THE TEACHER’S SOUL AND THE TERRORS OF PERFORMATIVITY

STEPHEN J. BALL

Presented by Shine Nissar

EDUC 702 – Foundation in Educational Leadership

Professor Stephen Ball

PhD, FRSA, AcSS, FBA, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education.

Department of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies and Centre for Critical Education Policy Studies, Institute of Education, University of London.

1. Author of 14 books, hundreds of papers and lots of book chapters

2. Work focuses on social class and educationMainly the relationship between them.Social inequalitiesSocial reproduction of classIssues related to education policy

3. Uses sociology to understand education

4. Does not want to be recognized as “something” because it opens some possibilities and closes other…

5.Michel Foucault work has influenced Dr. Ball’s work

Activity

•“More than ever now policies move around the world and policy ideas flow between countries... We have something that can be identifiable as global education policy”

--- Dr. Stephen Ball

•As an educational leader what would you state as a global education policy?

Performativity in the Public Sector•State regulation which makes it possible to govern in a “advanced liberal” way.

•Practitioners to respond to targets, indicators and evaluations

•When we view the profession of education in numbers and statistics, the great truth seems to slip through our fingers.

•enterprise + excellence = Performative worker

•Where is public education heading?

Education Reform…

•Education reform as a policy epidemic.

•An unstable, uneven and unstoppable flood of closely inter-related reform ideas permeating in the education system in diverse social and political locations which have very different histories.

•Education reform simply does not change what educators, scholars and researchers do, it changes who they are

•Who has a say in education reform? •World Bank•OECD – Organization for Economic Co-operation and Dev.http://www.oecd.org/about/history/

How has politics changed education reform in America during the last 15 years?

What does it mean to teach?•How have teaching practices changed in PK-12?

•How have teaching practices changed in colleges and universities?

•How would teaching practices be different if you were in-charge?

Three Interrelated Policy Technologies…•1. The Market•2. Managerialism •3. PerformativityEven though each has a different emphasis in national and local settings, these are closely inter-dependent in the process of reform.

These offer politically attractive alternativesSupersedes older policies of professionalism and bureaucracy.

These policy technologies answers the call to centralizing management, monitoring systems, and the production of information. i.e. Michel Foucault’s Panopticon

PerformativityWhat is performativity?It is a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation that employs judgments, comparisons and rewards and punishmentsWhat are the performances?Individual subjects or organizationsWho controls judgments? Administrators, state officials and national officials Who is being judged?TeachersWhat is the end result of performativity and being judged in the profession of education in the U.K?Loss of creativity, educators being pushed out of the profession, managers (administrators making operational decisions based on test results…)

Indicators of Policy Interventions of Education that Brings in to Play…

Activity - Peopled by HR, managed, cost-effective, policy outcome, productivity targets, competitionWhere does building relationships, trust and creativity and cooperation fit in?Cooperation is being robbed by performative competition

•The Role of the Manger in the Profession of Education in the U.K.

•New hero of education reform•Holding workers (teachers) accountable •Committed and personally invested •Technicians of the transformation

Technicians of behavior according to Michael Foucault

Manager’s task is to produce bodies that are docile and capable

Monitoring systems in place are to measure productivity

Appraisals, Performance Reviews and Performance related pay opens up to control

Emotional life of worker’s life is made public (Bernstein 1975:65)

Examples of policy technologies:Teacher and researchers in the profession of education are subject to be judged, measured, compared and being held accountable. Information is collected continuously recorded and published.Classroom visits performedPerformance is monitoredDay-to-day practices are flooded with figures, indicators, comparisons and forms of competition

As a result of the above practices teachers face the following:

Their purpose is made contradictory

Motivations become blurred

Self worth becomes uncertain

Become uncertain of their calling and if their work is valued

Activity - Performance Indicators

Discuss your best performance review and your worst performance review…

What would you be doing differently as an educational leader?

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81LxlNlujBM

"Addressing inequality through education policy." Stephen Ball, Professor of Sociology of Education, in conversation with doctoral student Carolina Junemann.

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSqvoxoqwFY - FACULTI - Education - Education Policy Impacts

Work Cited…Ball, S. J. (2010). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228.

http://www.oecd.org/about/history/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81LxlNlujBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSqvoxoqwFY