Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Chapter One poses the Global Financial Crisis as a point of acceleration in the reorganisation of the welfare state and the intensification of reforms to teacher education motivated by the assumption that improved quality of teaching in schools will lead to improved national economic performance and competitiveness. The chapter introduces the general approach taken in the chapters that follow – critical and cultural political economy analysis – as well as the key concepts of the enterprise narrative and the shadow state. Concluding with an outline summary of the chapters that follow, the chapter also presents the USA, England and Norway as the key national reference points.
Chapter Four begins with an analysis of the global teacher education brand, Teach for All (TfA). The origins of the TfA movement and the examples of (officially) Teach For America, Teach First (England) and (unofficially) Teach First Norway are examined as examples of franchises with varying degrees of ‘branding compliance’ with different organisational bases but with more or less the same ‘unifying principles’. The chapter then turns to the US idea of the independent graduate schools of education, focusing particularly on the Relay Graduate School, the largest in the country. The influence of the USA is then shown in England in the form of the start-up Institute of Teaching, founded (with significant government backing) by a travelling policy entrepreneur, and the eventual foundation of a National Institute of Teaching in England. These examples are analysed in relation to the literature on disruptive innovation but also in relation to the different operation of markets for teacher education programmes in the USA and England and the different positioning of the consumer (potential teacher).
Chapter Three begins with a discussion of the relevance of the idea of producer capture, introduced into the teacher education research literature by the eminent British sociologist Geoff Whitty. Producer capture has been used in arguments about the failure of welfare state institutions. Arising out of this discussion, the chapter then turns to the increasing importance of branding in education generally and teacher education specifically drawing on recent cutting-edge research by Dahle in the Norwegian context (Osloskolen). Branding then leads to an analysis of vertical integration (a concept used in the study of manufacturing supply chains) in the context of teacher education and teacher supply. Three examples of vertical integration in strong education brands are examined: the Knowledge is Power Program and the Match charter school chains in the USA; and multi-academy trusts’ (MATs’) provision of continuing professional development for teachers in England. Original data from a study of teachers’ experiences of continuing professional development in English MATs is analysed. The chapter concludes by showing how the idea of producer capture has been reappropriated in reforms of teacher preparation.
Viv Ellis, Lauren Gatti and Warwick Mansell present a unique and international analysis of teacher education policy.
Adopting a political economy perspective, this distinctive text provides a comparative analysis of three contrasting welfare state models – the US, England and Norway – following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Arguing that a new political economy of teacher education began to emerge in the decade following the GFC, the authors explore key concepts in education privatisation and examine the increasingly important role of shadow state enterprises in some jurisdictions.
This topical text demonstrates the potential of a political economy approach when analysing education policies regarding pre-service teacher education and continuing professional development.
The final chapter summarises the key argument that a new political economy of teacher education emerged after the Global Financial Crisis as the association of improved economic performance with improved teaching (and teacher) quality became ever more strongly articulated across many national contexts, often mediated through regressive cultural discourses. The power of the enterprise narrative in teacher education reform is restated and discussion of the role of shadow state organisations (including co-created entities) leads to an exploration of future dilemmas for education policy makers regarding the role of teacher education institutions in public (that is, ultimately state-funded) education systems and the extent to which both schools and teacher education programmes should become differentiated on cultural and political grounds and the extent to which there would be any kind of democratic deficit the more these decisions are taken out of public deliberation and accountability.
Chapter Five focuses on continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers in the context of changing relations between processes of privatisation, marketisation and the welfare state. Jennifer Wolch’s concept of the shadow state is discussed. Beginning with an analysis of how certain organisations won funding from England’s Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund in 2016, the chapter goes on to theorise different kinds of shadow state structures, extending Wolch’s original conceptualisation. Co-created shadow state structures are shown to be a distinctive feature of the English teacher education landscape. The chapter then turns to the Relay Graduate School of Education in the USA and its provision of CPD for teachers. The evolution of Relay and its relationship with the US Department of Education is explored so as to reveal the larger political economy of the USA in three sectors of activity: the market, charity and the state. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the different meanings of state/shadow state structures across the three national settings examined as well as a further engagement with Wolch’s later work that highlighted the ‘democratic deficit’ inherent in the growth of powerful shadow state organisations.
Chapter Two begins with an explanation of the cultural-historical approach taken and how that is integrated with a critical political economy analysis. As essential background, histories of the teacher education systems in the USA, England and Norway are presented, particularly in relation to the different types of welfare state. Colonisation, slavery and segregation; nation- and empire-building; and the industrialisation of an historically agricultural, communitarian society are all shown to be key factors in how the institutions and practices of teacher education have developed. Two cases that exemplify the power of the enterprise narrative in teacher education reform are presented: the Academy of Urban School Leadership in Chicago and the construction of ‘experts’ from a cast of policy entrepreneurs in England.
