Education Policy and Philanthropy—The Changing Landscape of English Educational Governance

This article explores some hitherto neglected but nonetheless important aspects of the changing landscape of education policy and governance in England. It sketches some particular features of the increasingly complex and “congested” terrain of the education state and traces some of the primary discourses that currently inform and drive education policy (and, indeed, social policy more generally) both in relation to governance and substance. The article draws on an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC–-funded study (RES–000–22–2682), “Philanthropy and Education Policy.” This research involved three sets of activities; extensive and exhaustive Internet searches around particular (corporate) philanthropies, philanthropists, and philanthropically funded programs; interviews with some key “new” philanthropists and foundations interested and involved in education; and the use of these searches and interviews to construct “policy networks.” Together these constitute a “method” of “network ethnography.”