Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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Impacting policy discourse? An analysis of

discourses and rhetorical devices deployed in the
case of the Academies Commission

Becky Francis

To cite this article: Becky Francis (2015) Impacting policy discourse? An analysis of discourses
and rhetorical devices deployed in the case of the Academies Commission, Discourse: Studies in
the Cultural Politics of Education, 36:3, 437-451, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2014.902919

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 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2015
Vol. 36, No. 3, 437–451, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2014.902919

Impacting policy discourse? An analysis of discourses and rhetorical

devices deployed in the case of the Academies Commission
Becky Francis*

Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College London, London, UK

Academisation of the English secondary school system has been extremely rapid and
represents significant changes to the governance of the English school system.
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However, there has been a relative scarcity of attention to the rationales, rhetorics and
discourses underpinning the academies programme. Seeking to address this gap, a
poststructuralist discourse analytic lens is applied to 63 written submissions to the
Academies Commission from a range of stakeholder groups, in order to map the
different discourses and narratives drawn on in relation to academies and academisa-
tion. In setting out the various discourses identified, a cluster of discourses and
rhetorical devices that produce the British education system as ‘in crisis’ are given
especial attention. It is argued that these discourses provide the rationale and
legitimisation for radical policy intervention as exemplified by the academies
programme. The findings also provoke discussion concerning potential subjective
agency in the promotion or otherwise of particular narratives and ‘conceptual
emblems’ that inform the field of educational policy.
Keywords: academies; education policy; discourse; schools; schooling system;
standards; rhetoric

Introduction
While education policy is often subject to academic evaluation and critique, and the
rhetorics deployed in policy texts have also been interrogated, less attention has been
focused on the role of individual subjects and organisations in the mobilisation and
development of particular policy discourses. This article explores how such actors seek to
persuade audiences and influence policy via the deployment of particular discourses
and rhetorical devices, drawing on the case of the Academies Commission (2013). It
also seeks to map the various discourses emerging, in relation to academies and
academisation.
This focus demands an explanation of the Academies Programme in England.
Academies are state-maintained independent schools (joining Foundation and Voluntary
Aided schools as a category of state-funded schooling outside the Local Authority
control). Academies, and the policies underpinning them, share similarities with charter
schools in the USA, and with the emergent Independent Public Schools in Australia. At
the time of writing, over half of all state secondary schools in England are now
academies. The original level of controversy surrounding the establishment of the first
‘City Academies’1 a decade ago has somewhat subsided, diffused by an explosion in
academy numbers and proliferation of academy types since 2010, which has meant

*Email: Becky.Francis@kcl.ac.uk

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 438 B. Francis

that: (1) academies are now hard to characterise (containing a diverse range of
circumstances and practice), and (2) the status now appears irreversible (Academies
Commission, 2013). Nevertheless, academies and academisation remain controversial and
sometimes divisive, given the strong consequences for governance of the English
education system.
Academies exemplify a policy trend for what du Gay (1996) brands ‘controlled
decontrol’. Such policy modalities are characterised by deregulation, devolution and an
attack on ‘bureaucratic’ structures – in the case of education, under the banner of
‘autonomy’. Academies are removed from the jurisdiction of the Local Authority and
governed instead by charitable companies (trusts). With the removal of local authority
powers over these schools, the next layer of accountability beyond the school trust2 is the
Department of Education (DfE). This to some extent reflects a policy trend identified by
Ball (2013) as ‘reregulation’ and the creation of new models of – in this case, centralised –
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control (albeit practically, given their numbers, the feasibility of the DfE playing an active
role in academy governance is remote; Academies Commission, 2013). Undoubtedly
there are strong implications for modes of governance at both a school and system level;
in the absence of local control exercised by the local authority, the role of individual
school governing bodies gains sharply heightened importance, and there are potential
challenges in coordinating local services across schools (Hill, 2012).
The early City Academies – later termed ‘sponsor academies’ – represented a radical
and controversial means of resourcing and ‘jump-starting’ previously struggling schools
in areas of social disadvantage. This resourcing, often coupled with the (equally
controversial) ‘Building Schools for the Future’3 scheme from which sponsor academies
were often beneficiaries, illustrates the socially redistributive nature of the policy
(Mahony & Hextall, 2012). However, in 2010 the Coalition government allowed all
schools rated as ‘outstanding’4 by Ofsted to elect to become an academy. Indeed, they
were incentivised to do so via favourable funding mechanisms that meant substantial
additional funding for academies (beyond the nominal sum allowed to cover legal costs
of conversion [see Academies Commission, 2013]), and which has been demonstrated as
the leading motivation for academy conversion (Bassett & Lyon, 2012). This led to an
explosion in academisation across the secondary sector in 2011–2012.
Clearly, given that they mainly comprise those schools already rated ‘outstanding’ and
‘good’, converter academies were in very different circumstances than sponsor academies:
sponsor academies either replaced a closed struggling school (the original model under
New Labour), or were struggling schools that either welcomed a sponsor or had a sponsor
imposed upon them (the sponsor academy model under the Coalition). They tend also to
have quite different pupil demographics, given the trend in the English system for middle-
class pupils to be disproportionately concentrated in ‘good’ schools (Francis, 2011; Lupton,
2010). The eye-catching and controversial nature of the sponsor academy policy, their focus
as a tool for improvement (i.e. including ‘forced academisation’ of some struggling
local authority schools) and the consequent attention and scrutiny they have attracted
have resulted in this (sponsor) model being afforded disproportionate attention. Yet it is
important to recognise that sponsor academies now comprise only a small portion of
academies overall; over three-quarters of academies are convertors (Academies Commis-
sion, 2013). In a sense this has diluted the impact and distinctiveness of the academies
programme, as many converters have taken a ‘business as usual’ approach, sometimes
not even altering the school name (Academies Commission, 2013).
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 439

This article seeks to identify and explore some of the discourses underpinning
continuing debates around academies and academisation in the English system. It also
attends to the ways in which individuals and organisations utilise public consultation
exercises by engagement with, and mobilisation of, policy rhetorics,5 in ways that lend
support to both dominant and oppositional discourses. Part of my intention is simply
documentary: to identify and illuminate the range of discourses at play in debates
underpinning a radical and rapid policy trajectory. But also, drawing on approaches
established by Edwards and Nicholl (2006; Edwards, Nicholl, Solomon, & Usher, 2004),
I seek to combine analysis of discourse (Parker, 1990) with analysis of the rhetorics
deployed by different stakeholders, to explore the ways in which subjects and institutions
are animated, positioned and repositioned by these discourses in relations of power
(Foucault, 1980). Nicholl and Edwards (2004) argue that the analysis of rhetorical
techniques,
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emphasize the struggle that goes on within policy discourses, the struggle to produce
descriptions that can be taken as literal, and the ways in which they work defensively to
counter alternative possibilities. (p. 48)

In particular, I am interested in the agentic ways in which individuals (and organisations)

may mobilise these rhetorics to stake particular policy claims and to move debates in an
intended direction. As Nicholl and Edwards (2004) explain, this approach ‘refuses’ to
focus on whether or not the accounts of the world that policy discourses construct are
‘factual and possible’, but rather ‘it examines how rhetorical strategies are deployed in
order to make descriptions felicitous, and the work that these do in the mobilisation of
audiences’ (p. 53).
Texts for analysis are drawn from the submissions informing the Academies Commis-
sion (2013), of which I was a part (the nature of which is explained in greater detail
below). The various discourses identified therein are set out, and I then attend to a
specific ‘discursive bundle’ (Ball, 2013, p. 4) that produces the English system as in
crisis: arguing that these discourses – albeit used by individuals at both the Left and Right
of the political spectrum – may be seen to legitimise the sort of radical policy intervention
which the academies programme exemplifies.

Methods
The textual data analysed comprises written submissions to the Academies Commission.
The Academies Commission was independent of government, presenting itself as an
‘independent commission’ – albeit it was funded by two think tanks (one charitable, and
one seated within an EduBusiness), with additional sponsorship from two other charities,
and of these four organisations, three are academy sponsors.6 There was some limited
speculation about this from external stakeholders (at least one example of sceptical
correspondence and an exchange on Twitter). However, the diverse submissions of
written evidence, especially from parties critical of academisation, suggest that the
Commission was largely perceived as a credible vehicle presenting a meaningful
opportunity to contribute – and potentially shape – opinion. This perception may have
been due to the nature and reputations of the organisations involved and to the perceived
credibility of Commissioners (see Academies Commission, 2013, for further details).
 440 B. Francis

The Academies Commission drew on a range of evidence, including both written

submissions and oral witness evidence. Given the issues of confidentiality, much of the
latter data are not publically available, except in summary form. However, the 63 written
submissions were publically available on the Commission website (except in the few
cases where respondents requested confidentiality). Typifying responses to consultations,
the responses likely represent disproportionately those with concerns over the policy
direction; although academies organisations and their supporters are represented among
the written submissions, more of these perspectives (including government and
ministerial viewpoints) were gathered in the oral witness evidence.
Despite that the written evidence submissions were publically accessible, there are
issues of personal ethics in my drawing upon them, given that I had a key role in the
Commission that stimulated these responses, and that respondents are unlikely to have
expected that their submissions would be used for purposes outside the Commission. For
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this reason I have anonymised quotes from individuals in all cases, referring rather to
roles. These are additionally numbered, to ensure transparency concerning frequency of
quotes from particular individuals. Organisational responses are not anonymised. I would
also wish to note that no disrespect is intended in my highlighting the discourses via
various extracts; many of the narratives and devices identified therein are those I have
used myself. Nicholl and Edwards (2004) note how we are all involved in the production
and evaluation of these discourses.
My approach to discourse analysis reflects the Foucaultian approach established in
debates between Parker (1990) and Potter, Wetherell, Gill, and Edwards (1990) as
‘analysis of discourse’. Additionally, I am drawing on the lens offered by Edwards et al.
(2004) in their analysis of rhetoric and discourse in educational policy. My methods of
identification of discourses, and of the various narratives via which these are expressed,
are set out in Francis (1999). It is notable that I experienced application of these analytic
distinctions as especially challenging in the case of these particular texts (the written
submissions to the Academies Commission), for a variety of reasons. First, many of the
texts contained purely practical reports and commentary. For example, a large proportion
comprised cautious, constructive, practical and/or technical advice on making the system
work; evidence for and against the effectiveness of different models of academy and their
governance; identification of specific tensions, successes and challenges from academies
and their stakeholders; and/or identification of particular logistical problems and/or
emerging issues. These reports and commentaries were often delivered without moral or
political implication. My attention is to the more morally laden narratives underpinning
accounts and arguments which position subjects and objects in different ways (Foucault,
1980; Parker, 1990). However, even where such narratives were evident, such positioning
was often relatively covert, as many organisations experienced in submission to Inquiries
and Commissions adopt the flat, ‘objective’ tone that characterises this genre. Indeed,
Edwards and Nicholl (2006) highlight this rhetorical strategy as one commonly adopted
in policy-making as persuasive of audiences via erasure of any impression of investment
or bias. Therefore, I found it especially challenging to distinguish discourses and the
narratives in which they manifest, from ‘themes’. Like Nicholl and Edwards (2004, see
also Edwards & Nicholl, 2006), my attention is to those discourses and rhetorical
strategies that bear power in their articulation of a representation of the world that
positions subjects and objects in particular ways.
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 441

Second, it was important to keep in mind that the content of the responses were
somewhat shaped by the Commission Call for Evidence. To some extent the content and
emerging discourses were called forth by the specific questions posited therein (see
Appendix): for example, the discussion and emergent narratives around autonomy/
accountability, school admissions and so on. These foci are generative of particular
narratives, and as such some discourses at play in academies policy and practice are likely
over-represented in the submission texts, while others are excluded. And also, the Call for
Evidence and responses to it may be seen as a case of exacerbated ‘reciprocity’ (Bakhtin,
1987), wherein the tone and focus of the Call interpolates particular tone and foci from
respondents within the mutually understood practices of the genre.

Emergent discourses
Many of the discourses are those we would expect to see mobilised – especially given the
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‘complaints’ tendency of written evidence to Inquiries – within key ideological,

pragmatic and/or experiential articulated concerns about the development of an
academised schooling system (Table 1). Many of these discourses are illuminated by
‘policy rhetorics’ (Ball, 2013), including various of the techniques extensively mapped by
Edwards et al. (2004). An aspect of this is the frequent deployment of particular phrases

Table 1. Discourses identified in the written submission texts.

Number of Number of
Discourse instances submissions
Social justice 61 30
Within which, narratives of:
Risks of increased social segregation 11 9
Risks and consequences of exclusion 11 6
Virtue of parity 10 6
Equality of opportunity 8 6
Virtue of inclusion 5 5
The need to balance autonomy and accountability 30 20
Benefits of school collaboration 29 16
Lack of democracy 28 16
Ulterior motives 21 14
System chaos 16 13
Within which, narratives of:
The system is out of control 11 10
Irresponsible haste 4 4
Inadequacy/crisis of educational provision 13 8
The importance of value for money 10 9
UK ‘falling behind’ other nations 7 7
Local Authorities as bastions of democratic 4 3
accountability
Academies as liberated (from the Local Authority 3 3
bureaucracy/constraint)

Note: There were also a few narratives that were only mobilised once by a lone individual, and which I have
therefore not included in the list on this table. These included, for example, the power and creativity of the
private sector and the benefits of diversification.
 442 B. Francis

and tropes that signify a broader policy narrative (for instance, the frequent reference to
‘school-to-school’ as shorthand/signifier for a set of assumptions around school
improvement via inter-school collaboration, e.g., DfE, 2013; Gilbert, 2012).
Illumination of these various discourses in the form above draws attention to an
intriguing trend: the overlap between dominant discourses represented in the written
submissions and those articulated in official government policy on education. For
example, two among the most frequently articulated discourses – social justice and the
benefits of collaboration – are reflected strongly in the 2010 Education White Paper
(DfE, 2010), and a discourse of social justice emerges frequently in Secretary of State for
Education Michael Gove’s speeches (e.g. Gove, 2012a, 2013a, 2013b). This illustrates
the importance of also identifying the distinctive narratives underpinning these
discourses; for example, Gove tends to mobilise narratives of social mobility and
equality of opportunity, while others – including many of the submissions to the
Commission – focus on (lack of) parity and exclusion.
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My analysis here focuses specifically on the ‘discursive bundle’ (Ball, 2013, p. 4) of

identified discourses that construct the education system as in crisis, and which I was
surprised to find articulated by those from both the Left and Right of the political
spectrum. These are: an inadequacy/crisis of education provision; system chaos; and UK
falling behind other nations. These, and the rhetorical device of constructing education as
the object of a battle, are addressed in turn.

UK ‘falling behind’
Policy rhetoric around the urgent need to improve standards is long established in English
education (see Mahony, 1998), and the intermeshed discursive rationales around
globalisation, human capital and the need to promote a ‘learning society’ in order to
maintain a competitive position in the global marketplace are well documented (see e.g.
Ainley, 1999; Ball, 1999, 2013; Coffield, 2000; Lingard & Sellar, 2012). Indeed these
policy discourses are promulgated internationally (albeit to different extents and with
different manifestations in different national contexts), comprising what Fejes (2006)
calls ‘planetspeak discourse’. As Ball (2013) maintains, England has been at the forefront
of this policy preoccupation and in development of the technologies of implementation
emanating from it. But since the inception of the Coalition Government in 2010, this
discourse has been wielded with renewed fervour, and indeed has incorporated a new,
powerful narrative that positions the UK as ‘falling behind’ in a global race.
The discourse of international competition, and the need for ‘up-skilling’ to maintain a
competitive position, is so well established that it authors itself as total, an unquestioned
truth.7 The technologies (policy levers and material practices) associated with this
discourse include the international testing and league tables produced by organisations
such as the OECD, as well as the global trade in education reform ideas characterised by
global ‘education gurus’. These technologies of practice around the hegemonic discourse
facilitate the emergence of new narratives – in the English case constituting a moral
panic – around the perceived place of the UK in the global competition. According to
Prime Minister David Cameron and his Deputy Nick Clegg:

[…] what really matters is how we’re doing compared to our international competitors. That
is what will define our economic growth and our country’s future. The truth is, at the moment
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 443

we are standing still while others rush past. (Foreword to the 2010 White Paper ‘The
Importance of Teaching’, DfE, 2010)

And Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove made a statement to Parliament on
the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) outcomes, maintaining
at the start of his address:

Since the 1990s, our performance in these league tables has been, at best, stagnant, and, at
worst, declining. […] For all the well-intentioned efforts of past Governments, we are still
falling further behind the best-performing school systems in the world. In Shanghai and
Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong—indeed even in Taiwan and Vietnam—children are
learning more and performing better with every year that passes, leaving our children behind
in the global race. (Gove, 2013b)

This panic that the UK is falling behind its competitors in educational outcomes has
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gained rapid policy hegemony, despite well-publicised challenges to the data and
understandings underpinning this position (Jerrim, 2012; Stewart, 2013). The narrative
was reflected in some of the submissions to the Academies Commission, demonstrating
its permeation beyond Government policy circles. It was indicated by key narrative
tropes, for example:

England has consistently lagged behind other countries in terms of outcome from our
schools. We have been, and will continue to be (without a step change in the quality,
relevance and effectiveness of the school sector), in catch up mode. Nations in Europe,
Scandinavia, America and the rapidly progressing nations such as China, India and Brazil
are already, and/or will be ahead of us. (Chair of Academy Chain 1, emphasis mine)
Finland outperforms the UK on virtually all societal indicators and education success is not
seen in isolation. Academies working together as in the Schools Co-operative Society and
working coherently with other agencies will be important if the UK is not to fall even further
behind more cohesive OECD countries. (Academy 1, emphasis mine)

Within this narrative, the necessary relevance of international perspectives is interpolated

as a ‘given’: ‘…they [the Government] have often put forward a vision of education that
is fixed, singular and, many would argue, traditionalist, not recognising developments in
some of the leading education systems in the world’ (The Innovation Unit Ltd). The
rhetorical technique of pre-supposition (see Nicholl & Edwards, 2004), presenting
the ‘global race’ as something to which we all subscribe, is commonly adopted in these
articulations. Interestingly, the discourse of the UK falling behind is mobilised by those
on both Left and Right of the political spectrum. Those on the Right typically draw on
the discourse to make arguments concerning ‘sliding standards’ and a need for a ‘return
to rigour’ via increased toughness in systems of assessment and school accountability,
and a re-insertion of traditional educational values to the curriculum (see Gove, 2013c,
2013d). While for those on the Left, the discourse is often rhetorically supported by
allusion to specific national exemplars (indicatively Finland) and/or evidence on global
education trends, often to argue for the need for progressive policies, or for a move away
from the de-professionalising elements of English accountability systems. For example:

The price we are paying for releasing education planning to the vagaries of the open market
are symptoms of disease based on increased competition and standardised tests seen
 444 B. Francis

throughout the USA. All such ‘deliverology’ systems have gone into decline whilst the
emerging Asian and Scandinavian models based on professional trust, solidarity and
cohesiveness have gone from strength to strength. (Academy 1)

Inadequacy/crisis of educational provision

The narrative of the UK ‘falling behind’ in a global race is compounded by a further,
pejorative discourse articulating a crisis or inadequacy of the English education system. This
discourse is to some extent evident in various statements and speeches from the Secretary of
State, and indeed the narrative ‘falling behind’ that he has especially promulgated somewhat
supports this discourse of crisis/inadequacy of provision. The discourse was evident in some
of the written submissions. A representative from a think tank (1) titles a section of his
submission ‘The great education problem – chronic underperformance in schools’, arguing
that we will soon see ‘chronic failure’ potentially affecting ‘as much as 30 per cent of
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English schools’. This crisis of provision was frequently constructed as indicative of a wider
failure of English education to adapt to the changing needs of twenty-first-century society,
and (again) a globalised world characterised by new modes of communications. For
example, according to the Chair of an academy chain (1):

…outcomes from the sector are considered by providers of further and higher education, by
employers and by government and its agencies as inadequate to meet the educational,
economic and societal needs of the nation in a rapidly changing global world.

This particular narrative positions English education as stagnating, wedded to practice

that is no longer fit for purpose:

we need a society with charismatic and ‘just do it’ ability to offer solutions to the challenges
we face, solve the seemingly un-solvable problems we face, and who will anticipate and
prevent our world being dragged into terminal decline. (Chair of Academy chain 1)

a culture of dependency, itself induced by years of central control and direction, to create
high levels of risk aversion in many schools and many teachers and headteachers.
(The Innovation Unit Ltd)

The focus on English inadequacy implies the ‘unsaid’ that other countries and education
systems have embraced new technologies and learning that are fit for the times. The
narrative was mobilised by ‘progressive’ educationalists, to create the ‘rhetorical footing’
(Edwards & Nicholl, 2006) from which to argue the need for new modes of learning and
curricula which these stakeholders maintain can address these asserted problems.
Proposed solutions included:

The need for new models of learning to develop the expertises (skills and knowledge) and
dispositions necessary for young people to survive and thrive in the 21st century and the
capacities and capabilities for sustainable economic growth; and new educational practices
that fully recognise and exploit the rich technological and media worlds that young people
today inhabit. (The Innovation Unit Ltd)

These particular arguments tend to utilise human capitalist and globalisation discourses
(the need for new skills and innovative practices fit for a rapidly changing, globalised
world), and are ‘warranted’ (see Edwards & Nicholl, 2006) by the discourse of current or
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 445

incipient crisis (our failure to keep up with, or recognise, the nature and speed of change).
Indeed vocabulary articulating this narrative sometimes interpolated a dramatically
altered, almost dystopic new world:

[Academy chain] offers a model which is ready and able to influence and embrace change in
a world in which uncertainty is the only certainty. (Chair of Academy chain 1, original
emphasis)

There was also distinct discourse of system chaos.

System chaos

Schools are facing a ‘perfect storm’ of rising expectations on performance and multiple
changes in education policy (Crossley-Holland, 2012). Announcements come thick and fast
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from the Department for Education on a multitude of topics, while the inspection framework
has changed several times in the last two years. […] Such turbulence and uncertainty does
not make an encouraging environment for innovation. (ADCS)

This extract from the ADCS typifies application of the ‘system chaos’ discourse, in the
use of vivid language (‘perfect storm’, ‘thick and fast’, ‘turbulence and uncertainly’), and
the representation of two (sometimes intersecting) narratives that articulate the discourse:
one which produces the system as out of control and the other that positions the rapid
changes in the education system as reflecting irresponsible haste.
This latter narrative positioned the policy drive to academisation and resulting
structural changes in the system as running too fast, with a danger of negative outcomes
including a loss of control:

There are considerable pressures on schools to make the change at present, which is leading
to a very rapid change of the educational landscape. So rapid that there are very considerable
dangers of unintended consequences, especially where new academies are opened rather than
existing schools becoming academies. (Association of School and College Leaders [ASCL])
However, we believe that the current pace and scale of academisation risks jeopardising the
long-term success of the process; just as the lack of transparency surrounding the ‘forced’
academy process risks alienating large sections of the very profession essential to delivering
the school improvement agenda. (National Association of Headteachers [NAHT])

The positioning of policy-makers as rash and irresponsible conversely positions those

articulating these discourses as responsibly measured and cautious, a noted technique of
rhetorical persuasion (Nicholl & Edwards, 2004). Notably, this narrative, and the tone in
which it is articulated, is mobilised by those whose organisational positioning might be
characterised as ‘centre-ist’, professionally motivated and pragmatic.
The other narrative produced the system as (potentially) out of control. For example:

Yet something is needed in the vacuum. At present the national government is allowing
models to grow ‘bottom-up’ without national specification. This has the virtue of allowing a
variety of solutions that suit different circumstances, but may lead to failures, and risks
anarchy. (ASCL)
the key issue is that of how locally coordinated efforts can be developed within a system that
seems to be encouraging fragmentation and a focus on self-interest. (Academic 3)
 446 B. Francis

Relying on the vagaries of chain development and ad hoc school to school support would
create a ramshackle infrastructure which could not underpin a 21st century education system.
It would fail millions of children and parents as well as the wider society and economy.
(Academic 1)

These quotes all relate to the issue of (lack of) local management in an academised
system and are characterised by dramatic, portentous language (‘vacuum’, ‘failures’,
‘anarchy’, ‘fragmentation’, ‘self-interest’, ‘vagaries’, ‘ramshackle’). They interpolate the
education system as in danger of becoming a fragmented, anarchic field governed by
chance and self-interest. Such dystopic visions were related specifically by one
respondent to further potential free-marketisation of the system:

I think that we are looking towards a period of ‘corporatisation’, where existing academies
and schools will thrive, expand or go to the wall. This may be a model that works in the High
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Street, but are the worst-case knock-on effects: suburbs, estates and towns without a school;
monopolisation by large conglomerates; internationalisation of school ownership and the loss
of the power of the state to affect the education of its children. (Academic 4)

Hence dramatic language and imagery are applied to persuade the audience of the risks at
stake. Others drew on the narrative of a potential loss of control in relation to claims of a
loss of accountability:

There is no clear route for dealing with complaints beyond the school – the DfE cites the EfA
but the EfA’s remit appears to contradict this. As a parent who do you turn to if you have
concerns. (Local Authority representative 1)

This quote uses the rhetorical device of the image of the helpless parent to illustrate the
problem elaborated. Other responses positioned schools themselves as beyond control,
due to academy status which is seen to place them beyond the usual accountability
measures and system levers:

Without sanctions, such as removal of funding, or restriction on recruitment – essentially the

same thing – there might be no mechanism to penalise schools that failed to reach acceptable
standards. (Academic 5)
I FEEL THERE IS NO ONE ELSE TO TURN TO AND THAT THE SCHOOLS CAN DO
WHATEVER THEY LIKE. (Parent 1)

Notably, these two examples make a similar point about lack of stakeholder traction over
individual schools, in very different ways: reflective of their different stakeholder roles.
The academic uses language constructing a detached, ‘policy-oriented’ approach, focused
on standards, where the parent uses capitalisation and use of the first person to articulate
an openly frustrated and emotional plea to the reader. Hence different stakeholders
mobilise different discourses in their submissions and also articulate these discourses via
distinct rhetorical techniques which relate both to their stakeholder roles and to the
arguments they wish to convey.
This latter point can be especially exemplified by the submissions that mobilised
hyperbolic rhetorics which represented the field of education as an object over which a
battle is being waged, and/or under attack by malevolent forces.
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 447

Education as a battle ground

We considered earlier the Secretary of State for Education’s promotion of the ‘UK falling
behind’ discourse. A further rhetorical device he has specifically instigated is that of the
‘enemies of promise’ (his phrase, drawing on Connolly8): one that casts those opposing
his educational reforms as deliberately and wantonly holding back standards, progress
and positive educational outcomes for (especially, disadvantaged) young people (Gove,
2013b). Here he effectively recasts those, for example, campaigning against academy
sponsorship of a struggling community school, or those opposing the return to a more
traditional/‘rigorous’ curriculum, as retrogressive and malevolent agents of injustice. His
use of the word ‘enemies’ evokes a battle, and his astute use of the laden signifier
‘promise’ casts the battle as one of good and evil. These highly effective rhetorical
flourishes give birth to new discursive productions and narratives. This particular trope of
the ‘enemies of promise’ has been extended by his use of the disparaging term ‘the Blob’
to describe and boundary those educationalists disagreeing with him whom he considers
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Left-wing/progressive (or ‘Marxist’, as he put it; Gove, 2013b), and the grip he asserts
they have upon the English system.
Resonance of this narrative, at least in Right-wing circles, is illustrated by the
submission to the Academies Commission of a representative from a think tank (1):

I have sympathy with the political team in the Department who worry that setting up a new
bureaucratic structure [of local governance] would be both time-consuming and expensive,
and more importantly could act as a Trojan horse for ‘the blob’ to reassert its thankfully
much-reduced grip on our schools. (Representative of think tank 1)

This construction of academies as schools wrested away and liberated from nefarious
forces who are waiting to regroup – and indeed the specific reference to a historic battle
feint (the Trojan horse) – produce education as a battleground. Such hyperbolic rhetorics
were also used in a small number of submissions by those on the Left, who positioned the
Government as consciously and deliberately inflicting damage on the education system.
A heading used by one academic (2) in his submission was: ‘Destroying the Balance of
Power in Education’. He brands evidence to support academisation as ‘so deeply flawed
that the determination of the front benches to approve them [academies] can only be a
highly toxic dogma gripping the power elite in central London’ (Academic 2).
Hence each political side deploys the device of casting the other as motivated by
dogmatic and self-interested ideological positions. Their disparagement of the ‘other side’
also works to create an implied identity between the author and reader, a further rhetorical
strategy of persuasion (Nicholl & Edwards, 2004). Language and vocabulary are
expressive of particular discourses as we have seen, and also, conversely, words and
tropes may perhaps be wielded by individual subjects to bring particular narratives into
being.

Discussion
I have presented here the range of discourses and associated narratives generated in
response to the Academy Commission’s call for written evidence on mass academisation
in the English education system. This mapping is intended to provide an information
resource and to stimulate further exploration. Further, it has been shown that a cluster of
these discourses produce the English education system as in crisis. These discourses, and
 448 B. Francis

the narratives and rhetorical strategies purveying them, variously position academisation
as the cause of this crisis, or the medicine for it. Given the drawing of textual data from
submissions to the Academies Commission, this analysis likely disproportionately
represents those interpolating academisation as cause of, or contributor to, crisis (analysis
of government policy documents and speeches, for example, would likely identify more
frequent positioning of academies as remedy for crisis). Nevertheless, it is interesting to
consider that these discourses are mobilised by those on both the Right and Left of the
political spectrum. As Edwards et al. (2004) and Nicholl and Edwards (2004) argue, these
constructions of crisis serve a function for those invested in reform. The assertion and
rhetorical establishment of crisis produce the system as in urgent need of reform, and
acceptance of crisis (or at least, of there being a problem) by the audience is a necessary
political precursor to action.
This hints at the agentic nature of these submissions from individual subjects and
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organisations. Discourses are tied to materiality in their impact on practice. Although

individual subjects frequently feel far-removed from policy-making decisions, we all
participate in discursive trends and mobilisations that can have a bearing on policy-
making at various levels. Nicholl and Edwards (2004) make the point that we participate
in evaluation of policy rhetorics, and in validating or rejecting them. However, I wish to
use the examples provided by submissions to the Academies Commission to draw
attention to the ways in which participation in debates – whether via ‘formal’ consultation
processes and representations, or via public discussion (for example via social media) –
offers individual actors the opportunity to bring certain narratives to the fore. These
narratives may or may not be successful in persuading the specific audience; however,
they have affect via their perpetuation of certain discourses and representations, and their
silencing of others. In this way, they contribute to the discursive trends which shape the
‘policy moment’. Indeed, some of the exemplars presented above illustrate the ways in
which different linguistic tropes and narrative turns may become expressive of particular
concepts and ‘conceptual moments’ in education policy discourse. In this way, individual
subjects’ perpetuation of what we might call these conceptual emblems can actively
promote particular ideas which might not otherwise gain traction. Social media such as
Twitter (notably used by the vast majority of policy-makers, at least in the UK context;
Freedman, 2013) significantly accelerates the proliferation – and hence potential traction – of
these emblems. Each emblem (be it ‘school-to-school’, ‘The Blob’, ‘enemies of promise’,
‘innovation’ and so on) evokes a chain of signification, interpolating subjects and objects
in particular ways (and in relations of power; Foucault, 1980). In this sense, these
emblematic signifiers are like icebergs, the visible tip sign-posting a larger unspoken bulk
of signification. Michael Gove’s effective mobilisation of particular conceptual emblems
(‘The Blob’, ‘Enemies of Promise’) to convey a set of ideas and effectively position a
large group of actors in a particular way to neutralise their power is instructive both in
regard to effectiveness, and also as a case of individual discursive agency.
This reading of potential agency contrasts with the determinism of much poststructur-
alist analysis of discourse (see e.g. Jones, 1997, in discussion with Davies, 1997). It may
be that as individual actors we have agency with regard to our perpetuation or otherwise
of particular narratives: for example, refusal to rearticulate certain narratives; or deliberate
articulation of alternative narratives and conceptual emblems. Further study of the way in
which particular discourses gain influence via the purchase and promotion of specific
linguistic tropes, due to their appealingly resonant signification, would be beneficial. The
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 449

new modalities provided by social media, and emerging suggestions from this paper, beg
further questions about agency, and about the potential individual and/or collective
shaping of narratives that bear power in positioning others and social phenomena in a
range of ways. Certainly, policy-making and the work of civil servants in relation to
academies in England are fast-moving and evidently influenced by a range of different
issues, including public perceptions.
The various discourses mapped with regard to academies policies illustrate a discursive
site of contestation. Rhetorics underpin existing education policy (Edwards et al., 2004;
Fairclough, 2000), and also those narratives identified here, articulated by subjects
seeking to ‘have their say’ and assert particular views, are mobilised to influence the
production of policy and its effects. This discussion highlights the role of individuals in
marshalling discourses and hence creating the discursive rationales for different policy
actions. It is suggested that further consideration of the potential and limits of individual
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agency in this regard, and of the potential policy effects of our articulations, may be
productive.

Notes
1. The first ‘City Academies’, later known as ‘sponsor academies’, were instigated from 2002 by
the New Labour Government, replacing schools identified as poor quality, usually in areas of
social disadvantage. They benefited from distinctive funding arrangements and sponsorship,
and other forms of pump-priming, including, frequently, new school buildings under the
‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme (see Mahony & Hextall, 2012).
2. Unless the individual academy is part of an academy chain: at the end of 2012, 690 academies
were in a chain (excluding the looser ‘collaborative partnerships’): Academies Commis-
sion (2013).
3. Building Schools for the Future’ provided new buildings for schools, often designed by top
architects, under a programme of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) financing.
4. And later, those rated as ‘Good’ with some features rated as ‘outstanding’.
5. See Edwards et al. (2004); Edwards and Nicholl (2006).
6. The four organisations are: providers of the Academies Commission the RSA (a fellowship
organisation and think tank, also sponsor of a small academy chain), and the Pearson Think
Tank (a think tank separate from Pearson’s business operations, but housed and funded by
them). And charitable sponsors of the Academies Commission CfBT and The Co-operative
(both of which sponsor small academy chains).
7. In Bakhtin’s (1981) terms it is monoglossic; he uses this term to allude to forms of language
and accounts that represent authority and work centripetally to exclude others.
8. In Enemies of Promise (1938), Cyril Connolly analyses the factors he considers impeding the
flourishing of writers of the time (including Connolly himself, who was educated at Eton).
Gove draws on Connolly’s book title and claims that the book ‘explores the way in which
talented individuals of his [Connolly’s] time were prevented from achieving their full potential’
(2013b).

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Appendix. Academies Commission call for evidence, 2012

The Commissioners are asking five questions that they feel need be considered within this enquiry. These are
based on key issues, concerns and challenges emerging from a review of current research, experience on the
ground, recent policy shifts as well as those on the horizon. These align with the Commission’s central focus on
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the implications of complete or near total academisation, and its emphasis on foresight:
(1) What are the levers and barriers to school improvement within a totally academised system? How can
achievement be secured for all pupils within such a system?
(2) Research suggests that academies are not yet using their full freedoms. Why is this? And what are the
likely implications when academies start to use these to their full extent?
(3) What are the implications of an academised system on admissions?
(4) What is the impact of diversification and mass academisation on existing academies and schools?
(5) What are the key issues concerning governance, accountability and due diligence within an
academised system?