NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ915385
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Feb
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-4985
EISSN: N/A
Fabricating an Identity in Neo-Liberal Times: Performing Schooling as "Number One"
Keddie, Amanda; Mills, Martin; Pendergast, Donna
Oxford Review of Education, v37 n1 p75-92 Feb 2011
This paper presents interview data from a case study of "Lemontyne College"; a large government school situated in a "master planned community" (MPC) in Australia. The paper draws on Ball's (2003) theorising of performativity and fabrication to analyse this school's take up of the status-oriented corporate discourses of performance, competition and accountability. This theorising brings to light the ways in which the managerial processes at the school, driven by the administration's embracing of these discourses, shape Lemontyne into an auditable commodity and fabricate an identity around being "number 1". The paper highlights the lack of authenticity of this fabrication by drawing attention to its careful and deliberate construction. Our focus here is on the surveillance and accountability measures required to discipline teachers into this performative sociality and on the alternative reality articulated by teachers in terms of their resistance to this sociality. To these ends, the paper highlights how Lemontyne's embracing of performative discourses results in a de-socialisation of schooling relations. We propose that such de-socialisation compromises efforts in schools to respond productively to social change and in particular to the new equity challenges arising in contexts such as Lemontyne situated in a MPC.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A