Hybridity as a governmental technique for designing and delivering NAPLAN in Australian schools

Abstract

This paper explores the utility of hybrid governance as an analytical lens for understanding policy design and delivery in Australian schooling reform. Using the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) as a case study, we argue that its design and delivery processes exemplify hybridity in myriad dimensions. In a federal system in which national schooling reform relies upon negotiation and consensus building amongst a multiplicity of government and non-government stakeholders, we argue that NAPLAN's hybridity serves as a governmental technique for managing and sustaining collaborative governance arrangements. Hybridity also supports the standardised implementation of the..