E-grāmata: Inside the English education lab: Critical qualitative and ethnographic perspectives on the academies experiment

Inside the English education lab offers a range of qualitative and ethnographic explorations of the academies programme in England. Drawing on examples from primary and secondary academy institutions, a free school and Multi Academy Trusts, the collection explores how promises of academy policy are often at odds with everyday practice. Data and evidence throughout the collection highlight a multitude of ways in which the academies ‘experiment’ retrenches rather than reforms inequalities. Methodological insights and innovations are also a central feature of the collection, where authors interrogate what it means to collect and produce data in the current political context.

Inside the English education lab collection has a dual focus. It offers a critical examination of the academies programme, and it interrogates methodological practice in education research. Overall, it argues that academies reproduce rather than reform inequalities, and that there is political salience to in-depth, qualitative methodologies.