Education Research Seminar 26 November 2015
The Education Research Centre and School of Education presented this seminar on Thursday 26th November 2015, Falmer Campus:
‘Basket case’, ‘showcase’ or ‘business case’? The differentiated strategies of English Universities engaging with academies and free schools.
Recent education policy in a number of countries has been characterised by an emphasis on the role of markets and market mechanisms as a solution to driving up the performance of education systems. In England this has taken the form of rising fees and increased competition for students between institutions, and consequent concern for revenue streams within HE institutions. In the compulsory schooling sector it has led to increasing diversification with the creation of different types of self-governing state funded schools run by trusts and corporate sponsors.
This paper examined the engagement of universities as sponsors in the emerging compulsory schooling ‘market’ in England. It provided an overview and analysis of university engagement over the last ten years and explored how such involvement is discursively constructed by the institutions concerned. The findings revealed differentiated types, and different discourses, of ‘sponsorship’ which reflect the differentiated HE sector and raise questions about the role that university sponsorship may be playing in the differentiation and stratification of compulsory schooling.
The recording can be found here: