Personalization and de-schooling: Uncommon trajectories in contemporary education policy

Abstract

`Personalized learning' has become a popular term within education policy and practice in England, and is part of wider moves towards the `personalization' of public services and the promotion of personal responsibility within social policy discourse — including education, welfare, health and adult social care. In analysing personalization in education policy as a discursive formation, this paper visits some of the tensions, ambiguities and apparently `uncommon' trajectories in contemporary education policy, including its association with the `de-schooling' movement. It is argued that personalization cannot be understood simply as the most recent incarnation of the neoliberalization of education policy, nor as a politically neutral set of learning practices. In conclusion, unpacking personalization as a generative discourse enables us to understand the continuities and contradictions in New Labour social policy without relying on the sometimes heroic, revelatory and emancipatory intentions of critical analysis.