‘Running with the Fox and Hunting with the Hounds’: Social Work Tutors' Experiences of Managing Failing Social Work Students in Practice Learning Settings

The paper explores the issues raised by social work students failing in practice learning settings from the perspective of university tutors, by drawing on existing literature in this area from social work and nursing, as well as findings from a small‐scale empirical qualitative study. The qualitative study was influenced by practitioner‐researcher and practice‐near paradigms; and is based on interviews with twelve social work tutors in England. The findings reveal that tutors are able to articulate the important tasks and functions of their roles when issues of failing students in practice learning settings arise, although the process can be challenging. The challenges include: supporting practice educator and student, concerns about other tutors’ practices, the difficulties in promoting appropriate professional standards and values within higher education contexts and frustrations with practice educators and placements. Only a third of the respondents (four) however, articulated their gate keeping roles and responsibilities although this was not without its difficulties. Given the current reforms in social work education in England at this present time, with greater emphasis on threshold standards at entry level, and at key stages throughout the programme of study, the research is timely in terms of the critical consideration of the tutor role and challenges inherent in promoting appropriate standards.

Professionalizing school governance: the disciplinary effects of school autonomy and inspection on the changing role of school governors

Since the 1980s, state schools in England have been required to ensure transparency and accountability through the use of indicators and templates derived from the private sector and, more recently, globally circulating discourses of ‘good governance’ (an appeal to professional standards, technical expertise, and performance evaluation as mechanisms for improving public service delivery). The rise of academies and free schools (‘state-funded independent schools’) has increased demand for good governance, notably as a means by which to discipline schools, in particular school governors – those tasked with the legal responsibility of holding senior leadership to account for the financial and educational performance of schools. A condition and effect of school autonomy, therefore, is increased monitoring and surveillance of all school governing bodies. In this paper, I demonstrate how these twin processes combine to produce a new modality of state power and intervention; a dominant or organizing principle by which government steer the performance of governors through disciplinary tools of professionalization and inspection, with the aim of achieving the ‘control of control’. To explain these trends, I explore how various established and emerging school governing bodies are (re)constituting themselves to meet demands for good governance.