State‐school policy: contradictions, confusions and contestation

Abstract

In recent years we have witnessed unprecedented, rapid and substantial curriculum policy changes in state schools. This paper provides a case study of how this change is being mediated through an inner‐city comprehensive school. The particular focus is on the qualitative dimensions of the implementation of curriculum initiatives in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What are reported are the increased contradictions and confusions of differential individual and group teacher experiences of and responses to the changes, reflecting those of the wider education‐policy community at central government level. The heightened visibility of the links between individual school micro‐politics and the wider processes of educational restratification are the legacy of the ‘enterprise decade’ ‐‐ a cultural legacy that has increased the instruments of state control and surveillance, while at the same time engendering increased divisions of teacher animosity, fear and low morale.