ABSTRACT
Educational performance can be attributed to a variety of factors. The performance of members of particular social classes and cultures can be ascribed to qualities or defi ciencies within the individuals or cultures concerned. Alternatively, it can be ascribed to the positions of particular groups within society as a whole, some in more advantageous positions, others in positions where inegalitarian and structurally unjust attitudes, behaviours and policies are imposed, normally by dominant societal groups. Performance can also be attributed to ‘providers’: criticism, for instance, has been directed at the teaching professions of many different countries (Levin 2001), leading to calls for a ‘reprofessionalisation’ of teaching forces, and consequently to greater control, surveillance, and direction of their work, and much greater specifi cation and testing of pupils. Of course, such arguments can and have been turned round (e.g., Ball 1994; Bottery 2004): for if governments exhibit a ‘discourse of derision,’ with low trust in their work forces, this may lead to the lowering of esteem and morale within the profession, creating widespread disaffection, affecting performance in the classroom, exacerbated by boring curricula and stress-inducing government testing imposed on pupils. In this scenario, then, it is the low trust, high control attitudes of governments that generate the problems.
