ABSTRACT
Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally over the past three decades have appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school councils/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketised systems of education. This chapter considers the perceptions of 12 stakeholders in public education across four Australian states regarding how current school autonomy reform policies, including Independent Public Schools, support corporatised and seemingly depoliticised repositioning of school councils/boards. This data indicates there is a shift from elected parental representation to principal selection of ‘skill-based' community members, with the greatest implications for schools in disadvantaged communities who experience difficulties gaining voluntary parental participation. In this chapter, we offer new theoretical insights into the links between school autonomy, governance, the role and composition of school councils/boards and social justice informed by Nancy Fraser's theorising of social justice. We identify an emerging tension between firstly, parent movements as counterpublics claiming participatory parity in decision-making in school councils/boards; and secondly, principal selection of self-interested and politically influential actors onto school councils/boards, potentially politicising councils/boards.
