Internationally, the marketisation of schooling has re-imagined schools as businesses (Ball, 2017) calling for those with business skills take on the role of school governance (Wilkins, 2015). This reconstruction of schooling and its governance has reconfigured relationships between those responsible for school governance and parents. In England, multi-academy trusts (MATs) – groups of schools governed by an overarching trust through contractual arrangements with the state (West & Wolfe, 2019) – are a corporatised instantiation of this marketisation. This changing landscape of school governance calls for the field to revisit the role of parents in corporatised MAT governance, beyond that of consumer and parent governor (Olmedo & Wilkins, 2017).

Corporatising parent roles

In a recent study examining the role of parents in MAT governance in three multi-academy trusts, the parent role was illuminated to be both a product and enabler of corporate activity (Healey, 2024). With a perceived metaphorical distance (Baxter & Cornforth, 2021) between the MAT board and parents locally, these types are positioned in MAT governance to act locally as supporters, providers, monitors, mediators, local civic experts and operational partners. Each type is enabled to play a role in this corporatised field of MAT governance.

Role in the game

Using Bourdieu’s (1998) metaphor of the game, (for example rugby, football or hockey) each of these characterisations of types of parent roles can be positioned in this corporate game of MAT governance arrangements locally. Each characterisation takes up a position in the game, as a fan, in defence, midfield or forward with those in governance positioned as the team’s directors.

The fans

‘Expectation is that all parents will play the role of supporter, following the rules of the game as loyal fans.’

Expectation is that all parents will play the role of supporter, following the rules of the game as loyal fans. Policy positions the parent consumer to make a ‘choice’ in the school they choose. But the supporter parent is produced through workshops, apps and websites to adopt MAT governance policy decisions, such as phonic approaches to reading or homework (Epstein, 2008; Healey, 2024). Similarly, the parent role of provider, is produced to provide metrics and opinion. As providers of data and opinion, parents enable the justification and promotion of corporate practices.

Playing in defence and midfield

The monitor is a parent who knows their community but trusted by corporate actors. Positioned in defence, they are produced to monitor local information enabling the mitigation of risks to the organisation. The mediator and civic experts are respected and known within their communities, connecting MAT governance with the local when required. Selected for a midfield position they build the reputation of the organisation and its corporate actors locally, as they mediate policy decisions using local knowledge and networks.

The forwards

The partner role has been positioned as a forward in the game. This parent role understands the rules of the game, legitimising corporate practice in their engagement. Produced to operationalise MAT policy locally alongside local school leaders, they secure local practice within the rules of MAT policy expectations.

Time to play a new game?

All these types of parents are products of a corporatised field of education, produced and enabled to legitimise corporate rules in the game. But maybe there is now a need for a different game, where policy acknowledges parents as citizens, not objects of corporate activity. This calls on the field to refocus research to explore the relationships between education governance across the sector with its citizens, rather than governance constitution to understand how the rules of the game can [re]democratise the field.

References

Ball, S. (2017). The education debate (3rd ed.). Policy Press.

Baxter, J, A., & Cornforth, C. (2021). Governing collaborations: How boards engage with their communities in multi-academy trusts in England. Public Management Review, 23(4), 567–589. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1699945

Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason (trans. R. Nice). Policy Press.

Epstein, J. L. (2008). Improving family and community involvement in secondary schools. The Education Digest, 73(6), 9–12. https://homeschoolconnect.pbworks.com/f/Improving+Family+and+Community+Involvement.pdf

Healey, K. (2024). Typologising the role of parents in modern governance in MATs in subordinated communities. Oxford Review of Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2024.2377715

Olmedo, A., & Wilkins, A. (2017). Governing through parents: A genealogical enquiry of education policy and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in England. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(4), 573–589. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2015.1130026

West, A., & Bailey, E. (2013). The development of the academies programme: ‘Privatising’ school-based education in England 1986–2013. British Journal of Educational Studies, 61(2), 137–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2013.789480

Wilkins, A. (2015). Professionalizing school governance: The disciplinary effects of school autonomy and inspection on the changing role of school governors. Journal of Education Policy, 30(2), 182–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2014.941414