Schools and civil society: corporate or community governance

Abstract

School improvement depends upon mediating the cultural conditions of learning as young people journey between their parochial worlds and the public world of cosmopolitan society. Governing bodies have a crucial role in including or diminishing the representation of different cultural traditions and in enabling or frustrating the expression of voice and deliberation of differences whose resolution is central to the mediation of and responsiveness to learning needs. A recent study of governing bodies in England and Wales argues that the trend to corporatising school governance will diminish the capacity of schools to learn how they can understand cultural traditions and accommodate them in their curricula and teaching strategies. A democratic, stakeholder model remains crucial to the effective practice of governing schools. By deliberating and reconciling social and cultural differences, governance constitutes the practices for mediating particular and cosmopolitan worlds and thus the conditions for engaging young people in their learning, as well as in the preparation for citizenship in civil society.

Keywords:

• civil society
• community
• educational policy
• governance
• school improvement

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for helpful comments on this paper from Stephen Ball, Bob Lingard, John Stewart and the anonymous reviewer. I am also grateful for the generous support of a number of sponsoring bodies and to colleagues for excellent research collaboration. The projects have been: ESRC Democracy and Participation Programme (2000–2003) on ‘the participation of volunteer citizens in school governance in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales’ (Ranson 2004; Ranson, Arnott, et al., 2005; Ranson, Farrell, et al., 2005) with Dr. Margaret Arnott, Mrs Penny McKeown, Dr. Jane Martin and Dr. Penny Smith. Wales Assembly Government (2002–2005), ‘School governance in Wales’, (Ranson, Farrell, et al., 2005b) with Professor Catherine Farrell, Dr. Nick Peim and Dr Penny Smith. CfBT Education Trust (2006–2009), ‘Towards a new governance of schools in the remaking of civil society in England’ (Ranson with Professor Colin Crouch, 2009).

Notes

1. This paper draws on the research on school governance I have been developing for over a decade.

2. In recent years, the Universities of Birmingham (Ranson, 2004; Ranson, Arnott, et al., 2005; Ranson, Farrell, et al., 2005) Manchester (Dean, Dyson, Gallanaugh, Howes, & Raffo, 2007) and Bath (Balarin, Brammer, James, & McCormack, 2008), Warwick (Ranson & Crouch, 2009) and now NFER (Lord, Hart, Martin, & Atkinson, 2009) have each undertaken significant programmes of research in an attempt to assess the effectiveness of governing bodies.