Educational Administration as Cultural Practice. Occasional Paper No. 20.

This paper offers a critique of the corporate-management culture manifested in Australian education systems and institutions. It is argued that in Australia, the drive toward a market culture is a form of administrative achievement that turns culture into commodities. One of the major features of the current educational reform context is a substantial increase in demands, accompanied by a severe decline in the proportion of national wealth directed toward educational activities. The market model is viewed as a strategy to protect middle-class privilege. A key effect of market policies is the redistribution of public resources away from those most in need. The devolution of education is accompanied by new forms of control: a performance-based national curriculum; a national testing system that allows inaccurate comparisons; budgets that are linked to performance; and a curriculum that ignores social, cultural, and ethic understandings. An examination of the perceived anti-educational impact of a "corporatist" culture concludes with a call to educators to show their commitment to a caring, just, morally responsible, compassionate and ecologically aware society. (LMI)