Beyond School. The challenge of co-producing and commoning a different episteme for education

This paper develops previous work in which we deployed a form of Foucauldian critique to clear a space in which it might be possible to think education differently. Here, in that space, we are hoping to 'get lost' in some unexplored spaces of possibility. We sketch some starting points, some 'lines of flight' for such thinking. To do this, we identify a concatenation of three crises and discuss briefly their inter-relationship. But the paper focuses primarily on education. The first of these crises, COVID, offers a moment, a space, in which we might think of ourselves, others, and the world differently. The second, climate, brings to bear a pressing urgency for change in the way that we think of our relation to the world in practical, political and epistemological ways. The third, education in relation to crises, is an opening within which some thinking might be undertaken about what it means to be educated, and in which the relation between education, community and sustainability, in a variety of senses, might be pursued. In the final sections, using concepts from Foucault, Olssen, Lewis and others, we seek to find inspiration from and an accommodation between Foucault's self-formation and commoning - a practice of collaborating and sharing to meet every day needs and achieve the well-being of individuals, communities, and environments - as a new way to think education beyond modern episteme.

Peopling the crowded education state: Heterarchical spaces, EdTech markets and new modes of governing during the COVID-19 pandemic

In this paper, we examine a set of complexly related education policy issues that concern changes to the form and technologies of the state, and changing modalities of government and processes of policy and service delivery, and concomitantly, the re-agenting of education policy within extensive but exclusive policy networks. We also explore the role of the state in creating opportunities for business and social purpose organisations within the delivery and management of state education in response to the ambitions of EdTech (Education Technology) companies seeking to sell their products within the state system. The time is that of COVID-19 and lockdown (2020-2021) and the case is the English Oak National Academy (ONA) – a national platform for remote teaching and learning resources that was conceived and created in England in April 2020, with funding from government and various philanthropists, and designed and run by a team of third sector and business policy entrepreneurs. Alongside and in relation to the ONA we consider a series of UK government policy papers on EdTech, interrogate the membership of the EdTech Leadership Group (ELG) and of the EdTech Advisory Forum. © 2022