ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the Foucauldian concept of governmentality is used and developed to generate new insights into the restructuring of schooling in England through the Academies programme. Underpinning the theorisation are data from ethnographic research in a secondary school as it underwent structural change. The chapter contributes a new perspective on Foucault’s work, illustrating how governmentality theory can help to explain the success or failure of policy discourses, but also that it has limitations in making sense of a complex and contradictory situation, where policies and discourses are confounded by unanticipated events.
