Doing democracy. Research Perspectives on Risks and Responsibilities within a Marketised Education. PART 1

• Description of the symposium A general aim for school systems around the world is to prepare future citizens to participate in and contribute to society. In most western countries, this is upheld and developed within notions and practices of democracy and citizenship. Consequently, there is a close relationship between education and democracy. In times of increased global movements and diversity among students, issues of democracy therefore gain further attention, becoming a high-stake concept, recently seen in for example the new OECD framework on Global competence. At the same time, marketisation and privatisation of education rapidly change the foundations of schooling (Ball, 2009; Rizvi, & Lingard, 2010). This could be understood as parts of global transformations and trends that in many cases are supported by neoliberal visions, visions that reshape educational systems (Beach, 2010; Popkewitz, 2008). This rearrangement influences all parts of schooling and creates consequences on many levels. To name a few, the rearrangement involves profitable businesses, competitive and governing structures, digitalisation, rearranging of decision-making and responsibility, and renegotiation of discourses, positions and processes (Ball, 2009; Bunar, & Ambrose, 2016; Dovemark & Erixon Arreman, 2017; Verger, Lubienski, & Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). Furthermore, new ways of acting and communicating can be seen when policy actors, private companies, NGOs, school leaders, researchers, and lobby groups collaborate in entangled networks resulting in blurring boundaries and interwoven practices (Ball, 2018; Simons, Lundahl, & Serpieri, 2013). This in turn impacts on accountability, risk-taking, responsibility and transparency. Thus, educational spaces become fundamentally transformed and issues of democracy, societal problems, citizenship, accessibility and the like need to be renegotiated in relation to a changed educational landscape. This symposium will illuminate and discuss these changes and their consequences. For example, what happens with decision-making processes, accessibility, diversity, and political actions? What logics becomes changed, manifested or inscribed? What can be marketed, and becomes possible to sell? Could one say that citizenship and democracy have become commodities, something to trade? These questions will be addressed at the symposium alongside the discussion of the role of educational research. We stress that researchers’ engagement in education are of great importance in our European context and have the possibility to affect schools, national and international policy-makers, so called edu-preneurs and all actors involved in education. The symposium consists of contributions representing a wide range of perspectives and approaches taken by researchers from Sweden, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Brazil. Consequently, the symposium will mirror a variety of national and educational contexts all with the dual focus on the theme of the symposium and the theme of the conference. Many of the researchers in the symposium belong to a newly formed network called Researchers on education and marketization (the REM network) founded within the Swedish research project Education Inc. The network now consists of nineteen researchers from three countries and eight universities that in different ways problematise and scrutinise marketisation and education and the urgent and necessary issues that evolves in when education becomes marketised and new logics change the conditions for schooling. The symposium has two parts. The first part starts with an introduction given by Anna Jobér, coordinator and co-founder of the REM network followed by presentation of six papers in two sessions. They are arranged in order to give a thought-proving and interesting symposium regarding the variety of research project, methodological and theoretical perspectives as well as cultural contexts. Finally, the symposium is wrapped up by a discussant, Professor Marie Brennan https://www.vu.edu.au/contact-us/marie-brennan.

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