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ABSTRACT
The precarity of professionals working in schools and colleges at a time of change has been strongly accented by the competitive markets that currently characterise education and the influence of its global reforms. In this article, I draw on empirical data from a project located in a sixth-form college to argue that the field of Further Education is being restructured such that professionalism is hollowed out whilst accountability measures undermine leaders’ authority and enable a low-trust culture. I use Bourdieu’s thinking tools to conceptualise the data, including a rich conceptualisation of this site as a ‘field’ and of practices within it as part of the ‘game in play’. I generate four metaphorical lenses through which a perception of heterodoxy is used to clarify alternative positions that are simultaneously adopted by players and from which a response to the changing field of education reform can be offered.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Steven J. Courtney for his guidance and support in the production of this article through its various drafts, and to the referees for their constructive and helpful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Notes on contributors
Lewis Entwistle
Lewis Entwistle works in Further Education and completed his EdD in 2019 at the University of Manchester. His research interests are in policy scholarship, education leadership and professional participation.