1. For “getting it”: An ethnographic study of
Co-operative schools
Gail Davidge
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of
the Manchester Metropolitan University for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Education and Social Research Institute
Manchester Metropolitan University
2014

2. Abstract
The marketisation of the educational sector continues to shape educational provision,
policy and practice on a worldwide scale (Apple, 2001; Ball, 2008; Giroux, 2004),
ostensibly providing ‘freedom’ through the conflation of consumer ‘choice’ and ‘equality of
opportunity’ via the invisible hand of the market. The assumption that competitive markets
will produce better schools and outcomes for their students veils the extent to which a large
proportion of the world’s population are positioned as marginal actors, unable to ‘compete’
or ‘choose’ as equals, as they engage on a significantly uneven playing field (Mills &
McGregor, 2014; Reay, 2012). Historical and global (cf. Fielding & Moss, 2011; Neill,
1990; Wrigley et al., 2012) examples of democratic alternatives to the traditional institution
of ‘the school’ have provided rich evidence of the radical possibilities for social change in
the form of case studies and academic critique. However, the absence of a cohesive
platform which allows a multiplicity of voices and diverse contexts to collaborate together
and develop a more effective voice, risks positioning these more radical models at the fringe
of educational reform. This represents a significant challenge for extending democracy
within educational contexts. The co-operative movement represents a possible solution to
this, especially in terms of developing its capacity to create a powerful alliance of partners
which can reorient the means and ends of public education towards social justice. Indeed,
in just six years co-operative schools have come to represent the third largest grouping
within the English public education system (Munn, 2013) and in January 2014, there were
just over 700 schools in the UK which have committed to adopting co-operative values
(self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, solidarity, openness and honesty,
social responsibility and caring for others) within the very heart of their school’s ethos
(Shaw, forthcoming, 2015).
Although the first English co-operative trust school opened in 2008, sustained analysis
of this model has not been undertaken to date. Therefore, this research project
attempts to offer the beginnings of a critical conversation that considers the
possibilities and challenges that such a model of schooling might have to offer by
undertaking a systematic examination of the recent emergence of a ‘co-operative’
model of public schooling from within the socio-historical context of decades of neo-
liberal educational ‘reforms’. This piece of research maps out how this model is

3. variously conceived as a more ethical brand by some, and as a radical project which
creates the necessary conditions for democracy and social justice to flourish by others.
This research therefore, seeks to understand how tropes of “getting it” both constitute
and confuse readings of freedom and equality in education as nascent understandings
of co-operative school membership become slippery subjects of co-operative school
discourse. By undertaking a critical discursive analysis of claims that co-operative
school governance structures allow everyone to ‘have a say’, this thesis develops a
theoretical engagement and provocation of ‘voice’ in education as it becomes
increasingly troubled with and by attempts to answer the question, ‘what is a co-
operative school?’ and ‘what can it do?’ In order to answer these questions, data drawn
from critical ethnographic fieldwork undertaken at three co-operative trust and
academy schools during 2012-13 was considered alongside discourse analysis of an
emerging body of ‘texts’ that sought to inform and promote ‘co-operation’ in school.
As a result of exploring the accounts of Others who offered a range of narratives that
reflect the ‘making up’ (Hacking, 1990) of the co-operative subject, these different
versions of events brought into view both the challenges and the possibilities that ‘co-
operative’ schools and their members face; as the values and principles of co-
operation are also shaped (but not necessarily determined) by claims made for equality
which reflect the messiness of everyday school life. Furthermore, this piece of research
highlighted the extent to which students’ experiences of “getting it” (co-operative
schooling) troubled corresponding rights to be included in decision-making processes
as the conditions of co-operative school membership are intersected by multiple axes
of difference and inequality, both within educational discourse and in wider society.
This research suggests that despite the promising emergence of a model of schooling
that places a collective approach to civil society at its core, historical asymmetries of
power and entrenched marketisation of educational provision and practice tended to
prevail. This severely limited the extent to which schools were able to create the
conditions of possibility for everyone to “get it” and ‘have a say’. I thus argue that, in
order for co-operative schools to resist the neo-liberal appropriation of freedom
through the lens of the ‘rational’ individual consumer of education, significant
restructuring of governance arrangements is required alongside considerable advocacy
work that addresses students’ rights to be included and protected as full members of

4. the school community. This thesis closes with a number of observations and
recommendations that contribute to reinvigorating the debate about what co-
operative schooling can do, in addition to highlighting how this research project offers
further insight about the conceptual and methodological dilemmas that work to shape
the construction of children’s agency and subjectivities as students are variously
positioned as heterogeneous subjects of co-operative education and educational
research.