Newness Against the Grain

Abstract

What is the nature of democratic innovation in a performative culture? The purpose of this chapter is to help answer this question by giving conceptual substance to the notion of democratic emergence as a specific kind of innovation in the context of contemporary governance trends. It is argued that the performative governance which is the product of these trends is not invulnerable to challenge because of deficiencies in the capacity of managerialism and performative governance to improve services, and the creative spaces for agency and initiative created by the valuing of entrepreneurialism and innovation. The chapter draws on existing conceptual work on democratic approaches to school organisation and innovation (Woods, 2013a; Frost, 2012; Frost & Roberts, 2011; Woods, 2013a), relevant literature on entrepreneurialism, discussed below, and on offers a brief insight into an example of democratic innovation in practice. A proposition underlying the chapter is that democratic innovation has to position itself in relation to performative governance on the grounds that there is in the contemporary context no other choice. Performative governance is defined as a policy and organisational climate dominated by an instrumental rationality in which an entrepreneurial culture is promoted and progress and achievement are measured relentlessly against calculable ends such as targets and financial goals (Woods & Woods, 2013b). Instrumentalising trends, which institutionalise competitive values and managerialist priorities, are strong features of this climate (Woods, 2013). Their tendency is to eclipse or marginalise aims of individual criticality, democratic participation, autonomy and human development as intrinsically worthwhile purposes. The challenge to educators' identities is encapsulated by Jeffrey and Troman's (2012) conceptualisation of the 'embracing performative institution' (EPI). In EPI, power is exercised subtly in ways that lead organisational members to 'submit themselves to the authority of an institution, internalise its values and enact through them mutual surveillance