Varieties and Themes in Producer Engagement: Structure and agency in the schools public-market

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Abstract
This paper analyses producer agency in the structural setting of the schools public-market. The initial focus for this analysis was the nature of competition, but, it is argued, the character of engagement with the public-market is better represented by inter-connecting and mutually influential modes of engagement (competitive, professional, bureaucratic, cultural) elaborated in the paper. These have been developed through analyses of headteachers' accounts (one of the data sets in a study of the impact of competition on secondary schools), in a process of 'dialogue' with relevant literature, and build upon prior work by the author. The elaboration of the modes is set within the theoretical frame of analytical dualism. Conclusions highlight, inter alia, the tendency for competitive engagement to be present in a subordinated, although nevertheless significant, form, and the continual inter-weaving of different foms of engagement, at the core of which is an increasingly permeable public professional model .

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