I tend to post my short-thoughts on LinkedIn rather than on this blog. This one is an example from around 8 months ago – but I decided to post here too just for easy reference. I originally came across Ball’s work after reading a Steve Brown blog post that I now can’t find, or that I imagined. It’s definitely the type of content you could imagine Steve Brown writing about, or maybe that other blogger Paul W who was around for a bit.

Anyway – cue short-thought!

The terrors of performativity in education!

Performativity is a form of regulation that ‘requires individual practitioners to organize themselves as a response to targets, indicators and evaluations’ (Ball 2003). It is a culture in which ‘judgements, comparisons, and displays [are used] as means of incentive, control, attrition, and change’ (2003:216).

Ball suggests that a culture of performativity can be anxiety-inducing for teachers, and can result in a loss of authority, creativity, and autonomy. Ball also states that ‘the issue of who has control over the field of judgement is crucial’. I agree with that, and I feel like middle leaders have a big role to play.

When appraisal processes seem performative and anxiety-inducing, we need to find ways to protect our teachers from that terror. We should strive to eliminate a competitive culture in our teams, promote genuine collaboration, and value developmental practice above evaluative, high-stakes observations. We should also offer constructive feedback to senior leaders, as they may not be aware of how performative practices are affecting staff wellbeing.

Alternatively, we could just tick the boxes and keep everyone’s head below the parapet. Either way…

Here’s a link to Ball’s article if interested.

Categories: General, reflections

Tags: eal, elt, English Language Teaching, performativity