‘Scaling up’ educational change: some musings on misrecognition and doxic challenges

Thomson, Pat

Abstract

Educational policy-makers around the world are strongly committed to the notion of ‘scaling up’. This can mean anything from encouraging more teachers to take up a pedagogical innovation, all the way through to system-wide efforts to implement ‘what works’ across all schools. In this paper, I use Bourdieu’s notions of misrecognition to consider the current orthodoxies of scaling up. I argue that the focus on ‘process’ and ‘implementation problems’: (1) both obscures and legitimates the ways in which the field logics of practice actually work and, (2) produces/reproduces the inequitable distribution of educational benefits (capitals and life opportunities). I suggest that the notion of misrecognition might provide a useful lens through which to examine reform initiatives and explanations of their success/failure.

Citation

Thomson, P. (2014). ‘Scaling up’ educational change: some musings on misrecognition and doxic challenges. Critical Studies in Education, 55(2), https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2014.863221

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Feb 26, 2014
• Deposit Date: Mar 22, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 22, 2016
• Journal: Critical Studies in Education
• Print ISSN: 1750-8487
• Electronic ISSN: 1750-8495
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 55
• Issue: 2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2014.863221
• Keywords: Bourdieu, educational leadership and management, educational policy, inclusive education, special education
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/722813
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508487.2014.863221
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Studies in Education on 26 Feb 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17508487.2014.863221