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Curriculum policy reform in an era of technical accountability: 'fixing' curriculum, teachers and students in English schools

Drawing on a Levinasian ethical perspective, the argument driving this paper is that the technical accountability movement currently dominating the educational system in England is less than adequate because it overlooks educators’ responsibility for ethical relations in responding to difference in respect of the other. Curriculum policy makes a significant contribution to the technical accountability culture through complicity in performativity, high-stakes testing and datafication, at the same time as constituting student and teacher subjectivities. I present two different conceptualizations of subjectivity and education, before engaging these in the analysis of data arising from an empirical study which investigated teachers’ and stakeholders’ experiences of curriculum policy reform in ‘disadvantaged’ English schools. The study’s findings demonstrate how a prescribed programme of technical curriculum regulation attempts to ‘fix’ or mend educational problems by ‘fixing’ or prescribing educational solutions. This not only denies ethical professional relations between students, teachers and parents, but also deflects responsibility for educational success from government to teachers and hastens the move from public to private educational provision. Complying with prescribed curriculum policy requirements shifts attention from broad philosophical and ethical questions about educational purpose as well as conferring a violence by assuming control over student and teacher subjectivities

Projection of participant recruitment to primary care research: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Recruitment to clinical trials remains a challenge, particularly in primary care settings. Initial projections of participant recruitment need to be as accurate as possible in order to avoid the financial, clinical and ethical costs of trial extensions or failures. However, estimation of recruitment rates is challenging and often poorly executed, if attempted at all. We used qualitative methods to explore the experiences and views of researchers on the planning of recruitment in this setting. METHODS: Participants had registered accrual to a UK-based primary care research study between April 2009 and March 2012. We conducted nine interviews with chief investigators or study managers, using a semi-structured topic guide. Analysis was conducted using the framework approach. RESULTS: Three themes are presented: 1) the factors affecting recruitment rates, 2) the use of planning techniques, and 3) influences on poor estimation. 1) A large number of factors affecting recruitment rates were discussed, including those relating to the study protocol, the clinical setting and the research setting. Use of targeted mail-outs to invite apparently eligible individuals to participate was preferred in order to eliminate some of the uncertainty in the recruitment rate associated with opportunistic clinician referrals. 2) The importance of pilot work was stressed. We identified significant uncertainty as to how best to schedule trial timelines to maximise efficiency. 3) Several potential sources of bias involved in the estimation of recruitment rates were explored and framed as technological, psychological or political factors. CONCLUSIONS: We found a large number of factors that interviewees felt impact recruitment rates to primary care research and highlighted the complexity of realistic estimation. Suitable early planning of the recruitment process is essential, and there may be potential to improve the projection of trial timelines by reducing biases involved in the process. Further research is needed to develop formal approaches that would be suitable for use in this setting