OFSTED, Inspection and the Betrayal of Democracy
Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: Drawing briefly on the quite different discourses of schooling-as-performance and education-as-exploration, the paper opens by exploring some of the consequences of the distinction between schooling and education for any system of school inspection. The second section of the paper examines the conceptual and practical inadequacy of ‘accountability’ as an agent of reciprocal public engagement in a participatory democracy. In its stead a more robust, more open notion of ‘reciprocal responsibility’ is offered as a more fitting means of professional and communal renewal. Section III focuses on the relationship between means and ends that is at once central to democracy and so conspicuously absent from current inspection arrangements. The short conclusion suggests we need a radical break from OFSTED if we wish to approximate more closely to our democratic aspirations.
Author: Michael Fielding
Institution: University of Sussex
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems and Management
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1974959822