Centrifugal schooling: Third sector policy networks and the reassembling of curriculum policy in England

Citation

Williamson B (2012) Centrifugal schooling: Third sector policy networks and the reassembling of curriculum policy in England. Journal of Education Policy, 27 (6), pp. 775-794. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2011.653405

Abstract
This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England. It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation. It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative 'curriculum experiments'. The third sector curriculum policy network revolves around a policy vision of decentralisation constituted by public-private partnership, media-friendliness, social enterprise and an 'open source' or network-based organisational logic. It assembles a policy ideal of 'centrifugal schooling' which links together ideas about 'networked governance' with 'flexible' learning and 'entrepreneurial' curricula. The article traces and discusses some of the inter-organisational relations, materials and discourses of the third sector network of alternative curriculum policy developments, and provides a case study of a prototypical third sector curriculum programme. It examines the organisational relations and practices by which the project was produced and the conditions leading to its failure.

Keywords
curriculum; decentralisation; governance; networks; third sector

Journal
Journal of Education Policy: Volume 27, Issue 6