Autori
Grimaldi, Emiliano
Barzanò, Giovanna

Titolo
NPM Discourse, Testing, and the Selection of Head Teachers. Education Policy Innovation as a Collective Performation
Periodico
Sociologica
Anno: 2012 - Volume: 17 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 0

In this article we examine a process of policy innovation in the field of education,focusing on the conditions under which a new mechanism for selecting head teachers throughtesting, inspired by NPM discourse, comes into being as a new "regime of practices". We combinesensibilities derived both from governmentality studies and tools from the ANT-inspiredresearch framework developed by Michel Callon on performativity, focusing on the actualizationof the new testing device (and its related formula) that makes more calculable the core of aprocess formerly based on professional appraisal and peer judgement. The work highlights aset of paradoxical performations of the socio-technical agencements (STAs) through which thenew formula on candidate selection is actualized: a) the making of the test as a contestableand vulnerable obligatory passage point; b) the commodification of knowledge about testingand the reinforcing and opening up of intertwining markets; c) the disentangling and fragmentingof aspiring head teachers' professional identities. In this context the dismissal and replacementof some core statements of the bureau-professional discourse seem to emerge throughthe dispersed process of re-designing both the head teacher's professional identity and the selection/recruitment procedure. The world of professionalism appears to be the "loser in thisaffair".



SICI: 1971-8853(2012)17:3<0:NDTATS>2.0.ZU;2-H
Testo completo: http://www.mulino.it/download/article/10.2383/72705
Testo completo alternativo: http://www.mulino.it/doi/10.2383/72705

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