Place-based governance and leadership in decentralised school systems: evidence from England

Greany, Toby

Abstract

Relatively few studies have explored the ways in which 'middle tier' institutional arrangements in education, such as school districts and local authorities, are responding to New Public Management reforms characterized by centralization, decentralization, marketization and disintermediation (Lubienski, 2014). This paper analyses these issues, drawing on governance (Tenbensel, 2017) and path dependency theories (Streeck and Thelen, 2005), together with evidence from five locality case studies in England (Greany and Higham, 2018; Greany, 2018). It finds that the process and impact of 'middle tier' disintermediation is uneven and often fraught, with significant implications for place-based coherence, equity and legitimacy. It shows how national hierarchical mechanisms work in concert to require and/or incentivise change across local school systems, most obviously by reducing the remit and capacity of traditional Local Authorities. This process can open up new opportunities for emerging and existing actors to work together through network and community forms of governance to counteract the negative impact of fragmentation, a process that Munby and Fullan (2016) dub 'middle out' change. However, responses and outcomes vary widely across the five localities and productive 'middle out' change is by no means a given, so the article analyses the processes at work and their impact across different contexts. It concludes by assessing implications for research, policy and practice in contemporary education systems.

Citation

Greany, T. (2022). Place-based governance and leadership in decentralised school systems: evidence from England. Journal of Education Policy, 37(2), 247-268. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1792554

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 2, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jul 12, 2020
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 2, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 13, 2022
• Journal: Journal of Education Policy
• Print ISSN: 0268-0939
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-5106
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 37
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 247-268
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1792554
• Keywords: place-based governance and leadership; decentralization; markets; disintermediation; school districts/Local Authorities; middle tier/mediating/meso layer
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4744725
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02680939.2020.1792554