Learning to learn: Consultancy, internal agency and the appropriation of learning theory in English Schools

In the years following the 1988 Education Reform Act schools have been subject to a range of policy interventions that have been aligned to a market ideology. These have limited the impact of local authority governance whilst opening up the possibilities of collaboration with commercial providers of learning materials. More recently there has been a significant growth in the development of, and interest in, new educational theories of learning to learn – many of them have drawn upon recent discoveries in Neuroscience. This interest has spawned a range of responses in the field of commercially produced learning packages and an increased involvement with educational consultancy. The aim of this research was to examine how learning theory is constructed and appropriated in English schools. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with teachers across a broad selection of English schools, Foucaultian discourse analysis is used to explore issues of power, agency and resistance in relation to the construction of learning theory within school communities. Findings reveal the value placed on external expertise by teachers and the impact this has on their own agency and professionalism. Furthermore the role of school-to-school networks and initiative -specific languages of learning are uncovered in relation to the significant spread and reproduction of commercial programmes in school. Ultimately the possibilities for professional, mediating practices are discussed as a means of militating the risk to teacher professionalism posed by the externalisation of educational expertise.