Discourses promoting the benefits of school autonomy have floated freely internationally since moves in the 1980s to greater devolution in the UK, New Zealand, the USA, Australia and Sweden. The most recent Australian version, Independent Public Schools (IPS), grants school leaders more latitude over aspects of their work. But this autonomy is…

The collection of data by government authorities has a complex history. In Australia, this began with the establishment of British government settlements as a way to account for fiscal viability and social prospects. As the colonies became self-governing entities, the collection of social and economic data increased in importance, and included…

This paper critiques recent practices in schooling, particularly efforts to enhance student learning outcomes for more performative purposes. Such practices have become increasingly prevalent as part of a broader trend towards results-oriented accountability practices, with concomitant pressures upon teachers and students to achieve particular…

Media reportage often act as interpretations of accountability policies thereby making the news media a part of the policy enactment process. Within such a process, their role is that of policy reinforcement rather than policy construction or contestation. This paper draws on the experiences of school leaders in regional Queensland, Australia, and…

This article draws upon recent theorising of the "becoming topological" of space--specifically, how new social spaces are constituted through relations rather than physical locations--to explore how standardised data, and specifically test data, have influenced teachers' work and learning. We outline the varied ways in which teacher…

Educational governance is commonly predicated around the generation, collation and processing of data through digital technologies. Drawing upon an empirical study of two Australian secondary schools, this paper explores the different forms of data-based governance that are being enacted by school leaders, managers, administrators and teachers.…

Given widespread acceptance of the role of teaching in improving student outcomes, it is not surprising that policy makers have turned to teaching standards as a lever for educational improvement. There are, however, long-standing critiques of standards that suggest they are reductionist and promote a dualism between theory and practice. Our…

The professionalisation of teaching in Australia is a policy shift that transpires within broader policy dynamics which are increasingly influenced by neoliberal logics. In this article we examine teacher responsibility through analysis of a new measure introduced in Victoria. This requires teachers to prove professional development hours in the…

This article examines evidence of teachers' work and learning in one school setting in the northern regions of Queensland, Australia, revealing how globalized performative practices that circulate around the collection and use of data in schooling settings are both confirmed and contested. Drawing upon the literature on the nature of…

Teacher education programs in Australia increasingly comply with new and narrowing accountabilities so that they can be approved by diverse regulatory authorities and accredited. This is an auto-biographical narrative study which draws upon the memories of a teacher educator who contrasts her experience of learning to teach in the early 1980s with…

External accountability policies have spread fast across various educational systems over the past decades. This research examines the relations of internal and external accountability with students' math achievement drawing on PISA 2012. With a sample of 44 educational systems, of which external accountability policies were identified, the…

With the globalisation of university education, national frameworks are commonly used to prescribe standardised learning outcomes and achieve accountability. However, these frameworks are generally not accompanied by guiding pedagogy to support academics in adjusting their teaching practices to achieve the set outcomes. This paper reports the…

Teacher education is a hotly debated policy area in higher education and schooling portfolios, with increasing emphasis on standards and accountability. It is in this environment that "The Standards Project" (2013-2015) presented in this article began. It has at its core a three-part commitment: first, to undertake a comprehensive audit…

While teachers' initial education is key to ensuring that new teachers are prepared for their work, it is only one piece in the continuum of teachers' professional growth. Continuing professional learning is vital for teachers to broaden and deepen their knowledge, keep up with new research, tools and practices and respond to their students'…

I work selectively with poststructuralist theories in order to give an account of the subject of policy as a constitutive relationship between social policy and the embodied human subject. Drawing on theories of subjectivity, narrative and governmentality, I articulate possibilities for analysing narrated accounts of experience as a mode of…