Personalisation: the nostalgic revival of child‐centred education?

Abstract

Personalisation is an emerging ‘movement’ within education. Its roots reside in marketing theory, not in educational theory. As a concept it admits a good deal of confusion. It can refer either to a new mode of governance for the public services, or it qualifies the noun ‘learning’, as in ‘personalised learning’. The concern here is with its intellectual affinity to child‐centred education, one which the government in England has strongly denied. On balance, the government’s view of personalisation is not of a piece with what may commonly be regarded as child‐centred education. But the strong semantic accord between the terms ‘personalisation’ and ‘child‐centred education’ provokes a question: why does the government not provide a term which unequivocally distinguishes its current ‘vision’ for education from child‐centred education? By retaining the term personalisation, the government purports to do two things: first, because of its focus on personalised ‘tailored’ needs and co‐produced solutions, it adapts education even further to a consumerist society; and second, because the term personalisation strikes a chord with the discourse of child‐centred education, it blurs the fact that little to do with pedagogy or with curriculum has in fact been changed. The term personalisation generates a nostalgic appeal to better times long gone.

Keywords:

• personalised learning
• child‐centred education
• progressive education
• pedagogy
• policy