Changing Structures; Changing Rules: the development of the ‘internal market’

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on data from ongoing research that is exploring the impact of the Education Reform Act (ERA) (1988) on the provision of PE and sport in schools, and specifically, the ‘implementation’ of the National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE). It is argued that the ERA and in particular local management of schools (LMS) has not only changed the relationships between schools, and between schools and other policy sites (i.e. the LEA and central government), but has also led to parallel changes in the structures and relations within schools. Essentially, what we see is the development of an internal market; a situation in which departments are in ‘open’ competition. In response to changes in the education structure, rules and relations beyond them, schools have changed their own structures, rules and internal relations. This paper describes the internal market and in particular its ‘mechanisms’ or ‘rules’. By focusing on the position of PE and its relative ability to ‘compete’ with other curriculum subjects, the paper also highlights the inherent inequalities of the policy process within schools; the imperfections of the internal market conditions. In conclusion attention is drawn to what are regarded as potentially damaging and therefore worrying implications of the internal market (and its inequalities), in particular, for curriculum planning in schools post‐ERA.