Consultants and Consultancy: the Case of Education

by Helen M. Gunter, Colin Mills

Overview

This book is a comprehensive study into and about consultants doing consultancy, and having influence in ways that generate concerns about an emerging ‘consultocracy’, with privileged access to governments and public services. It presents a detailed mapping of consultants and consultancy in education as a site of change and modernisation in public sector service provision. It considers consultancy at a macro-level of globalised policy, at a meso-level of national government policy, and at a micro level with vivid descriptions and analyses of consultants at work.

 

The rapid rise of ‘edubusinesses’, combined with the restructuring of public services in western style democracies, has generated new types of ‘knowledge actors’ within education policy. Three main developments that have led to this change are:  the entry of education policy and service consultants from within major companies into the public education market place; the emergence of ‘celebrity’ entrepreneurial actors and private businesses who make interventions into Universities and schools; and the rapid growth of small businesses based on individuals who have relocated their work from the public to the private sector. Such knowledge actors and the complexities they bring to public education are as yet under described and largely un-theorized. Based on current research and drawing upon a range of theoretical tools, this book fills the gap.

 

Gunter and Mills provide an invaluable contribution to scholarship on the neoliberal restructuring of public education by mapping and analyzing the under-examined yet central role of corporate education consultants.  Their thoughtful and thorough discussion expands our understanding of how consultants promote and trade in the ideologies of corporate culture. Gunter and Mills show how consultants are integral to both knowledge making practices in schools and a radical reform agenda for schools in the UK and around the globe. This is an accessible and important volume for not just policy and politics scholars but anyone concerned about defending public forms of education and associated living at a moment when they are increasingly being positioned for pillage by profiteers.

 

Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319488790
Publisher:	Springer-Verlag New York, LLC
Publication date:	02/27/2017
Series:	Educational Governance Research , #4
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	426 KB

Table of Contents

Foreword – by Meg Maguire.- Acknowledgements.- Abbreviations.- 1. Consultants and consultancy in education.- Part 1: Consultants and consultancy in action.- 2. Corporate consultants in global companies.- 3. Researchers as consultants in and outside of universities.- 4. Professionals as consultants in and outside of companies.- Part 2: Consultants and consultancy and knowledge in education policy.- 5. Consultants and clients: Knowledge Regimes.- 6. Consultants in context: Knowledge Practices.- 7. Consultants and capitalism: Knowledge Economies.- 8. Consultants and ‘consultocracy’: Knowledge Politics.- 9. Conclusion.- References.

 

 

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Expertise is always political, but takes a particular form with the rise of consultants in global and national policy fields. In Consultants and Consultancy - the case of education, Gunter and Mills provide a strong, empirically and theoretically informed account which unpacks this important phenomenon. It reveals a common approach among consultants of a 'policy entrepreneurial disposition'. But importantly, it also recognises the diversity of consultant types who seek to shape education policy and practice and moves towards imagining a post-neo-liberal strategy for public education. It is unique in the field of education research and policy and has a much wider relevance for those working in other fields of policy and politics, for the limits of consultancy are still a contested domain.” (Andrew Sturdy, University of Bristol, UK)

“Gunter and Mills provide an invaluable contribution to scholarship on the neoliberal restructuring of public education by mapping and analyzing the under-examined yet central role of corporate education consultants. Their thoughtful and thorough discussion expands our understanding of how consultants promote and trade in the ideologies of corporate culture. Gunter and Mills show how consultants are integral to both knowledge making practices in schools and a radical reform agenda for schools in the UK and around the globe. This is an accessible and important volume for not just policy and politics scholars but anyone concerned about defending public forms of education and associated living at a moment when they are increasingly being positioned for pillage by profiteers.” (Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA )

“Education policy-making is not the monopoly of the state anymore, but identifying and tracking the emerging agents and the invisible and volatile ties that constitute current education policy networks is challenging. In this volume, Gunter and Mills provide with very rich empirical data and with a thorough heuristic framework to understand and study the increasingly central role of consultants and consultancy relations in education reform complexes. A must read for those interested in the constantly changing relationship between the state and education.” (Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain)

“Public education continues to undergo significant transformations characterized by a retreat of the state and the rise of educational markets. Gunter and Mills help readers understand the emergence of new policy actors and activities borne out of these transformations. The ascendance of educational consultants in teaching, leadership, and governance has significant implications for the purpose and functions of schooling. This vital book helps us to consider these ramifications through the voices of those most closely involved in reimagining and reshaping what counts as expertise in public education.” (Janelle Scott, University of California, Berkeley, USA)