This thesis examines the philosophical drivers behind the education policy agenda pursued by the New Labour Government and will test the assertion that: Mrs Thatcher had a project. Blair's historic project is adjusting us to it. (Hall, S. 1998.14. p 28) The research considers the legislative policy, practice and continuities between Conservative and New Labour governments and critically analyses the 'Third Way'with particular reference to modernisation, competition and the restructuring of the welfare state in response to globalisation. The thesis also examines the growth of the private sector in state education, the development of the Private Finance Initiative in both policy and operational terms and draws conclusions about the implications for the governance of education of the trend towards a 'liberal state', where individual choice is perceived to be more effective and efficient than a model of governance based upon social values. The qualitative nature of this thesis includes consideration of the issues involved in the changing concepts of citizenship and consumerism within the evolving, redefined welfare state; examines the assertion by Marquand (2000) that incessant marketisation has generated a culture of distrust which has corroded the values of professionalism, citizenship, equity and public service and draws conclusions about accountabilities within a modern social democracy. The study includes an analysis of education legislation and a critique of policy intent in the broader context of societal impact. This incorporates an analysis of primary texts, government policy statements as well as Green and White Papers, compared and evaluated with contemporary research literature. Coupled with a case study of the Private Finance Initiative in Stoke-on-Trent the theoretical triangulation (Denzin, 1970) is combined with witness accounts of the 4 complex phenomena' associated with a Private Finance Initiative' (Adelman, 1980) and enabled cross cutting perspectives to be illuminated and the knowledge and understanding of modernisation extended. Such triangulation extends knowledge by clarifying meaning by the identification of different ways in which modernisation is perceived in both theoretical and practical terms (Silverman, 1993; Flick, 1998). The thesis considers within the reality of the case study the importance of the local democratic voice and local political actions in educational governance, including the political/professional/public interface. This leads to conclusions about the need for a modern social democracy to explore the concept of accountability to the citizen as well as the consumer of services within a framework of evolving local policy networks and emergent patterns of governance within state education. In essence this thesis examines whether it is a superficial assertion to equate the 'Third Way'with neo-liberalism (Marquand, 2000; Driver and Martell, 1998,2000; Giddens, 1998,2000) or that the plurality of 'Third Ways' have translated into operational definition, legislation and policies within a model of education which lacks a coherent and identifiable national drive and is therefore critically dependent upon local interpretation and local political response. It also reaches conclusions about the citizen - state relationship, the validity of the concept of the 'social investment state' and suggests constituent elements of a 'fourth way' as a contribution to the issue posed by Whitty, (2000), 'how can education best help reconstruct the social fabric and new concepts of citizenship - and who shall influence its design? (p 8).

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The research reports on an ethnographic study undertaken at Kingswood, a secondary school in the North West of England, during a period of rapid reform within educational policy-making in England. The research project sets out to offer an empirical account of localised policy-making and a conceptual analysis as to how and why different social actors within and connected to the school are positioned and position-take in response to the schools’ localised development trajectory. In order to do this, the study operationalises Bourdieu’s thinking tools of field, capital and habitus as a means of theorising the complex relationship between structure and agency in the processes of localised policy-making. In order to present a detailed analysis of the positioning and position-taking I develop and deploy the conceptualisation of the neoliberal policy complex. I use this to describe and understand how the political and economic fields of production penetrate localised decision-making in which the connected agendas of performativity and accountability frame much of the localised policy processes at the research site. The neoliberal policy complex is defined by an on-going and increased commitment to legislative interventions, not least through an approach to the modernisation of public service in which autonomy and diversification are hailed as hallmarks for success. Drawing on data collected in a year long embedded study, from interviews and, observations with 18 students, five parents, 21 teachers, and seven school leaders, and documentary analysis, it is argued that within this neoliberal policy complex, the field of power is located as a centralising force in structuring the policy-making development and enactments at the local level. In order to achieve distinction within the schooling field and thus be acknowledged as legitimate within the neoliberal policy complex, Kingswood’s localised development trajectory reveals how the discourses of neoliberalism have been internalised by the social actors within the study, to produce subjective positioning which reveals a commitment to the neoliberal doxa. Within this theorisation certain knowledges, capitals and ways of doing and thinking are privileged and presented as common sense. At Kingswood, the conversion to an academy in April 2012 and the attendant re-organisation of the school provision into a Multi-Academy Trust, which has on site a ‘professional’ and a ‘studio’ school, are presented as a necessary construction for the school’s future, and the employability skills that will be subsequently embedded within the curriculum are framed as a common sense development of the purposes of education. The study concludes that such position-taking ultimately reveals how the centralising and hierarchical notions of power work to produce a narrative of misrecognition with regards to how the school must develop localised policy-making in order to remain a viable and legitimate entity in the schooling field. The research makes a contribution to the field of policy scholarship by applying Bourdieu’s thinking tools to the empirical findings from a range of social actors in and connected to the school in order to construct an understanding of the relationships between power and positionality in localised policy-making in neoliberal times.

Free Schools entail increased involvement from civil society actors in the provision of State-funded education in England. The increased devolution of freedoms and responsibilities to these 'self-governing' schools is reflected in a significant range of strategic decisions made through the development process. These include decisions over such issues as religious character, social purpose, educational priorities and innovations in organisation. However, which factors influence the exercise of these strategic freedoms within local experiences of the strategic development processes remains unclear. Existing literature and media debate has predominantly focussed on justification for these structural reforms and their educational and social outcomes. In maintaining focus at the macroscopic level the link between policy and outcomes is assumed. Furthermore, discussion at this level may ignore important features of the provision within Free Schools at the local level. This study focusses on how the social experiences of governors provide an alternative narrative within the broader debate on structural reform. It presents empirical findings focused on the reported experiences from 21 governor interviews with those responsible for the development of three Free Schools. Analysis followed a grounded theory methodology in which theoretical sampling was influenced by a broader range of interview, survey and secondary data. Coding of the data revealed that the formation of the vision and purpose, diverse relationships, continuous reorganisation and the positioning of oneself relative to others were recurring themes in the experiences reported within and between the schools. In order to explain the diversity of experiences in relation to these themes three categories were developed, namely motivations, relating and power. Similarities and differences in motivations (including personal relationships, vested interests and subjective judgements), relations (including social groupings and experiences of specific interactions) and power (including its configuration, perpetuation and dynamism) were analysed across the participant accounts. Diverse and manifold motivations and relations emerge in complex responsive processes of relating through which tacit hierarchies, sub-group identities and individual interests emerge in the conduct of loosely defined roles. It is concluded that the freedoms to self-define expose governors to diverse social influences on development. The enduring influence of founding relationships challenges the capacity of governors to maintain the balance required of the critical friend role. Furthermore, the local reallocation of diverse value propositions in school provision does not guarantee the relevance of schools to their communities, or democratic accountability over public spending.

This thesis reports on a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the SEL policy makers’ conversations taking place in England and Wales during the New Labour period. The research sets out to offer a critical explanation of Welsh and English SEL policy thinking and doing and how the SEL policy discourse worked to privilege certain ideas and topics and speakers and exclude others. Thinking with theory and building on the work of Apple (2007) and Ball (2012) I draw on the contemporary tenets of critical theory to examine the (dominant) English and (often subjugated) Welsh discourse(s) to historically locate and contextualise the mainstream SEL literature within the ideological discourse of neoliberalism (Harvey, 2005). This neoliberalism is one which unequivocally drives policy in the direction of markets and propounds a thorough marketization of educational provisions and practices (Lynch, 2006).Drawing on data from a series of eight semi structured interviews with key national level policymakers, alongside documentary analysis, I argue that New Labour in England, particularly in its second term, through a particular policy network and the SEAL programme, adopted SEL as a tool of managerialism designed to shape and govern a self-managing, entrepreneurial, placid subject in the service of the neoliberal economic model. Alternatively I contend that the Welsh assembly adopted SEL as a practical and progressive tool for developing a more equal society and a more egalitarian and democratic modus operandi of social justice (rooted in normative precepts of the collective and of community cohesion). This “Welsh” approach was powerfully intertwined with the devolution programme and notions of the child as a democratic citizen with agency and rights. In both England and Wales this understanding and application of SEL was intimately connected with national identity and notions of nationhood. This work was undertaken using a CDA approach. It employed Fairclough’s Three Dimensional Model (1992) of Critical Discourse Analysis and engaged with the subject and data through the three lenses of text (the written and spoken word), discursive practice (the production, distribution and consumption of the text) and social practice (the wider social, political and economic forces shaping the discourse). By illuminating through CDA the ideologically infused discursive claims to truth and value, which underpinned the rhetoric and substance of the UK (Anglo-centric) Government’s version of SEL in schools and that of the devolved Welsh Government, my findings reveal the broader scale ideas and political-ontological truth claims which drove the development of SEL across England and Wales during the New Labour period; the research therein unveils the implicit but reified notions of childhood and children’s wellbeing which were central to SEL development at both the national and devolved levels; it identifies the unspoken and latent ideological projects which were core to the production of divergent SEL discourses in each of the countries; and finally, it reveals the influence which national tradition, domestic power structures, cross-societal inequities and the subjugation of certain identities have had on the conceptualisation and practical delivery of SEL in England and Wales. The study concludes that the relationship between language and political ideology in England and Wales during the New Labour years powerfully shaped the SEL policy discourse. In England the result of this was a thin version of SEL co-opted into the service of the neoliberal marketplace. In Wales a similar outcome occurred but only after a very different contextualised and transformative version of SEL was relinquished due to the invasive neoliberal forces attacking Welsh education.