58% of school coverage), in addition to a restricted budget due to a significant
decline in student enrolment over the last 15 years. The two examined schools of this
borough represent contrasting case studies. On the one hand, the High Hill School is
a long-standing, traditional girl’s school and one of the most popular public schools
of the borough, with high league tables positioning. On the other hand, the Low Hill
School is an unpopular school located in an inner city area, under-subscribed and
245!
with low test-performance outcomes, which receives children mainly from

disadvantaged family backgrounds.
On the basis of these case studies, three themes are developed which organise the
chapter: 1) ‘Tolerance of injustice’, referring to the naturalisation and practices of
student selection and exclusion; 2) Unequal resource distribution policies within
local market hierarchies; 3) A contrasting analysis between a disadvantaged and
advantaged school, based on a leading question: Failing schools or failing model?
1. Tolerance of Injustice
Organisations within educational markets are expected to work in a business-like

way guided by an ethos of self-interest. Ball (2006) describes this rationale as a ‘new
moral economy’ where schools have to compete and promote themselves in order to
survive and assure an advantaged position. Educational institutions work in an
atmosphere that celebrates these enterprising rationales, as the author points out,
marginalising values such as social commitment, solidarity, diversity and
comprehensiveness. In this setting, children and their families become core resources
for school competition; they are carefully valued, selected and excluded by schools.
Ball et al. (1998) call this phenomenon the ‘economy of student worth’.
Public schools in Chile cannot in principle select pupils and maintain restrictions
with respect to this issue.72 Nevertheless, the White Hill Municipality does not
supervise school practices, in order to assure the correct application of these equity
regulations, nor does it add further local policies. Moreover, interviewees do not
express a concern about these issues, as is illustrated in the following quote by the
Head of Municipal Education, Mrs. Isabel:
AF: Are there schools that select [pupils]?

Mrs. I: No, supposedly we can’t select [students], but there are schools
that are always full and are forced to select, because they just don’t have
more spaces for pupils.
AF: They are oversubscribed.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
72
In the case of a waiting list, the school must make explicit the criterion for selecting children and
cannot discriminate based on social class, religion, race or family composition.
246!
Mrs. I: Right, like the High Hill School and the Yellow Hill [school],
those are schools that are oversubscribed; everybody wants to be there.
People [parents] there don’t leave them, because those schools have
really special conditions (...)
AF: What kind of procedures do they carry out?
Mrs. I: I don’t know.
AF: Tests? Interviews?
Mrs. I: I don’t know.
The former citation illustrates how Mrs. Isabel naturalises pupil selection, as
oversubscribed schools are “forced” to do so, with no alternative solution. It is also
important to note the language employed to make selection practices invisible. For
instance, according to the Chief Municipal of Education, schools “supposedly [...
can’t select [students], but there are schools that are always full and are forced to
select”, or as an SEN teacher of the High Hill School argues: “it is not selection, it is
that we must refer children to a more appropriate school”. In this way, student
selection (and expulsion) does not appear to be a deliberate action, but rather a forced
and necessary situation.
Interestingly, Mrs. Isabel is a member of the Communist party and could be expected
to have an interest in issues related to school comprehension and social mix.
Nevertheless, while she feels strongly committed to improving educational quality
for underprivileged children (§5.2), she does not express personal convictions related
to these issues, nor ethical dilemmas. On the contrary, she overlooks selective school
practices. In effect, she is not even fully informed about schools’ selection
procedures. It is assumed that these are private institutional matters that do not
require municipal intervention.73
In general terms, within the Municipality there is an acceptance of these kinds of

pupil selection procedures. Moreover, there is an understanding that national
regulations about pupil selection and expulsion entrap and limit school quality and
freedom. As, for example, Mr. Alex, the Municipal School Administrator notes:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
73
The Eagle Municipality employs a discourse of non-discrimination and carries out a policy of
student non-selection among public schools and private/municipal schools. However, like the White
Hill Municipality, there is no municipal mechanism for enforcing this policy.
247!
We have another weakness, in quotation marks, we can’t select

[students]. Maybe I am tough regarding these issues, but there are
children who should not be in the educational system, because they are
troublemakers. But the system does not let you expel them, so they
corrupt the rest. A rotten fruit rots the rest. (Municipal School
Administrator)
The speaker, who occupies a senior position in the Municipality, supports and
legitimates the school practice of student selection and expulsion. Furthermore, state
equity regulations related to these issues are understood as nuisance management.
Interestingly, while other state regulations, such as standardisation and accountability
policies are barely interrogated, social justice regulations are subject to considerable
criticism. Also, a School Curriculum Head notes:
AF: Do you expel students?

Mrs. O: Yes, but it is unusual, because ultimately we shouldn’t. And [if
so] we have to find another school allocation for that student. This takes
authority away from us, they [the Ministry of Education] have taken
that from us, and that’s the [the regional Ministry]. That is what
happens, we are powerless, our opinion carries no weight. The problem
is that parents listen too much, they listen to the radio, the TV, and they
are wrong. They are empowered to demand their rights, so we have to
receive their girl and we can’t do anything, neither can the Head
teacher! We have lost authority, a lot of authority. (School Curriculum
Head, High Hill School)
This quote suggests that equity regulations related to, for instance, student expulsion
should be a decision made on school terrain. Otherwise, school autonomy is not
respected and autonomy is taken away.74 It is important to note that there is no causal
relation among student selection and expulsion practices, and market and
accountability policies, as these practices existed prior to market reforms. However, I
argue that current policies reinforce and make sense of these kinds of practices. An
educational market schema legitimates the logic of an ‘ideal client’, i.e. of the
valuable and less valuable student for school competition. For instance, Mrs. Susana,
from the Low Hill School argues:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
74
The idea that social justice regulations hinder school autonomy and market positioning also emerges
in other case studies, such as the Eagle School (§4).
248!
Unfortunately, we cannot select students; we receive all students that

arrive here. And we can’t just suspend the [low performing] kids for the
day of the SIMCE examination, as is done in other schools. Now I have
to submit the SIMCE report; that boy Cruzat for example, I would have
to catalogue him as a retarded boy or one with Down’s [Syndrome], so
they [the Ministry of Education] won’t consider him [in the test results],
or [categorise him] with mental paralysis. But he is measured, he is
considered in the SIMCE results. He has serious family problems; he
was [sexually] abused by his uncle … Will he have good results? No!
(Head teacher, Low Hill School)
Even though this school does not select pupils and has a vocational discourse that
claims to be proud of serving poor and disadvantaged children (§4.3), school actors
employ an instrumental logic in mixed ways (Ball and Maroy, 2009). They
constantly classify and assess their students according to the ways they expect them
to contribute to school test scores and to the institution’s reputation in general. This
quote serves as an example of the ways individuals identify particular pupils as a
useful or non-useful resource for school performance within the educational market.
This involves the commodification of students, as they are understood as capitals that
are valued and traded within the market. As Gewirtz (2002) explains:
In this way, students have become objects of the education system, to be

attracted, excluded, displayed and processed, according to their
commercial and semiotic worth, rather than subjects with needs, desires
and potentials. They are judged and processed in terms of their
perceived capacity to contribute to a school’s market success. (p.124)
Consequently, in this municipal setting, school managers are allowed to classify and
set students within schools (§5.2), and also accept or reject students, according to the
schools’ positioning in the marketplace. In this way, a comprehensive understanding
of children, attending to their specific needs, seems out of place.
The Head of Municipal Special Educational Needs explains that she has witnessed
ways in which schools select and expel students. For instance, she says that parents
have come to her office to complain because of student expulsion. At the end of the
previous year, she had a case of six students in Year 1 (6 years old) that were
expelled from the best public ranked school of the borough. The mechanism of that
school, which is habitual according to the interviewee, is to ‘recommend’ that
249!
parents transfer their child to another school. If they do not do so, their child will
have to repeat a grade, and then no other school will accept their child as a failing
student.
Also, the Head of Low Hill School describes critically how schools expel students
during the school year, whom she then receives. She notes that schools expel low-
performing children especially in Year 3, as Year 4 is nationally examined. Both
interviewees accuse schools of enforcing the non-attendance of these pupils on the
day on which national tests are enacted. These are examples of borderline legal
tactics and also illegal ones, which schools practice in order to manipulate and
improve the school reputation. These practices facilitate the school’s job (with fewer
‘difficult-to-teach-pupils’), and allow the institution to compete favourably within
the marketplace.
As a result of these municipal policies, the two school case studies, Low Hill and
High Hill School, illustrate the inequities produced by these implicit institutional
rules related to student selection and expulsion. On the one hand, the Low Hill
School receives all students with no restrictions, entailing significant teaching
difficulties, having to serve varying ability levels.
We do not ask for [school] grades so children cannot enter this school,
nor do we say –‘look, only if you have all your school materials and if
not, no’. No, we receive everybody. This school receives everyone,
whomever arrives. This entails that you can have a first grade where all
students pass, they are all reading really well, but then in second grade
we receive ten more who don’t know how to read, who didn’t learn, so
they were expelled. So, we have to go all the way back again and teach
them what they didn’t learn in Year 1. That happens a lot. We achieve
certain performance levels and then new students arrive with null
performance. But, they come with good school grades. Why? Because
the school tells parents –“Mum, your child needs a more appropriate
school, with more personalised teaching”. Then the school gives them
[false] high grades, so that another school will receive them; and these
are children that don’t know anything! Thus, we are always receiving
these children; we are always trying to level them up, trying to level up.
And good that you touched on this point, because this sets back the
other students; we unfortunately have paid less attention to those more
advanced students. (Mrs. Susana, Head teacher, Low Hill School)
250!
At the other end of this chain of processes, the High Hill School exercises micro-
practices in order to select and expel students, although with limitations.75 The
school used to select pupils and expel students in a much more open way,76
remembered as ‘the good old days’ (§4.1). But owing to the reduction of student
enrolment in recent years (as in the public sector in general), the school has
diminished these practices. Nowadays, in some grades, mostly Year 4 and 5, there
are waiting lists, so the school selects students in these grades. For allocating
students, the school asks for their school grades and a ‘personality report’.
Additionally, the school does not receive students with intellectual disabilities, nor
receives new students in the middle of the school year, while the Low School does.
The gym teacher also explains that there is a special preference for attracting students
talented in sports, as the school obtains a good reputation by winning competitions.
All in all, pieces of data illustrate the discourses and concrete practices of the
‘economy of student worth’ (Ball et al., 1998) in the Chilean context, as students are
understood as a core capital for attaining school advantage within the market. The
ethical implication of this has also been a critical issue noted by various scholars,
including Ball (2006), Gewirtz (2002), Gillborn and Youdell (2000), Lauder and
Hughes et al. (1999), and Thrupp and Hursh (2006). Students are valued and
classified in speculative ways, according to their (supposed) contribution to school
test scores and school reputation in general. The pupil is commodified as a variable
value within the market economy, a logic adopted not only by the advantaged school,
but also by the marginalised school.
The discursive practices exposed involve a predominant tolerance of social injustice.

Equity regulations are uncomfortable for school agents, since they seem to hinder
school competition and market reputation (also see §4.2). This tolerance is shared by
both those who suggest personal convictions that legitimate these practices, with
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
75
The Eagle School is the other case study that delivers veiled pupil selecting practices. For student
applications, the school asks for: school grades, a ‘personality report’, a certification of the mother’s
educational level, and the child is required to live in the borough (The Eagle is a middle-high class
borough).
76
For instance, all students that had grades below 5.5 (on a scale of 7) where asked to leave the
school.
251!
others that claim critical perspectives, but feel a kind of defeat and hopelessness. For
instance, the Head of Municipal Special Needs Education in an interview argues:
It is unfair, totally unfair, but what can I do? I can’t change things here;
I don’t have any power here. This occurs here in very strange ways, you
can write it all down [equity norms], and I am very careful with that,
writing it all down, as evidence. The Major may sign, everybody agrees,
all head teachers are there as an audience. But then, you know that some
schools, those elite schools, do whatever they wish.
This reflects the country’s habituation to market logics and the lack of public
discussions about these issues; as Rojas (2005) claims:
It seems that we live in a moment in which the existence of a certain

degree of inequity is accepted as an unavoidable and irremovable
reality; some understand that this is because of respect towards a
‘natural’ order, others because of resignation. (p.40)
In this scenario, student recruitment, selection and exclusion are accepted and
overlooked within the Municipality. The Chief of Municipal Education is not
informed of these school practices and does not supervise these procedures. Non-
discrimination issues are understood as policies that should be resolved
autonomously by schools. So, while the Municipality centralises and controls certain
issues, such as curriculum teaching and national test preparation (§6.2), they devolve
social justice issues to schools, as these are strategically placed as school matters.
As a result, some schools, according to their market positioning, have the power to
refuse equity policies. Meanwhile, other schools have to take all pupils and put into
practice welfare policies and non-discrimination regulations. These micro-policies
are part of the unspoken rules that increase student segmentation within the same
borough and therefore contribute to shape and intensify social inequities at a local
level.
2. Local School Hierarchies and Unequal Resource Distribution
In this section I analyse the municipal micro-policies of asymmetrical resource

allocation that shape and increase local school hierarchies. Within an insecure
252!
positioning, the research shows that the Municipality strategically focuses and
invests efforts and resources unequally among schools in order to boost some, while
leaving others aside.
Municipalities have restrictions for student selection and expulsion and teacher
dismissal, due to legal regulations (§1.4). Nevertheless, municipalities have
autonomy to transfer students and teachers among their schools. In other words, there
is a closed system for moving school resources, i.e. teachers, students, professional
support and other resources, among the municipal schools. Hence, these transferring
practices are a core municipal strategy for advantageously organising and
distributing these resources, employing implicit rules that favour some schools over
others within the local hierarchies. Consequently, instead of being reduced by
municipal policies, school inequities are increased.
In this section, I will refer first to student distribution among municipal schools,
secondly to teacher distribution and thirdly to municipal assessment and support
towards schools, based on an ‘educational triage’.77
Firstly, as I showed in the previous section of this chapter, the White Hill
Municipality tolerates student selection/expulsion in some schools, while other
schools have to accept all pupils. Hence, there are local hierarchies in which the
Municipality grants schools with different levels of freedom for student selection and
expulsion, and demands dissimilar degrees of commitment towards equity
regulations. As the Head of Municipal SEN claims:
Mrs. F: There are two schools that are not forced to ascribe to the
Integration Project78 (i.e. to allocate SEN and disable students), the
Yellow Hill and the Scarlet Hill School.
AF: Ahh, right, schools that have best performance. Why?
Mrs. F: Well, like the High Hill School, they don’t receive children with
intellectual disabilities.
AF: OK, and why them?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
77! In a similar way, in Chapter 5 I demonstrated how institutions strategically distribute resources
unevenly, aiming to achieve successful test results investing primarily in the assessed school year
grades and subjects. Also, in chapters 5, 6 and 7 I have provided examples of ways schools invest in
particular pupils in order to increase test performance outcomes.!!!
78
‘Programa de Integración’
253!
Mrs. F: Because of the teachers’ profiles, those teachers are not used to
working with those kinds of children.
AF: Like what kind of profile?
Mrs. F: I mean, it is totally different to work with the kind of students
that are in those kinds of schools, than those located in the inner city,
like those from The Maples. They [teachers from inner city] are used to
those kids. I have a letter signed by the Municipal School Administrator
that the Integration Project is compulsory for all schools, but those
[three] head teachers just don’t accept it.
AF: And why is that?
Mrs. F: It’s just like that; we just have to accept it.
AF: And Isabel? [Head of Municipal Education]
Mrs. F: Also, you just can’t [force these three schools to accept the
Integration Project].
AF: Why not?
Mrs. F: I don’t know what else we can do. Something happens, they
[three head teachers of a high performing school] disregard the regular
procedures, talk with the Municipality’s Schools Administrator. I did go
back to him, but he just told me there is nothing we can do. It’s that the
Yellow Hill School contributes to the Mayor’s good reputation. Are
they [senior municipal management] going to go against them
[successful head teachers]? Or the Scarlet Hill, the High Hill, it’s the
same. They [good performing schools] are the Mayor’s shining stars.
When the Minister [of Education] came, to which school do you think
they took him? To the Yellow Hill School.
The former quote continues to show the inequities within municipal education as
certain schools are allowed to select/expel students, and additionally to suscribe, or
not, to the ‘Integration Programme’. These are practices that are not only accepted
passively by the Municipality authorities, but are also strategically (and silently)
supported in order to protect those most successful schools (“his shining stars”) that
grant the Mayor symbolic profit. In other words, the municipal management exempts
high performing schools from equity regulations in order to achieve a sense of
success (however partial). Meanwhile, school failures are accepted as they uphold
the success of these popular schools. So high performing schools are able to exclude
pupils thanks to the existence of ‘failing’ schools. These micro-policies reproduce
and increase local school hierarchies, and social and academic pupil segmentation.
254!
Furthermore, the Head Manager of Education, Mrs. Isabel, is an accomplice of these

practices, as I witnessed:
Conversation between the Chief of Municipal Education, Mrs. Isabel,

and the Chief of Municipal Human Resources, in his office. Mrs. Isabel
is discussing the issue of a girl who lived alone with her father, who is a
widower and recently fell ill, so they moved to the girl’s grandmother's
home (within the borough). Therefore, the girl needs to change to a
school nearer to her new home. But the girl has low grades and the
nearest school has relatively high performance. Mrs. Isabel comments
that the head teacher will not accept the girl and that “it would be so
much easier if she had good grades”. Both municipal managers
comment that the head teacher has a strong character, is difficult to
convince, so they will not even ask her. They also comment on the
father’s situation and they feel sorry for him. The solution was to talk
with another head teacher, with “goodwill”, although this school was
not so close and that would hinder the father’s daily life. (Field notes,
White Hill Municipality)
This episode demonstrates how pupils are distributed among municipal schools
according to their supposed ‘abilities’ and ‘behaviour’. Although these municipal
agents feel sympathy for this girl and her father, they demonstrate the perceived
impossibility of intervention, and impose or regulate the schools’ admission policies.
The scene (once more) shows the practice of treating, or allowing others to treat,
students as objects. Moreover, this is not an individual school practice; it is sustained
and reinforced by the Municipality’s implicit rules.
Among schools, students are tactically transferred from one school to another,
boosting some schools, while overloading other schools with a high percentage of
children with learning disabilities, less social capital, and less parental commitment.
On the whole, schools and the Municipality are involved in increasing school
segmentation within the borough, sharpening the division of students’ social
composition, and therefore triggering unequal institutional conditions to compete in
the marketplace and achieve successful outcomes. What is more, this passive
Municipal acceptance is also strategic, as it allows popular schools to maintain and
increase positive outcomes, which serves as core symbolic status for the Mayor’s
administration.
255!
Secondly, the movement of teachers among the municipal schools is also a key
municipal strategy,79 tending to maintain and reinforce local hierarchies. Therefore,
in a similar way to student allocation policies, the Municipality gives privileges to
those better performing schools so that they may have better assessed teachers, and
to dismiss those that are poorly assessed. Mrs. Isabel, for instance, comments:
One tries not to interfere [with good performing schools], not sending
more people [teachers turned off by other schools] when changes are to
be made. And for example, if the head teacher [of a good performing
school] asks for a music teacher, as in the n52 [school], we try to do it,
because you know that if they’re asking for this, they are really going to
make good use of him/her. (Chief of Municipal Education)
This practice is justified as it is suggested that school managers will know how to
“make good use” of the human/financial resources. Thus, these are practices
underpinned by a meritocratic discourse, as it is understood that there are schools
that deserve more resources or privileges than others. On the other hand, there are
schools that have to receive these unwanted teachers.
The Low Hill School is an example of a school that receives the ‘remains’ of the
system, which are not only students, but also teachers. As the Head teacher explains,
Mrs. S: There are head teachers who refuse to receive teachers from
other schools, but I have to receive what another colleague did not
receive.
AF: And why do you receive them?
Mrs. S: Well, I just have to. If I need a teacher, I have to fill in that
vacancy. But then with my way of working, I have them under my
absolute observation.
AF: Like the English teacher?
Mrs. S: Yes, she is a really a bad teacher, I have observed her doing
classes. (This is a French teacher, but the Municipality instructs her to
deliver English classes as French hours have been reduced in the
national curriculum)
AF: Have you ever rejected a teacher?
Mrs S.: No
AF: Why not? There are other head teachers that do that.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
79
Municipalities are in charge of managing teachers within public schools (hiring, allocating,
dismissing).
256!
Mrs. S: Maybe it’s my personality, I always try to do my best, and look

at things from the bright side.
These are examples of transferring resources as schools and municipalities

strategically allocate teachers and students unevenly among schools. In this way,
schools have different statuses within the market that enable some to attract and
reject teachers and students, while others cannot. Thus, although the head teacher of
the Low Hill School says that she accepts these teachers because of her ‘personality’,
I argue that she is not in a position to reject teachers, nor students. Her school is a
school ‘at risk’ that is defined as a ‘non-school’ and that is constantly threatened with
closure (§4.3). So she is forced to accept all students and teachers (while other head
teachers are not forced to do so).
Thirdly, there is a recent local policy to assess and give support to more ‘promising’
schools that can improve easily.80 Mrs. Isabel claims, “we have gradually positioned
ourselves”, because when she began this job there were only two schools that had
‘academic excellence’ and now there are four under this category. Her aim is to bring
three more schools to the official state categorisation of ‘academic excellence’. Of
the fifteen municipal schools, three of them have been traditionally ‘successful’,
while the rest were mostly low performing schools. She explains that she has
normally been concerned with “the rest of the schools” (i.e. those low-performing),
however, recently the Chief of Municipal Administration has advised her to focus on
two or three “more capable schools”. In words of Isabel:
Mrs. I: That’s why I want to dedicate myself to two or three schools

AF: Which ones?
Mrs. I: School Nº86, 64 and the central high school.
AF: And why those schools?
Mrs. I: Because I know that they will have fruitful results, before
scattering my energy everywhere!!!
AF: Like those…
Mrs. I: Those [schools] are emerging due to our management. That’s
what I want to do. Why? Because sometimes I feel that you wear
yourself out so much making all [schools] accomplish this and that, and
so all [schools] have this and that. At the end… it’s the same with a
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
80
Similar local policies of investing in ‘potential’ schools’ are also found in the Regional Ministry of
Education (§6) and The Canelo Municipality (§5).
257!
school as with a classroom. You cannot expect to use the same amount
of energy on all your students. No. You have to figure out what you are
able to do and what will give you good results. This [idea] is very wise.
And this is an issue we have been thinking about a lot lately. Mr. Alex
(Municipal Schools Administrator) said to me – “Isabel, don’t waste
your time, try to concentrate on specific schools”.- I think that has been
very wise.
This local policy is linked to the concept of ‘educational triage’ developed in

Gillborn and Youdell (2000), and further in Youdell (2004). This concept refers to an
institutional strategy practised to compete more efficiently within the educational
market. Institutions strategically classify and rank schools, classrooms or students in
terms of the possibility of them succeeding in national tests and in educational
markets in general. Youdell argues that this practice occurs at different levels of the
educational system, including local educational management (bureaucratic triage),
school level (institutional triage), and classroom level (classroom triage). The authors
suggest that at least three classifications are built: the safe cases (non urgent), under-
achievers (suitable for treatment), and those without hope. As Youdell analyses the
educational triage she argues that:
...in an atmosphere of scarce resources, this manoeuvre affects the re-

directing of resources away from the hopeless cases and towards
students constituted as not only promising better returns but also
deserving of these resources and rewards. (p.411)
According to Mrs. Isabel’s former quote, these practices are generated through a
discourse that legitimises educational triage, to be used at municipal and school level
or within classrooms. She sees herself as a victim of these ‘hopeless schools’, which
demand her excessive and endless work. She feels “worn out” and that she has “spent
too much energy” on these kind of schools. Moreover, these practices accept the idea
that some schools deserve municipal support according to who are compliant with
municipal policies or that will produce higher gains from municipal investments. In
this way, she justifies a focus on more ‘promising’ schools. It seems legitimate and
even “wise” to invest more effort in those schools that can assure more rewarding
results, and therefore, are not a “waste of time”.
258!
This policy turn involves investing preferentially within schools with middle level
achievement test scores that are estimated as ‘potential’ (or borderline) schools for
improving test scores. This means new ways of categorising and ranking schools in a
more complex and competing field. With the return of democracy in the 1990s, the
Concertación governments, employing positive discrimination policies, first used a
dual categorisation: disadvantaged schools that required extra state support, and the
rest. However, after two decades, the competition within the educational field
advanced in more complex ways, creating more acute categories in this micro-
sphere. In this way, the bi-categorisation turned into an educational triage.
This practice involves an exercise of calculation for estimating where the

Municipality’s investment is worthwhile and where it can produce higher educational
profits. This is part of the neoliberal matrix of thought, as Lazzarato (2012) argues.
Subjects have to calculate, capitalise and invest as a form of ‘financialisation’ in
order to confront risks. This mental arithmetic requires educational managers to
classify schools according to their potential ability to compete within the market.
This classification involves an exercise of probabilistic calculations of projected
school achievements within the market, considering school test results, student social
backgrounds, school location and transport access, and school reputation.
School classification is also mixed with a criterion of school visibility; i.e. schools
that are more or less visible and known in the community, because their outcomes
will affect the Municipality’s reputation more strongly. Also, this school
classification is mixed with the criteria of the “personal affinity” and “positive
disposition” of head teachers with the Chief of Municipal Education. So, those
school managers that are reliable to the Municipal managers, and agree with the
municipal guidelines receive more municipal support. Similarly, head teachers that
have the same political affinity as the Mayor also receive special ‘privileges’ (§6.2).
The combination of these criteria (market potentiality, outcome visibility, ‘well-
disposed’/political affinity) creates school classifications and rankings that define the
allocation of school investments and privileges.
In summary, in order to compete advantageously and economically, the Municipality

does not invest in all schools in the same manner. Local managers classify schools
259!
and allocate differentiated resources according to how much symbolic and financial
profit schools produce. Nevertheless, it is important to notice that these criteria and
privileges are not reduced to a market-performance rationale, since they are mixed
with a political-electoral thinking in order to maintain and favour the Mayor’s
political positioning within the borough.
Local managers strategically boost certain schools, investing resources, well-

assessed teachers and pupils. Thus, institutional resources and efforts are tactically
provided in order to promote micro-competition spheres or as Ball, Bowe, and
Gewirtz (1995) call them ‘circuits of schooling’. In the meantime, ‘failing schools’
are accepted. These schools accomplish a core role within the educational system of
receiving poorly assessed teachers and students. These institutional practices
abandon the idea of a state that treats all schools equally, and also, in practice,
abandon, at least partially, the idea of positive discrimination measures (advocated
by governmental discourse). Local municipal policies deliberately open and close
school opportunities within educational markets, with the aim of guaranteeing
visible and successful outcomes of at least some selected schools that deserve
municipal support.
3. Failing School or Failing Model?
In this last section, I shall discuss data from two contrasting case studies of this
borough: the High Hill School and the Low Hill School. The High Hill School serves
students coming from ‘middle-middle’ economic backgrounds, according to the
Ministry classifications, and is one of the three top-ranked public schools in the
borough league tables. On the other hand, the Low Hill School mainly receives
children coming from a low economic background, serving 81% socially
disadvantaged pupils, and is ranked in the lowest position of the borough league
tables. While in the first school there is a general appreciation of a positive emotional
climate, good student discipline, and strong parent commitment, the second school is
described as an institution that serves students with accumulated underachievement
and a diverse range of learning difficulties and emotional problems, and low
attendance. The school has reduced budget and staffing problems, added to issues of
scant parental involvement, family violence, illegal behaviours, drug abuse, and
260!
neighbour stigmatisation. The following quotes illustrate some of these differences;

the first two testimonies are from the High Hill School.
We think that we are like an elite school with these girls, we have very
few problems, they are very punctual, there are some girls that get out
of control sometimes, that drink, for example, or smoke, those kinds of
things. But really the discipline here, everything is very disciplined;
there are only minimum problems. I worked in the No456 [school],
there it is really complicated. Here girls are a luxury, easy going. (Head
of School Curriculum, High Hill School)
Families here are highly committed, they collaborate a lot to improve

the school. It’s important for them because they want their children to
stay in this school. They help by bringing cleaning products, soap and
toilet paper, for example. So that we keep our school clean. They
deliver a monthly voluntary payment, some [parents] don’t pay, but
most do. It’s not compulsory, because we [public schools] can’t charge.
They [the parents] just built a playground for Pre-school, it’s beautiful;
they did that with the money they had saved. They do a lot to improve
the school infrastructure. They are an unconditional collaborator. (Head
teacher, High Hill School)
The conditions and the moral atmosphere of the Low Hill School are very
different.
You take up to 20 minutes calming the children and getting their

attention, and then their concentration lasts no more than 20 minutes,
and they are already hitting each other. We have to use a lot of time
talking with parents, sending homework, planning different tasks.
Because I have many children with learning problems, and family
problems, I would say, like 70% of my class. So in the same course I
have very different learning levels and that makes things much more
difficult. Or sometimes a child is making good progress, and then
suddenly he doesn’t come to school for two, three weeks, because of a
sickness or just because his parents don’t want to bring him, the same
for holidays. And that means a huge regression when the kid comes
back, all the work, all the progress you achieved is lost. Instead of going
forward, you go backward (Primary teacher, Year 4, Low Hill School).
It’s that here children don’t have study habits. For example, they don’t
have a schedule for studying at home, a desk, nobody reviews their
notebooks, there are no school supplies; you understand me? [Parents]
261!
have no clue about what their child is studying at school, they are totally
ignorant. Because they are not concerned about that, unless you call
them, but if you call them, they don’t come either. (Head of School
Curriculum, Low Hill School)
We as teachers put our all into this school (...) many times there are
children who come to my office because teachers get fed up, because in
the classroom they [pupils] hit other classmates, or they insult each
other [pupils]. But when I talk with them, I note that children are
terribly emotionally loaded. So I have to do an entire orientation job so
they understand why the teacher sent them to my office, they must
recognise their fault in what they did. But at the same time, I make them
feel that they are important, and that they worth a lot. That’s my job.
(Head teacher, Low White Hill School)
The data briefly shows some examples of unequal conditions, difficulties and
challenges the two schools face. The first school is described as an ‘elite’ institution,
with easy-to-teach students and supportive parents. Meanwhile, the second school is
overwhelmed with complex social, emotional and pedagogical problems. The school
experiences a much more unpredictable and disadvantaged scenario, caught between
the social reality, a deficit view of families (with ‘inappropriate’ or ‘useless’ social
and cultural capital), and state performance standards.
Scholars such as Thrupp (1999, 2001), Lauder et al. (2008), Lupton (2005, 2006)
have extensively studied schools situated in different contexts, arguing that students’
social composition and ethnic backgrounds are key contextual aspects for
understanding school-life and school outcomes. The data of the Low Hill School
illustrates that school staff are involved with social problems, and must invest a
significant amount of time and energy in attending to daily conflicts, added to
delivering extra mechanisms for insuring learning progress. Furthermore, these
school inequities are reinforced and increased by market competition, as Gewirtz
(1998, 2002) argues. Overall, the nature of school environments and tasks are
significantly different.
Additionally, these diverse school conditions, daily tasks, school capitals (e.g.
pupils’ social backgrounds, school symbolic reputations, economic resources) and
market positioning, produce different kinds of school identities, ethos, discourses
262!
and, overall, different kinds of ‘institutional habitus’ (§2.2, §4.4) that in a dialectical
way reinforces school positioning and the constitution and volume of their capitals.
In other words, the specific contexts and field locations of each school affects the
way actors understand their role, school aims and expectations. So, institutional
habitus adjusts to, and at the same time reinforces, school positioning, rooted in
collective socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, habitus is contingent and
dynamic, conceived as a mediator between structure and practice. So habitus is not a
predetermining idea, according to agents/institutions' social location, but more like a
notion of an open system of dispositions.
According to the data, the High Hill School has an enduring and deeply rooted
‘school success’ discourse that circulates within the school and is passed from
generation to generation among the school community. School members tell and re-
tell the story of the ‘superior-girls-school’, with a long-standing tradition that dates
from 1928. This school discourse is crucial for understanding an institutional daily
life that gives structure and meaning to the organisational practices. So, as students,
parents, teachers and senior staff participate within this school, they practice and talk
within the school atmosphere of success and pride that is built from a much longer
history; as the following quote of the Head teacher, Mrs. Carmen, illustrates:
Mrs. C.: I would say that the success of this school is not our
accomplishment, but that it comes from many years ago, from the
previous head teachers that worked here, not the head teachers, but the
teams that worked here. Because what this school has is an institutional
discipline. For me this is what guides everything, guides teachers,
guides personnel, and guides the students. And this is a historical given,
and those who are in senior positions have been aware of this, of
continuing this institutionalism, let’s call it institutional order. And each
person adds something of their own, or maybe focuses their job in a
special way.
AF: What do you mean by this historical school order?
Mrs. C: It is an institutional discipline, here nothing is left to chance. I
will give you an example. We never leave a classroom alone. If a
teacher is absent, the first thing we do is to find another teacher so the
class is never alone. If there are no teachers we appeal to assistants,
SEN teachers, other staff, but with worksheets, so students don’t waste
time, always have activities to do. So the class is always attended to,
completing activities. And for the senior staff we must give an example.
263!
I learned from Mrs. Roxana (the previous head teacher), that she was
always at the school, never missed work. I have missed work only once
in my thirty-six years in this school, and it was because I had to go to
the emergency room because I had appendicitis. At the time I was here.
The Low Hill School faces its own disadvantaged reality, holding proudly, although
mixed with frustration and despair, to a strong commitment towards unprivileged
communities (§4.3).
We as teachers put everything into this school (...) if you have noticed.
There are children who suffer a lot, with serious emotional problems.
Children arrive with terrible social problems; so should they [pupils]
find in the school people that are torturing them? We are trying to
educate them, I don’t know if I explain myself. It isn’t that we don’t
challenge these kids, but we do it with love, in a different way. (...) For
me, we have to rescue them from the delinquency, show them that there
is a different world. That not everybody is bad, that within the school
they can find understanding. (Mrs. Susana, Head teacher, Low Hill
School)
These interview fragments illustrate ways in which school managers adjust to school
positioning in the marketplace and to the kind of families and pupils they serve.
Without question, there are conflicts, critical views and multiple discourses within
each school. Nevertheless, I argue that there are also shared narratives, as a
‘socialised subjectivity’ (Bourdieu 2011, p.211), that in general terms serve school
actors to make sense of the schools’ position and enable them to play within the
field.
The first institution, the High Hill School, has built an ethos of strict discipline and
of an academically demanding school, where it is possible, for instance, to select
students, reject the allocation of a poorly qualified teacher, unstitch a girl’s skirt
hems in the middle of the playground because the skirt is too short, and to assure that
every class has learning activities in spite of a teacher's absence.
In the Low Hill School, love, compassion, understanding, religious education and
responsiveness to pupils and community needs are the established ethos for serving
underprivileged sectors of society. In this school, it is possible for a teacher to deliver
264!
English classes when she hardly knows English because she is a French teacher, to
receive pupils halfway through the year because they have been expelled from other
schools, to have an old and precarious building despite the fact that most public
schools have been rebuilt, to have a majority of parents who do not attend school
meetings, or a head teacher who may attend to a pupil for over an hour to talk about
his or her personal problems.
The High Hill School management exercises market power from an advantaged
position, with extensive ability to manoeuvre, compete, and negotiate with other
schools in the market. Meanwhile, the Low Hill School is under an implicit yet
permanent threat of being closed (owing to low enrolment). School staff make sense
of the school’s market location using a vocational and comprehensive discourse,
emphasising pastoral care, while academic demands are less important. However, it
is important to remember that these are only tendencies within the school. In fact, the
Low Hill School has a comprehensive ethos mixed with a market-instrumental
rationale.
These differences involve a set of contrasting identities, assumptions, dispositions,

and ethos. I argue that the intertwining of these complex social-historical elements
constitute a school habitus. This concept does not describe a group of static cultural
beliefs, but a productive matrix of historically built understandings of the
institution’s position in a broad education field that enables actors ‘to play the game’
within school life (Bourdieu 1990, 2011b, Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, §2.2).
Habitus is a historical and relational concept. In general terms, I argue that in a

market schema the contrasting school habitus of both schools are increasingly
segmented and polarised. The data shows that school agents tend to adjust to a
school’s market position. Following Bourdieu’s (2009) argument, the data illustrates
that the habitus of a school contributes in a dialectical way to the maintenance and
reproduction of the school's’ positioning. Although at the same time, school habitus
is also dynamic, mixed with micro-struggles and (creative) modifications.81
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
81
In effect, two years after the data collection I revisited the Low Hill School. All senior staff had
changed, including the Head teacher, and the school had acquired a strong ‘instrumental’ approach,
with an exam-based curriculum. In only two years the school had significantly augmented test scores.
265!
On the whole, is it possible to assert that the High Hill School is more successful
than the Low Hill School? Or that these schools are wholly responsible for their
results? Or is it possible to suggest that one school is more meritorious than the
other? Within the White Hill municipality, it is common to hear staff praise the High
Hill School management, while people usually criticise the Low Hill management
(§7.2). So, for example, the Chief of Municipal Education, referring to the Low Hill
School Head teacher, claims that she “does whatever she wants” or the Head of
Human Resources complains that she is “too good”, “like a mother”. And in general,
municipal members constantly argue that ‘good schools’ are due to ‘good head
teacher leadership’ and ‘bad schools’ due to ‘bad head teacher leadership’. Thus the
hypothesis disseminated by the Municipality is that the central cause of failing
schools is the lack of head teachers’ leadership abilities.
The Regional Minister of the Metropolitan City, Mr. Andrew, also referring to low
performing schools, such as the Low Hill School, claims that these are non-schools
that must be sanctioned or closed, as he suggests in the following interview
fragments.
Our goal, especially in those most underprivileged schools is that they

operate as schools. This caused much laughter when I mentioned it,
because I try to say it in a more joking manner. It’s like when you go to
a bakery you know that they’re going to sell you bread and nothing else.
When you send the children to school, you expect them to learn, that’s
why they go to school. Well, in these schools there were no head
teachers [as leading-effective-head-teacher], there were no lessons,
there was no discipline; they seemed like a daycare centre.
[Low performing] schools are completely unpunished, the damage they

have caused kids is terrible, they should be sent to jail. I’m not
exaggerating, because the damage... having more than 50% of students
who cannot read in Year 4. Who’s going to compensate that child in 20
years’ time for all the damage these schools have caused him or her?
We must assign them [low performing schools] more standards, where

the logic of quality has to be applied to all schools. They must have a
minimum, if not they have to be shut down, they must insure the
fulfilment of the standards (...) especially public schools. Because when
these [standards] are not fulfilled there are a whole bunch of children
266!
who lose out. And you can’t solve this problem by sending them to
private schools after they have lost out, when the damage has already
been done. Many times this damage is irreversible.
These quotes show how discourses of success and failure flow among the
Municipality and Regional Ministry, exercising ‘policies of blame’. Failing schools
are considered responsible for ‘student damage’ and pupils are victims of these
schools and their teachers. As a solution, schools should be shut down and school
staff should go to jail.
Although Mr. Andrew’s stance may seem drastic, he has an important point. School
provision is outrageously unequal and disadvantaged schools tend to have low
expectations of their students and offer unchallenging academic work. In fact, I
agree, as Mr. Andrew notes, that there are schools, such as the Low Hill School, that
seem more like a daycare centre than a school. From my observations of this school,
the staff seem like social workers, and pupils are seen as society’s victims rather than
students. Yet, the key question is how public policies should reduce these inequities.
Mr. Andrew’s answer (also framed by a larger policy discourse) is to seek out
individual responsibility and deliver severe consequences. Thus, he suggests a
displacement of blame from policy to school. He does not take into account, in a
more complex manner, the conditions in which these schools find themselves and the
social context in which they function.
Drawing on Gewirtz’s (1998) paper ‘Can all schools be successful?’, I wish to

briefly rethink this question on the basis of the research data presented, and contrast
it with the prevailing policy discourse of school accountability. Interestingly, the
interviewees have answered this question for me. Both head teachers of High and
Low Hill School insist upon the enormously committed work, energy and time they
invest in their schools. However, the head teacher of the High Hill School declares
that: “... the success of this school is not our accomplishment; it comes from many
years ago”. The school success is achieved on the basis of a historically built school
habitus, of a popular, disciplined and academically demanding school, involving
with ‘elite’ girls and committed parents.
267!
On the other hand, the head teacher of the Low Hill School and staff in general are
constantly attempting to say, in vociferous and explicit ways, that they cannot
achieve the state benchmarks in the same way as other schools. As the Head of
School Curriculum argues:
We can’t, we can’t do it all. They [the government] want everything to

be solved through education, but we can’t, we can’t with the home
overcrowding, with the problems of social housing, drugs, it’s very
wearying.
In this way, the speaker is attempting to respond to the Ministry discourse, claiming
that this school cannot ‘make a difference’; at least not entirely by itself, as more
advantaged schools do. This fragment involves a critical interrogation of the
prevailing policy truths, nurtured by School Effectiveness Research (SER)
assumptions, that ‘schools matter’ and ‘school can make a difference’ independently
of their social context. The speaker’s micro-claim echoes Lupton and Thrupp’s work
referring to disadvantaged schools, as they claim: “context matters”, “social
composition matters”, “poverty matters” (Lupton, 2005, 2006; Thrupp and Lupton,
2006).
I do not wish to take a deficit view of schools, nor a deterministic-structuralist

perspective, leaving no room for agency and school responsibility. In effect, different
combinations of school members and leaderships produce diverse kinds of responses
within a same disadvantaged setting. As Ball and Maroy (2009) suggest, alongside
structural elements, school agents play a core role in daily life, involving complex,
diverse and dynamic ‘logics of action’.
The data demonstrate ways in which pupils’ social composition, school context, and
personal histories are knit in a complex and interactive relationship with school
practices and agents’ subjectivities, producing particular school outcomes. Contrary
to the idea of a linear-causal relationship between school practices and outcomes,
students’ social backgrounds are indivisible from school effects As Gewirtz (2002)
states:
268!
All of this is not to say that good management and teaching do not make
a difference or that it is the nature of catchment areas alone which
determine the effectiveness of schools. Rather, what I have tried to
illustrate is how the various factors that are normally viewed as
contributing to effective schools are bound up with each other in
complex ways, and that what managers and teachers do in schools is
necessarily heavily influenced by the socio-economic and discursive
environments within which they are located. In short, ‘internal’, school-
based determinants of ‘success’, do not operate independently of
‘external’, context-based determinants – and any analysis of ‘effective’
schooling that does not recognise this must be regarded as deeply flawed
(p.114).
Following the author’s argument, school identities, everyday practices and

performance outcomes are intimately connected with social context, i.e. they are
impossible to isolate. In this section, I attempt to present the complex scenario a
disadvantaged school staff face, in contrast to an advantaged school. Therefore I
interrogate school classifications and rankings, which are underpinned by the idea
that school quality can be standardised, assessed and classified, while separating
schools from wider socio-economic influences and policy setting. On the front page
of this chapter I use a school league table as a symbol of ways performative polices
naturalise and reinforce school inequities, such as the ones between the High and
Low Hill schools.
In addition, throughout this analysis I emphasise the interconnections between the

two schools, taking into account the two dimensions of distributional and relational
justice. In this way, I claim that the ‘successful’ school exists, at least in part,
because there is a ‘failing’ school. The popular school can practice a selective and an
academically demanding ethos, because there is a disadvantaged school with a
caring, non-selective ethos to map up pupils excluded from the high performing
school.
I am not suggesting that one school has a market-oriented habitus and the other has a
welfare-oriented habitus, or that one has a self-interested ethos and the other a
comprehensive ethos, working as independent institutions. ‘Successful’ and ‘failing’
schools are the two sides of a same coin, as I attempt to demonstrate in the analysis
of the borough. Both schools have an interdependent relationship where they practice
and tend to maintain their positioning in the social space. As Ball and Maroy (2009)
269!
argue, schools cannot be thought separately within markets. Markets are: “a space of
competitive interdependencies among schools, developing a hierarchy over time and
divided into different specialised and complementary positions” (p.100).
Overall, in response to the question: is the Low Hill School an example of a failing
school? I argue that no, it is not. Rather, it is the evidence of a failing model that
increasingly moves schools to further develop differentiated habitus within a
hierarchical and increasingly segmented field.
4. Conclusions: Making Social In/Justice at the Micro Level
All in all, I have illustrated in this chapter particular discourses, local policies, daily
practices and institutional rules within the White Hill case study that enlarge school
inequities. I find that there is a prevailing tolerance towards educational inequities
and a loss of the meaning of public schooling and comprehensive values. Likewise,
practices of pupil setting, selection and exclusion occur within and among schools.
These practices are overlooked by the Municipality and placed as matters to be
decided by school government82. This is the (convenient) devolution of social justice.
This experience reflects the country’s adoption of market logics over more than 30
years, compounded by a lack of public discussion about these issues (Rojas, 2005).
As Ball et al. (1998) suggests, there is a spreading ‘equiphobia’, using Myers’
expression. In effect, for those who work in educational institutions, equity
regulations seem to simply hinder institutions’ capacity to compete, appearing to be
contradictory and incoherent with the whole market model. There are some scattered
discourses of discontent and criticisms that defend the enforcement of equity
policies, yet alongside this, there is a feeling of resignation and hopelessness.
More detailed analysis found that municipal managers, in order to compete

advantageously, employ micro-policies that maintain and even intensify local
hierarchies and divisions. Local operators carefully distribute school capitals (e.g.
students, teachers, economic resources) in unequal ways. In this manner, some
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
82
This was also noted in The Eagle Municipality, see §7.1.
270!
schools are strategically supported and boosted in order to increase and show
performance outcomes, while others are systematically neglected.
Additionally, equity policies are not enforced in all schools in the same way.
Municipal micro-politics allow high performing schools to disregard equity
regulations (e.g. Integration Programme, non-pupil selection), while unpopular
schools are required to follow these regulations. Consequently, these former schools
receive the system’s ‘remains’, i.e. unwanted students and teachers, and ultimately
commit to comprehensive values.
These practices are not carried out randomly or out of ill will; they are triggered as a
response to a competition-based schema. ‘Policies of privilege’, boosting some
schools over others, allows the Municipality to compete in a more advantaged way
within the market. The municipal management attempts to achieve particular,
although partially ‘successful’ results from certain schools, which awards the
Municipality with a good reputation. Meanwhile, failures are accepted in exchange
for the symbolic profit of a few visible achievements. In other words, ‘failures’ are
tolerated, while instances of visible success are achieved.
Interestingly, these kinds of events occur at different levels. As I have shown in

previous chapters (§4.3, §5.1, §7.3), school managers and teachers tend to invest in
specific classes and students, as a way of attaining successful outcomes, granting
themselves pride and satisfaction, while blaming failures on individuals. Other
scholars have also suggested similar links between a competition-based schema and
practices of targeting and investing, particularly in more ‘able’ or ‘borderline’
students/schools rather than in ‘hopeless’ cases (e.g. Gewirtz, 2002; Gillborn and
Youdell, 2000; Thrupp and Hursh, 2006; Youdell, 2004; §1.3.2).
To put it bluntly, increasing inequities among schools, classrooms and students

enable certain institutions to enhance and exhibit their ‘success’ and to compete in a
more advantageous way within the educational markets. This occurs at the expense
of the failure of another section of the market. In other words, the production and
organisation of inequity is strategic and necessary for competing in an advantaged
way.
271!
These micro-policies are the maintenance, reproduction and deepening of

neoliberalism’s tendency towards ‘equality inequality’, as Lazzarato (2012) calls,
following Foucault. The production and nourishing of inequity, the author argues, is
the core motor of competition in order to perpetuate uncertainty, the feeling of risk
and of unsatisfied desires; and so to make the market project function. In Lazzarato’s
words: “only inequality has the capacity to sharpen appetites, instincts and minds,
driving individuals to rivalries” (p.117). The case study of The White Hill
Municipality and schools (as shown in other case studies) provides evidence that,
within this neoliberal rationale, individuals not only experience these inequities and
subjectivities, but also produce them and strategically put them into practice in the
micro-sphere.
On the basis of the analysis developed in this chapter, I refute three myths suggested
by market advocates. First, a key strategy for competing in the market is not to
enhance educational provision for all schools, classes and students. This policy
seems too ‘risky’ within an atmosphere of limited resources, and it does not insure
that institutions will produce visible and successful results. The tactic is to apply
differentiated rules, investments and privileges, in order to attain instances of
outstanding results and produce distinction. As a result, school segmentation is
deepened, reducing the possibility of improving social cohesion and educational
equity. These are micro-processes that unpack the ‘black box’ of social reproduction
and show ways in which school segmentation and social reproduction is enacted and
configured at the local level.
Second, it is expected that markets work in an open and free manner mainly
regulated by purchasers. However, I have shown how, aside from the central state
playing a core role in producing markets (§5, §6), in the Chilean system local
institutions contribute to deliberately shape and steer markets, as they enhance some
sections of the markets to compete with and hold back others. Hence, not functioning
as an ‘invisible hand’.
Third, a broad political spectrum in Chile, entailing the ‘new Social Democrats’ or
‘Third way’ stance (such as the ‘Concertacion’), and also right-wing political parties,
believe that markets should be regulated by equity policies, producing a beneficial
272!
balance between ‘free markets’ and state regulation (§1.1). Nevertheless, there are
endemic conflicts among these policy solutions. Markets involve an ethical nature
focused around a competition-based model, which place schools in constant conflict
between market targets and equity aims and non-discrimination. Therefore, through
micro-practices school agents have to confront and resolve these unsettled conflicts.
The results of this research, together with a growing literature (§1.3.2), illustrate that
educational actors faced with these dilemmas are predominantly pushed to practice
micro-policies that segment and exclude in order to compete and survive in the
marketplace.
So equity regulations and markets do not go together harmoniously, as understood

by the ‘Third way’ that the first works as a solution to ‘market problems’. On the
contrary, these policy combinations involve clashes, which are devolved to school
agents, who are placed in a setting with limited options for practising solidarity,
democratic and comprehensive values.
Finally, in this chapter I have continued to illustrate the ways in which school habitus
works. Fragments of data show the manner in which school members embody and
make sense of the school positioning within the educational market, as well as
attempt to tactically modify it. In an increasingly segmented schema, school habitus
is also polarised, serving to maintain and reproduce social space orders. Although,
there are, undoubtedly, school nuances and ongoing changes. Overall, not only do
the uneven distribution of capitals and unequal institutional support produce
inequities, but they also give rise to a generative and productive institutional habitus
that enables individuals to act within the field.
Using the example of two contrasting case studies, I illustrate ways in which schools
employ differentiated habitus within a hierarchical field. Whilst the popular school
acts as the challenging and strict institution, the other enacts the role of the caring
and welfare-oriented institution. Yet these schools do not function independently. As
I have argued, they are interdependent. Successful schools are also interdependent, at
least to a degree, because there are failing schools, which receive ‘unwanted’
students and teachers.
273!
Subsequently, it is necessary to rethink school success and failure from a ‘larger

picture’, considering the market as ‘a space of competitive interdependencies’ and
taking into account both distributional and relational social justice dimensions. From
this approach, the analysis suggests that success or failure is not solely school-based,
but importantly due to the nature of the educational market model and the kinds of
unequal conditions and rules enacted among schools.
274!
PART III
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER

RESEARCH
275!
!
!
CHAPTER NINE
Concluding Discussion148
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
148
This collage displays photos used in other chapters. The student placard reads “Education is Not
for Sale”, “National Unified Education, Public and Free of Charge”. The newspaper clipping reads:
“Two Schools for Sale. Facilities”. The league table is a school marketing device and reads “Aim to
achieve”. The picture in the centre shows Concertación and right-wing political representatives
celebrating the agreement for carrying out a market-accountability reform in education (2008).
276!
!
Concluding Discussion
Public and private-state funded schools have experienced significant transformations

in Chile in recent decades. Market-led policies were introduced in the 1980s in the
context of a military dictatorship. Since the 1990s, accountability policies have been
increasingly used as a way to ‘regulate’ the educational market schema. As I suggest
in Chapter 1, these policies place schools in a complex scenario with multiple
regulations and pressures, including state standards and assessments, parental
demands, local policies, and new managerial tasks. This configuration has given rise
to the performing school, with the mission to constantly act and perform for others in
order to compete, remain attractive, and position itself advantageously in the
marketplace (Ball, 2001, 2003; Gleeson and Husbands, 2001; §1.2).
The purpose of this thesis has been to analyse in the Chilean context how the
performing school is produced and experienced. The research attempts to understand
how educational institutions (schools, municipalities and Regional Ministries of
Education) and their members comprehend and put into practice accountability
policies within a market-competing schema, and to study the effects of these policies
in terms of educational quality, diversity, and social justice.
The notion of lived markets, derived from the educational sociology field, is also
important to this research (Gewirtz et al., 1995; Lauder and Hughes et al., 1999;
§1.3.1). This concept interrogates neoliberal assumptions of how markets work,
suggesting that they are messy and complex, since they are socially embedded and
their concrete production entails multiple contextual factors coming into play within
a hierarchical field. Following this perspective, the study developed a qualitative-
comprehensive approach, in a small number of institutions, in order to intensively
explore how this market + accountability schema is socially practised and ‘lived’ in
the local arena.
In the first section of this chapter, the main findings of the research are summarised
and discussed, linking them to the literature review, and key theoretical concepts
such as governance, performativity, and institutional habitus. In the second section of
the chapter, I examine the current educational-policy setting in Chile, elaborate
policy recommendations, and define future research directions.
277
Chapter nine: Concluding Discussion
In general terms, I argue that the policy configuration of market + accountability

schema has not solved the country’s educational problems as is suggested by policy-
makers, nor brought educational freedom, quality, and equity. Moreover, the study
provides evidence that the contrary occurs: these policies i) damage the quality of
teaching, triggering exam-oriented methods; ii) intensify inequities among and
within schools, iii) lead to a major investment in school image, reputation and on
quick and visible solutions, instead of profound and long-term changes iv) increase
hierarchical and bureaucratic systems of control.
These effects do not occur randomly. They are micro-policies that are employed in
order to compete in the market. In other words, the educational schema awards and
gives advantages to institutions that fulfil these kinds of strategies. In this sense, I
argue that these effects are not ‘unintended consequences’, neither are there school
staff that implement accountability policies ‘correctly’ while others do so
‘incorrectly’. The identified policy responses among the case studies are the most
effective strategies available for competing advantageously. In other words, for
schools and municipalities, delivering an exam-oriented curriculum, increasing
inequities among and within schools, focusing on school marketing, and adding
managerial and hierarchical control technologies, are advantageous micro-policies
for remaining attractive within the performance-market schema. Furthermore , these
findings show that recent reforms not only produce concrete changes in school
practices, but overall governance technologies generate pervasive and extensive
effects entailing an ethical transformation of how schooling and teaching is
understood and practiced (Ball, 2006; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Gewirtz, 2002).
Innovative and progressive teaching, and equity-based local policies, and democratic
school management all conflict with the dominant model. These educational aims
play against an institution’s ability to compete in the market and acquire a privileged
positioning. Therefore, in terms of policy recommendations, I argue that the
identified problems are not solved by adding or ‘amending’ school incentives, or by
offering teachers more space and time for reflexive thinking and collaborative work.
I propose that a holistic change is required that entails an alternative non-competitive
educational model that situates schools within a different philosophical and ethical
paradigm.
278!
Section 1. Discussion of Research Findings
This section is divided into three parts. First, the beneficial expectations of
accountability policies within a market-led schema are questioned, referring to
quality improvement, teaching innovation and educational diversity. Second, the
practice of state-governance under a post-bureaucratic regime is analysed, and the
extent of its power technologies is explored. Third, social justice issues are debated,
referring to the identified micro-policies of segregation and uneven resource
distribution among and within schools, the effects of these practices on school
habitus, and the fairness of making schools responsible for their performance
outcomes is also challenged.
1. Policy Effects of Accountability Regimes: Quality Improvement, Teaching

Innovation, and Educational Diversity?
A first aim of this study is to interrogate the expected outcomes of accountability

policies within an educational market landscape. Key leading questions are: Do
accountability policies encourage school staff to continuously improve the quality of
education? Do these policies motivate schools to innovate and generate diverse
curriculum provision? Do educational institutions manage themselves
autonomously?
I find, on the basis of the network case studies, that the policy effects of
accountability + market policies are far from what is expected by policy-makers.
Although these policies may trigger positive contributions in some circumstances, I
argue that, on the whole, they substantially damage teaching and learning. These
policies impoverish schooling practices, pushing them towards mechanical and
homogeneous teaching methods, rather than enriching diverse and innovative
learning experiences; and forming an overall performative culture (§5, §7). Even
though local markets are developed in different ways in each particular setting, in
the Chilean context case studies strikingly confirm and extend a body of critical
literature, which has demonstrated similar effects in other parts of the world, such as
in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States (§1).
Teaching innovation and quality improvement?

All case study institutions seek to achieve an advantageous position in the
marketplace, through increasing national test scores and schools’ league table
positions, in order to attract parents and improve schools’ overall reputations (§5).
279!
The data shows, in extensive terms, that institutional targets and individual desires
are strongly co-opted by accountability policies. SIMCE scores are understood as
truths that tell us ‘who we are’ and ‘what we aspire to be’, fundamentally altering the
notion of public comprehensive schooling and of professionalism. So, ‘excellence’,
‘high SIMCE test scores’, and ‘school prestige’ are desires circulating within
subjects’ political mentalities. Boosting test outcomes occupies an overriding priority
in the minds of individuals.
These are profound and persistent aims strongly aligned with state centralised
targets. Yet performance targets are not uniformly understood. Genuine aspirations
emerge for achieving ‘good schools’ for all and effectively improving pupils’
learning outcomes. At the same time, these performance aims are also entangled with
other meanings and interests such as: raising school professionals’ self-esteem and
gratification; proving to municipality managers that a rural school is worth
maintaining; improving a mayor’s political prestige, and showing parents the value
of their children attending a particular school (§6). These examples provide evidence
of the broad extension of performance aims and judgements, as they ‘make sense’
and are employed in diverse micro-spheres, exceeding the purpose of ‘informing’
parents.
Performance targets are also twisted and reformulated within the ‘games of truth’,
producing different narratives of school purposes. On the one side, there is a
pedagogical version of testing policies, constructed mainly by teacher staff, and on
the other side, there is a more marketised version of the same policies more
emphatically advocated by school managers, coming from the municipal and private
sector. Both visions legitimise the importance of increasing test scores; however,
they entail different interpretations and emphases. The pedagogical narrative
underscores improving and innovating teachers’ daily practices, involving profound
and long-term changes. Meanwhile, the marketised narrative underlines visible
outcomes that are exhibited to the public, together with employing efficent and
economic strategies. Although these two perspectives co-exist, the pedagogical
narrative is usually in a marginalised position within institutions (§6).
The study identifies the diverse tactics that institutions develop in the micro sphere
for performance competition (§5). The data shows that schools have intensified an
‘exam–oriented curriculum’, which entails a set of teaching technologies in order to
improve test scores. These include: narrowing the curriculum spectrum and giving
priority to nationally assessed subjects and grade levels; systematic measurement of
280!
pupils’ assessment-progress; pupil preparation for standardised tests, through classes,

workshops and homework, and student sorting out and setting. These strategies are
accompanied by new managerial tools at the local level, employing highly structured
methods for control, such as school audits, teacher assessment, local standardised
tests, and target-incentives, in addition to other bureaucratic artefacts, such as
planning formats, management assessment tools, and achievement indicators.
These identified micro-policies involve the reproduction, multiplication, and

intensification of national managerial and performance policies working at the local
level. The summation of all these strategies among the studied institutional networks
(regional ministry, municipality/private manager, school) entails thorough and
saturating effects for school staff. It is a kind of hyperactivism, a product of the
policies devised and accumulated at national state level, regional state level,
municipalities, schools, teaching classroom-practices, and even parental home-
practices. Not only does the central state constrain and pressure schools, but actors in
various micro-spheres desperately push tactics in order to increase test outcomes.
The school case studies reveal that accountability policies apply pressure to teach the
nationally assessed curriculum areas, which many members recognise has entailed
more academically challenging teaching, with emphasis on cognitive skills. For
example, the disadvantaged school case study (Low Hill School) became much more
concerned to make sure all children read at the first year (6-7 years old), starting to
teach reading in Kinder, and encouraging parental support at home. Also, these
policies have encouraged schools to systematically measure children’s learning
progress, identifying in much more detailed ways learning attainments and
unaccomplished targets, serving as feedback for further class work.
In spite of these positive effects, the research recognises a much more profound
transformation in the overall pedagogical approach within schools, as they have
intensified a traditional teaching approach, linked to mechanical techniques. This
involves damaging consequences for the quality of education, since there is an
increase in abstract ‘paper-pencil’ tasks and an obsession with constant measurable
assessment, leaving aside creative, reflexive-thinking and meaningful learning. These
pedagogical shifts represent a highly structured and directed approach, based on the
repetition of exercises, assessing exact and measurable knowledge, and fomenting
competition among pupils (§5.2). School curriculum is also markedly narrowed to
the nationally assessed subjects, since schools exacerbate and reinforce these
curriculum areas, leaving others aside.
281!
These effects alienate teachers and students, as Wrigley (2003) argues. Moreover, “it
trivialises learning, making it increasingly difficult to think through the world we
live in and understand the powerful forces which structure our lives” (Idem. p.109).
This standardised kind of teaching is coherent with what Lauder (2003b) has argued
as today’s low-skill economy, contrary to the illusion of preparing the high-skilled
human capital supposedly required by a complex global economy. As the author
alleges: “In essence, a market system of education is entirely consistent with a low
wage, low technology economy precisely because it is likely to produce the low
skilled, low trust personalities for such an economy” (Idem., p. 390).
These teaching effects are particularly problematic in disadvantaged schools, serving

pupils with a greater range of abilities (e.g. The Low Hill School, The Canelo
School, §5.2). Teaching-staff explain that they have to speed-up pupils’ learning
processes and have difficulties teaching and assessing pupil diversity. Also, it is
suggested that test preparation demands work on the basis of abstract exercises,
while many pupils would also benefit from concrete tasks linked to meaningful and
context-based situations. Hence, teachers are strongly constrained to cover extensive
national curriculum contents and to improve standardised test outcomes, while at the
same time having to attend to pupils’ diverse learning needs, rhythms and
(mis)behaviour. In addition, finding a balance between academic demands and value
formation is also difficult for teachers. School members note that, in a disadvantaged
context, most pupils especially require a supportive and caring environment,
strengthening children’s self-confidence and personal and social skills.
Carrasco (2010), referring to the Chilean context, argues that accountability and
managerial policies do not respond to the complex and distinctive nature of learning
and teaching processes within disadvantaged schools, hindering, rather than
supporting, teachers’ efforts to meet pupils’ emotional and learning needs. As the
author maintains: “reform is inspired by principles of homogenisation,
standardisation, control, and targets, in cases where schools facing challenging
circumstances actually need differentiation, more identification, flexibility, and
contextualised responses” (p.266).
Educational diversity and institutional autonomy?

The setting described above shows ways in which the institutions studied here are
powerfully disciplined by policy targets, norms and discourses, steering their daily
practices and routines. State policies overload educational institutions and limit their
possibilities of autonomy and capacity to offer diverse and innovative educational
282!
projects. The public and private school managers focussed on here are examples of
how devolved school managers placed in educational markets do not ‘freely’ produce
diverse educational provision. On the contrary, managers tend to reproduce and even
intensify centralised aims and strategies.
Although in some cases there are shades of school diversity, it appears as a

‘marketing diversity’, working as a strategy for competing in the market, improving
school reputation (§7). Efforts are emphatically expended on producing and
exhibiting performance success, giving less attention to curriculum innovation and
substantial transformations. In effect, there is no evidence of participative projects
that incorporate the vision of families, of school staff, and/or of the community at
large.
This ‘market diversity’ revealed the enforcement of an artificial diversity (§7, see the
case of the White Hill Municipality). Public schools are forced to differentiate in
order to compete in the market. Distinctiveness is understood as a quality of private
schools that public schools should imitate, avoiding the appearance of sameness.
Paradoxically the idea of diverse school provision appears among the data as a quite
homogeneous offer. Institutional tactics produce, shape and exacerbate traditional
prototypes of ‘unique’ and ‘successful’ education. So, rather than school diversity, a
uniform attempt to make public schools seem like private schools occurs
(disciplined, selective, religious), but with the social benefits of the public sector
(e.g. SEN teachers, health and dental care).
This school image is reduced to what educational managers hypothetically suppose

parents demand, creating a cliché of a traditional and successful school. Therefore,
rather than schools responding to parents’ interests, school managers employ and re-
produce market-performative discourses of the ‘good school’. As Lubienski (2003)
argues:
While many reforms assume that consumers shape the market as it

responds to parental preferences, marketing practices demonstrate that
this relationship is more complex, with school sensing, but also shaping,
consumer preferences by defining what ‘real’ or ‘good’ schooling is
through their marketing. Thus, rather than diversifying options, the
marketing seems to emphasize a rather monolithic model of schooling.
(p.27-28)
283!
Specifically, the school ‘diversities’ which appeared among the data were: strict
disciplinary code; preparation for work and a promotion of ‘entrepreneurial spirit’;
religious components and incorporation of conservative and patriotic values, and
extra-curriculum programmes and resources, such as English teaching, music bands,
and ICT resources. These distinctive educational offers are related to conservative
ideology and a traditional understanding of school discipline, added to attractive
school components that boost market image. Additionally, there are institutions that
elaborated local policies as distinct from those of the central state (e.g. The Regional
Ministry of Education, §6, The Eagle Municipality, §7), yet these local initiatives
involve the increase of pro-market and accountability policies, including school self-
government, outsourcing policies and ‘management by performance’ devices.
Consequently, there are local policies and particular projects that may appear to be
different from the central state policies, such as conservative or religious curriculum
approaches and the extension of market or managerial policies. However, these local
policies assemble, complement and even deepen the prevailing policy schema. They
are not alternative policies; they neither challenge the overall educational
competitive model, nor do they put at risk an institution’s market positioning. It is a
framed diversity that remains within the market outline.
In the meantime, there are ‘diversities’ that threaten schools’ ability to compete in
the marketplace. In particular, building a discourse about social justice and a
democratic comprehensive school agenda does not fit smoothly into the current
educational model (§8). Institutions located in disadvantaged communities, such as
the Low Hill School, that attempt to respond to the community and pupils’ needs and
demands, are catalogued as unsuccessful schools together with a weak institutional
leadership. The ‘mother-caring’ leadership style is understood as troubling and
ineffective, as it lacks high performance outcomes and appealing initiatives.
Therefore, I again claim that the production of ‘school diversity’ is not free, nor
open. It is a restricted arrangement within the permitted boundaries of the market-
performativity schema, which outlines appropriate and inappropriate diversities.
All in all, markets and state technologies have shifted ways in which schooling is
understood and practised, disciplining educational institutions into competition
logics and an overall performative ethos. Even though there are variations, the data
shows persistent and expanding efforts among different types of educational
institutions to increase performance outcomes. These changes have homogenised and
narrowed the school curriculum, along with the deterioration of the quality and
284!
richness of teaching, since mechanical, abstract and non-meaningful methods are

reinforced in order to increase test scores. Additionally, ‘school diversity’ is
commonly transformed into a cliché of the ‘traditional and successful school’, as a
market strategy to attract parental choice. Overall, on the basis of the data it is not
possible to establish direct links between the dominant educational model and the
advancement of educational quality, diversity, and innovation.
2. Governance, Power, and Control
In this subsection the former analysis of performative practices and ethos is

connected with the concept of state governance and the extension and effectiveness
of its power technologies among the case study networks and a wide range of agents.
Additionally, governance effects on individual feelings and emotions are analysed, as
well as micro-managerial tactics. Fear, anxiety, and the sense of being disempowered
are quite pervasive feelings, which activate an intensification of hierarchical and
bureaucratic management tools, as well as ‘soft’ tactics, such as persuasion, rewards,
threats, and blame. Overall, my research results provide evidence that the prevailing
market schema has not offered more autonomy and ‘freedom’ to educational
institutions. On the contrary, there is a strong desire to control others in order to
ensure a thriving institutional and professional future.
The extension of governance power

The research provides evidence of the extensive and pervasive forms of power under
a post-bureaucratic state. In this scheme, the state sets the rules of the game,
controlling ‘at a distance’, through policy technologies, such as school assessment,
classifications, awards and sanctions. Policy discourses also play a key role as they
‘make meaning’ of schooling, establishing notions of the desirable and undesirable
school (§2.2). Rose (1992, 1996) notes that the most powerful effect of this kind of
power is that, rather than repressing individuals, it shapes ‘political mentalities’. As
the author says: “governing in a liberal-democratic way means governing through the
freedom and aspirations of subjects rather than in spite of them” (1992, p.147).
Hence, modern governance or governmentality, involves the ‘conduct of the
conduct’ in Foucault’s terms (1978); it forms individuals’ rationality for conducting
their ‘freedom’ within a neoliberal era.
The data illustrate the effective and economic power of state technologies within the
marketplace. Policy discourses and technologies steer institutional priorities and
practices, penetrating into institutional daily life. Different dimensions of
285!
performative micro-policies persistently appear in all data chapters of this thesis (§4-
8). These findings testify to a pervasive and homogenizing effect. Strategies of
different magnitudes are delivered in order to compete in the educational field,
attempting to demonstrate ‘successful’ outcomes. Moreover, local institutions not
only aim and follow state targets and policies, but also continue to set up new sorts
of market and performative technologies, employing and re-producing the available
policy repertoire.
Following Foucault (1979, 1980, §2.2), market and performative policies work as
disciplinary techniques for the population, entailing observation, normalizing
judgement and examination, which produce ‘the power of normalisation’ with
homogenising effects among institutions. It is a productive and mobile power,
internalised by individuals as self-government. It is a kind of power that “produces
effects at the level of desire – and also at the level of knowledge” (Foucault, 1980,
p.59), since state targets are felt as personal aspirations. Therefore, it is not only that
school staff have changed their daily practices, for example ‘teaching to the test’, as
a body of US literature has evidenced (§1.3.1). An accountability regime,
furthermore, has a saturating effect on school managers and teachers’ thinking,
shaping the performative school (§1.2).
This is also the powerful effect of ‘governmentality’ (Foucault, 1991) that works
through dispersed networks, embracing diverse spheres, within and beyond the
frontiers of educational markets. This implies a process of ethical and social
transformation that flows within and beyond the educational market. The state, as
Newman (2005) points out: “continues to have a crucial role of metagovernance,
setting the rules of the game within which networks operate and steering the overall
process of coordination” (p.6).
The production of performativity as a school rationale is revealed in all case studies,

entailing an extensive range of individuals, such as the heads of regional ministries
of education, municipal managers, head teachers, teachers, parents and students.
These diverse subjects are entangled in this market + performance context, as they
produce tools, strategies and efforts for competing in the field. Furthermore, the data
shows how individuals push, encourage, and even threaten each other, in order to
improve performance outcomes (§5.5). Thus, power in the case studies works neither
as a sovereign power, in a top-down way, nor as the neoliberal conception of
devolved power. In Foucault’s (2006) words, power:
286!
is also organized as a multiple, automatic and anonymous power; for

although surveillance rests on individuals, its functioning is that of a
network of relationships from top to bottom, but also to a certain extent
from bottom to top and laterally; this network ‘holds’ the whole
together and traverses it in its entirety with effects of power that derive
from one another: supervisors perpetually supervised. (p.127)
Power is pervasive, mobile and reproductive; it flows and concentrates within these
different microspheres. It is produced and organised in multiple and anonymous
ways, coming from diverse points as a ‘polymorphous technique of subjugation’, in
Foucault’s terms (1980, p.96). Hence, daily performance practices are not an
enactment of a repressive power, directed against the will of a person, thereby
implying a binary relation between dominated and subordinated; rather, power is
(re)productive and multiple, working as a self-government.
Making the market

The research also provides evidence with which to think about the production of
educational markets and the extension of their effects (§6). The state is a ‘market-
maker’ in the educational field. For this task, not only are parental choice and
vouchers devised in order to create competition among public and private schools.
The state also establishes school targets, aspirations, categories, and systems of
differentiation, generating a competing rationale and performative activity (§5).
What is at stake in market competition is not only schools’ future capacity to survive
in the market and to increase pupils’ enrolment. More profoundly, state assessments
and classifications produce truths about the meaning and value of schools and those
who work at and attend them (§4). These technologies not only judge the school, but
are also felt as judgements that extend to the individual. They enter into the
sensitivities, rationales, and daily efforts of subjects. National assessments and
official classifications appear as inescapable constraints. As a result, the meaning and
purpose of performance competition goes beyond market competition, such as
attracting parents and increasing the school budget.
In effect, the data offer evidence that subjects that are within and beyond the
boundaries of the provider-purchaser market are involved in performance
competition; such as a head of a regional ministry of education who seeks to
demonstrate successful regional performance, a mayor who is interested in
accumulating symbolic prestige as a ‘good’ mayor, a rural head teacher who wishes
to demonstrate high quality work to the municipal authorities, or a group of parents
who work for increasing test scores, feeling that these prove their children’s learning
287!
progress. Therefore, state technologies have much more powerful and multiple
effects than to externally ‘regulate’ the market and produce ‘neutral’ information for
the public.
This perspective questions the idea that markets and the state are entirely separate
entities. It is thought by many scholars and politicians that, while markets enable
parents to choose schools freely, the state regulates ‘minimum’ standards of quality
and equality, in positive, neutral and transparent ways (§1.1). However, following
Jessop’s work (2003), the state accomplishes a core role for the production of
educational markets. The state organises and mobilises the market, it creates
purposes for competition, categories, and justifications that make it function.
Therefore, the state is not just another actor within the educational market or the
regulator of ‘minimum’ national standards, but a central manufacturer of living
markets.
Fear, dissatisfaction, and an endless desire for control

The state technologies studied here trigger endless desires, fears and insecurities as a
way to grant meaning to competition, and therefore to make markets work
(Lazzarato, 2012). These circulating emotions are mixed with a strong need to
pressure and control staff in order to improve performance outcomes. To different
degrees, but in all case studies, there is an ongoing sense of dissatisfaction, distrust,
and blame towards ‘others’, including mayors, head teachers, teaching-staff, pupils
and/or parents, for not having the ability or willingness to improve school
performance outcomes. This is mixed with a general sense of discontent and
powerlessness because of not having sufficient control over these other subjects (see
especially The Eagle School, §4.2).
This feeling of being powerless is very significant among the case studies, emerging
in very different institutional contexts. This is a paradoxical effect for neoliberal
theory. Far from the notion of empowered and autonomous institutions, the data
shows mostly insecure institutional identities. Subsequently, there is a strong desire
among a variety of individuals to assess, drive and control others, and to deliver
severe and harsh sanctions for under-performance. It is a web of mutual pressures,
frustrations, threats, blame, and attempts to rule others, in order to improve school
test outcomes and reduce personal risks.
288!
In this sense, the centralised-authoritarian power mode has not ended, nor
diminished. The sense of risk and competition intensifies an authoritarian
management style, rather than a democratic-collegial management approach that
appears slow, unpredictable, and difficult to control, in order to foster positive
market competition results (see Gewirtz, 2002 for similar findings, §1.3.3).
Interviewees recognised that the prevailing managerial approach is coupled with
authoritarian and hierarchical dispositions, which are understood as having historical
roots within the country. However, these top-down historical practices are renewed
and transformed within a competitive setting. Individuals ‘make sense’ of state
assessments and standardised policies, while old and new forms of control and
authoritarianism are produced and deepened.
This atmosphere intensifies a management obsession with continuous control,

implying an endless attempt to scrutinise and manipulate all school practices.
Governance tools are exacerbated, increased and diversified by the regional ministry,
municipalities, and senior school staff. The data shows ways in which a variety of
managerial devices are being used, such as target-setting, monitoring, and evaluation
systems. This accumulation of power tactics not only implies an attempt to control
school outcomes, but also to intrude into daily life practices, bureaucracies and
procedures, employing, for example, standardised planning formats, standard grade
tests, and prescriptive lesson-by-lesson programmes.
Thus, the ‘old’ bureaucracy, following historical hierarchical relationships, are

merged and renovated through new post-bureaucratic technologies. Not only are
school results meticulously guided and controlled, but also school everyday routines
and procedures. In other words, not only are indirect tactics employed, but also
direct, top-down, explicit and most obvious power strategies for pushing schools to
do things in certain ways. This means that the state not only employs a panoptical
control ‘at a distance’, but also a mixed conception of power involving disciplinary
and sovereign power (Foucault, 1979, 1980). So, as Ball and Junemann (2012)
explain, former welfare-bureaucratic state technologies are also used, although they
are positioned and combined differently, changing their overall purpose and
meaning.
3. Social In/justice Matters
In this section, social in/justice issues are addressed. First, micro-policies related to
equity are identified and analysed, such as pupil selection/exclusion, unequal
289!
distribution of teachers, and imbalanced resource supply among schools. Second, the
effects of state classifications and league tables are discussed, arguing that these
reinforce school divisions rather than motivating schools to improve. Third, in an
increasingly segmented setting, schools’ habitus are examined, as staff experiment
with a stronger polarisation in terms of institutional identities, purposes, and ethos.
All in all, I argue that school inequities are exacerbated in a market-performative
setting, rather than being reduced. Furthermore, these inequities and their
intensification make the market work.
Selection, exclusion, and unequal resource allocation

The research results suggest that local authorities’ social justice aims refer mainly to
improving school quality standards and performance outcomes in underprivileged
areas, and so reduce test-score gaps. In this manner, the concern for ‘quality’
performance co-opts the concern for ‘equity’. Additionally, this understanding is
concerned mainly with ‘underperforming schools’, identified as an isolated problem,
solved through institutional support and performance pressure. Meanwhile,
relational social justice, referring to the norms and regulations among
institutions/individuals (Gewirtz, 2002), is a dimension little thought about in critical
ways (§8.1).
Moreover, state equity policies that regulate the distribution of school resources (e.g.
teachers, pupils) are uncomfortable for individuals, especially for local authorities
and those more advantaged school managers. Equity regulations enforced in all
schools (e.g. non-pupil selection, restrictions to expulsion), bother institutional
members. These policies are perceived as unfair and hinder competition in a market
scenario. In this setting, it is legitimate to avoid equity regulations, in favour of
market competition. There is a kind of tolerance for injustice, together with the
marginalisation of values such as social commitment, comprehensiveness, and the
general significance of public schooling.
In effect, the research captures practices of pupil recruitment, selection and

exclusion. Not only are these practices delivered, they are also accepted and
overlooked by local school managers, including regional ministries of education and
municipalities. These intermediate bodies are not capable of mediating equity
policies, since they are also embedded within market competition. Consequently,
while these local institutions strongly centralise performing curriculum policies, they
devolve social justice issues to schools. So school managers must deal with these
290!
social in/justice matters by themselves, with neither local authority regulation nor
inspection.
Additionally, the study identifies that local operators and school managers
strategically distribute resources among schools, classrooms and students in unequal
ways. Children, families and teachers become core resources for school competition.
They are carefully evaluated, selected, and distributed. In this way, an ‘economy of
worth’ (Ball et al., 1998, §8.1) is produced within the educational field, not only
referring to pupils and families’ ‘worth’, but also among a more extensive calculation
and distribution of ‘human capital’, including school staff.
Furthermore, school managers exercise educational triage (Gillborn and Youdell,

2000; Youdell, 2004, §6.1). They calculate, divide, and predict where and how to
invest; i.e. in which school, grade, classroom or pupil, so as to boost test results and
attain the most ‘profitable’ outcomes. In this way, the market schema subjectivises
individuals into this calculating-competition rationale of how to achieve and
maintain an advantaged position, how to reduce risk, how to overcome others and
assure a flourishing performance. It is an entrepreneurial type of thinking that shapes
political mentalities, injecting the economic rationale into the educational field
(§2.1).
For instance, at the local level the municipalities and regional ministry strategically
support and boost ‘borderline schools’ (intermediate achieving) in order to increase
and show positive outcomes. This is done by allocating high-performing pupils,
well-assessed teachers, and other extra support or funds to these kinds of institutions
(§6.1, §8.1). Meanwhile, other schools are systematically neglected, and must
receive the ‘system leftovers’, such as pupils with learning problems and
misbehaviour, and less competent teachers. Therefore, equity policies are not
enforced in all schools in the same ways. While popular schools and ‘borderline
schools’ are allowed to skip equity policies (for example non-pupil selection and
serving children with special needs), other schools, mostly unpopular, are forced to
apply these regulations (§8.2).
Therefore, educational managers contribute to deliberately shape and steer markets,

as they encourage some sections of the educational system to compete, while holding
others back. These imbalanced investments alternately enrich or diminish pupils and
schools’ opportunities and experiences. In this manner, institutional practices
abandon the idea of a state that treats all schools and pupils equally or according to
291!
positive discrimination criteria. Thus, rather than school inequities being decreased
by educational managers, they are increased.
These imbalancing micro-policies, entailing policies of privilege and unequal

resource distribution, enable institutions to stand out and be attractive within the
performance-market schema. The enactment of these strategies award institutions
with a good reputation, in spite of the fact that they are, in a wider sense, partial
achievements and that they strengthen inequities. In other words, investing equally in
all schools, classrooms and pupils, or investing in extremely disadvantaged schools
or pupils with learning problems, does not grant institutions visible and remarkable
results. Within this rationale, the intensification of inequities is tolerated in exchange
for the symbolic profit of a few visible achievements.
Putting it boldly, increasing inequities among schools, classrooms and students,

enables some institutions to boost and display their ‘success’ and to compete in a
more advantageous manner within the educational markets. This is carried out at the
expense of the ‘failure’ of others. So, not only are social justice problems not tackled
at the micro level, they are deepened and at the same time rewarded by the
educational model. This is probably the most perverse aspect of a market-competing
model in education.
A critique of league tables

School league tables are a powerful policy technology in the education system,
maybe the most powerful. They embrace and synthesise core ingredients of the
performative-market schema. League tables label, sort and differentiate schools,
based on judgements of normality. They exhibit the truth of school assessments,
based on a restricted understanding of educational quality, narrowed to test
measurements of certain selected academic abilities. In this way, schools are exposed
to state judgements and are hierarchically ranked according to a competing logic.
This ‘information’ is produced in an apparently neutral way, individualising schools

as comparable institutions, responsible for their outcomes; while making invisible
the arbitrariness of the testing instruments, schools’ particular social context, and the
injustices of the whole education system. As Gillborn and Youdell (2000) claim: “the
glorification of academic results above all else, the individualisation of competition
and the philosophy of ‘naming and shaming’ are all present here, encapsulated for all
to see on a league table of pupils” (p.799).
292!
Under an accountability arrangement, it is expected that official school assessments,

classifications and league tables encourage schools to improve quality provision, as a
way to avoid a bad reputation. However, the research findings prove that, in effect,
this does not occur. In all case studies, state assessments activate other kinds of
responses. Contrary to policy-makers’ expectations, these technologies reinforce
schools’ positioning in the market, triggering satisfaction, pride and a sense of
deservedness in those popular schools, and frustration and shame in those unpopular
schools (§4).
Among the case studies, these responses are mixed, to varying degrees, with feelings
of insecurity and anxiety, along with an overall positional discourse based on a
matrix of competition, comparison and differentiation. Although at the same time,
institutions are sceptical about high performing schools assessments; the success of
nearby schools is attributed to external factors (e.g. pupil social mixture, higher
budget), i.e. not because of a better educational quality that should be imitated or
surpassed. Therefore, school competition does not necessarily challenge the rest of
the schools to improve their quality provision. The sense of competition is mainly
restricted to the desire to improve test scores and to attract pupils with higher social
capital.
On the other hand, schools’ own standardised assessments are not accepted in
straightforward ways. School staff elaborate their own narratives, moving, replacing,
twisting, and adjusting ‘objective’ assessments. Senior school managers, in
particular, assume a core role in articulating and communicating an overall
successful ‘story’, for making sense of the school and state judgements in positive
ways.149 Strategically, they highlight certain standardised results and obscure others.
Meanwhile, they create explanations for failures, attributing them mainly to external
causes (e.g. pupil learning problems, lack of academic support from the family,
resource deficiency). So, the identified causes of under-performance are factors that
the schools cannot possibly change. Although school managers and staff suggest
specific critical views of their own work, external standardised state judgements
encourage feelings of satisfaction as well as defensive justifications, shifting the
allocated responsibility for failure and blame towards others (such as pupils and their
families).
Therefore, state examinations and classifications are far from being passively
acknowledged and legitimated. School members play ‘games of truth’ reworking
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
149
See Ball et al. (2011) on the production of school narratives and how schools do policy work.
293!
prevailing regimes of truth and symbolic classifications in strategic and creative

ways, referring to their own school as well as other schools. So, individuals are both
disciplined by official judgements and performance discourses, yet they are also
actively committed to reworking their meaning in specific settings. Additionally,
these results show that state technologies do not trigger the expected benefits, such as
self-assessment, ‘institutional accountability’, and desire of quality improvement.
It is also important to emphasize that state assessments and classification work much
more smoothly in some schools than in others. In particular, they produce conflict,
despair and frustration within disadvantaged schools, such as the Low Hill School
(§4.3). Staff members feel an ‘injustice of misrecognition’, as Power and Franji
(2010, p.393) claim. In effect, recognition, according to Gewirtz (2006), is a key
dimension of social justice.150 In this case study, the school experiences the injustice
of recognition in terms of the pupils’ social disadvantages, structural schooling
inequities, and the degree and depth of the institutions’ daily contribution, all of
which are disregarded by official classifications.
Consequently, individuals are divided between the state judgement of a ‘failing

school’, and their self-assessment of a ‘good school’, viewed as a strongly dedicated
staff, committed to providing the best education as possible to those underprivileged
sections of the population. Hence, in addition to school staff facing complex
difficulties that imply serving pupils coming from disadvantaged areas, they are
sanctioned by being labelled as a ‘low performing school’, and additionally, divided
between these conflicting visions, having to invest a significant degree of energy and
narrative effort in order to make sense of their school.
In this sense, one of the most problematic aspects of these power technologies is that
they naturalise systems of privilege by ignoring them, while performance outcomes
appear as an individual merit and responsibility, independent of the policy setting
and pupils’ social and ethnic backgrounds. In Foucauldian terms, these judgements,
classifications and systems of order are core mechanisms of state power, working as
regimes of truth, which do not only display school inequities, but also constitute
them. Or, in Bourdieu’s terms, league tables are a symbolic system that organise and
hierarchically divides the social world, imposed and experienced as legitimate—
working therefore as symbolic violence.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
150
The author, following Nancy Fraser and Iris Marion Young, suggests three dimensions of social
justice: distributional, recognitional, and associational.
294!
On the whole, the research results prove that state standardised judgements
(including assessments, classifications and rankings) neither trigger critical self-
assessment nor encourage staff to improve the quality of their provision. In contrast,
these policies produce responses of satisfaction for members’ job achievements, as
well as self-justifying narratives that explain and excuse themselves from
institutional failures, allocating the causes to external factors beyond the school’s
control. Moreover, rather than challenging ‘low performing schools’ to improve,
teachers feel defeat, shame and put the responsibility, and therefore the blame, on
pupils and their families.
Polarising effects on school habitus

Prevailing governmental discourses have individualised the understanding of schools
and their outcomes. Nonetheless, this vision ignores a wider understanding of school
interconnectivity and the broader social inequities of the field. As shown previously,
there are implicit and explicit relational rules that sustain and even increase school
injustices, in addition to the different contexts and conditions under which schools
work. Therefore, I argue that the macro- and micro-policies analysed suggest that
‘success’ and ‘failure’ are two sides of the same coin that enables market
competition to function. Hence, the success of a few rests, to a large degree, upon
the failure of others.
Contrasting two case studies in the same borough (High and Low Hill School, §8.3),
I illustrate the causes of uneven school market-positioning and conditions, entailing
differentiated institutional funds, pupil and family social and academic capital,
teacher expectations and teaching abilities. Additionally, these inequities are also
caused by the described imbalancing micro-policies, and reinforced by state
assessments and league tables. The two schools’ unequal field positioning, added to
the national and local policies studied, affect in dissimilar and increasingly polarised
ways staff self-understandings, experiences and daily practices.
In general terms, the popular school (High Hill School) has built an identity narrative
of a successful traditional school. Senior managers and staff in general describe and
‘make-up’ the school as ‘the best school’ in the borough, seeing it as strict and
academically challenging. This narrative is produced and accumulated historically,
and also strengthened by available state assessments and league tables. On the other
hand, the unpopular school (Low Hill School) is placed at the bottom of the league
table, and in recent years it has experienced a significant loss of pupils, but an
increase in pupils expelled from other schools. This school, by contrast to the former
295!
school, has shaped a school ethos of a ‘caring school’, following an ‘expressive

logic’, focused on social containment with less academic ambition.
This reinforcement of school segregation offers pupils unequal learning opportunities

and experiences. Both schools deliver different kinds of educational provision,
entailing a different ethos, practices, rules, as well as understandings of the possible
and impossible for us (Bourdieu, 1990, 2007). So while in one school it is acceptable
to reject pupils with learning difficulties, for example, the other school understands
that they should, and must, accept them. Also, while one school can replace a badly-
assessed teacher, the other school must receive that same teacher. Or while one
school demands that the Ministry of Education, municipality and school community
provide ‘the best’ school building in the borough, the other school accepts the worst
building in the borough and does not dare ask for significant building improvements
since the school is being threatened with closure by the municipality. These are
examples of complex subjectivities and detailed micro-policies that shape inequities
within local markets.
This data shows that increasing inequities across the market shape school habitus in
more polarised ways (§2.2), in terms of differentiated school purposes, meanings,
and expectations. School positioning in the market-field, together with pupil social
composition, teacher characteristics (e.g. class identity, qualifications, teaching
abilities), school market reputation, and state classifications affect institutions’
collective inter-subjectivity; having an differentiated impact on school ethos,
individual dispositions and assumptions, and everyday practices.
Hence, school habitus and the institutional positioning in the market-field have a
reciprocal effect.151 In general terms, school habitus maintains and stabilises school
market hierarchies and divisions. So, not only does the uneven distribution of school
resources produce inequities, but also an institutional habitus that enables individuals
to act within the field.
However, regarding the contested discussion about institutional habitus (§2.2), it is

important to mention that this reproductive function of habitus is a tendency, neither
deterministic nor eternal, as Bourdieu suggests (2007, 2011b). It evolves and changes
as it interacts with the field, the institutional sphere and members’ agency.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
151
See Ball and Maroy (2009) for a discussion of the links of school positioning in the market and the
production of ‘logics of action’ (§1.3, §6.1).
296!
In effect, the research illustrates ways in which schools, for example, re-elaborate
narratives of national targets and school purposes, challenging and reconstructing the
meaning of school performance outcomes. Also, school responses and alternative
solutions vary amongst case studies and over time. For example, I revisited the Low
Hill School two years later for further research. The former head teacher had retired,
and the General Inspector replaced her. This new head, together with the senior
managers, decided to focus on increasing standardised tests “in spite of the pupils’
backgrounds”, as she explained to me, acquiring a strongly academic-instrumental
school approach. Therefore, institutional habitus is an enduring, yet mobile matrix of
collective dispositions, categories and practices that must be understood in light of
the broader market-field and an institution’s historical trajectory. In effect, this
institutional shift has very different implications in terms of teaching and effects on
pupils, by contrast to the High Hill School, although both schools practised an
instrumental approach.
I would like to insist on the richness and potential of the concept of institutional
habitus, although, it must be carefully used (as other scholars recognise, e.g. Reay, et
al. 2001; Reay, et al. 2010). The theoretical contribution of this concept is not only
that it offers a critical understanding of institutions’ naturalised assumptions and
everyday practices. Institutional habitus, in addition, helps to examine the
interrelations between the field and the individual, and how institutions mediate
between them. This analysis suggests considering the effects of institutional
positioning in the broader field, and how this shapes a collective inter-subjectivity,
reproducing and/or transforming institutional location in the social space. This is a
key analytic focus of this concept. However, habitus is a flexible and multi-layered
conceptual tool, and it can also be employed within institutions, capturing the
internal nuances, disputes and ongoing changes, taking into account different agents’
positioning within the school (understood in this sense as a micro-field).
Overall, in this section I wish to argue that macro- and micro-policies have not only
affected the concrete distribution of school resources, but also, more profoundly, the
subjectivities embodied within institutions, strongly linked to the role institutions
play within the wider field. Although I am aware of schools’ internal nuances,
conflicts, and changing dynamics, in general terms I state that the increasing social
and academic segmentation among schools has polarised school habitus, including
schools’ sense of positioning, aims and expectations.
297!
This analysis, together with a body of critical literature (§1.3.2), leads to the
interrogation of the fairness of school assessments and classifications. School
identities, everyday practices and performance results are intimately coupled with the
school social context. It is also affected by the market and state policy devices that
maintain and even reinforce unequal school market positioning and opportunities
offered to schools (§8.3). All these elements are intertwined and impossible to
detach. Therefore, school performance outcomes turn out to be partial, inaccurate
and incomparable among schools. Moreover, the idea that schools must be
completely accountable for their test results is an unjust demand.
Concluding Discussion of Research Findings (Section 1)
In this thesis I have studied in depth how accountability policies are produced and
experienced in local education institutions, within a market-led schema. The Chilean
neoliberal educational model was initiated under the right-wing military dictatorship
during the 1980s. Later, this policy formula was thought to be amended and
improved under the Concertación (centre-left-wing coalition of 1990-2010), adding a
set of accountability policies to the ‘free market’ in order to assure education
‘quality’ and ‘equity’ (§1.4), and configuring, in this way, a ‘market-performativity
schema’.
The research findings that analyse the effects of this model prove that core
institutional mechanisms for competing advantageously are: an examination-oriented
curriculum (‘teaching for the test’); an increase in pupil selection, sorting out and
exclusion, as well as unequal resource distribution among and within schools and
classrooms, in order to boost and show certain ‘successes’, while neglecting
‘failures’; a stronger management focus on visible results, employing a ‘quick-fix’
management thinking, giving less attention to long-term and unmeasurable aims; and
an augmenting of managerial bureaucratic work and hierarchical control.
It may be surmised that these institutional responses are ‘undesired consequences’

delivered by weak head teachers, or by uncommitted teachers, as some scholars have
suggested (e.g. Koretz, 2005; Looney, 2009; Hamilton et al., 2002; Popham, 2002;
§1.3). From this perspective, testing formats and policy dis/incentives should be
fixed in such a way that these kinds of secondary effects are avoided, and
additionally, schools should receive more school support and opportunities for
teachers’ to engage in reflexive thinking.
298!
Although these responses vary among individuals, and I do not deny individual
agency and responsibility, I claim that this is not an overall problem set mainly at the
individual level. The educational model is designed with a market logic that demands
and awards institutions for delivering the competing strategies mentioned previously.
So what has been called ‘secondary effects’ are in reality key strategies that are
consistent with the prevailing model, and moreover, they bring effective school
outcomes. The idea of a comprehensive school that innovates pedagogically,
produces democratic community interrelationships, and contributes to social
justice is problematic under the market model, since this alternative schooling
approach hinders institutions’ ability to compete and acquire an advantaged
positioning.
On the whole, the research results show that markets neither work mechanically, as
imagined by neoliberal thinkers, providing ‘freedom’ and ‘diversity’, nor do state
accountability policies ‘regulate’ the system, assuring ‘quality’ and ‘equity’, as
envisaged by Concertación politicians and ‘Third-way’ scholars. What is more, I
argue that the Concertación’s accountability policy arrangement has exacerbated
inequities and market competition, rather than minimising it. This set of state
policies contributes to further the market, rather than ‘regulating’ it, providing
subjects with desires, justifications and meanings for competing, sharpening
hierarchical divisions among institutions, rather than horizontal innovative
differences.
Therefore, in a policy hypothetical exercise, if Chile had maintained the market

model of the 1980s, with no state assessment-accountability policies, I venture to
suggest that the educational system would be less unequal than it is today, and at
least no worse in terms of educational quality, and would place less emphasis on
competition and demonstration of high test-scores.
Finally, although, the studied policies may produce positive contributions in specific
circumstances (e.g. raising the level of academic challenge in disadvantaged
schools), I suggest that these benefits can be triggered through other policies, within
an alternative model, that situates schools in relation to a different philosophical and
ethical paradigm. I develop this idea in the following section.
299!
Section 2: Policy Recommendations and outline of future research
In this final section, I shall briefly analyse the current policy setting in Chile and
formulate policy recommendations. Additionally, I shall refer to the limitations of
the thesis and suggest future research directions to be continued in this area.
Chile has a long history of market policies in education. And over the last ten to
fifteen years, with the Concertación government, accountability policies have been
added to the market schema. In 2008, as a response to the student movement called
‘Movimiento Pinguino’, the Constitutional Law of Education was reformed.
Students denounced huge inequities within the education system, and demanded a
strong state role and responsibility in school management, reducing market openness
(Falabella, 2008; García-Huidobro, 2007; §1.4).
The Concertación government at the time, under the mandate of President Michelle
Bachelet of the Socialist Party, together with the national Congress, devised, as a
solution to these civil requests, the creation of a new institutional matrix, entailing a
Superintendence and Quality Agency’ in charge of setting national standards,
assessments, and school inspections, as well as distributing parental school
information and responding to failing school results. Although accountability
policies had begun previously, this new nomenclature represents the consolidation of
a post-welfare regime in Chilean education (§1.1). This institutional arrangement is
getting started, and it should be fully working from 2013.
I must note that formulating policy advice in this policy context is a difficult task
because, in Chile today accountability discourses are a dominant policy doxa,
understood as good and necessary (§5.1, §5.5). After the student Pinguino movement
(2006-2007), the Concertación government strategically claimed that it agreed with
the civil movement claims. The government’s line of argument was that inequity was
due to the ‘bad free-market’ designed under Pinochet’s dictatorship, and that the
solution was a ‘strong state’ that sets standards and assessments with clear
‘consequences’ for performance.
In this way, the recent consolidation of the market-accountability regime, with the
Constitutional reform, was built with a left-inclined policy tone of a strong-
protective-state. The right-wing political parties also agreed with the model, since it
maintained and sharpened the overall market schema. Consequently, this policy
model is highly legitimated within the country, bringing together ‘renewed-left’,
300!
centre and right-wing political views. Nevertheless, I must note that the exacerbation
of testing policies under the new right-wing government of President Sebastián
Piñera (2010-2014), and the commencement of the ‘Quality Agency’ institution,
have brought initial, although few, critical voices that interrogate the prevailing
understandings and principles that hold up the model.
Bearing this policy setting in mind, I draw three policy recommendations.
First recommendation: Deconstruction of policy truths. A first policy

recommendation, and a challenge for academics and other social actors, is to
inaugurate a public discussion on the prevailing truths that are rooted in today’s
market-accountability schema. For instance, to discuss and reflect upon: What does
educational quality mean? Towards what kind of school are market-accountability
policies leading the country’s education? What are the core ethical principles to
which we wish our schools to beholden? What policy alternatives can be created for
achieving a more democratic, comprehensive and just educational system?
In this sense, I expect that this thesis, together with other pieces of research, can
make a contribution to the interrogation and deconstruction of market-accountability
hegemonic truths. This is a fundamental task, requiring critical thinking among
policy-makers, as well as among school managers, teachers, students and families,
who are entangled in these prevailing discourses and performative activity.
Second recommendation: A holistic change. A deep and holistic reform is required in

order to move from a market-performativity schema to a model based on
professional values, democratic principles, and social justice aims. This is an
important point. Partial changes within an overall competition-based schema will not
produce significant changes. Therefore, testing policies can be improved or reduced,
or teacher support increased, or equity regulations strengthened; yet, if the
competitive rationale is at the basis of the model, it will still drive schools towards a
performing culture, and these partial policy changes will surrender to this logic
anyway. For instance, the thesis suggests that, despite the presence of equity
regulations, they are evaded whenever possible, since competition is the ultimate
purpose. Teacher training courses and reflexive-meetings are also strongly
subjugated to test preparation matters. Accountability policies in a market scenario
produce expansive and pervasive effects, and are transformed into overriding school
aims (§5, §6), therefore changes need to be global, reforming the core pillars of the
education system.
301!
In particular, I note that national curriculum, standards and tests can be helpful policy
tools in order to guide schools’ work. However, the key issue is how these state
devices are laid out and combined. I have provided evidence in this thesis of the
problematic effects produced when these state tools are linked to market information
and state dis/incentives. It is the policy concatenation of testing, results
dissemination, school classification, and awards/sanctions that generates harmful
consequences for both school quality and equity. Therefore, I suggest that state
curriculum, standards and assessments should be maintained for orientating public
policies and school tasks, especially regarding the uneven conditions under which
schools work in Chile. But assessment tools must not be transformed under any
circumstances into school targets, nor be disseminated to the public. In other words,
state curriculum and assessment devices must be used to support schools, rather than
linking them with the market and therefore converting them into technologies for
competition.
The policy approach I am suggesting seeks to emphasise school support and to

promote collaboration among teachers and schools, rather than fomenting
competition and punishment, that is, understanding that collaboration and
competition are opposing purposes, not complementary, hence it is one or the other.
Additionally, regarding the enormous social and academic inequities within Chile,
equity urgently needs to be addressed as the main purpose of the education system.
Subsequently, issues like non-pupil selection, parental fees, and uneven teacher
allocation and resource distribution should all be reviewed and meticulously
supervised in order to guarantee equity within the system. Moreover, schools must be
understood as a sphere within society that contributes to social cohesion and social
justice in general, i.e. that these issues are a core meaning and purpose of schools.
Third recommendation: communicational accountability. Currently, the dominant

understanding of accountability comes from neoliberal and managerial perspectives.
This view employs a hierarchical notion, in which institutions and professionals have
to account to the state and the market for school performance and outcomes. The
central idea is that school staff may be incapable or unwilling to ‘do things right’,
hence they need external indications, pressure and consequences in order to perform
as expected.
302!
Regarding the research findings, I suggest that an alternative ethical angle should be
developed in order to build a professional and collaborative community. In this
sense, I employ Ranson’s (2003) suggestion, who, following Habermas, proposes
that the dominant instrumental approach of accountability should be transformed
into a communicational approach. The challenge is to build a democratic public
sphere within schools, in order to enable participation, dialogue and open discussion,
producing collective argumentation, judgement and decisions.
From this perspective, schools are accountable to the public based on reciprocal
engagement between institutions, professionals and the school community in general.
This proposal is neither neoliberal performance-accountability, nor bureaucratic-
accountability, where public professionals were scarcely questioned. The core issue
here is the construction of trust and responsibility based on collaborative, critical and
dialogical relationships among the school community. As Ranson (2003) writes:
“responsibility is primarily a moral, not a technical or contractual notion, it both
elicits and requires a felt and binding mutuality that does not depend upon the
hierarchical arrangements so typical of accountability” (p.700, my emphasis).
In addition, the thesis suggests that intermediate bodies, such as local ministries of
education and municipalities, are strongly constrained by competition (as schools
are), and play a weak role in terms of leading school innovation and mediating social
justice issues. Under an alternative model, these local institutions should be
empowered in order to play a key role in supporting and demanding specific
outcomes from schools, not driven by competition and performance criteria, but by
leading long-term school improvement processes and struggling against local
inequities.
As a final point, I will briefly refer to the research limitations and future research
directions in this area. In general terms, a research agenda concerning market and
accountability policies is of utmost importance in Chile. Until now very little has
been studied on this topic (§1.4). Therefore, it is crucial to continue to research these
issues, especially regarding the upcoming changes with the introduction of the
Superintendence and Quality Agency. The first challenge, then, is to update this
research in this new policy scenario, examining the policy effects under the novel
institutional-accountability-matrix.
303!
Second, it is crucial to continue to develop a critical research policy view (§3.1),

interrogating neoliberal truths. As Foucault (1988b) sees it, the intellectual’s role is
to show that discourses are historically built, open to criticism, and vulnerable.
Likewise, Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) state that researchers must show that
“symbolic systems are social products that contribute to making the world, that they
do not simply mirror social relations but help constitute them. One can, then, within
limits, transform the world by transforming its representations” (p.14, my own
emphasis). Hence, the critical analysis of policy truths in Foucauldian terms, or
symbolic systems in Bourdieusian terms, is a key point for triggering policy change.
Third, this thesis is a qualitative investigation, developed with a limited number of

case studies. Therefore, it is necessary to amplify the research to a more diverse and
representative set of institutional contexts and conditions. For example, the research
only includes one private subsidised school, when clearly there are diverse types of
private schools that have not been included.
Fourth, the thesis studied educational institution networks, covering nine institutions.
This methodological approach granted the study a broader understanding of
performative activities, examining vertical and horizontal interrelationships among
institutions. However, this strategy sacrificed a more in-depth study of schools.
Therefore, future studies can continue to analyse, in a more in-depth manner, school
policy responses, particularly examining teachers, as well as parental practices and
views (see for example, Ball, 2001, 2003c; Gewirtz 1996, 2002; Gewirtz et al. 1995;
Woods and Jeffrey, 2002). Also, with the introduction of the new state institutions in
the country, new subjects come into play, such as school inspectors, who provide a
fresh field of enquiry (see for instance, Ozga et al., 2012).
Fifth, an important research aim is to combine qualitative methods with large-scale

quantitative strategies, in order to capture the complexities of daily school practices,
with their market position and wider contextual dimensions (see for example,
Gewirtz et al. 1995, Lauder and Hughes et al., 1999; Maroy, 2004; Woods et al.,
1998).
All in all, through this thesis I hope to contribute to the critical examination of the
ways in which accountability policies are practised in local school markets, and their
effects within education institutions. I argue that in Chile this schema has not
attained the expected outcomes. On the contrary, it has impoverished teaching,
intensified social injustice, and increased managerial work and management control.
304!
Furthermore, these policies are profoundly and pervasively changing institutional

ethics, as market and performance competition have become overriding aims. These
are profound transformations that require further research for interrogating and re-
thinking neoliberal policy doxa in Chile, as well as in other countries with similar
educational configurations.
305!
!
!
REFERENCES
Alexander, R. (2004). Still no pedagogy? Principle, pragmatism and compliance in

primary education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 34(1), 7-33.
Althusser, L. (1977). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. London: NLB.
Alvarez, B. (2002) Autonomía escolar y reforma educative. In PREAL, Creando

autonomía en las escuelas. Santiago: LOM.
Apple, M. (2000). Between neoliberalism and neoconservatism: education and

conservatism in a global context. In N. Burbules and C. Torres (Eds.), Globalization
and education. Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Apple, M. (2002). Educating the ‘right way’. Markets, standards, God and
inequality. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Apple, M. (Ed.) (2003). The state and the politics of the knowledge. New York and
London: Routledge Falmer.
Apple, M. (2007). Education, markets, and an audit culture. International Journal of

Educational Policies, 1(1), 4-19.
Arcia, G. and Belli, H. (2002). La autonomía escolar en Nicaragua: reestableciendo

el contrato social. In PREAL, Creando autonomía en las escuelas. Stgo.: LOM
Arnove, R. (1998). Neoliberal educational policies in Latin America: arguments in

favor and against. In A. Puiggrós and C. Torres (Eds.), Latin American education.
Comparative perspectives. Oxford: Westview Press.
Arnove, R. and Torres, C.A. (Eds.) (2003). Comparative education: The dialectic of
the global and the local. Lanham: Rousman & Littlefield.
Arnove, R.F., S. Mollis M, and Torres, C.A. (2003). Educational in Latin America.
Dependency, Underdevelopment, and Inequality. In R. Arnove and C.A. Torres
(Eds.) Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local. Lanham:
Rousman & Littlefield.
Arregui, P. (Ed.) (2006). Sobre estándares y evaluaciones en América Latina.

Santiago: PREAL.
Atkinson, W. (2011). From sociological fictions to social fictions: some

Bourdieusian reflections on the concepts of ‘institutional habitus’ and ‘family
habitus’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32(3), 331-347.
Bagley, C. (2006). School choice and competition: a public-market in education

revisited. Oxford Review of Education, 32(2), 347-362.
306!
!
!
Bagley, C., Woods, P., and Glatter, R. (2001). Rejecting schools towards a fuller
understanding of the process of parental choice. School Leadership & Management,
21(3), 309-325.
Ball, S.J. (1987). The micro-politics of the school. Towards a theory of school
organization. London, New York: Methuen.
Ball, S.J. (1990a). Politics and policy making in education. Explorations in policy
sociology. London, New York: Routledge.
Ball, S.J. (Eds.) (1990b). Foucalut and education. Discipline and knowledge.
London: Routledge.
Ball, S.J. (1994a). Education reform a critical and post-structural approach.

Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Ball, S.J. (1994b). Some reflections on policy theory a brief response to Hatcher and
Troyna. Journal Education Policy, 9(2), 171-182.
Ball, S.J. (1997a). Policy Sociology and critical social research: a personal review of
recent education policy and policy research. British Educational Research Journal,
23(3), 569-580.
Ball, S.J. (1997b). Good schools/bad school: paradox and fabrication. British Journal
of Sociology of Education, 18(3), 317-336.
Ball, S.J. (1998a). Big policies/small world: an introduction to international

perspectives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34(2), 119-129.
Ball, S.J. (1998b). Educational studies, policy entrepreneurship and social theory. In
R. Slee and G. Weiner with S. Tomlinson (Eds.), School effectiveness for whom?
Challenges to the school, effectiveness and school improvement movements. London:
Falmer Press and Taylor & Francis.
Ball, S.J. (2001). Performativities and fabrications in the education economy:

towards the performative society. In D. Gleeson and C. Husbands (Eds.), The
performing school. London: Routledge Falmer.
Ball, S.J. (2003a). The risks of social reproduction: the middle class and education
markets. London Review of Education. 1(3), 163-173.
Ball, S.J. (2003b). Class strategies and the educational market. The middle classes
and social advantage. London: Routledge Falmer.
Ball, S.J. (2003c). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal
Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228.
Ball, S.J. (2006). Educational reform, market concepts and ethical re-tooling. In S.J.
Ball, Education Policy and Social Class. The selected works of Stephen Ball.
London, NY: Routledge.
307!
!
!
Ball, S.J. (2007). Education Plc: Understanding private sector participation in

public sector education. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Ball, S.J. (2008). The education debate. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ball. S.J. (2012). Global education Inc. New policy networks and the neo-liberal
imaginary. Oxon: Routledge.
Ball, S.J., Bowe, R., and Gewirtz, S. (1996). School choice, social class and
distinction: the realization of social advantage in education. Journal of Education
Policy, 11(1), 89-112.
Ball, S.J., Fischman, G., and Gvirtz, S. (2003). Crisis and hope. The educational
hopscotch of Latin America. London: Routledge Falmer.
Ball, S.J. and Junemann, C. (2012). Networks, new governance and education.
Bristol: The Policy Press.
Ball, S.J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., and Hoskins, K. (2011). Policy actors: doing
policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education,
32(4), 625-639.
Ball, S.J., Maguire, M., and Macrae, S. (1998). ‘Race’, space and the further
education market place. Race Ethnicity and Education, 1(2), 171-189.
Ball, S.J. and Maroy, C. (2009). School’s logics of action as mediation and
compromise between internal dynamics and external constraints and pressures.
Compare, 39(1), 99-112.
Ball, S.J. and Vincent, C. (1998). ‘I Heard It on the Grapevine’: ‘Hot’ Knowledge
and School Choice. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 19(3), 377-400.
Ball, S.J and Youdell, D. (2008). Hidden privatization in public education.

Education International.
Barry, A., Osborne, T., and Rose, N. (1996). Foucault and political reason.
Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government. University of Chicago
Press.
Bellei, C. (2007). Expansión de la educación privada y mejoramiento de la educación

en Chile. Evaluación a partir de la evidencia. Revista Pensamiento Educativo, 40(1),
285-333.
Berkhout, S. (2005). The Decentralisation debate: thinking about power. Review of

Education, 51(4), 313-327.
Besley, T. (2005). Foucault, truth telling and technologies of the self in schools.
Journal of Educational Enquiry, 6(1), 76-89.
308!
!
!
Black, P. and William, D. (1998). Assesment and classroom learning. Assessment in

Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5(1), 7-74.
Blackmore, J. (1997). Institutional Schizophrenia: Self governance, performativity

and self managing School. Paper presented to the annual conference Australian
Association of Research in Education. Brisbane.
Blackmore, J. (2000). Globalization: a useful concept for feminists rethinking theory

and strategies in education? In N. Burbules and C. Torres (Eds.), Globalization and
education. Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Blackmore, J. (2006). The ‘accidental’ manager and the enterprise of the self.
Gender, identity and a crisis of motivation in leadership? Paper presented to AARE
Annual Conference, University of Sydney.
Blackmore, J., and Sachs, J. (1997). Weary, worried and just plain worn out: gender,
restructuring and the emotional economy of higher education. Paper presented
annual conference, Australian Association of Research in Education, Brisbane.
Available: http://www.aare.edu.au/97pap/blacj496.htm
Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociology Theory, 7(1), 14-
25.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Making the economic habitus. Algerian workers revisited.

Ethnography, 1(1), 17-41.
Bourdieu, P. (2003a). The forms of capital. In A.H Halsey; H. Lauder; P. Brown; A.

Stuart Wells (Eds.), Education. culture, economy, society. Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2003b). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Harvard University Press. First published 1991.
Bourdieu, P. (2007). Distinction. New York and London: Routledge. First published
1979.
Bourdieu, P. (2011a). The social structures of the economy. Polity Press: Cambridge.
Bourdieu, P. (2011b). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: University Press.

First edition 1972.
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. (1990). La reproducción. Elementos para una teoría

del sistema de enseñanza. Madrid: Ed. Popular.
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, l. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.

Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bowe, R., Ball, J.S., and Gold, A. (1992). Reform education and changing schools.
Case studies in policy sociology. London and New York: Routledge.
309!
!
!
Bowe, R., Ball, S., and Gewirtz, S. (1994). Parental choice, consumption and social
theory: the operation of micro-markets in education. British Journal of Educational
Studies, 42(1), 38-52.
Bowe, R. Gewirtz, S., and Ball, S.J. (1994). Captured by the discourse? Issues and
concerns in researching parental choice. British Journal of Sociology of Education.
15(1): 63-78.
Bowe, R., Gewirtz, S., and Ball, S.J. (1997). School choice, social class and
distinction: the realization of social advantage in education. Journal of Educational
Policy, 11(1), 89-112.
Bridges, D. and McLaughlin, T. (Eds.) (1994). Education and the market place.
London and Washington DC: The Falmer Press.
Britzman, D. (2000). The question of belief? Writing ethnography. In E. St. Pierre

and W. Pillow (Eds.), Working the ruins. Feminist poststructural theory and methods
in education. New York and London: Routledge
Broadfoot, P. and Black, P. (2004). Redefining assessment? The first ten years of
assessment in Education. Assessment in Education: Principles, Practice & Policy.
11(1), 7-26.
Broccolichi, S. and van Zanten, A. (2000). School competition and pupil flight in the
urban periphery. Journal Education Policy. 15(1), 15-60.
Brown, P. and Lauder H. (2003). Education, globalization, and economic

development. In A.H Halsey; H. Lauder; P. Brown; A. Stuart Wells (Eds.),
Education. Culture, economy, society. Oxford University Press.
Bullock, A. and Thomas, H. (1997). Schools at the centre? A study of

decentralization. London, New York: Routledge.
Bunar, N. (2010). The Controlled school market and urban schools in Sweden.
Journal of School Choice, 4(1), 47-73.
Burbules, N. and Torres, C. (Eds.) (2000). Globalization and education. Critical

perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Burchell, G., Gordon, C., and Miller, P. (1991). The Foucault effect studies in
govermentality. University of Chicago Press.
Bushweller, K. (1997). Teaching to the test. The American School Board Journal,
September, 20-25.
Cabalín, C. (2012). Neoliberal Education and Student Movements in Chile:

Inequalities and Malaise. Policy Futures in Education, 10(2), 219-228.
310!
!
!
Çalışkan, K. and Callon, M. (2009). Economization, part 1: shifting attention from

the economy towards processes of economization. Economy and Society, 38(3), 369-
398.
Canales, M. (2006). Metodologías de investigación social. Santiago: LOM.
Carnoy, M. (1996). Multinationals in a changing world economy: whither the nation-

state. In M. Carnoy, The global economy n the informational age. Reflections on our
changing world. Pensilvania: University Press.
Carnoy, M. (2002). Latin America. The new dependency and educational reform. In
H. Daun (Ed.) Educational restructuring in the context of globalization and national
policy New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Chapter 10.
Carnoy, M. and Mc Ewan, P. (2003) Does Privatization improve education? The case
of Chile’s National Voucher Plan. Document, Stanford University. Online.
Available http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/ICE/carnoy/Chilepaper.pdf (Accessed
the 3rd of May, 2005)
Carnoy, M., and Loeb, S. (2003). Does external accountability affect student
outcomes? A cross-state analysis. Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(4),
305-331.
Carrasco, A. (2010). A case-study of the Chilean policy agenda for disadvantaged

primary schools: meeting their challenges? Unpublished doctoral disertation,
University of Cambridge.
CASEN, Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional. (2009). Ministerio de

Planificación, Gobierno de Chile.
CASEN, Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional. (2010). Ministerio de

Planificación, Gobierno de Chile.
Castells, M. (1997). The information age: Economy, society and culture. Volume 1.
The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chubb, J. and Moe, T. (1990). Politics markets and American’s schools. Washington
D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
Chumacero, R., Gómez, D., and Paredes, R. (2008). I would walk 500 miles (if it
paid). MPRA Paper 15125.
Cizek, G. and Burg, S. (2006). Addressing Test Anxiety in a High-Stakes

Environment: Strategies for Classrooms and Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Clarke, J., Gewirtz, S., and McLaughlin, E. (Eds.) (2000). New managerialism new
welfare? London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Open University, SAGE.
311!
!
!
Clarke, J. and Newman, J. (1997). The managerial state. Power, politics and
ideology in the remaking of social welfare. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi:
SAGE
Clarke, J., Newman, J., Smith, N., Vidler, E., and Wesrmarland, L. (2009). Creating
citizen-consumers. Changing publics and changing public services. London: SAGE.
Corvalán, J. (2001). Las transformaciones educativas recientes y los cambios de la

politica social en Chile y America Latina. Hipotesis sobre los discursos dominantes.
Santiago: CIDE. Working Document.
Contreras, D. (2001). Evaluating a voucher system in Chile. Individual, family and

schools characteristics. Working paper No 175, FACEA, Universidad de Chile and
Yale University.
Contreras, D., Bustos, S., and Sepúlveda, P. (2007). When schools are the ones that
choose: the effect of screening in Chile. Working paper, nº 242. Department of
Economy, Universidad de Chile.
Cox, C. (1997). La Reforma de la Educación Chilena: Contexto, Contenidos,

Implementación. PREAL, document No 8.
Cox, C. (Ed) (2004). Políticas Educacionales en el Cambio de Siglo. La Reforma del

Sistema Escolar de Chile. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria.
Cox, C. (2007). En el Bicentenario: dos agendas y calidad de la política. Revista

Pensamiento Educativo, 40(1), 175-204.
Cox, C. and García – Huidobro, J.E. (1999). La reforma educacional Chilena 1990-
1998. In J.E. García – Huidobro (Ed.), Reforma Educacional Chilena. Madrid:
Popular.
Covaleskie, J.F. (2002). Two Cheers for Standardized Testing, International

Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 6(2).
Cunill, N. (2004). La democratización de la administración pública. Los mitos a

vencer. http://hermes.pucp.edu.pe/escgrad/cpolitica/polyges.pdf
Dale, R. (1989). The state and education policy. Philadelphia and Milton Keynes:
Open University Press.
Dale, R. (1994). Applied education politics or political sociology of education?:

contrasting approaches to the study of recent education reform in England and
Wales. In D. Halpin and B. Troyna (Eds.), Researching education policy. Ethical and
methodological issues. London: Falmer Roger.
Dale, R. (1999). Specifying globalisation effects on national policy: a focus on the

mechanisms. Journal Education Policy, 14 (1), 1-17.
312!
!
!
Dale, R. (2003). The state and the governance of education: an analysis of the
restructuring of the state-education relationship. In A.H Halsey, H. Lauder; P.
Brown, A. Stuart Wells (Eds.), Education. Culture, economy, society. Oxford
University Press.
Darling-Hammond, L. (1994). National standards and assessments: Will they

improve? American Journal of Education, 102(4), 478-510.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2004). Standards, Accountability, and School Reform.

Teachers College Record, 106(6), 1047-1085.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2007). Race, Inequality and Educational Accountability: The

Irony of "No Child Left Behind". Race, Ethnicity and Education, 10(3), 245-260.
Daun, H. (2004). Privatisation, decentralisation, governance in education in the

Czech Republic, Sweden, England, France, and Germany. International Review of
Education, 50(3,4), 325-346.
di Gropello, E. (2004). Education Decentralization and Accountability Relations in

Latin America. World Bank Policy Research, working paper 3453.
Du Guy, P. (2000). In praise of bureaucracy. Weber, organization, ethics. London:

SAGE.
Dubet, F. (2004). ¿Mutuaciones instiucionales y/o neoliberalismo? In E. Tenti

Fanfani (Ed.) Gobernabilidad de los sistemas educativos de América Latina. Buenos
Aires: IIPE –UNESCO.
Dupriez, V. (2010). Separer pour réuissir? Les modalités de groupement des élèves.
Paris, IIEP, UNESCO.
Dupriez, V. and Maroy, C. (2007). Regulation in school systems: a theoretical

analysis of the structural framework of the school system in French-speaking
Belgium.
Dupriez, V. and Dumay, X. (2006). Inequialities in school systems: effect of school

structure or of society structure? Comparative Education. 42(2), 243-260.
Edwards, B. and Henales, L. (2000). Neoliberalism and Educational Reform in Latin

America, Current Issues in Comparative Education, 2(2). Online:
www.tc.columbia.edu).
Elacqua, G. (2006). Enrollment practices in response to vouchers: Evidence from

Chile. Working paper, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.
Elacqua, G. (2008). The politics of education reform in Chile: When ideology trumps
evidence. Mimeo. Princeton University.
313!
!
!
Elacqua, G. (2009). For-profit schooling and the politics of education reform in

Chile: When ideology trumps evidence. Working paper CPCE No5. Universidad
Diego Portales.
Elaqua, G. and Fabrega, R. (2004). El Consumidor de la educación: el actor

olvidado de la libre elección de colegio en Chile. Santiago: Universidad Adolfo
Ibáñez.
Elacqua, G., Schneider, M. and Buckley, J. (2006). School Choice in Chile: Is it

Class or the Classroom? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25(3), 577-
601.
Elliot, J. (2001). Characteristics of performative cultures: Their central paradoxes

and limitations as resources for educational reform, In D. Glesson & C. Husbands
(Eds.), The performing schools: managing teaching and learning in a performance
culture. London and New York: Routledge Falmer.
Espínola, V. (1994). La descentralización de la educación en Chile: Continuidad y

cambio de un proceso de modernización. Serie Gestion Escolar. Doc No2. Santiago:
CIDE.
Espínola, V, Chaparro M., Guzman, A., Galvez R., and Lazcano L. (1996).
Transformaciones en los procesos de descentralización: El caso de Chile. Santiago:
CIDE.
Espínola, V. (1997a). Descentralización del sistema educativo en Chile: Impacto en

la gestión de las escuelas. Informe 10. Santiago: CIDE.
Espínola, V. (1997b). Revision de quince años de política educativa en Chile:

Ajustes en función de la equidad. In E. Cohen (Ed.) Educación, eficiencia y equidad.
Santiago: CEPAL/OEA/SUR.!
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. The critical study of language.

London and New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1998). Language and power. London and New York: Longman.
Falabella, A. (2007). Des-centralización en educación. Relaciones de Amor Odio con

el Estado. Revista Docencia, 31, 12-21.
Falabella, A. (2008). Democracia a la Chilena: Un análisis del movimiento

estudiantil y su desenlace. Revista Docencia. 36, 5-17.!
Falabella, A., Seppänen, P., and Raczynski, D. (2012). Growing tolerance for pupil’s
differentiation: A study of parents’ discourses and exclusionary practices in Chile
and Finland. Paper presented at the European Conference of Educational Research
(ECER), Cadiz, Spain, 18-20 September.
314!
!
!
Ferrer, G. (2006). Educational assessment systems in Latin America. Current

practices and future challenges. Washington: PREAL.
Ferrer, G., Valverde, G., and Esquivel, J.M. (2006). In P. Arregui, Sobre estándares
y evaluaciones en América Latina. Santiago: San Marino.
Fielding, M. (2001). OFSTED, Inspection and the Betrayal of Democracy. Journal of

Philosophy of Education. 35(4), 695-709
Firestone, W., Schorr, R, and Monfils, L. (Eds.) 2004. The ambiguity of teaching to
the test: standards, assessments and educational reform. Mahwah: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Fiske, E. and Ladd., H. (2000). When schools compete: a cautionary tale.

Washington DC: Brookings Institution.
Foucault, M. (1972). Archaeology of knowledge. London: Tavistock Publications.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish. London: Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1979). The history of sexuality. An introduction. Vol 1. London:

Penguin books.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. Selected interviews and other writings,

1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and the Power. In H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow,
Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Brighton: Harvester, pp.
208-26.
Foucault, M. (1983). Discourse and truth: The problematization of parrhesia. Six

lectures given by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley.
http://foucault.info/documents/parrhesia/!
Foucault, M. (1986). The history of sexuality. The use of pleasure. Vol. 2. London:
Viking.
Foucault, M. (1988a). Technologies of the self. (A seminar with Michel Foucault at

the University of Vermont, October 1982). In L.H. Martin, H. Gutman, P.H. Hutton,
Technologies of the self: a seminar with Michael Foucault. University of
Massachusetts Press, p.9-15.
Foucault, M. (1988b). The Concern for Truth. In Kritzman, L. Michel Foucault:

Politics, philosophy, culture: Interviews and other writings, 1977-1984. New York:
Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality. The care of the self. Vol 3. London:
Penguin books.
315!
!
!
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. (Lecture at the Collège de France, Feb. 1,

1978). In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, P. Miller, The Foucault effect. Studies in
governmentality. University of Chicago Press, p. 87-104.
Foucault, M. (2006). Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (Essential Works of Foucault,

1954- 1984, Vol. 1)’, Ed. Paul Rabinow, London: New Press.
Foucault, M. (2008). Birth of biopolitics. (Michel Foucault: Lectures at the College

De France). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Frandji, D. and Pincemin, J.M. (2008). Comparing priority education policies to fight
against educational inequalities in Europe. Institut National de Recherche
pedagogique (INRP).
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Gajardo, M. (1999). Reformas Educativas en América Latina. Balance de una

Década. PREAL, No15.
Gajardo, M. (2004). América Latina: políticas educativas de acción afirmativa.

Situación, tendencias, perspectivas. In J.E. García Huidobro (Ed.) Políticas
educativas y equidad. Santiago: Gráfica Funny.
Gale, T. (1999). Policy Trajectories: treading the discursive path of policy analysis.
Discourse: studies in the cultural policies of education, 20(3), 393- 407.
Gallego, F. (2002). Competencia y resultados educativos: teoria y evidencia para

Chile. Cuadernos de Economia, 39 (118), 309- 352.
Gallego, F. (2006). Voucher-School Competition Incentives, and Outcomes:

Evidence from Chile. Mimeo, Instituto de Economía PUC
Gallego, F. and Hernando, A. (2009). School Choice in Chile: Looking at the

Demand Side. Working paper IE-PUC, N° 356.
Gandin, L. and Apple, M. (2003). Educating the state, democratizing knowledge:

The citizen school project in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In M. Apple, The state and the
politics of the knowledge. New York and London: Routledge Falmer.
Garcia Huidobro, J. (Ed.) (1999). La Reforma Educacional Chilena. Madrid:

Popular. Parte 1 Vision de Conjunto Capitulo1 La reforma educacional chilena 1990-
1998
García-Huidobro, J.E. (2007). ¿Qué nos dicen las movilizaciones estudiantiles del
2006 de la visión de los estudiantes sobre la educación secundaria? Fundación
Santillana, Jóvenes y docentes en el mundo de hoy, Buenos Aires, pp.87-110.
García-Huidobro, J.E. and Bellei, C. (2003). Desigualdad educativa en Chile.
Universidad Alberto Hurtado.
316!
!
!
García Huidobro, J.E. and Cox, C. (1999). ‘La reforoma educacional chilena. 1990-
1998. Vision de conjunto’. In J.E. García Huidobro (Ed) La Reforma Educacional
Chilena. Madrid: Editorial Popular. First Part, Chapter 1.
Gewirtz, S. (1996). Post welfarism and the reconstruction of teachers work. Paper
presented as part of the symposium a cultural revolution? The impact of quasi-
markets reforms in education on institutional practices and values, at the British
Educational Research.
Gewirtz, S. (1998). Can all schools be successful? An exploration of the

determinants of school ‘success’. Oxford Review of Education, 24(4), 439-457.
Gewirtz, S. (2002). The managerial school: postwelfarism and social justice in

education. London: Routledge.
Gewirtz, S., Ball, S. J., and Bowe, R. (1995). Markets, choice and equity in
education. London: Open University Press.
Gewirtz, S. (2006). Towards a contextualized analysis of social justice in education.

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 38(1), 69–81.
Gewirtz, S., Cribb, A., Mahony, P., and Hextall, I. (2006). Changing teacher roles,
identities and professionalism: a review of key themes from the seminar papers.
Paper for discussion at seminar of Changing teachers roles, identities and
professionalism seminar series, King’s College London.
Giddens, A. (2000). The Third Way. The Renewal of Social Democracy. England:
Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (Ed.) (2001). The global Third Way debate. USA: Editorial Polity Press.
Gillborn, D. (2008). Coincidence or conspiracy? Whiteness, policy and the

persistence of the Black/White achievement gap. Educational Review, 60(3), 229–
248.
Gillborn, D. and Youdell D. (2000). Rationing education. Policy, practice, reform

and equity. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Glesson, D. and Gunter, H. (2001). The performing school and the modernisation of
teachers. In D. Glesson and C. Husbands, The performing schools: managing
teaching and learning in a performance culture. London and New York: Routledge
Falmer.
Gleeson, D. and Husbands, C. (Eds.) (2001). The performing schools: managing

teaching and learning in a performance culture. London and New York: Routledge
Falmer.
Gonzalez, P., Mizala, A., and Romaguera, P. (2004). Vouchers, Inequalities and the
Chilean Experience. Santiago: Centre for Applied Economics, Universidad de Chile.
317!
!
!
Gorard, S., Fitz, C., and Taylor, G., (2003). Schools, markets and choice policies.
London: Routledge Falmer.
Gordon, L. and Whitty, G. (1997). Giving the ‘hidden hand’ a helping hand? The
rhetoric and reality of neoliberal education reform in England and New Zealand.
Comparative Education, 33(3), 453-467.
Gorostiaga Derqui, J. (2001). Educational decentralisation policies in Argentina and

Brazil: exploring the new trends. Journal Educational Policy, 16(6), 561-583.
Gorostiaga Derqui, J. (2003). Neoliberalism and educational decentralization

policies. The experience of the 1990s. In S.J. Ball; G. Fischman; S. Gvirtz (Eds.),
Crisis and Hope. The Educational Hopscotch of Latin America. London: Routledge
Falmer.
Grindle, M. (2001). La paradoja de la reforma educacional pronosticar el fracaso y

encontrar el progreso. In S. Martinic and M. Prado (Eds.)., Economía política de las
reformas educativas en América Latina. Chile: CIDE, PREAL.
Habermas, J. (1971). Towards a Rational Society. Students Protest, Science and

Politics. London: Ed Heinemann.
Habermas, J. (1974). Theory and Practice. London, Edinburg: Heinemann

Educational Books.
Hall, S. (2005). Foucault: power, knowledge and discourse. In M. Wetherell , S.

Tylor, S. Yates (eds) Discourse theory and practice. A reader. London, Thousand
Oaks, New Delhi: Sage, Open University.
Hamilton, L.S., Berends, M., and Stecher, B.M. (2005). Teachers’ Responses to
Standards-Based Accountability. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the
American Educational Research Association, Montreal.
Hamilton, L.S. and Stecher, B.M. (2006). Measuring educators responses to high-
stakes testing. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational
Research Association. San Fco.
Hamilton, LS., Stecher, B.M., and Klein S.P. (Eds.) (2002). Making sense of test-
based accountability in education. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Hamilton, L, Stecher, B, Marsh, J., Sloan McCombs, J., Robyn, A., Lin Russell, J.,
Naftel, S., and Barney, H. (2007). Standards-based accountability under No Child
Left Behind. Experiences of teachers and administrators in three states. Santa
Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Hanson, M. (1997). Educational Decentralization: Issues and Challenges. PREAL,

No 9.
Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age of
Insecurity (Professional Learning). NY: Teachers’ College Press.
318!
!
!
Hargreaves, A. and Sherley, D. (2009). The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for
Educational Change. California: Corwin Press.
Harlen, W. and Deakin Crick, R. (2003). Testing and Motivation for Learning,
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 169 -
207.
Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
Hayek, F. (1972). The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press. First edition,
1944.
Hsieh, C. and Urquiola, M. (2003). When schools compete, How do they compete?
An assessment of Chile’s nationwide school voucher program. NBER Working
Paper Nº 10008.
Hsieh, C. and Urquiola, M. (2006). The effects of generalized school choice on

achievement and stratification: Evidence from Chile’s voucher program. Journal of
Economics, 90, pp. 1477-1503.
Ian Gershberg, A. (2004). Empowering Parents while making them pay:

Autonomous schools and education Reform Process in Nicaragua. In R. Kaufman
and J. Nelson, Crucial needs, weak incentives. Social sector reform, democratization,
and globalization in Latin America. Washington DC, Baltimore, London: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, the John Hopkins University Press.
Jacir De Lovo, E. (2002). Educo: Un avance en la ruta hacia la autonomia escolar. In

PREAL, Creando autonomía en las Escuelas. Stgo.: LOM
Jenkins, R. (2007). Pierre Bourdieu. London and New York: Routledge.
Jessop, B. (2003). The future of the capitalist state. Oxford and Malden: Polity Press,
Blackwell.
Jessop, B. (2009). State power. Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press.
Karlsen G. (2000). Decentralized centralism: framework for a between understanding

of governance in the field of education. Journal Educational Policy, Vol. 15 (5),
525-538
Karsten, S., Visscher, A.J., and Jong, T. (2001). Another side of the coin: the
unintended effects of the publication of school performance data in England and
France. Comparative Education, 37(2), 231-242.
Kaufman, R. and Nelson, J. (2004). Crucial Needs, Weak Incentives. Social Sector
Reform, Demoratization, and Globalization in Latin America. Washington DC,
Baltimore, London: Woodrow Wilson center press, the John Hopkins University
Press.
319!
!
!
Kenway, J. (1990). Education and the right’s discursive politics. Private versus state
schooling. In S. J. Ball (Ed.), Foucault and education. Discipline and knowledge.
London: Routledge.
Koretz, D. (2005). Alignment, high stakes, and the inflation of test scores. Harvard
School of Education.
Koretz, D. McCaffrey, D. and Hamilton, L. (2001). Towards a framework for

validating test scores. Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Evaluation, University of
California.
Ladd, H. (2002). School voucher: a critical view. The journal of economics

perspectives, 16(4), 2-34.
Ladd, H., and Fiske, E. (2003). Does competition improve teaching and learning?
Evidence from New Zealand. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25(1), 97-
112.
Lareau, A. (2002). Inequality: Social class and childrearing in black families and
white families. American Sociological Review, 67(5), 747-776.
Lauder, H. (2003). Education, democracy, and the economy. In A.H Halsey, H.

Lauder, P. Brown, A. Stuart Wells (Eds.), Education. Culture, economy, society.
Oxford University Press, p. 382-392. First Edition 1991.
Lauder, H., Brown, P., Dillabough, J.A., and Halsey, A.H. (2006). Education,
Globalization & Social Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lauder, H., Hughes, D., Watson., Waslander, S., Thrupp, M., Strathdee, R., Simiyu,
I., Dupuis, A., McGlinn, J., and Hamlin, J. (1999). Trading futures: why markets
don’t work. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Lauder, H., Kounali, D., Robinson, T. and Goldstein, H. (2008). Social Class, Pupil
Progress and School Performance: An Analysis in English Primary Schools, Bath
University, Unpublished HARPS Report.
Lauder, H., Kounali, D., Robinson, T., and Goldstein, H. (2010). Pupil composition
and accountabilty: An analysis in English Primary Schools. International Journal of
Educational Research, 49(2), 49-68.
Lauglo, J. (1996). Forms of decentralization and their implication of education. In

J. Chapman, W. L. Boyd, R. Lander, D. Reynolds, The reconstruction of education.
quality, equality and control. London: Cassell.
Lazzarato, M. (2012). Neoliberalism in action. Inequality, insecurity and the

reconstruction of the social. Theory, Culture and Society, 26(6), 109-133.
Le Grand, J. (1991). Quasi-markets and social policy. The Economic Journal, 101,
1256-1267.
320!
!
!
Le Grand, J. and Bartlett, W. (Eds.) (1994). Quasi-markets and social policy.

London: Macmillan.
Lemke, T. (2001). The Birth of Bio-Politics– Michel Foucault’s Lecture at the

Collège de France on Neo-Liberal Governmentality. Economy and Society, 30(2), p.
190-207. Accessed:
http://www.google.cl/url?sa=tandrct=jandq=andesrc=sandsource=webandcd=1andve
d=0CCwQFjAAandurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thomaslemkeweb.de%2Fengl.%252
0texte%2FThe%2520Birth%2520of%2520Biopolitics%25203.pdfandei=HABCUNy
CMqXx6AHj34D4Dwandusg=AFQjCNGWAa70w83ouJ4MEreNp36MlOeSAgands
ig2=DMRbBL5SGL1cK0EHG4UrwA
Levačić, R. (1995). Local management of schools. Analysis and practice.

Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University.
Levačić, R. (2001). An analysis of competition and its impact on secondary school
examination performance in England. Occasional paper No 34, National Centre for
the Study of Privatization in Education.
Levačić, R. and Woods, P. (2002). Raising School performance in the league tables
(Part 1): disentangling the effects of social disadvantage. British Educational
Research Journal. 28(2), 207-226.
Levin, B. (1998). An epidemic of education policy: (What) can we learn from each
other? Comparative Education, 34(2), 131–41.
Levin, H. (2002). A comprehensive framework for evaluating educational vouchers.

National centre for the study of privatization in education, Occasional paper No5.
Levitas, R. (1998). The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion and New Labour. UK:
Macmillan Press.
Lingard, B. (2000). It is and it isn’t: vernacular globalization, educational policy, and

restructuring. In N. Burbules and C. Torres (Eds), Globalization and Education.
Critical Perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Linn, R. (2000). Assessments and accountability. Educational Researcher, 29(2), 4-

16.
Looney, J. (2009). Assessment and innovation in education. OECD Education

Working Paper No. 24.
Loveman, B. (2001). Chile. The legacy of Hispanic capitalism. Oxford University

Press.
Lubienski, C. (2003a). School competition and promotion: substantive and symbolic

differentiation in local education markets. Occasional paper No.80. National Center
for the study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Lubienski, C. (2003b). Innovation in education: theory and evidence on the impact of
competition and choice in charter schools. American Educational Research Journal.
40(2), 395-443.
321!
!
!
Lubienski, C. (2006). School diversification in second-best education market.

International evidence and conflicting theories of change. Educational Policy, 20(2),
323-344.
Lubienski, C. (2009). Do quasi-markets foster innovation in education? A

comparative perspective. Education working paper Nº25. OECD.
Lupton, R. (2005). Social justice and school improvement: improving the quality of
schooling in the poorest neighborhoods. British Educational Research Journal, 31,
589-604.
Lupton, R. (2006). Schools in disadvantaged areas: Low attainment and a

contextualised policy response. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, J. Dillabough, A.H. Halsey,
Education, globalization and social change. Oxford University Press.
Makovec, M., Mizala, A., and Barrera, A. (2010). Parental decisions in a choice
based school system: Analyzing the transition between primary and secondary
school. Working paper 269., Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
Marcel, M. and Raczynski, D. (Eds.) (2009). La Asignatura Pendiente. Claves para

la revalidación de la educación pública de gestión local en Chile. Santiago:
CIEPLAN.
Martinic, S. and Prado, M. (Eds.). (2001) Economía Política de las Reformas

Educativas en América Latina. Chile: CIDE, PREAL.
Martinic, S. (2010). Cambios en las regulaciones del sistema educativo. ¿Hacia un

Estado Evaluador?. In G. Elaqua and S. Martinic (Eds.), Fin de Ciclo? Cambios en
la governanza del sistema educativo. Santiago: PUC, UNESCO. Chapter 2.
Maroy, C. (Coor.) (2004). Regulation and inequalities in European Education

Systems Final Report.
Maroy, C. (2008). Lógicas de establecimientos e interdependencias competitivas en

seis espacios escolares europeos. In J.E. García-Huidobro, V. Dupriez, G. Francia
(Eds.) Políticas educativas en América Latina: ¿transición hacia un nuevo
paradigma?, México: Subsecretaría de Educación Pública.
Maroy, C. (2009). Convergences and hybridization of educational policies around

‘post-bureaucratic’ models of regulation. Compare, 39(1), 71-84.
Meo, A. (2011). Zafar, so good: middle-class students, school habitus and secondary
schooling in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 32(3), 349-367.
Merriam, S. B. (1988). Case study research in education: a qualitative approach.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
322!
!
!
McDonald, A. (2001). The prevalence and effects of test anxiety in school children,
Educational Psychology, 21(1), 89-101.
McEwan, P. and Carnoy, M. (2000). The effectiveness and efficiency of private

schools in Chile’s voucher system. Educational evaluation and policy analysis,
22(3), 213-239.
McEwan, P., Urquiola, M., and Vegas, E. (2008). School Choice, stratification an
dINformation on school performance: Lessons from Chile. Ecomonía, 8(2), 1-27.
McLure, M. (2003). Discourse in educational and socialrResearch. Bukingham and

Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Menken, K. (2006). Teaching to the Test: How No Child Left Behind. Impacts
Language Policy, Curriculum, and Instruction for English Language Learners.
Bilingual Research Journal, 30(2), 521–46.
Miller, G. (1997). Building bridges. The possibility of analytic dialogue between

ethnography, conversation analysis and Foucault. In D. Silverman (Ed) Qualitative
research. Theory, method and practice. London, California, New Delhi: Sage
Miller, P. and Rose, N. (1990). Governing economic life. Economy and Society,
19(1), 1-31.
MINEDUC (2008). Compendio estadístico. Santiago, Gobierno de Chile.
MINEDUC (2010). Compendio estadístico. Santiago, Gobierno de Chile.
Mizala, A. and Romaguera, P. (1998). Desempeño Escolar y Elección de Escuelas:

La Experiencia Chilena. Serie Economía Nº 36. Centro de Economía Aplicada,
Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas
Universidad de Chile.
Mizala, A. and Romaguera, P. (2001). Factores explicativos de los resultados

escolares en la educación secundaria en Chile. El Trimestre Económico, 272.
Mizala, A. and Romaguera, P. (2005). Equity and achievement in the Chilean school
choice system. Center for Applied Economics Department of Industrial Engineering
Universidad de Chile.
Mizala, A., Romaguera, P. and Ostoic, C. (2004). Equity and Achievement in the
Chilean School Choice System. A Multilevel Analysis. Centre for Applied Economics
Department of Industrial Engineering Universidad de Chile.
Morrison, K. and Tang, F. H. (2002). Testing to destruction: a problem in a small

state. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 9(3), 289-317.
Morrow R. and Torres C. (2000). The state, globalization and educational policy. In
N. Burbules and C. Torres (Eds), Globalization and education. Critical perspectives.
New York: Routledge Falmer.
323!
!
!
Muñoz, G. and Vanni, X. (2008). Rol del Estado y de los agentes externos en el
mejoramiento de las escuelas: análisis en torno a la experiencia chilena. Revista
Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación. 6(4), 48-68.
Narodowski, M. and Andrada, M. (2004) Monopolio estatal y descentralización

educativa. Una exploración en América Latina. Revista de Educación, 333,
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia de España-INECSE.
Narodowski, M. and Nores, M. (2003). Searching for neoliberal educational policies.

A comparative analysis of Argentina and Chile. In S.J. Ball; G. Fischman; S. Gvirtz
(eds), Crisis and hope. The educational hopscotch of Latin America. London:
Routledge Falmer.
Narodowski, M., Nores, M., and Andrada, M. (Eds.) (2002). Nuevas tendencias en
politicas educativas. Estado, mercado y escuela. Buenos Aires: Granica.
Neave, G. (1988). On the cultivation of quality, efficiency and enterprise: An

overview of recent trends in higher education in Western Europe, 1986-1988.
European Journal of Education, 23(1), 7-23.
Newman, J. (2000). Beyond the new public management? Modernizing public

services. In J. Clarke, S. Gewirtz, E. McLaughlin (Eds.), New managerialism new
welfare? London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Open University, SAGE.
Newman, J. (2001). Modernizing governance. New labour, policy and society.

London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE.
Newman, J. (2005). Remaking governance. Peoples, politics and the public sphere.
The Policy Press, University of Bristol.
OECD (2004). Reviews of National Policies for Education. Chile. Paris: OECD
Publications.
OECD. (2011). Divided we stand: why inequality keeps rising. Paris: OECD
Publications.
Ozga, J. (1987). Studying educational policy through the lives of policy makers: an
attempt to close the macro-micro gap. In S. Walker and L. Barton, Changing
policies, changing teachers. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Ozga, J. (1990). Policy research and policy theory: a comment on Fitz and Halpin.
Journal of Educational Policy, 5(4), 359-362.
Ozga, J. (2000). Policy research in educational settings. Contested terrain.

Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Ozga, J. (2011). Governing Narratives: ‘local’ meanings and globalising education

policy. Education Inquiry, 2(2), 305-318.
324!
!
!
Ozga, J., Hult, A. Lindgren, J., Lawn, M., Clarke, J., Nilsson, I., Segerholm, C.,
Pons, X. (2012). Governing by Inspection: School Inspection and Education
Governance in Scotland, England and Sweden. Paper presented at the European
Conference of Educational Research, Cadiz, Spain, 18-20 September.
Peters, M. (2001). Education, enterprise culture and the entrepreneurial self: A

Foucauldian Perspective. Journal of Educational Enquiry, 2(2), 58-71.
Peters, M. (2003). Truth-telling as an educational practice of the self: Foucault,

parrahesia and the ethics of subjectivity. Oxford Review of Education, 29(2), 207-
223.
Peters, M.; Marshall, J.; Fitzsimons, P. (2000). Managerialism and educational

policy in a global context: Foucault, neoliberalism, and the doctrine of self –
management. In N. Burbules and C. Torres (eds), Globalization and education.
Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Pereyra, A. (2008). La fragmentación de la oferta educativa en America Larina :

educación pública vs. La educaicón privada. Perfiles Educativos, 30(120), 132-146.
Polanyi, K. (1957). The great transformation. The political and economic origins of
our times. Karly Boston: Beacon Press.
Popham, J. (2001). Teaching to the test? Educational Leadership, 58(6), 16-20.
Popham, J. (2002). Right task, wrong tools, American School board Journal. 189(2),
18-22.
Popkewitz, T. and Fendler, L. (Eds.) (1999). Critical theories in education.

Changing terrains of knowledge and politics. London: Routledge.
Power, S. and Frandji, D. (2010). Education markets, the new politics of recognition
and the increasing fatalism towards inequity. Journal of Education Policy, 25(3),
385-396.
PREAL (2002). Creando autonomia en las escuelas. Santiago: LOM.
Rabinow, P. (Ed.) (1991). The Foucault reader. An introduction to Foucault thought.

London: Penguin books.
Rackinky, D. and Hernández, M. (2012). Elección de colegio, imágenes,

valoraciones y conductas de las familias y segregación social escolar. Asesorías para
el Desarrollo.
Rackinky, D. and Salinas, D. (2006). Gestión municipal de la educación. Diagnostico

y líneas de propuesta. Santiago: Asesorías para el desarrollo.
Ramos, J. (1997). Un balance de las reformas estructurales neoliberales en America

Latina. Revista de la CEPAL, 62, 15-38.
325!
!
!
Ranson, S. (2003). Public accountability in the age of neo-liberal governance.

Journal of Education Policy, 18(5), 459-480.
Ramos, J. (1997). Un balance de las reformas estructurales neoliberales en America

Latina. Revista de la CEPAL, 62, 15-38.
Raveaud, M. and van Zanten, A. (2007). Choosing the local school: middle class
parents´values and social ethnic mix in London and Paris. Journal of Education
Policy, 22(1), 107-124.
Ravela, P. (2006). ¿Cómo presentan sus resultados los sistemas nacionales de

evaluación educativa en América Latina? In P. Arregui, Sobre estándares y
evaluaciones en América Latina. Santiago: San Marino.
Ravela, P., Arregui, P., Valverde, G., Wolff, R., Ferrer, G., Martínez, F., Aylwin, M.
and Wolff, L. (2008). Las Evaluaciones Educativas que América Latina Necesita.
Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa, 1 (1), pp. 51-63.
http://www.rinace.net/riee/numeros/vol1-num1/art4.pdf.
Reay, D. (1998a). Micro-politics in the 1990s: staff relationships in secondary

schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 13(2), 179-196.
Reay, D. (1998b). ‘Always knowing’ and ‘never being sure’: familial and
institutional habituses and higher education choice’. Journal of Education Policy,
13(4), 519-529.
Reay, D. (2004). ‘It’s all becoming a habitus’: beyond the habitual use of habitus in
educational research, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 431-444.
Reay, D. and Ball, S.J. (1997). ‘Spolit for choice’: The working classes and
educational markets. Oxford Review of Education, 23(1), 89-101.
Reay, D., Crozier, G., and Clayton, J. (2010). ‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: working-
class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1),
1-18.
Reay, D., Croizer, G., and James, D. (2011). White Middle-Class Identities and
Urban Schooling. London: Palgrave McMillan.
Reay, D., David, M. and Ball, S. J. (2001). Making a difference?: institutional

habituses and higher education choice, Sociological Research Online, 5(4),
http:www.socresonline.or.uk/5/4/reay.html
Reimers, F. (1999). Políticas compensatorias de discriminación positiva y justicia

social del siglo XX en América Latina. Revista La Educación, 132-133.
Reimers, F. (2000). ¿Equidad en la educación? Educación, Desigualdad y Opciones

de Política en América Latina en el Siglo XXI. Revista Ibero-Americana, 23, 21-50.
326!
!
!
Reimers, F. (2003). The Social Context of Educational Evaluation in Latin America.

In T. Kellaghan and D.L. Stufflebeam (Eds.), International Handbook of
Educational Evaluation, Dordrecht:Kluwer. P.441-464
Rochex, J.Y. (2011). Las tres “edades” de las políticas de educación prioritaria:
¿convergencia europea? Propuesta Educativa, 20(35), 75-84.
Rojas, T. (2005). La persistencia de la inequidad escolar en Chile. Una panorámica

de diversos actores educativos. Revista Docencia, 25, 34-43.
Rose, N. (1992). Governing the enterprising self. In P. Heelas and P. Morris, The
values of the enterprise culture. The moral debate. London, New York: Routledge.
Rose, N. (1996). Governing ‘advanced’ liberal democracies. In Barry, A.; Osborne,

T, Rose, N., Foucault and political reason. Liberalism, neoliberalism and
rationalities of government. London: UCL Press.
Rose, N. and Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: problematics of
government. British Journal of Sociology, 43(2):173-205.
Rouse, C., Hannaway, J., Goldhaber, D., and Figlio, D. (2007). Feeling the Florida
Heat? How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability
Pressure. NBER Working Paper No. 13681
Sapelli, C. (2003). The Chilean voucher system: some new results and research
challenges. Cuadernos de Economia, 40(121), 530-538.
Sapelli, C. and Vial, B. (2002). The performance of private and public schools in the
Chilean voucher system. Cudernos de Economia, 39(118), 423-454.
Sapelli, C. and Vial, B. (2005). Private vs public vouchers schools in Chile: New
evidence on efficiency and peer effects. Working paper, IE, PUC, No289.
Schiefelbein, E. (1998). Financing education for democracy in Latin America. In A.

Puiggrós and C. Torres (Eds), Latin American education. Comparative perspectives.
Oxford: Westview Press.
Schiefelbein, E. (2001) Desafíos de las Reformas de la Educación (comentarios al

trabajo de Merilee Grindle). In S. Martinic; M. Prado (Eds.), Economía Política de
las Reformas Educativas en América Latina. Chile: CIDE, PREAL.
Schiefelbein, E. (2004). The Politics of Decentralisation in Latin America.

International Review of Education, 50(3-4), 359-378.
Schiefelbein, E. and Schiefelbein, P. (2001). The quality of education in Latin

America and the Caribbean. In H. Gómez Buendía, Education in Latin America and
the Caribbean. An Agenda for the Coming Century. Colombia: United Nations
Development Program, Tercer Mundo. First published 1998.
327!
!
!
Schugurensky, D. (2003). Two decades of neoliberalism in Latin America.

Implication for Adult Education. In S.J. Ball; G. Fischman; S. Gvirtz (Eds.), Crisis
and hope. The educational hopscotch of Latin America. London: Routledge Falmer.
Serrano, C., Fernández, I., and Pavez, A. (2001). Descentralización de la Educación.

Balance y Perspectivas. Santiago, Documento of Asesorías para el Desarrollo.
Simola, H. (2005). The Finish miracle of PISA: historical and sociological remarks
on teaching and teacher education. Comparative Education, 41(4), 455-470.
Simola, H. and Rinne, R. (2011). Education politics and contingency: Belief, status
and trust behind the Finnish PISA miracle. In M. Peyreyra, H.G. Kotthoff, R. Cowen
(Eds.) PISA under examination. Changing knowledge, changing tests, and changing
schools. Rotterdam: Sence.
Simola, H., Varjo, R., and Rinne, R. (2010). Against the flow. Path dependence,
convergence and contingency in understanding the Finish QAE model. Paper
submitted to Education et Societes. English version.
Silverman, D. (Ed.) (1997). Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice.

London, California, New Delhi: Sage
Silverman, D. (2001). Interpretative Qualitative Data. Methods for Analysing Talk,

Text and Interaction. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.
SITEAL (2011). Cobertura relativa de la educación pública y privada en América

Latina. Document No23, September.
Solimano, A. and Torche, A. (2008). La distribución del ingreso en chile 1987-2006:

análisis y consideraciones de política. Banco central de Chile, Working paper No
480.
Soto Roa, F. (2000). Historia de la educación en Chile. CPEIP, Chile.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stecher, B. M. (2002). Consequences of large-scale, high-stakes testing on school

and classroom practices. In L. S. Hamilton, B. M. Stecher, and S. P. Klein (Eds.),
Making sense of test-based accountability in education (pp. 79-100). Santa Monica,
CA: RAND.
Tedesco, J. (1998). Desafíos de las reformas educativas en América Latina. Revista

Paraguaya de Sociología, 102, 7-18.
Teelken, C. (2000). Market forces in education, a comparative perspective in

England and Scotland. Scottish Educational Review, 32(1), 21-32.
Teelken, C., Driessen, G., and Smit, F. (2005). Frictions between formal education
policy and actual school choice: case studies in an international comparative
perspective. International Review of Education, 51(1), 35-58.
328!
!
!
Tenti Fanfani, E. (2008). Sociología de la Profesión Docente. Seminar paper:

Profesionalizar a los profesores sin formación inicial: puntos de referencia para
actuar seminario internacional.
Tenti Fanfani, E. (2006). Profesionalización docente: consideraciones sociológicas.

In Emilio Tenti Fanfani (Ed.), El oficio docente: Vocación, trabajo y profesión en el
siglo XXI. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno.
Thrupp, M. (1999). Schools Making a Difference: Let's be Realistic! School Mix,

School effectiveness and the Social Limits of Reform. Buckingham: Open University
Press.
Thrupp, M. (1998). Exploring the politics of blame: school inspection and its
contestation in New Zealand and England. Comparative Education, 34(2), 195-208.
Thupp, M and Hursh, D. (2006). The limits of managerialist school reform: the case
of target-setting in England and the USA. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, H. Dillabough, A.
Halsey (Eds.). Education, globalization and social change. Oxford University Press.
Thrupp, M., Lauder, H., and Robinson, T. (2002). School composition and peer
effects. International Journal of Educational Research, 37(5), 483-504.
Thrupp, M. and Lupton, R. (2006). Taking school context more seriously: The social
justice challenge. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54(3), 308-328.
Thrupp, M. and Lupton, R. (2011a). Variations on a middle class theme: English

primary schools in socially advantaged contexts. Journal of Education Policy, 26(2),
289-312.
Thrupp, M. and Lupton, R. (2011b). The impact of school context: what

headteachers say. Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of
Economics.
Tiramonti, G. (2005). La escuela en la encrucijada del cambio epocal. Educacao and

Sociedade. 26(92), 889-910.
Tooley, J. (1996). Education without the State. London: Institute of Economic

Affairs, Education and Training.
Tooley, J. (2000). Reclaiming education. London, New York: Cassell.
Tolofari, S. (2005). New public management and education. Policy Futures in

Education, 3(1), 75-89.
Torres, C. A. (2004). The capitalist state and public policy formation. Framework for
a political sociology of educational policy making. In S. Ball (ed.), The
RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Sociology of Education. London, New York:
RoutledgeFalmer.
329!
!
!
Torres, C. and Puiggrós, A. (1995). The State and Public Education in Latin
America. Comparative Education Review, 39, 1-27.
Tylor, S., Rizvi, F., Lingard, B., and Henry M. (2001). Educational Policy and the
Politics of Change. London: Routledge.
Urquiola, M. (2005). Does school Choice lead to sorting. The American Economic
Review, 95(4), 1310-1326.
Valenzuela, J.P., Belleí, C., and de los Ríos, D (2009). Evolución de la segregación
socioeconómica y su relación con el financiamiento compartido: el caso chileno.
Fondo de Investigación en Educación, FONIDE, Selección de Investigaciones Primer
Concurso FONIDE: Evidencias para Políticas Públicas en Educación, 00.231-284,
MINEDUC.
Valenzuela, J.P., Belleí, C., and de los Ríos, D. (2010). Segregación escolar en Chile.
In G. Elaqua and S. Martinic (Eds.), Fin de Ciclo? Cambios en la governanza del
sistema educativo. Santiago: PUC, UNESCO, Chapter 8.
van Dijk, T. (Ed.) (2000). El Discurso como Estructura y Proceso. Estudios del
Discurso: Introducción Multidisciplinaria. Vol 1 y 2. Barcelona: Gedisa.
van Zanten, A. (2002). Educational change and new cleavages between head
teachers, teachers and parents: the global and local perspectives on the French case.
Journal of Education Policy, 17(3), 289-304.
van Zanten, A. (2003). Middle-class parents and social mix in French urban schools:
reproduction and transformation of class relations in education. International Studies
in Sociology of Education, 13(2), 107-123.
van Zanten, A. (2005a). New modes of reproducing social inequality in Education:

the changing role of parents, teachers, schools and educational policies. European
Educational Research Journal, 4(3), 155-169.
van Zanten, A. (2005b). Bourdieu as education policy analyst and expert: a rich but
ambiguous legacy. Journal of Education Policy. 20(6), 671-686.
van Zanten, A. (2009). Competitive arena and school’s logics of action: a European
comparison. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.
39(1), 85-98.
Vandenberghe, V. (1999). Combining market and bureaucratic control in education:

an answer to market and bureaucratic failure? Comparative Education, 35(3), 271-
282.
Veleda, C. (2007). Entre querer y poder. Las clases medias y la elección de la escuela
en el conurbano bonarense. In Narodowski, and Gómez Schettini (Eds.), Escuelas y
familias. Problemas de diversidad cultural y justicia social. Buenos Aires: Prometeo
Libros.
330!
!
!
Vincent, C., Ball S., and Kemp, S. (2004). The social geography of childcare:
making up a middle-class child. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 25(2),
229-244.
Vincent, C. and Ball, S.J. (2006). Childcare, Choice and Class Practices: Middle
Class Parents and their Children. London: Routledge
Waslander, S., Pater, C., and van der Weide, M. (2010). Markets in education: an
analytical review of empirical research on market mechanisms in education. OECD
Education Working paper No. 52.
Waslander, S. and Thrupp, M. (1995). Choice, competition, and segregation: An

empirical analysis of a New Zealand secondary school market, 1990-1993. Journal
of Education Policy, 10(1), 1-26.
Webb, P.T. (2006). The choreography of accountability. Journal of Education

Policy, 21(2), 201-214.
Weenik, D. (2009). Creating a niche in the education market: the rise of

internationalised secondary education in the Netherlands. Journal of Education
Policy. 24(4), 495-511.
West, E. (1997). Education vouchers in principle and practice: a survey. The World
Bank Research Observer, 12 (1), 83-103.
West, A., Ingram, D., and Hind, A. (2006). Skimming the Cream”? Admissions to
Charter Schools in the United States and to Autonomous Schools in England.
Educational Policy, 20(4), 615-639.
West, R. and Peterson, P. (2006). The efficacy of choice threats within school
accountability systems: results from legislatively induced experiments. The
Economic Journal, 116 (March), 46-62.
Whitty, G. (2003). Marketization, the state, and the reformation of the teaching
profession. In A.H Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brown, A. Stuart Wells (Eds.), Education.
Culture, economy, society. Oxford University Press.
Whitty, G., Power, S., and Halpin D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education.
The school, the state and the market. Buckingham: Open University Press.
William, D, Lee, C. Harrison, C., and Black, P. (2004). Teachers developing

assessment for learning: impact on student achievement. Assessment in Education,
11(1)., 49-65.
Winkler, D. and Ian Gershberg, A. (2002). Los Efectos de la Descentralizacion del

Sistema Educacional sobre la Calidad de la Educacion en America Latina. Santiago:
PREAL.
Woods, P., Bagley, C., and Glatter, R. (1998). School choice and competition:
markets in the public interest? London and New York: Routledge.
331!
!
!
Woods, P. and Jeffrey, B. (2002). The reconstruction of primary teachers’ identities.

British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22(1), p.89-106.
Woods, P. and Levačić, R. (2002). Raising school performance in the league tables
(part 2): barriers to responsiveness in three disadvantaged schools. British
Educational Research Journal. 28(2), 227-226.
Wolf, L. (2006). Las evaluaciones educacionales en América Latina: Avance actual y

futuros desafíos. In P. Arregui, Sobre estándares y evaluaciones en América Latina.
Santiago: San Marino.
Wolf, L., González, P., and Navarro, J.C. (Eds.) (2002). Educación privada y
política pública en América Latina. PREAL, BID. Santiago: LOM.
World Bank. (1995). Priorities and Strategies for Education. A World Bank Review.
Washington DC: World Bank.
Wrigley, T. (2003). Is ‘school effectiveness’ anti-democratic? British Journal of

Educational Studies, 51(2), 89-112.
Wylie, C. (2006). What is the reality of school competition? Paper given at AERA
conference, San Francisco.
Yin, R. (1994). Case study research: design and methods. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
Youdell, D. (2004). Engineering school markets, constituting schools and

subjectivating students: the bureaucratic, institutional and classroom dimensions of
educational triage. Journal of Education Policy, 19(4) 407-431.
Youdell, D. (2005). Schooling, subjectivation and the possibilities for a performative

politics. Paper presented to the Foucault and Education SIG, American Educational
Research Association Annual Meeting, Montreal.
Youdell, D. (2006a). Impossible bodies, impossible selves: exclusions and students

subjectivities. Dordrecht: Springer.
Youdell, D. (2006b). Diversity, inequity, and a post-structural politics for education.

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 27(1), 33-42.
Youdell, D. (2006c). Subjectivities and performative politics-Butler thinking

Althusser and Foucault: intelligibility, agency and the raced-nationed-religioned
subjects of education. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 27(4), 511-528.
Youdell, D. (2011). School trouble. Identity, power and politics in education.

Routledge: London and New York.
332!
View publication stats

Accountability Policy Effects Within Sch1

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Accountability Policy Effects Within Sch1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY EFFECTS WITHIN SCHOOL MARKETS A STUDY IN

Thesis · January 2012

Accountability policy school enactment View project

History of School Markets & National Assessments in Chile View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY EFFECTS WITHIN SCHOOL

Thanks to my colleagues Alejandra Cardini, Alejandro Carrasco, and María Teresa

Special thanks to my unconditional friends Paz and Paula; to my family, parents,

Implemented as a political experiment in the early- 1980s, Chile’s educational

Word count (exclusive of appendices and bibliography): 99.088

Introduction. Problematising market + performance regimes p. 8

Chapter Five. The Intensification of Performativity among p. 144

3. Social In/justice Matters p. 289

List of figures and tables

Problematising market + performance regimes

Accountability-performance policies combined with market formulas have been

education, this reform enhanced privatisation and competition based on a per-student

With the return of democracy, under a centre-left political coalition (1990-2010),

The research develops a qualitative case study approach, examining in an intense,

In very broad terms, my theoretical framework draws on both Foucault and

Chapters and themes

Chapter 6 refers to the extensive and pervasive effects of accountability policies

CONTEXT, THEORETICAL APPROACH AND

Literature Review: Educational Markets within a Post-Welfare Regime

In the region, Chile is considered to be an example of a radical and widespread

Nowadays educational policies have evolved in complex and sophisticated ways.

educational institutions. These entail the prevalence of a competitive rationale, the

1. Worldwide Trends in Education

1.1. Prevailing educational reforms

i. Privatisation, choice and competition. In different ways a market-logic has been

Several countries have adopted ‘self-managed schools’ or ‘school autonomy’

iii) National standards, assessment and accountability policies. Together with

results are linked to school dis/incentives, as for instance, performance-based

iv) Equity policies

1.2. The educational post-welfare model

countries’ economic development and cultural formation10. However, these

2. The Performing School

Figure 1: The Performing School

State regulations and

Public dependence on trusting the professional, authoritative judgement

This competing-accountability regime involves the demands of ‘empowered

subjectivities. The role and sense of identity and purpose of school

There is a shift from a comprehensive culture towards an instrumental efficiency

Performativity is a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation, or

Performativity is a constantly planned and calculated practice of individuals and

Fabrications are versions of an organisation (or person) which does not

We become ontologically insecure: unsure whether we are doing

In this setting there is a paradox. Neoliberalism offers a political rationale in which

3. Policy Effects: Encountering the Expected Challenges?

3.1. Educational quality and diversity

outcomes as other predominantly regulated and centralised countries, such as

Based on evidence reviewed in this analysis, it appears that there is no

In-depth qualitative research and mixed methods research with a focus on

Researchers examining school responses to the American accountability policy ‘No

Another identified policy effect, referring to market-based schemes, is that schools

stronger ‘consumerist style’.24 Subsequently, rather than concentrating on substantive

Ball (2006) suggests that this market atmosphere “encourages organisations to

Third, intermediate or low performing schools with unstable enrolments, serving a

Table 1: School leading orientations towards market competition

3.2. Social exclusion and segregation

critically observes that: “the implementation of market reforms in education is

On the issue of school provision, as mentioned already, institutions attempt to shape

In effect, educational markets, based on a competitive schema with a standardised