This article examines the challenges involved in attempting to build collaboration and implement change in a partnership of schools during a period characterised by neoliberal education policy. The partnership was located in a relatively isolated coastal and rural area in the north of England with significant areas of disadvantage and comprised 18 schools, all but two of which provided education for children aged 4–13. Based on research with schools and the local community, the article explores the difficulties of building consensus for cultural change in schools when neoliberal education policy’s paradoxical dual emphasis on marketisation and neoconservative traditionalism militates against the realities of such coalition-building. It uses new social movement theory to examine the difficulties involved in mobilising schools in a dysfunctional partnership and concludes that, despite its emphasis on school-to-school support, the forms of neoliberalism and neoconservatism imposed on schools in England magnify the contextual disadvantages that impede the development of effective collaboration.

中文翻译：

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新自由主义政策如何在初级阶段抑制建立伙伴关系：一种新的社会运动方法

本文探讨了在以新自由主义教育政策为特征的时期，试图建立学校合作伙伴关系并实施变革所涉及的挑战。该伙伴关系位于英格兰北部一个相对偏僻的沿海和农村地区，处境十分不利，有18所学校，除两所外，其余全部为4-13岁的儿童提供教育。基于对学校和当地社区的研究，本文探讨了当新自由主义教育政策对市场化和新保守传统主义的双重矛盾抵制这种联盟建设的现实时，在学校中为文化变革建立共识的困难。