nthesis of this with the thinking of Friedman (1962; 1980), discussing human capital and the need to empower individuals to invest in themselves, that offers rationale behind neoliberal government rhetoric. Whilst Thatcher is often demonised by those opposed to neoliberal principals (Coffield, 2006), Ball (2017) identifies how the neoliberal agenda introduced in the 1970s has since given way to a managerial, competition-based state in which the language of consumerism and performativity has become commonplace.
Neoliberalism in Education:
Discussion around the somewhat frantic nature of education policy reform has long existed in the literature (Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987; Levin, 1998; Peck and Theodore, 2015), a notion extended by Ball (2003; 2008) through recognition of policy coordinated on a global scale to spark a generic model of educational modernisation. Though such volatility around educational policy can lead to difficulties in establishing cause and effect relationships, the 1988 Education Reform Act (Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1988), enacted under the Thatcher government, is widely accredited with the initial, formal advocacy of neoliberal principals within educational policy (Bridges and McLaughlin, 1994). In practice, this entailed the establishment of a national curriculum, the need for systems of accountability and control, the devolution of financial control from local education authorities to the schools themselves, and critically, the right for parents to express a choice towards the education that their child received (Ball, 2017; Whitty, Power and Halpin, 1998). It is crucial to recognise that whilst these may have been the foundations of neoliberalism in education, subsequent governments then consolidated these, ushering in the aforementioned competition-based state and the belief that such competition would improve the efficiency, and ultimately the output, of state schools (Hirsch, 2002). To operate successfully in this educational landscape, schools are encouraged to implement private sector techniques and mirror the behaviour of a business first and public service second (Ball, 2003; Bates, Lewis and Pickard, 2011; Bridges and McLaughlin, 1994).
Ball (2003) warns of considering such policies as de-regulation, instead determining these as re-regulation and a mode of less visible control (Aglietta, 1979; Bernstein, 1996). It is this thinking that supports the explanation of education as a quasi-market (Le Grand and Bartlett, 1993; Dumay and Dupriez, 2014), as state education must remain free to the user and not operate on a ‘for-profit’ basis, marking a distinct contrast from a typical, free-market
