'Structure Liberates?': Christy Kulz
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'Structure Liberates?': Making compliant, consumable bodies in a London academy Christy Kulz Goldsmiths, University of London Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. in Sociology October 2013 1 I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Christy Kulz 2 Abstract Mossbourne Community Academy, a celebrated highly disciplinarian secondary school, opened in East London in 2004. Operating under the ethos 'structure liberates’, it actively seeks to culturally transform its largely ethnic minority student body and create 'a culture of ambition to replace the poverty of aspiration' (Adonis, 2008). With its regimented routines and outstanding GCSE results, Mossbourne has been heralded as a blueprint for educational reform, yet persistent structural inequalities are concealed beneath the rhetoric of happy multiculturalism and aspirational citizenship. Through pathologising the surrounding area as a zone of 'urban chaos’, Mossbourne positions itself as an 'oasis in the desert' liberating students through discipline. This 'urban chaos' discourse draws on wider popular discourses of the pram-pushing 'chav' or the black, hooded gangster to portray 'urban children' and their families as regressive blocks to economic prosperity. Teachers compensate for incompetent parenting practices by becoming 'surrogate parents’, while a masculine superhero-as- headteacher wields a 'zero tolerance' approach to cultivate an uncritical respect for authority. My research traces how Mossbourne processes, regulates, and reconstitutes the bodies of students and teachers through space and time. It also examines how students and parents negotiate or adjust themselves in relation to the institutional norms which bring raced and classed positions into focus by highlighting who needs to 'do' work on themselves to accrue value. More broadly, the research highlights how an intensely marketised education system does not mitigate, but reformulates, reproduces and re-intrenches inequalities. 3 Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………...10 Introduction – Approaching an Ethos……………………………..11 Mapping the Questions……………………………………………………………13 The Architect's Blueprint………………………………………………………… 14 Subject Making/Making Subjects…………………………………………………18 Legitimate Cultures………………………………………………………………...20 Selfhood and Value…………………………………………………………………22 Remembering the Good Old Days…………………………………………………24 Education of/for Neoliberal Times………………………………………………...28 Looking Forward…………………………………………………………………...29 Chapter One - Building New Narratives: From 'God Grant Grace' to 'Structure Liberates'…………………………………………………31 Aspirational Spaces…………………………………………………………………31 Building New Mythologies…………………………………………………………32 Hackney as Multiple Spaces………………………………………………………...33 Narratives of Failure and ‘Loony Left’ Problems………………………………….35 Non-democratic Solutions………………………………………………………….38 Making a Marketplace……………………………………………………………...39 i. Markets Logic Meets Education ii. Embedding Markets iii. Comprehensive Dislocation Conclusion………………………………………………………………………......45 Chapter Two - Old Spectres Haunting and Shaping the Present..46 Present Pasts……………………………………………………………………….46 The 'Empire' Within: Civilising Missions and the Sociological Project…………..48 Urban Natives and their White Middle-Class Others…………………………….49 Responsible Individuals……………………………………………………………51 Policing Contamination Zones…………………………………………………….53 Civilising Natives…………………………………………………………………..54 Requisite Knowledge and the Obligatory Classroom……………………………...55 i. The Early Days 4 ii. Opposition iii. Educational Investment Pathology, Modernised…………………………………………………………….59 A Progressive Crisis………………………………………………………………..60 Divided Struggles…………………………………………………………………..62 A Glorious Reversion: Amnesia, Denial and Delusion…………………………….62 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..64 Chapter Three - Adaptive Methods for a Constricted Field……..66 From Moving Boxes to Making a Thesis…………………………………………..66 An Ethics of Negotiation……………………………………………………………68 Reflexive Knowledge Making………………………………………………………71 Talking to Teachers: Initial Fieldwork……………………………………………..74 Back to School as 'Random Adult'…………………………………………………..76 Ethnographic Explorations…………………………………………………………79 Using Images and Spaces…………………………………………………………....82 Examining Raced, Classed Productions and Power………………………………...85 Interviews and the Limits of Listening……………………………………………...86 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...90 Chapter Four - How to Build an 'Oasis in the Desert', or 'Urban Chaos' Hits the Conveyor Belt………………………………………..91 Regimentation, Transparency and Predictability: 'Keep Things Tight and Remain Vigilant’………………………………………………………………………………92 Dividing Spaces and Bodies………………………………………………………….98 The Verbal Cane…………………………………………………………………….100 Enclosure / Dislocation: 'You Could Be Anywhere Really'………………………...102 Unstable Thresholds and the Policing of Liminal Space……………………………105 On Chicken Shop Patrol……………………………………………………………...107 Measuring and Making………………………………………………………………110 Conclusion: What is the Machine Making?..........................................................................116 Chapter Five - Manufacturing Belief: Saint Michael and His Surrogate Parents……………………………………………………..119 A Sermon in the Church of the Self: ‘May Good Triumph Over Evil’……………...120 5 The Lone Ranger: Empire-Builder and Bringer of Happiness…………………....123 Father Teresa's Universal Attraction……………………………………………..125 'Tough Love': Boys Will Be Boys………………………………………………….127 Making the Neutral Professional………………………………………………….129 Exhibits of Difference and the Social Injustice of Sameness……………………....133 Business Bodies……………………………………………………………………136 Labouring on the Range…………………………………………………………...138 Dictating Culture…………………………………………………………………..140 Making a Contract…………………………………………………………………143 i. 'It Took Me a Long Time to be Indoctrinated...' ii. Benefits iii. Burn Out Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….149 Chapter Six - Urban Children and 'The Buffer Zone': Mapping the Contours of the Conveyor Belt……………………………………...151 Erecting 'The Buffer Zone': Nice, Leafy (Mostly White) Middle-Class Children…152 Unstable Boundaries………………………………………………………………...154 Privileges for the Privileged ……………………………………………………….156 Being Ideal…………………………………………………………………………..159 Deceptive Bodies: Looking the Part………………………………………………...160 Troublesome (Black) Boys…………………………………………………………..161 Sticky Reputations: 'I Am Bad in This School'……………………………………...164 'Accidental' Divisions?..............................................................................................................166 The Consequences of Staying Still………………………………………………….169 'Not One of Those People Who Just Sticks with One Group’……………………...172 'Just Because it's Ghetto Doesn't Mean it's Bad'…………………………………....173 Unspeakable Structures……………………………………………………………..175 A Search for Causality………………………………………………………………177 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...180 Chapter Seven - Re-Imagining the Real World: Raw Materials Negotiate the Conveyor Belt……………………………………….182 'The Child-Catcher'………………………………………………………………..182 Learning to Live Within Imagined Futures………………………………………185 Reservations and Promises………………………………………………………...188 6 Becoming 'Little Robots'……………………………………………………….192 Performing Compliance………………………………………………………..196 Discarded Attributes…………………………………………………………...197 'Becoming More White'………………………………………………………...199 Problematic Bodies: 'Stuffed in the LSU'………………………………………202 202 i. Opting Out ii. Lost in the Machine iii. Criminal Types The Damage of Dislocation…………………………………………………….209 Isolating Opinions……………………………………………………………...211 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...215 Chapter Eight - Urban Chaos and the Imagined Other: Remaking Middle-Class Hegemony……………………………………………217 Who's Oasis?...........................................................................................................................217 Efficient Business Professionals…………………………………………………...222 Disciplinary Facades………………………………………………………………224 Cementing Affinities………………………………………………………………228 Discipline as Real………………………………………………………………….230 Model Student Protection………………………………………………………...233 Rewriting Fantasies of the 'Other'………………………………………………..235 Through the Lens of Urban Chaos……………………………………………….239 'Making the Adjustment'………………………………………………………….242 Around the Houses………………………………………………………………..246 When Numbers Don't Add Up…………………………………………………....246 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………251 In Conclusion - Tracing the Frayed Edges of the Fantastic Conveyor Belt……………………………………………………………………253 Changing Urban Culture?....................................................................................................255 Reproducing Difference, Differently: Shifting Articulations of Raced and Classed Inequity……………………………………………………………………………257 The Hard Graft of Neoliberal Subjecthood……………………………………….261 Whose Knowledge?: Loss, Fantasy and Value……………………………………264 Appendix A: Core Student Cohort………………………………………………...267 7 Appendix B: Teacher, Parent and Sixth Former Sample………………………….271 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..273 8 Table of Figures Fig. 0.1. Hackney Downs School………………………………………………………25 Fig. 0.2. Cadets practice against the backdrop of Pembury Estate in the 1950’s……...26 Fig. 0.3. Hackney Downs School and Mossbourne blazer badges…………………….46 Fig. 0.4. Mossbourne from Hackney Downs Park……………………………………94 Fig. 0.5. View of the playground from the centre of the ‘V’…………………………..95 Fig. 0.6. The Learning Support Unit (LSU)…………………………………………...96 Fig. 0.7. Map of the chicken shop run from my field notes…………………………107 Fig.