To Infinity and beyond …: Heterarchical Governance, the Teach for All Network in Europe and the Making of Profits and Minds

Abstract

This article explores the increasing commercialisation of education through the empirical case of Teach For All, a network of social enterprises which is spreading a new model of teacher training across Europe and around the world. This model, which is supported and funded by a heterogeneous mix of public institutions and private sector organisations, is not only opening up public education to private involvement and influence, but it is also reshaping what it means to be a teacher. The substantive argument that we present here is that commercialisation is not only about making money (which is certainly being achieved through this kind of heterarchical network), but also about making people up as commercial and enterprising subjects. Drawing on the idea of neoliberalism as both a material process of economisation, and a form of governmentality, we weave together an analysis which considers the interrelations between profit, the subjectivities of the Teach For All teacher, and the governance of teacher education in Europe.

Following policy: networks, network ethnography and education policy mobilities

“…The IERM is one of many new 'complex and contradictory spaces ripe for critical interrogation' (Peck and Theodore 2012 p. 21). The paper is an attempt to think outside and beyond the framework of the nation state to make sense of what is going on inside the nation state -and the Some trans-national policy players within the global education policy field are well researched, like the OECD, World Bank and European Union; in comparison edubusinesses (Bhanji 2012, (Hogan, Sellar et al (forthcoming)), Ball 2012, Ball etc 2015, Junemann and Ball 2015 ), Ed-Tech companies (Santori 2016), foundations and philanthropies and social enterprises (Reckhow 2013), Au iv (Kretchmar, Sondel et al 2014), (Olmedo, Bailey et al 2013)) have received much less attention from researchers. Nonetheless, the latter are now clearly having significant impact on the formulation and reformulation of teaching and learning, assessment and the curriculum and the general directions and conceptualisation of education policy and governance within and across national jurisdictions (Hogan 2015).…”

Something old, not much new, and a lot borrowed: philanthropy, business, and the changing roles of government in global education policy networks

“…As analysed in previous work (see Bailey, 2015;Olmedo, Bailey, & Ball, 2013), the private companies involved in the programme benefit directly and/or indirectly in multiple ways. For instance, the German subsidiary, Teach First Deutschland, runs the so-called 'Teach First -join later' scheme.…”

Teach First organisational discourse: What are Teach First teachers really being trained for?

“…Along with this sense of otherness and special status, of being someone who is doing more than just 'working', comes the membership of the wider network which spans above and beyond educational circles. The networks embedded within Teach First, and indeed within all the 'Teach for' organisations under the Teach for All umbrella, serve to normalise private participation in education (Olmedo et al, 2013). Ball (2007Ball ( , 2008Ball ( , 2012 suggests that these different agents create a 'network governance', where individuals from within the companies have access to shaping the policy and vision of the organisation, sometimes by sitting on the management board, and sometimes by more informal means.…”