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Dr Andrew Wilkins

Staff details

Position Reader in Education Policy
Department Educational Studies
Email Andrew.Wilkins (@gold.ac.uk)
Phone +44 (0)20 7717 2947
Dr Andrew Wilkins

I am a policy sociologist interested in how policy ‘moves’ and 'travels' across different geopolitical spaces, with a focus on how policy is mediated and transformed through changing path dependencies, regulatory structures and value systems.

Academic qualifications

  • BA Sociology, University of Leeds 2003
  • MRes Social Science Research Methods, Goldsmiths, University of London 2005
  • PhD Social Policy, Open University 2009

Teaching and Supervision

Research interests

Andrew’s book Modernising School Governance: Corporate Planning and Expert Handling in State Education (Routledge 2016) was awarded joint-second prize by the Society for Educational Studies for books published in 2016. His recent book is Education Governance and Social Theory: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Research (with Antonio Olmedo, Bloomsbury 2018). Andrew is currently writing two books: Keywords in Global Education Policy: A Research Guide (with Steven Courtney and Nelli Piattoeva‬, Palgrave 2022) and Policy Foundations in Education (Bloomsbury 2022).

Andrew has been invited to speak at events in India, Spain, China, Sweden, Scotland, Slovakia, and France. He has also been invited to peer review for numerous journals, book publishers and research councils as well as published in various international peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Education Policy, Critical Social Policy, Critical Policy Studies, Globalisation, Societies and Education, and Journal of Educational Administration and History.

Andrew is Associate Regional Editor (Europe) for Journal of Education Policy and serves on the editorial board for British Journal of Sociology of Education, The Australian Educational Researcher and Journal of Applied Social Theory, among other journals. He is external examiner to the Sociology of Education Umbrella Board at University College London (UCL), which includes the taught programmes MA Education and Human Rights, MA Policy Studies in Education, MA Social Justice and Education, and MA Sociology of Education. Andrew is also external examiner to the taught programme MSc in Education, Public Policy and Equity at the University of Glasgow.

Andrew is committed to public interests and arguments for, among other things, democratic and publicly accountable education services. In recent years he has worked with various school trusts, education charities and policy networks to debate and rethink approaches to school governance.

Publications

Article

Wilkins, Andrew . 2021. Book review of Reframing Education as a Public and Common Good: Enhancing Democratic Governance by Rita Locatelli. Journal of Education Policy, 36(1), pp. 155-158. ISSN 0268-0939

Wilkins, Andrew . 2020. Book review of The Handbook of Global Education Policy by K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, and A. Verger (eds). Journal of Education Policy, 35(2), pp. 284-286. ISSN 0268-0939

Wilkins, Andrew . 2019. The processual life of neoliberalisation: Permutations of value systems and normative commitments in a co-operative trust setting. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(11), pp. 1180-1195. ISSN 1360-3116

Wilkins, Andrew ; Collet-Sabé, Jordi; Gobby, Brad and Hangartner, Judith. 2019. Translations of new public management: a decentred approach to school governance in four OECD countries. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 17(2), pp. 147-160. ISSN 1476-7724

Wilkins, Andrew . 2017. Rescaling the local: multi-academy trusts, private monopoly and statecraft in England. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49(2), pp. 171-185. ISSN 0022-0620

Olmedo, Antonio and Wilkins, Andrew . 2017. Governing through parents: a genealogical enquiry of education policy and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in England. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(4), pp. 573-589. ISSN 0159-6306

Wilkins, Andrew . 2017. Book review of Through a glass darkly: The social science look at the neoliberal university by Margaret Thornton (ed.). Journal of Education Policy, 32(3), pp. 386-387. ISSN 0268-0939

Wilkins, Andrew . 2015. Book review of STEM strategies: student ambassadors and equality in higher education by Clare Gartland. Journal of Education Policy, 30(5), pp. 747-748. ISSN 0268-0939

Wilkins, Andrew and Burke, Penny Jane. 2015. Widening participation in higher education: the role of professional and social class identities and commitments. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 36(3), pp. 434-452. ISSN 0142-5692

Wilkins, Andrew . 2015. Professionalizing school governance: the disciplinary effects of school autonomy and inspection on the changing role of school governors. Journal of Education Policy, 30(2), pp. 182-200. ISSN 0268-0939

Olmedo, Antonio and Wilkins, Andrew . 2014. Gobernar la educación a través de los padrespolítica educativa y construcción de subjetividades neoliberales en Inglaterra. (Governing education through parents: education policy and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in England). Profesorado, 18(2), pp. 99-116. ISSN 1138-414X

Wilkins, Andrew . 2013. Book review of Social Theory and Education Research by Mark Murphy (ed.). Social Theory Applied,

Wilkins, Andrew . 2013. Book review of Local Democracy, Civic Engagement and Community: From New Labour to the Big Society by Hugh Atkinson. LSE Review of Books,

Wilkins, Andrew . 2013. Shades of Freire: Exorcising the spectre haunting pedagogy. Journal of Pedagogy, 3(1), pp. 11-12.

Wilkins, Andrew . 2013. Libertarian paternalism: Policy and everyday translations of the rational and the affective. Critical Policy Studies, 7(4), pp. 395-406. ISSN 1946-0171

Wilkins, Andrew . 2012. Pedagogy of the Consumer: The Politics of Neo-liberal Welfare Reform. Journal of Pedagogy, 3(2), pp. 161-173.

Wilkins, Andrew . 2012. Public battles and private takeovers: Academies and the politics of educational governance. Journal of Pedagogy, 3(1), pp. 11-29.

Wilkins, Andrew . 2012. Commodifying diversity: Education and governance in the era of neoliberalism. Human Affairs, 22(2), pp. 122-130. ISSN 1210-3055

Wilkins, Andrew . 2012. The spectre of neoliberalism: pedagogy, gender and the construction of learner identities. Critical Studies in Education, 53(2), pp. 197-201. ISSN 1750-8487

Wilkins, Andrew . 2012. Push and pull in the classroom: Competition, gender and the neoliberal subject. Gender and Education, 24(7), pp. 765-768. ISSN 0954-0253

Wilkins, Andrew . 2012. School choice and the commodification of education: A visual approach to school brochures and websites. Critical Social Policy, 32(1), pp. 69-86. ISSN 0261-0183

Wilkins, Andrew . 2011. Community and School Choice: Geographies of Care and Responsibility. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 21(1), pp. 1-13. ISSN 1052-9284

Wilkins, Andrew . 2011. School choice, consumerism and the ethical strand in talk. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(2), pp. 357-370. ISSN 0159-6306

Wilkins, Andrew . 2010. Citizens and/or consumers: mutations in the construction of concepts and practices of school choice. Journal of Education Policy, 25(2), pp. 171-189. ISSN 0268-0939

Book

Wilkins, Andrew . 2016. Modernising School Governance: Corporate planning and expert handling in state education. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9780815360674

Book Section

Wilkins, Andrew . 2022. Mapping the field of policy foundations of education. In: , ed. Policy foundations in education. London: Bloomsbury.

Wilkins, Andrew and Gobby, Brad. 2021. Governance and educational leadership. In: Steven Courtney; Helen Gunter; Richard Niesche and Tina Trujillo, eds. Understanding educational leadership: Critical perspectives and approaches. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 309-322. ISBN 9781350081833

Wilkins, Andrew . 2021. Deconstructing governance: Perspectives in post-positivist thinking. In: Michael A. Peters and Richard Heraud, eds. Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation. Singapore: Springer.

Wilkins, Andrew . 2020. Neoliberalism, citizenship and education: A policy discourse analysis. In: Andrew Peterson; Garth Stahl and Hannah Soong, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319678276

Wilkins, Andrew . 2020. Academisation and the law of ‘attraction’: An ethnographic study of relays, connective strategies and regulated participation. In: Christy Kulz; Kirsty Morrin and Ruth McGinity, eds. Inside the English Education Lab: Critical Ethnographic Perspectives on the Academies Experiment. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Wilkins, Andrew . 2019. Technologies in rational self-management: Interventions in the ‘responsibilisation’ of school governors. In: Julie Allan; Valerie Harwood and Clara Rübner Jørgensen, eds. World Yearbook of Education 2020: Schooling Governance. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138362635

Wilkins, Andrew . 2019. Wither democracy? The rise of epistocracy and monopoly in school governance. In: Stewart Riddle and Michael W. Apple, eds. Re-imagining Education for Democracy. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 142-155. ISBN 9780367197124

Wilkins, Andrew . 2018. Assembling schools as organisations: On the limits and contradictions of neoliberalism. In: Michael Connolly; David H. Eddy-Spicer; Chris James and Sharon D. Kruse, eds. The SAGE Handbook of School Organization. London: SAGE, pp. 509-523. ISBN 9781526420664

Wilkins, Andrew and Olmedo, Antonio. 2018. Conceptualising education governance: Framings, perspectives and theories. In: Andrew Wilkins and Antonio Olmedo, eds. Education governance and social theory: Interdisciplinary approaches to research. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350040083

Wilkins, Andrew . 2017. Creating expert publics: A governmentality approach to school governance under neoliberalism. In: Steven J Courtney; Ruth McGinity and Helen Gunter, eds. Educational Leadership: Theorising Professional Practice in Neoliberal Times. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 97-110. ISBN 9780367202170

Wilkins, Andrew . 2017. The business of governorship: Corporate elitism in public education. In: Helen M. Gunter; David Hall and Michael W. Apple, eds. Corporate Elites and the Reform of Public Education. Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 161-176. ISBN 9781447326809

Wilkins, Andrew . 2016. Gobernanza escolar y la lógica de la política neoliberal. ¿Qué puede hacer la democracia? In: Jordi Collet and Antoni Tort, eds. La gobernanza escolar democrática. Madrid: Morata, pp. 84-100. ISBN 9788471127846

Wilkins, Andrew . 2014. Affective Labour and Neoliberal Fantasies: The Gendered and Moral Economy of School Choice in England. In: Melinda Vandenbeld Giles, ed. Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press, pp. 265-282. ISBN 9781927335284

Edited Book

Wilkins, Andrew and Olmedo, Antonio, eds. 2018. Education Governance and Social Theory: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Research. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350040083

Further profile content

Dr Andrew Wilkins's Links

Featured publications

2021: Deconstructing governance: Perspectives in post-positivist thinking
Wilkins, A. In M.A. Peters and R. Heraud (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation. Springer: Singapore

2021: Academisation and the law of ‘attraction’: An ethnographic study of relays, connective strategies and regulated participation
Wilkins, A. C. Kulz, K. Morrin and R. McGinity (eds) Inside the English Education Lab: Critical Ethnographic Perspectives on the Academies Experiment. Manchester University Press: Manchester

2019: Translations of New Public Management: A decentred approach to school governance in four OECD countries
Wilkins, A., Collet-Sabé, J., Gobby, B. & Hangartner, J. 2019. In Globalisation, Societies and Education, 17 (1), 147-160

2019: The processual life of neoliberalisation: Permutations of value systems and normative commitments in a co-operative trust setting
Wilkins, A. In International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23 (11), 1180-1195

2017: Rescaling the local: Multi-academy trusts, private monopoly and statecraft in England
Wilkins, A. In Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49 (2), 171-185