Technology and aesthetics in school excellence policies: the case of Through Growth to Achievement

Abstract

Global policy development in schooling often looks to solutions that embrace technology and articulate a ‘what works’ approach to practice. This paper takes as a case study the Australian Government’s Through Growth to Achievement report on achieving school excellence. It analyses the report through the lens of ‘sublimes’, which provide insight into the way certain policy rhetoric can become reified. Through Growth to Achievement emphasises technological solutions which align with and reify an aesthetic notion of good teaching that draws on the ‘what works’ literature. This analysis argues that certain assumptions about technology, teacher practice and the ‘evidence’ for good policy are based on these reifications. A sublimes analysis makes these unspoken assumptions explicit and reveals the way they reinforce globalised policy approaches and foreclose others.