ABSTRACT:
In the last two decades, the Italian education system has lived a season of endless reforms. NPM as a globalising discourse and its ideas and tools have played out a relevant role. This article tries to propose a dynamic reading of both the transformations and the role played by NPM's discourse and tools. As analytical starting points we adopt the construction of three policy problematisations and the related solutions, that concern: a) the governance of the Education system; b) the evaluation of its quality; and c) the regulation of its professionals. These policy problematisations are interpreted as the entry-points of NPM and the core of the modernising process of the Italian education system. To sum up, these assembling processes have enacted conflicting practices and tensions towards: a) the creation of quasi-markets in the field of education; b) the recasting of the relationship between the state, schools, professionals and publics according to a rational-goal and neo-managerialist model; c) the enactment of a progressive, but relentless, process of endogenous privatisation of the Italian public education.
Keywords :
New public management; Policy problematisation; Education reform; Italy; Governmentality