Legitimising capital: parent organisations and their resistance to testing in England

This paper presents findings from a year-long network ethnography into the strategies, networks, and outcomes of More Than a Score (MTAS)—a campaign against standardised testing in UK primary schools. Focusing specifically on the parent-based groups of the organisation, we use theorisations of symbolic capital to challenge traditional understandings of how capital can be leveraged for group advancement. We argue that MTAS frames itself as a grassroots organisation, using this image to promote its agenda amongst possible allies. Parent groups serve a critical role in accentuating the ‘grassroots’ image, as they bring a level of credibility to this claim. At the same time, the individuals who run these groups also bring technical skills, professional experiences, and connections that provide logistical and expert capital to the range of MTAS’s strategies and agendas. In doing so, their political and social capital as ‘parents’ provide a sort of legitimising capital to MTAS.