Kalervo N. Gulson

Knowing one's place: space, theory, education

In the latter parts of the twentieth century social theory took a spatial turn, one that education has yet to undertake, at least in any concerted way. Nonetheless, this paper aims to demonstrate that there could be, and perhaps is, a more decided turn towards unraveling spatial questions underpinning educational processes and practices. In this paper, we briefly set out the key ‘trajectories’ of space in social theory. We also examine what happens when spatial theories ‘escape’ traditional disciplinary confines and ask, in a rudimentary way: to what extent education is education any longer when spatial dimensions are added to its fields of concern? This paper concludes by ‘mapping’ various spatial foci in critical educational studies.

A White Veneer: Education policy, space and “race” in the inner city

This paper explores how neo-liberal education policy change and urban renewal in inner Sydney and London has interacted with “raced” and classed educational identities. I draw on two examples of policy change, the Building the Future policy development in the inner city area of Sydney and the “Excellence in Cities” partnership programme in East London. The paper outlines, and applies, a spatial education policy sociology framework to explore the interplay of space, place, “race” and education policy. This paper suggests that in inner Sydney and London “whiteness” as a racial construct is present but noticeably absent and that this absent presence creates a “white veneer” around educational policy change and urban renewal.

Renovating educational identities: policy, space and urban renewal

Little attention has been paid to the relationship between policy and space in the sociology of education. This paper analyses the relationships between educational policy change, in the form of the Excellence in cities policy initiative, and urban change in inner London. I propose, and apply, a framework for a spatialised policy analysis explicitly linking space and policy. I suggest that the intersections of policy, schools, place and space provide new opportunities to explore the interconnection of educational policy change and urban change. I argue that relationships between physical locations and students are significant enabling and disabling factors in neo‐liberal educational policy‐making. These relationships form what I term the educational renovation of identity.Little attention has been paid to the relationship between policy and space in the sociology of education. This paper analyses the relationships between educational policy change, in the form of the Excellence in cities policy initiative, and urban change in inner London. I propose, and apply, a framework for a spatialised policy analysis explicitly linking space and policy. I suggest that the intersections of policy, schools, place and space provide new opportunities to explore the interconnection of educational policy change and urban change. I argue that relationships between physical locations and students are significant enabling and disabling factors in neo‐liberal educational policy‐making. These relationships form what I term the educational renovation of identity.

Policy Prolepsis in Education: Encounters, Becomings, and Phantasms.

We argue that the concept of a policy prolepsis is a category of becoming-policy that actualizes educational practices within spaces of desired policy initiatives and implementations. Policy prolepses represent a range of emergent policy ontologies produced through the interface of educational actors’ senses of policy and their estimations of possible outcomes. We use Deleuzes (1990) logic of sense to argue that becoming-policy occurs in a pre-conscious space, and that this space is produced politically and used strategically for desired, yet ostensibly unformed, policy outcomes. Educational policy, then, is an ontological activity representing a myriad of policy outcomes through the management of semiotic desires and actors’ inferences about these persuasive signs. The paper illustrates the practical idea of policy prolepsis by demonstrating how policy apparitions use fear in becoming-policy. Policy apparitions, then, are just one species of policy prolepses that utilize the affect of fear to manipulate educational actors’ interpretations.

‘Neoliberal spatial technologies’: on the practices of educational policy change

This paper explores the spatial dimensions of neoliberalism, in relation to educational policy change in the inner‐city of Sydney, Australia. It offers a response to Peck and Tickells challenge that studies of neoliberalism are often undertaken as discrete macro‐ or micro‐analyses without attention to the links between, and across, these scales. The paper posits the notion of ‘neoliberal spatial technologies’, a bricolage of neoliberalism, governmentality and relational space, to contribute to cross‐scalar understandings of neoliberalism in relation to inner‐city educational policy change. An adumbrated analysis is presented of the practices surrounding the outcome of educational policy change in inner‐Sydney. The paper concludes that these practices, drawing on discourses of neoliberalism and relational space, constitute particular students as possible neoliberal educational subjects.

Education policy racialisations: Afrocentric schools, Islamic schools, and the new enunciations of equity

This paper draws on ideas of assemblage to examine the contingency and (in)coherence of education policy. The paper is a conceptual and thematic attempt to understand the policy terrain, broadly conceived, pertaining to opposition to the establishment of private Islamic schools in Australia and public Afrocentric schools in Canada. This opposition is located within complex policy terrains relating to multiculturalism, whiteness and race/racism. The paper focuses on the complex racialised politics surrounding education policy initiatives that support marketisation and choice in private and public K-12 schooling – with an interest in what forms of choice are legitimated in and by a racialised education market. The paper concludes that opposition to Islamic and Afrocentric schooling highlights the ambiguity of equity, and the fragility of identity in racialised education policy environments.

The neo-liberal education policies of epimeleia heautou: caring for the self in school markets

The paper argues that neo-liberal education policy has capitalized on a historical concern to care for the self, or the Greek epimeleia heautou. We discuss epimeleia heautou in relation to education policies that emphasize greater choice in curriculum offerings, and in relation to school choice policies more generally. Thus, a premise of our argument is that school choice policies accommodate a much greater range of selves to be cared for. The analysis examines the neo-liberal subject, homo œconomicus, in relation to education policy that produces choices of the self and choices for its care. We conclude by discussing conceptions of the self in relation to two aporias of neo-liberal educational equality produced through ethnic-specific schools.

Urban accommodations: policy, education and a politics of place

This paper examines the convergence of urban and education policy in inner Sydney, and posits a politics of place as a useful frame to both understand policy and undertake policy analyses. It reiterates calls for place to be taken seriously in education policy studies, but also proposes that it is equally important to strive for preciseness when using concepts such as space and place. The theoretical component of this paper concerns the intersection of relational notions of place and space with discursive concepts of the identity. The paper then applies these ideas to analyse urban and education policy in inner Sydney, and teases out possible understandings of how schooling may be implicated in a politics of the inner city.

Policy Scientificity 3.0: Theory and Policy Analysis in-and-for This World and Other-Worlds.

This paper examines the epistemologies and ontologies of education policy studies. Our aim is to posit a reinvigoration of policy studies to hedge against undue ossification and co-option of critical policy studies. We do so by arguing for the need to develop new concepts for policy studies using the ‘posts’ (e.g., post-structuralism and post-humanism). The paper aims to create a vocabulary and conceptual contribution to the new ways of undertaking, and new ontologies of, policy studies that are emerging as part of what we term policy scientificity 3.0.

“A raw, emotional thing”—School choice, commodification and the racialised branding of Afrocentricity in Toronto, Canada

In this paper we contend neo-liberal education policy which supports the creation of schooling choices in public education systems is reshaping, conflating and branding ethnicity. We make these points in reference to school choice in Toronto, Canada, and the establishment of an Africentric ethno-centric school. We argue that one of the registers within which education and ethnicity in Toronto operates relates to the conflation of commodification, ethnicity and geography, and that this conflation indicates one of the limits of school choice as a possible way to redress Black student disadvantage. We suggest education policy, which enables the establishment of ethno-centric schools, enters the realm of other debates about race, equity and difference that include the practices of marketing and branding.