From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education
Major reforms in education, globally, have focused on increased accountability and devolution of responsibility to the local school level to improve the efficiency and quality of education. While emerging research is considering implications of these changed governance arrangements at both a school...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86065 |
| _version_ | 1848764780897107968 |
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| author | Gavin, Mihajla Fitzgerald, Scott McGrath-Champ, Susan |
| author_facet | Gavin, Mihajla Fitzgerald, Scott McGrath-Champ, Susan |
| author_sort | Gavin, Mihajla |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Major reforms in education, globally, have focused on increased accountability and devolution of responsibility to the local school level to improve the efficiency and quality of education. While emerging research is considering implications of these changed governance arrangements at both a school and system level, little attention has been afforded to teacher union responses to devolutionary reform, despite teaching being a highly union-organised profession and the endurance of decentralising-style reforms in education for over 40 years. Drawing upon a power resources approach, this article examines union responses in cases of devolutionary reform in a populous Australian state. Through analysing evolving policy discourse, from anti-bureaucratic, managerialising rhetoric to a ‘post-bureaucratic, empowerment’ agenda, this article contributes to understandings of union power for resisting decentralising, neoliberal policy agendas by exposing the limits of public sector unions mobilising traditional power resources and arguing for strengthening of discursive and symbolic power. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:24:48Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-86065 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:24:48Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | SAGE |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-860652022-07-22T05:35:40Z From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education Gavin, Mihajla Fitzgerald, Scott McGrath-Champ, Susan Devolution public education teacher unions Australia New Public Management governance framing power resources 1503 - Business and Management Major reforms in education, globally, have focused on increased accountability and devolution of responsibility to the local school level to improve the efficiency and quality of education. While emerging research is considering implications of these changed governance arrangements at both a school and system level, little attention has been afforded to teacher union responses to devolutionary reform, despite teaching being a highly union-organised profession and the endurance of decentralising-style reforms in education for over 40 years. Drawing upon a power resources approach, this article examines union responses in cases of devolutionary reform in a populous Australian state. Through analysing evolving policy discourse, from anti-bureaucratic, managerialising rhetoric to a ‘post-bureaucratic, empowerment’ agenda, this article contributes to understandings of union power for resisting decentralising, neoliberal policy agendas by exposing the limits of public sector unions mobilising traditional power resources and arguing for strengthening of discursive and symbolic power. 2021 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86065 10.1177/10353046221077276 English SAGE fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Devolution public education teacher unions Australia New Public Management governance framing power resources 1503 - Business and Management Gavin, Mihajla Fitzgerald, Scott McGrath-Champ, Susan From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| title | From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| title_full | From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| title_fullStr | From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| title_full_unstemmed | From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| title_short | From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| title_sort | from marketising to empowering: evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education |
| topic | Devolution public education teacher unions Australia New Public Management governance framing power resources 1503 - Business and Management |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86065 |