This article reports an unprecedented exploratory small-scale investigation of the views of senior school leaders in southwest England relating to ‘off-rolling’ (illegal exclusionary practices). ‘Off-rolling’ is conceptualised as a policy technology, however, the conceptual framework used in data analysis derives from Foucault’s treatment of power and pleasure, and the constitution in discourse of novel ‘permanent realities’. Relations of force that senior school leaders routinely navigate in neoliberal education cultures characterised by ‘performativity’ are highlighted. The latter describes pressures to evidence efficiency and continual improvement, including high-stakes performance monitoring and, in England, a national school inspection regime. The response rate to this online and predominantly qualitative survey was poor, which was attributed to the illegality of ‘off-rolling’ and the risk that academic research in this area could be perceived to reproduce the power–knowledge relations associated with a national school inspection regime and familiar neoliberal political or professional discourses around training of education professionals (where both are framed as addressing deficits to achieve improvements). Nevertheless, findings from a key question inviting comment on scenarios drawn from the authors’ teaching experience are presented here, as they highlight the issues arising in research of sensitive topics. Reliance on brief vignettes to explore levels of understanding was, arguably, a limitation of the study, risking participants interpreting this device as unwelcome external scrutiny. It is argued that Ofsted’s definition of ‘off-rolling’ as gaming (manipulation of academic performance data) effectively discourages recognition of exclusionary practices that are not irrefutably related to academic performance as such.

中文翻译：

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“失控”和福柯的可见性/不可见性艺术：对英格兰西南部高级领导人对“战略性”学校排斥的看法的探索性研究

本文报道了一项史无前例的探索性小规模调查，调查了英格兰西南部高中领导对“脱轨”（非法排斥行为）的看法。“非滚动”被概念化为一种政策技术，然而，数据分析中使用的概念框架源自福柯对权力和快乐的处理，以及小说“永久现实”话语中的构成。在以“表现性”为特征的新自由主义教育文化中，高级学校领导者经常驾驭的力量关系得到了强调。后者描述了证明效率和持续改进的压力，包括高风险的绩效监​​控以及在英格兰的全国学校检查制度。对这项在线且以定性为主的调查的回应率很低，这归因于“退学”的非法性以及该领域的学术研究可能被视为复制与国家学校检查制度以及围绕教育专业人员培训的熟悉的新自由主义政治或专业话语相关的权力-知识关系的风险（其中两者都被定义为解决缺陷以实现改进）。然而，这里提出了一个关键问题的结果，该问题邀请对作者教学经验中的情景进行评论，因为它们突出了敏感主题研究中出现的问题。可以说，依赖简短的小插曲来探索理解水平是研究的局限性，参与者可能会将这种设备解释为不受欢迎的外部审查。