Setting the Scene

Abstract

This chapter places the study upon which the book is based within an academic, political and personal context. It is written at a time when education, along with the rest of the public sector, remains ‘under the cosh’ after four decades of reform agendas imposed upon it by successive governments (Beauchamp 2013). Although these reformist measures had their roots in New Right thinking, it would be wrong to see them solely as part of a New Right agenda. Ideologies related to public sector reform did not decline with the demise of the Conservative Government in 1997. Under New Labour, the Coalition Government and the new Conservative Government, the discourses of the market place have gained an ever firmer hold.