Relocating the political in education: why we need to revisit the marketisation of education in the contemporary political climate

ABSTRACT This article adopts tools from political science and political anthropology to re-evaluate the prevailing discourses of accountability and marketisation that continue to shape education policies across the developing world. Following an exploration of studies promoting the quasi-marketisation of education and reforms that empower parents to exercise their voice and choice, this paper adopts principal–agent theory, social dominance theory and concept of the everyday to argue that such community-centric policies – which were initially devised to offset the capture of education by the state – may de facto lead to the education landscape becoming intrinsically politicised and reflective of national political discourses, albeit not in the way we conventionally believe. It argues that parents can no longer be regarded as passive, apolitical agents in education discourse. Rather, citizens’ interests are continually in conflict, and in a marketised system designed to respond to the interests of more dominant parents, schools may become sites in which inter-group contestations and competing political beliefs are reified. This article invites us to revise our current understanding of education and politics, and question: What – or whom – do we define as political, and why is this becoming increasingly important?