School governance in a postcolonial world

Montgomery, Catherine and Brown, Chris (2021) School governance in a postcolonial world. In, School Governance in Global Contexts. 1 ed. Routledge. (doi:10.4324/9781003221456-5).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role that school governance plays in allowing space for decolonising approaches to education. Here we focus on the English school system, but with a comparative perspective, drawing on lessons to be learned from European and South African contexts. We argue that the different contextual and structural elements of particular school systems and governance provide varying opportunities for decolonising approaches which require openness to participation, adaptability to shifts in power and sensitivity to both marginalisation and elitism. In the case of the English system, we show how the interaction of social cohesion and social regulation generates a context of high accountability (high social regulation) and high autonomy (low social cohesion). We argue that this leaves little space for participatory approaches and presents a barrier to decolonising approaches to education. We finish, however, by spotlighting Professional Learning Networks as a promising way forward.

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