Asking the ‘right’ questions: the constitution of school governing bodies as apolitical

Abstract

School governing bodies in England have considerable powers and responsibilities with regard to the education of pupils. This paper draws on an analysis of policy and on qualitative research in the governing bodies of four maintained schools. It explores two policy technologies through which education and the work of school governing bodies are constituted as apolitical. Firstly, it considers the move to recruit governors with (unspecified) ‘skills’, rather than those with a representative role who might provide diverse perspectives. Secondly, it considers the technology of ‘prescribed criticality’, through which ‘effective’ governors are provided with the ‘right’ questions to ask. The paper argues that the operation of these policy technologies has significant implications for possibilities for democratic engagement in schools.

Keywords:

• democracy
• education policy
• Foucault
• policy technology
• school governing bodies

Acknowlegements

The original research for the article formed part of my PhD which was funded by an ESRC Studentship. Additional support was provided through a BELMAS Bursary in 2014. Professor Carol Vincent and Professor Stephen Ball have provided extremely helpful support and advice. I am also very grateful to two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There were significant changes to the constitution regulations in 2012 (DfE 2012b). For later changes, please see: www.gov.uk/government/publications/governors-handbook--3handbook--3

2. The initial letter of each participant’s pseudonym reflects the type of governor they were when I first met them: ‘H’ for headteachers, ‘P’ for parent governors, ‘T’ for teacher governors, ‘S’ for support staff, ‘Sp’ for sponsor governors, ‘F’ for foundation (Mersey Secondary only), ‘C’ for community governor, ‘L’ for LA governors and ‘A’ for associate governors. The clerks were given the pseudonyms of Clark and Clara.

3. This is the heading of a section in the ‘Governors’ Handbook’. (DfE 2014c, 8–9)

4. For an example from a non-London borough, see http://great-governance.org.uk/governance-tools/ask-the-right-questions/.