The calculated management of life and all that jazz: gaming quality assurance practices in English further education

Journal article

Beighton, Christian and Naz, Z. 2023. The calculated management of life and all that jazz: gaming quality assurance practices in English further education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 44 (6), pp. 844-858. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2023.2192907
AuthorsBeighton, Christian and Naz, Z.
Abstract

This paper examines emerging discourses and practices of quality assurance in English Further Education (FE), a sector currently undergoing significant change. Using a broadly ethnographic approach and Foucauldian theories of power, we discuss how ‘documentisation’ contributes to governance techniques in a specific institutional context. Documentisation, the transformation of concrete practice into discourse, reverses a common-sense view of the role of policy documentation and exemplifies a wide range of practices in both FE and the wider post-16 sector and includes the gamification of quality systems. Our analysis of the conditions and practices out of which the phenomenon appears identifies processes that are shaping present-day experiences and redefining the discourse of quality itself. Moreover, rather than situating compliance and/or resistance in practice per se, we argue that it is within the conditions of possibility expressed by such processes that the intertwining of compliance and resistance can best be appreciated.

KeywordsEducation; Quality assurance ; Foucault; Complexity; Normalisation ; Documentisation
Year2023
JournalDiscourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
Journal citation44 (6), pp. 844-858
PublisherTaylor & Francis
ISSN0159-6306
1469-3739
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2023.2192907
Official URLhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01596306.2023.2192907
Publication dates
Online04 Apr 2023
Publication process dates
Deposited13 Apr 2023
Publisher's version
License
Output statusPublished
Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Page range1-15
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