Autonomy, Accountability and Social Justice

In this groundbreaking, conceptually innovative text, Keddie and Mills disentangle the messy relationship between social justice and neoliberalism by turning their critical attention to one of the most ambitious and controversial projects in education system redesign: England’s academies programme. Thought provoking and boundary crossing, Keddie and Mills judiciously combine theory and evidence to grapple with the tensions and contradictions inherent to the movement of academisation as it successfully rebuffs local politics and democratic structures only to reinstate similar, albeit opaque, structures and practices of liberation and domination. Not content with some of the well-trodden platitudes of anti-academy rhetoric and related romanticisation of the past order of things, Keddie and Mills move beyond the obfuscatory language of binary thinking, of public (good) versus private (bad), to unravel the strange alignments and productive overlaps that make up the dis-embedding and re-embedding effects of academisation. This book captures the complexity of the current moment and provides a much-needed starting point for thinking through the problematics and pragmatics of achieving socially just forms of education under academisation and similar education systems undergoing market experimentation.

Andrew Wilkins, Reader in Education, University of East London

This is a timely appraisal of the English education system from a social justice perspective. Documenting the rapid quasi-marketisation of schooling in England (and elsewhere), Keddie and Mills apply a social justice lens to the troubled issues of autonomy, accountability, and the educational outcomes and experiences for vulnerable students. In a climate of teacher shortages and growing questions around models of accountability, this challenging book will be important reading for those wishing to ensure that socially-just values and outcomes are at the heart of developments.

Becky Francis, Director, UCL Institute of Education, University College London

Given their relatively recent inception, England’s academies have until lately remained an under-researched area. Thus, this new book by Amanda Keddie and Martin Mills makes for a great addition to the emerging body of research that has offered a voice to those working in these schools and will serve as a useful tool for helping us understand how school autonomy is being embraced, enacted, and experienced.

Craig Skerritt, Researcher, Dublin City University, Leadership and Policy in Schools

Mary Leahy, Melbourne Graduate School of Education

I must admit that having read and re-read this proposal, it is probably the most finished and sophisticated proposal for a book that I have ever seen. It is extremely well written and it seems to me that the authors have thought very carefully about what can be done in work at this length. Is there a real need for this book? First, there is always a need for a well argued, cogent and nuanced account of education policy in my opinion. Second, the whole issue of context is simply ignored by policy-makers and politicians. Yes there is a real need for this book. I think this book would be highly suitable for students and I would use it as a main reading against some topics and a recommended reading for programmes that I lead.

Meg Maguire, Kings College London

This book is unique because of its focus on context. I note in each chapter, they pull the arguments together through the lens of context – so, there is no equivalent book that I know of. It must be obvious from my comments that I think this is an original and fascinating project. The empirical base is going to be a great data set from where to mine insights related to the arguments being worked through. This is a highly regarded team who are extremely experienced and will produce a quality book. I will have it on my lists and will get our library to buy multiple copies. I think this is going to one of those books that will stand the test of time and will be read by teachers as well as researchers. I just hope that some copies will make it into the hands of policy makers!