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From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Mihajla Gavin Open the ORCID record for Mihajla Gavin [Opens in a new window] ,
Scott Fitzgerald Open the ORCID record for Scott Fitzgerald [Opens in a new window]  and
Susan McGrath-Champ Open the ORCID record for Susan McGrath-Champ [Opens in a new window]
Mihajla Gavin*
Affiliation:
University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Scott Fitzgerald
Affiliation:
Curtin University, Australia
Susan McGrath-Champ
Affiliation:
University of Sydney, Australia
*
Mihajla Gavin, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 Australia. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Major reforms in education, globally, have focused on increased accountability and devolution of responsibility to the local school level to improve the efficiency and quality of education. While emerging research is considering implications of these changed governance arrangements at both a school and system level, little attention has been afforded to teacher union responses to devolutionary reform, despite teaching being a highly union-organised profession and the endurance of decentralising-style reforms in education for over 40 years. Drawing upon a power resources approach, this article examines union responses in cases of devolutionary reform in a populous Australian state. Through analysing evolving policy discourse, from anti-bureaucratic, managerialising rhetoric to a ‘post-bureaucratic, empowerment’ agenda, this article contributes to understandings of union power for resisting decentralising, neoliberal policy agendas by exposing the limits of public sector unions mobilising traditional power resources and arguing for strengthening of discursive and symbolic power.

Keywords

Devolutionpublic educationteacher unionsAustralianew public managementgovernanceframingpower resourcesJ5
Type
Themed collection: Public sector employment relations in turbulent times
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 80 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2022

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