Neo‐liberal Subjectivities and the Limits of Social Change in University–Community Partnerships

Abstract

In this paper the authors analyse a university–school partnership that went awry. It was designed to develop a new set of philosophical principles to inform work with violent student behaviour in schools. The project brought together a team of researchers from the university and school sector with a strong record of examining and improving the management of behaviour in classrooms. The authors sought volunteer school‐based educators to work with them as co‐researchers. Despite the team's strong school‐based research background, the mutual interest in developing a new approach to work with violence, and the strong collaborative base, they found themselves, as the initiating research team, unable to progress in the ways they had anticipated. This paper analyses the dynamics at work in that lack of progress. The analysis is put forward with the hope of enlivening discussion about what makes for successful collaborative projects between schools and universities.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the University of Western Sydney Regional Grants scheme for funding the project. We would like to thank Michael Gottsche for his work in supporting our activities and for his participation in the project. We would like to thank the school staff who participated, both those who stayed in and those who did not. We would also like to thank those who have given us critical feedback on this paper: Peter Bansel and Eva Petersen and two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. For example, in The Australian (19 July 2004, p. 16) Natasha Robinson writes: “Programs funnel extra help to disruptive students”: “The expansion in behaviour schools comes two years after an inquiry into NEW SOUTH WALES public education identified disruptive behaviour as the most frequently raised issue of concern—not only by teachers and parents, but also by students, who expressed frustration at constant classroom interruptions”.

2. Such responses include those that are organised within schools (e.g., individual behaviour plans, withdrawal/time‐out rooms, etc), and those outside mainstream schools (e.g., alternative settings such as behaviour or special schools). Such practices generally require students to articulate or record their behavioural errors, and reflect on the consequences of their behaviour with the assumption that they will then be better able to recognise and rationally choose appropriate behaviours. Specialist school or district staff usually assist or manage these processes.

3. Phelan, Anderson and Bourke (2000, p. 635) report that “most universities undertake a substantial amount of collaboration and, in general, the amount of collaboration has jumped substantially in recent years”. Despite this increase, Wasser and Bresler (1996, p. 14) point out that collaborative practices “have been overlooked in most discussions of methodological issues”.

4. For example, the Quality Teaching Project in New South Wales has trained teachers and administrators across the state in the use of checklists to observe and evaluate teacher behaviours in classrooms.

5. For example, in The Australian newspaper (19 July 2004, p. 16) Natasha Robinson writes: “Programs funnel extra help to disruptive students. … Amending the behaviour of chronic miscreants has long been the bane of teachers' lives and has baffled education departments' policy developers. Funding is now starting to flow into initiatives that offer intensive support to disruptive students while giving fellow students a reprieve from their antics. … Students are encouraged to critically examine their own behaviour and devise a program with specific goals, eventually aimed at getting them to a level where they can be integrated into the mainstream schooling system. … Vinson says behaviour schools will be of limited help to these students, who are in urgent need of professional psychological or psychiatric intervention”.