Co-operative schools: democratic values, networks and leadership

ABSTRACT

For over a decade, co-operative schools have struck a note of discord within the highly orchestrated context of English education policy. They encapsulate an old set of ideas but re-articulate them for new times by engaging with educational frameworks which are locked into the so-called global education reform movement (GERM) based upon on standards, standardisation, a mixture of centralised and devolved accountabilities, leadership, testing and accountability. Yet co-operative schools ostensibly aim to embed a set of wide-ranging values and principles: equality, equity, democracy, self-help, self-responsibility and solidarity as well as the principles of education, democratic control and community ownership, all of which echo the history of labour movements. The co-operative legal model not only adheres to co-operative values and principles but necessitates stakeholder involvement in the governance of schools: pupils, staff, parents, community and, potentially, alumni are all expected to play a role. These are compared to David Hargreaves’ ideas about a ‘self-improving school system’. I analyse the emergence of the co-operative network and the reasons for its dramatic growth alongside the complex problems it faced. In turn, these help us to understand the possibilities and contradictions inherent in attempts to build inclusive and democratic educational networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-operation
• co-operative schools
• networks
• leadership
• forms of capital

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Tom Woodin is a reader in the social history of education at the UCL Institute of Education. His most recent book is on workers’ writing and community publishing, Working-Class Writing and Publishing in the Late-Twentieth Century (Manchester University Press, 2018). He has researched and published widely on co-operatives and learning, including Community and Mutual Ownership: A Historical Review for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and edited Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values (Routledge, 2015). He also works on the history of education and, with Gary McCulloch and Steven Cowan, wrote Secondary Education and the Raising of the School Leaving Age – Coming of Age? (Palgrave, 2013). He is currently co-writing a history of the Co-operative College for Palgrave Macmillan. He co-edits the journal History of Education.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Society for Educational Studies [Pilot study of co-operative schools].