Commercialising comparison: Pearson, edu-business and new policy spaces in education

• In Event: To whose benefit? Probing the rise of edu-business in shaping education policies and practices

Abstract

This paper provides a critical policy analysis of The Learning Curve (TLC), a fifty page report and associated website and data bank developed by the multi-national edu-business, Pearson. TLC exemplifies the commercialising of comparison and the enhancement of the authority of transnational corporations in education policy processes globally. We also comment briefly on the updated 2014 TLC. In analysing TLC as a transnational policy, our account seeks to proffer a critical analysis of this emerging policy genre, and to ascertain in whose interests and with what outcomes these technologies operate, as a contribution to comparative education. We analyse TLC in relation to Pearson’s new business strategy, the restructured state and new spatialities associated with globalization. We draw on a number of intellectual resources to understand these developments, including notions of new spatialities (including rescaling and the topological) and new governance structures in education (including network or heterarchical governance). Network ethnography is employed to document the global networks of both people and data associated with TLC and we reflect on the emergence of the network ethnographer as ‘cyberflaneur’. We conclude with a political evaluation of these and related developments in education policy.

Authors

• Anna Hogan, University of Queensland

• Sam Sellar, University of Queensland

• Robert Lingard, University of Queensland