Governing through parents: a genealogical enquiry of education policy and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in England

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this paper we explore the various spaces and sites through which the figure of the parent is summoned to inhabit and perform market norms and practices in the field of education in England. Since the late 1970s successive governments have called on parents to enact certain duties and obligations in relation to the state. These duties include adopting and internalizing responsibility for all kinds of risks, liabilities and inequities formerly managed by the Keynesian welfare state. In this paper we examine how English parents are compelled to embody certain market norms and practices as they navigate the field of education. Adopting genealogical enquiry and policy discourse analysis as our methodology, we explore how parents across three policy sites or spaces are constructed as objects and purveyors of utility and ancillaries to marketization. This includes a focus on how parents are summoned as (1) consumers or choosers of education services; (2) governors and overseers of schools and (3) producers and founders of schools.