Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one New openings
- two Driving democracy
- three Radicalising entrepreneurialism
- four The rise of plural control
- five A different view: organic meta-governance
- six The concept of adaptive strategies
- seven Embodying change
- eight Degrees of democracy
- nine Practice in the making
- ten Energies for change
- Notes
- References
- Index
six - The concept of adaptive strategies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one New openings
- two Driving democracy
- three Radicalising entrepreneurialism
- four The rise of plural control
- five A different view: organic meta-governance
- six The concept of adaptive strategies
- seven Embodying change
- eight Degrees of democracy
- nine Practice in the making
- ten Energies for change
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
What provides hope … is that by enhancing the value of the values it excludes [like the value of freedom is enhanced by the experience of prison], capitalism fuels its own opposition. (Paul Heelas, 2008, p 2)
Complex goals necessarily involve more room for agency on the part of policy and managerial actors operating across organizational and bureaucratic boundaries and building alliances between different tiers of governance. Such actors confront a field of plural goals, multiple stakeholders and conflicting values and aspirations … struggling to manage the resulting tensions, but at the same time exploiting those very tensions to enlarge the space for agency around ‘social’ agendas. (Janet Newman, 2005, pp 728–9)
There are two easy (well, relatively easy) options for the policy analyst. One is to take the critique-laden road which encourages pessimism, even cynicism, and endless critical questioning. The products of this road are the despair of policy makers who want answers so they can enact change and reform. They charge that this path brings questions but no solutions. This is the cry of the school effectiveness and improvement movement, for example. For this road, we need only assent to the socio-political critiques outlined in the previous chapter. The other road is the solutions-rich road in which answers are plentiful and the feeling is often one of heady optimism (as well as recognition of the necessity of hard graft to bring about the touted solutions). The products of this road are the despair of the critical thinkers and analysts. They charge that this path brings only the illusion of solving problems and systematically overlooks the deeper issues that superficial change and reform do not address. So, we need both then. Correct? Would that it were so simple. If we are to avoid the extremes of ‘insipid pessimism’ and ‘jolly eutopianisms’, as declared in Chapter 1, we need something more than a simplistic combination of the two roads. The critiques of the possibility of a more democratic future for education – especially charges that instrumental and economistic priorities have become ingrained into the system – do not simply fade away.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Transforming Education PolicyShaping a Democratic Future, pp. 77 - 88Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011