<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><italic></italic>In Australia, market-based education policies promote the notion that government schools should flexibly tailor secondary education to the needs of young people and their local communities. Far from offering a “one size fits all” system, policies seek to enable clients <italic>(parents, students) </italic>to exercise freedom of choice in quasi-markets that offer different educational products to different individuals. The intended effect is a kind of <italic>bespoke education tailoring, </italic>whereby schools operate as flexible service providers, adapting to the needs and desires of local markets. In this paper, I analyse the policy turn towards market tailoring as part of broader shifts towards advanced liberal governance in education. Following this, I feature interviews with educators in two socially disparate government secondary schools in the Australian city of Melbourne. In doing so, I analyse the extent to which each school tailors its marketing practices to its local community. These interviews suggest inherent contradictions emerge when tailoring is attempted in a hierarchical market with normative and rigid indicators of ‘brand value’. Schools are caught, I argue, between paradoxical demands, requiring them to be simultaneously different <italic>and </italic>the same.</p></abstract>

In Australia, market-based education policies promote the notion that government schools should flexibly tailor secondary education to the needs of young people and their local communities. Far from offering a “one size fits all” system, policies seek to enable clients (parents, students) to exercise freedom of choice in quasi-markets that offer different educational products to different individuals. The intended effect is a kind of bespoke education tailoring, whereby schools operate as flexible service providers, adapting to the needs and desires of local markets. In this paper, I analyse the policy turn towards market tailoring as part of broader shifts towards advanced liberal governance in education. Following this, I feature interviews with educators in two socially disparate government secondary schools in the Australian city of Melbourne. In doing so, I analyse the extent to which each school tailors its marketing practices to its local community. These interviews suggest inherent contradictions emerge when tailoring is attempted in a hierarchical market with normative and rigid indicators of ‘brand value’. Schools are caught, I argue, between paradoxical demands, requiring them to be simultaneously different and the same.

Being different and the same? The paradoxes of ‘tailoring’ in education quasi - markets

The University of Melbourne Melbourne Graduate School of E ducation Education Policy and L eadership Level 7, 100 L eicester Street Carlton Victoria 3053 Australia

Journal of Pedagogy

In Australia, market-based education policies promote the notion that government schools should flexibly tailor secondary education to the needs of young...

Being different and the same? The paradoxes of ‘tailoring’ in education quasi - markets

Published Online: Dec 28, 2012

Page range: 279 - 302

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10159-012-0014-8

Keywords
education policy, marketisation, tailoring, governance, secondary schooling

This content is open access.

Being different and the same? The paradoxes of ‘tailoring’ in education quasi - markets

Published Online: Dec 28, 2012

Page range: 279 - 302

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10159-012-0014-8

Keywordseducation policy, marketisation, tailoring, governance, secondary schooling

This content is open access.

Keywords
education policy, marketisation, tailoring, governance, secondary schooling