Education and Social Cohesion

Abstract

‘Education, education, education’ was at the forefront of New Labour’s rhetoric and policies. These reproduced the predicaments and opportunities that were posed by the socio-economic transformations introduced by post-industrialism and neoliberalism. New Labour’s education strategy reflects its ambivalent adoption of the liberal ideology of ‘possessive individualism’, according to which individuals are conceived as the sole proprietors and fruits of their capacities, society being an exchange between proprietors and the state being merely a regulator of these exchanges (Macpherson, 2010). Within (and beyond) the dimension of education therefore, New Labour’s approach was structured by the utopian attempt to combine a ‘possessive individualist’ ethos (and middle class aspiration to a privileged education) with the Marxist ethos of universal redistribution (McKibbin, 2008). This attempt of reconciliation produced the establishment of city academies, allowing schools to be sponsored by private actors (i.e. foundations, faith groups, etc.) – while being generously funded by the state – and to be more autonomous from the curriculum and equal access criteria imposed by local educational authorities.