And if you can’t hear us?: students as customers of neo-HPE

ABSTRACT

The enactment of neoliberal ideologies in education, in particular the extension of free-market logics, has the potential to reposition students and affect if and how their voices are elicited and responded to. There is, however, a dearth of research that seeks to understand how students are experiencing neoliberal influences on their education. Given the various and far-reaching effects of neoliberalisation on education, one specific neoliberal practice, namely the outsourcing of curriculum work to external providers within a singular curricular subject, was selected to be explored. In this paper we present an analysis and theorisation of students’ positioning in, and perspectives of, outsourced health and physical education (HPE) in one secondary school. We utilise Bernstein’s sociology of pedagogic voice to assist in our analysis. Data were generated at an independent, co-educational secondary school in Australia through focus groups with 25 Year 8 students, interviews with school staff, and observations of externally provided lessons. Our analysis revealed significant pedagogical and ethical issues relating to teaching and learning in externally provided HPE classes. We argue that more empirical research and better theorisation around students’ experiences in, and opinions of, neo-HPE is necessary in order to protect the educative and socially just intent of the subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Outsourcing
• external providers
• student voice
• Bernstein
• sociology of pedagogic voice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Three publications about outsourced HPE that included student voice were not found through the scoping review’s specific search method (i.e. Kirk & Colquhoun, 1989; Powell, 2015b; Tinning & Kirk, 1991).

2 Independent schools in Australia are one form of ‘non-state’ school. They have ‘independence of operation’ within the bounds ‘of state and territory and Australian Government legislation which together impose requirements in relation to financial operation, accountability, the curriculum, assessment and reporting’ (Independent Schools Council of Australia, 2016).

3 In Australia, Health Education and Physical Education are brought together into one subject under the Australian Curriculum: HPE. It is a mandatory learning area for students aged 5–16 in the compulsory years of schooling.

4 Random sampling of students potentially negated researcher bias in the selection of individuals, possibly increased credibility of findings, and allowed access to multiple and diverse voices about HPE and Cardio Tennis (Patton, 2002).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP140102607]; the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.