An Investigation Into New Labour Education Policy: Personalisation, Young People, Schools and Modernity A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Faculty of Humanities 2012 Stephen Howard Rogers School of Education CONTENTS Chapter Number Title Page List of Tables 7 Abstract 8 Declaration, 9 Copyright Statement 9 Acknowledgements 10 Abbreviations 11 Chapter One Personalisation, Young People, Schools and Modernity: 12 introduction 1.1 Introduction 12 1.2 Rationale for the study 14 1.3 Outlining the argument 17 1.4 The structure of the thesis 23 Chapter Two Personalisation: Describing the Narratives 28 2.1 Introduction 28 2.2 Personalised learning: New Labour’s narrative 30 2.3 Personalised Learning and pedagogy, a story of 37 confusion 2.4 Personalised learning: its critical reception 43 2.5 Personalised learning in the political narrative 48 2.5.1 Personalisation and the “citizen-consumer” 49 2.5.2 Personalisation and social justice 51 2.6 ‘Whither’ personalisation 52 2.7 Summary 54 2 Chapter Three The Research Design Part 1: Policy scholarship and a 57 virtue ethics approach 3.1 Introduction 57 3.2 The case for critical policy scholarship 58 3.3 MacIntyre: social practice and the virtues 61 3.3.1 Beyond effectiveness to excellence 67 3.3.2 Virtues, capabilities and social justice 71 3.3.2 Authenticity and moral modes of practice 77 3.4 The competing values framework 82 3.5 Summary 83 Chapter Four Research Design Part 2: Methodology and methods 87 4.1 Introduction 87 4.2 Research methodology: the research questions, 88 interpretivism and narrative 4.2.1 Methods 93 4.3 The fieldwork process 97 4.3.1 The sample and the sites used for research 97 4.3.2 Interviews with policy strategists 107 4.3.3 The focus groups and the scenario activities with 109 young people 4.3.4 Group interviews with young people 116 4.3.5 Interviews with headteachers 118 4.3.6 Data transcription and stages of analysis 120 4.4 Trustworthiness and validity 124 4.5 Ethics 129 4.6 Generalisability 130 4.7 Summary 131 3 Chapter Five Crouching Target, Hidden Child 133 5.1 Introduction 133 5.2 The citizen-consumer – learner voice 134 5.3 Targets and school held data: ‘reputation’ 136 5.4 Curriculum organisation 140 5.5 The mute learner voice 142 5.5.1 Lesson engagement 144 5.5.2 Assessment for learning and lesson reviews 147 5.5.3 Mute learner voice 150 5.5.4 Mute learner voice: a matter of priorities 153 5.6 Summary of ‘crouching target, hidden child’ 155 5.7 Preliminary reflections on the data: effectiveness versus 157 excellence 5.8 Chapter summary 162 Chapter Six Procrustean Schooling? Personalised learning and 165 social justice 6.1 Introduction 165 6.2 “Holding them back” 167 6.3 On being ‘average’ 171 6.4 Beyond ‘me’ 174 6.4.1 Young people and distributive justice 174 6.4.2 “Everybody is an outsider to somebody” 178 6.4.3 The school as a “community” 181 6.5 ‘Decorative’ and “twisted” voice and “things that matter” 183 6.6 Reflecting on the data: Procrustean schooling? 190 6.7 Summary 197 4 Chapter Seven Personalisation: The Story of Modernising Schools, 199 Headteachers and Competing Models of Governance 7.1 Introduction 199 7.2 Personalisation and the modernisation of public 201 services 7.3 Competing values of governance and personalised 215 learning in schools 7.4 Summary 237 Chapter Eight Modernity, the Consumer and the Ethical Spaces of 242 Schooling 8.1 Introduction 242 8.2 The compelling case for personalisation in the social 247 imaginaries of modernity 8.2.1 The compelling case for personalisation and the 259 ‘risks’ of modernity 8.3 Personalisation and consumerisms: celebration or 263 suspicion? 8.4 Neoliberalism and the narrative of personalisation 275 8.5 Governance and personalisation 282 8.6 Summary 291 Chapter Nine Conclusion 295 9.1 Introduction 295 9.2 Conclusion: preamble 296 9.3 What are the experiences of young people as learners 300 within the practices of schools who seek to promote and enact personalised learning? 9.4 How is the enactment of personalised learning in 304 schools framed by the ways that headteachers interpret policies of personalised learning? 9.5 The ethical spaces for personalised learning and the 307 implications for social justice 9.6 The contribution of the thesis and suggested further 316 lines of research 5 References 320 Appendices: List of appendices 342 Appendix 1: DCSF: Pedagogy of personalised learning 343 extract Appendix 2: New Labour and Personalised learning: a 344 timeline Appendix 3: Scenarios, more background 351 Appendix 4: Focus group activities 1 and 2 353 Appendix 5: Focus group activity 3, scenarios 358 Appendix 6: UREC approved participant information 363 and consent forms Appendix 7: An example mindmap 376 Word count: 81,153 6 LIST OF TABLES and FIGURES Table number Title Page Table 2.1 An illustration of New Labour’s commitment to 36 personalised learning. Numbers of policy sources by type, date and key ministers. Table 4.1 Respondents in the orientation phase of the 99 research Table 4.2 School sites, key characteristics, and headteachers 102 Table 4.3 Young people in the sample, school by school 105 Table 4.4 List of interview themes for policy strategists and link 108 to research question Figure 4.5 Roles and responsibilities: blank agreement and 113 evaluation sheet Table 4.6 Key Interview questions for young people and the 117 main reasons for asking them Table 4.7 Key interview questions for headteachers and the 119 main reasons for asking them Figure 5.1 Effectiveness versus excellence in learner voice 161 plotted against organisational cultural values Figure 6.1 Manipulative and non-manipulative moral modes in 196 the practices of schooling in relation to young peoples’ participation and the competing values model of organisations Figure 7.1 The competing values model of governance in 217 relation to personalised learning Table 8.1 Horizons in the social imaginary linked to the 258 narrative of personalisation Figure 8.2 Ethical spaces in the governance and accountability 289 structures of schooling under New Labour Figure 9.1 Questions to evaluate the ethical practice of schools 313 and governments in developing excellence in learning 7 ABSTRACT The New Labour government’s (1997-2010) policy of personalised learning was announced as an idea ‘exciting’ the profession and promising ‘radical implications’ for the shape of education in England. The policy attracted much debate and criticism and its enactment is a site worthy of research. This study makes a contribution to knowledge through researching the rarely heard stories of young people in this policy enactment. It makes a further contribution to policy scholarship through the interplay of the data from school practices and moral philosophy drawn from Alasdair MacIntyre. Qualitative interviews and focus group activities were conducted with young people in three different secondary schools in order to understand their stories of personalised learning some two years into New Labour’s third term of government. To understand more of the context for the stories of the young people, some strategic actors in policy dissemination were interviewed, as were the headteachers of the three schools. Personalised learning promised to engage the voice of the learner in learning practices. The research finds a young peoples’ story that is consistently one of a mute and invisible identity within the schools. An argument is presented that the purposes of schools ought to be judged on standards of excellence definitive of, and extended by, a concept of virtues. A distinction is made between effectiveness in producing exam results and a richer sense of excellence in education practice. It is argued that virtues that define standards of excellence at the institutional level of practice can enrich and prefigure wider concepts of justice than are contained in policy. Young peoples’ stories in this research indicate that, contrary to policy ideals, they often perceived unfairness and arbitrariness in their school experiences. Personalised learning needs to be set within the narrative of the personalisation of public services: a reforming rubric, employing the motif of the citizen-consumer as a proposition about social justice and modernisation. New Labour’s ideology and models of governance are explored and related to the testimony of headteachers to understand more about the young peoples’ perceptions. Literatures are drawn upon to place personalisation in a historical context, linking it to moral orders of contemporary social imaginaries. New Labour made a case for personalised learning as furthering the cause of social justice and is thus a policy in need of ethical examination. Following MacIntyre, it is argued that modernity has left few moral resources by which to evaluate the personal, but the experiences of young people suggested that a richer moral agency is glimpsed within their stories of schooling. The social practice at the level of schools is thus critical but requires policy to enable ethical spaces for schools to re-invigorate their purposes. I argue that in the light of some critical fault lines, such as neoliberalism and a reconfiguration of tiers of local governance, personalisation as a ‘modernising’ policy proposition could do little to extend the goods of schooling beyond some narrow conceptions of effectiveness. 8 DECLARATION No portion of work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes.