PERSPECTIVES – News and Comments1
Home School Researcher Volume 40, No. 2, 2026
(Volume 40 was originally scheduled to be published in 2024.)
Lindsay Gibson
Lecturer in Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, lindsay.gibson@glasgow.ac.uk
Kaili C. Zhang
Lecturer in Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, kaili.zhang@glasgow.ac.uk
1. The “Perspectives – News and Comments” section of this journal consists of articles that have not undergone peer review.
Abstract
This opinion piece examines Ball and Collet-Sabé’s critical perspectives on education and schooling, with a focus on their most recent book Against School. Rather than focusing on incremental reforms or policy adjustments, Ball and Collet-Sabé are known for their uncompromising critique of modern schooling, challenging readers to confront the deeper social, cultural, and ethical implications of how education is organized. In Against School, two crises loom large in their analysis: neoliberalism and the climate emergency. Their central thesis is clear and unyielding: the school itself is the problem, not the solution. We value the authors’ refusal to propose superficial solutions or incremental reforms, instead advocating for a fundamental reimagining of education itself. This approach is intellectually refreshing and urgently needed in a context where many educational reforms merely perpetuate existing inequalities and fail to address systemic issues. However, although the ideas of education as self-formation and commoning are developed in a purposefully open way, it offers few pathways for reimagining education, leaving questions of what a radically different educational future might look like in practice.
Keywords: alternative education; educational philosophy; purpose of education; traditional schooling
As prominent scholars in the field of the sociology of education, Stephen J. Ball and Jordi Collet-Sabé are widely recognized for their incisive critiques on educational systems and practices. In this opinion piece, we will examine Ball and Collet-Sabé’s critical perspectives on education and schooling, with a focus on their most recent book Against School. We will consider its central arguments, how it challenges conventional assumptions about education, its engagement with broader social and ecological issues, and its potential implications for educational thought and practice.
Rather than focusing on incremental reforms or policy adjustments, Ball and Collet-Sabé are known for their uncompromising critique of modern schooling, challenging readers to confront the deeper social, cultural, and ethical implications of how education is organized. This critical perspective is consistent with Ball’s broader body of work, including The education debate (Ball, 2008), where he explores the ideological underpinnings of education policy, and Global education Inc. (Ball, 2012), in which he examines the globalization and marketisation of schooling, demonstrating how educational reforms are deeply entangled with social, political, and economic agendas. Throughout his work, traditional schooling and its ramifications are consistently questioned.
This approach is exemplified in Ball’s A letter to Martin Thrupp: “Changing the subject” (2024) which presents a bold and provocative examination of contemporary educational systems. In this letter, Ball critically interrogates prevailing assumptions about education for sustainability, pedagogy, and the purpose of schooling, challenging readers to reconsider the ways in which education shapes social relations, identities, and the formation of citizens within a neoliberal framework.
This critique is not new for Ball and Collet-Sabé. For example, in their chapter The school is irredeemable: Proposing discomfort for a different future for education (Collet-Sabé & Ball, 2024a), they argue that the modern school is an “intolerable” institution. They emphasize the need to stop conflating school with education and to begin imagining education beyond the school system, as uncomfortable as it currently is. The discourse that the next reform will make education more equitable and inclusive is challenged. Rational thinking is encouraged instead of hope, where the modern European school is described as an institution of normalization and exclusion within which equality and inclusion are impossible.
Using Foucault’s strategy of reversal, Ball and Collet-Sabé question the institution of school and its language, challenging the assumption that it is the best or only way to educate children. They argue that commoning involves co-creating spaces of collective care, shared responsibility, and mutual support—practices that emerge through everyday interactions within communities (Collet-Sabé & Ball, 2024a; 2024b). This perspective contests the individualistic and competitive logics of traditional schooling, advocating instead for an education grounded in collaboration, solidarity, and sustainability. By reimagining education as a process of co-learning and collective action, commoning offers a practical framework for transforming educational practices, relationships, and the broader social purposes of schooling. It serves as a critical mirror, highlighting the need for new ways to govern, educate, and understand ourselves. This entails, among other things, practising ethics rather than merely studying them, and asking questions rather than simply learning answers—a shift that is recognised as challenging within the current neoliberal ideology embedded in schools and in ourselves.
While Ball and Collet-Sabé provide a profound and philosophically rigorous critique of contemporary education, their work offers few tangible pathways for reimagining it. Some have described their idealistic thinking as a form of “epistemic exodus” (Means, 2024), stopping short of actionable steps. They present minimal practical guidance for educators, policymakers, or families who must operate within real-world constraints and are seeking concrete strategies to challenge or transform the existing system.
It also presents commoning as an almost idyllic vision of the future, with limited attention to the tensions or practical challenges that would need to be addressed for such a transformation to occur. Means (2024) notes that such critiques of modern schooling risk overlooking the humanity embedded within school communities such asthe everyday acts of care, moments of solidarity, creativity, and shared meaning that arise even within constrained institutional frameworks.
Regardless, their earlier work lays the groundwork for the arguments presented in their recent book Against School (Ball & Collet-Sabé, 2025), where they further develop the idea of education as self-formation and commoning, seeking to clear away the detritus of the school and use the space created to explore education in fundamentally new ways. Through this text, Ball and Collet-Sabé issue a philosophical and political challenge to the very foundations of modern schooling. As in their previous work, the authors contend that schools are not neutral or benevolent institutions simply requiring reform, but deeply flawed structures entangled with systems of domination, social inequality, and ecological harm. Their central thesis is clear and unyielding—at once sobering yet potentially liberating: the school itself is the problem, not the solution.
This is not a mild read; it is designed to provoke a strong reaction. The authors advocate for “thinking education differently,” beginning not with “school” but with a more radical reimagining of what education could be in light of the pressing crises of our time. Two crises loom large in their analysis: neoliberalism and the climate emergency.
Ball and Collet-Sabé (2025) present neoliberalism not merely as an economic doctrine, but as a pervasive social, cultural, and ethical order that shapes every aspect of modern life. They demonstrate how this ideology transforms identities, relationships, and collective values, positioning individuals as isolated units of human capital rather than members of interconnected communities. They further argue that the education system, deeply embedded in neoliberal ideology, produces a specific type of citizen—competitive, isolated, and inclined to regard compassion and solidarity as weaknesses—stating that we “misread the school if we attempt to reconcile it with socially radical concepts like inclusion, equality, critical thinking, solidarity, or self-flourishment—and here lies our disappointment” (p. 67).
From the outset, it is evident that this book is not concerned with reforming the modern education system through incremental change. Ball and Collet-Sabé make it clear that they are not advocating for alternative schooling models or home education either, as these too often remain shaped by the same structural forces they seek to critique. Therefore, the text further challenges the prevailing discourse that focuses on reform,even reforms framed as radical. In this view, the problem is not merely flawed policy or outdated practice, but the very logic underpinning how education is organized and what it seeks to achieve. In other words, schools cannot simply be reformed to achieve these ideals; their market-driven structures and competitive logics fundamentally limit what education can accomplish in terms of social and ecological responsibility.
This critique naturally leads to another key analysis in the text: the climate emergency, in which humanity’s survival is at stake. Ball and Collet-Sabé argue that the neoliberal logic shaping schools (emphasizing competition, individualism, and efficiency) also underpins societal responses to ecological crises. Schools, Ball and Collet-Sabé contend, do little to address the root causes of ecological collapse; sustainability education is often a tokenistic, depoliticized addition to an overloaded curriculum. Their discussion about the contribution that schools make to the climate emergency is thought-provoking. The authors reason that although sustainability policies are present, they are part of an already stretched curriculum and can appear as abstract to children. The message is overshadowed by the ideology, which promotes economic growth and competition. The tension between the exploitation of resources and sustainability is rightly questioned.
This opens space to reimagine what education could become. Ball and Collet-Sabé invite readers to envision education as a means of fostering ecological subjectivities, where humans understand themselves as deeply interconnected with other people, communities, and the natural environment. This vision goes beyond a call for personal virtue or ethical awareness; instead, it requires a structural challenge to the very organization and purpose of education.
The authors clarify that their work is not prescriptive, but rather a starting point for open discussion. A way to create “an education that is sustainable, rather than just about sustainability” (Ball & Collet-Sabé, 2025, p. 95). Drawing on Foucault and other theorists, they advocate for a new episteme in education and the concept of life continuance, emphasizing sustained engagement in communal and meaningful ways of living.
As part of this, who is educating is also questioned. The current discourse surrounding the teacher needs to be re-examined to consider how education actually happens. The purpose of the modern teacher is framed around productivity and effectiveness, which aligns closely with neoliberal ideals of efficiency. This raises important questions about the values and priorities that guide teaching and learning in contemporary schools. A crucial change in perspective here is the right to question the educator and the ability for the educator to be transformed as a part of the education process. This would involve many taking the role of educator and remaining open to hard questions that children will undoubtedly ask.
As sobering as this is, the book does not leave the reader without possible solutions. They offer suggestions for a way forward, including self-formation and engaging in the form of commoning, which would allow communities to strengthen and start to live more in tune with local environments. Although the authors are aware that this is uncomfortable to consider, they end the book with an invitation to start imagining education without schools.
What we appreciate about the book is its engagement with a wide range of thinkers—from Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society to contemporary critiques by Helen Lees, Mark Olssen, Judith Butler, Michael Foucault, and others—while maintaining a distinctive and compelling voice. The authors position the work deliberately as a provocation rather than a practical manual for implementation. Ball and Collet-Sabé openly acknowledge that the book is not intended as a final word but rather as a contribution to an ongoing conversation about education’s role in an age of crisis. Their acknowledgment underscores their openness to evolving ideas.
Ball and Collet-Sabé also excel in connecting educational critique to broader social and ecological crises. As mentioned above, their analysis of neoliberalism is particularly insightful, portraying it as a totalizing force that shapes not only economic policies but also social relations and individual subjectivities. The climate emergency perspective is also compelling. Developing more sustainable approaches to education is essential, yet, as Ball and Collet-Sabé argue, such transformation is unlikely to arise organically within schools, whose very structures are intertwined with the social and economic logics driving unsustainability.
For many years, as lecturers in teacher education, we have focused primarily on preparing student teachers for careers in schools, while also engaging in research on homeschooling and supporting families who choose alternative education paths. As longstanding advocates for flexible, diverse, and personalized learning, we are acutely aware of the limitations of the traditional schooling system and its potential to cause harm. Consequently, we are keen to highlight a notable strength of Against School: its bold and uncompromising critique of schooling as an institution. We value the authors’ refusal to propose superficial solutions or incremental reforms, instead advocating for a fundamental reimagining of education itself. This approach is intellectually refreshing and urgently needed in a context where many educational reforms merely perpetuate existing inequalities and fail to address systemic issues.
On the other hand, we also believe that many people, particularly children, aspire to live more sustainably and seek a sense of community. In fact, elements of commoning already exist, even in challenging contexts, and could provide a valuable foundation for reimagining education. While this future may currently seem distant, engaging parents, schools, and community groups in dialogue about alternative possibilities could serve as a practical first step.
With the many strengths outlined here, this book stands out as a unique contribution among the numerous works on education reform. It is undoubtedly valuable for educational professionals and policymakers. Having said that, while the book challenges us to imagine an education “foreign to ourselves” (Ball & Collet-Sabé, 2025, p. 1), the extent to which this radical reimagining can be realized within contemporary social and political contexts remains uncertain. In this regard, although the authors do not intend their work to be prescriptive, practitioners and teacher educators like us would welcome discussions on strategies for engaging with institutional constraints and addressing social inertia. Furthermore, if schooling must be abandoned outright, the book leaves unanswered the pressing question of what would need to occur for such a radical transformation to take place in practice—and to do so with immediate effect rather than as a distant ideal.
Additionally, by rejecting even progressive reforms of schooling as inadequate, the authors risk overlooking transitional or hybrid approaches that could move society toward the reimagined future they envision. For example, forms of homeschooling and community-based education can serve as meaningful pathways or transitional spaces to experiment with alternative values and practices outside traditional institutions while still navigating the legal, social, and economic realities. Yet Against School does not explore how such pragmatic bridges might work, leaving readers to wonder how its radical critique might inform actionable changes.
Furthermore, if an argument is designed purely to provoke rather than to guide practice, what real impact can it have on the ground? Returning to the subject of homeschooling, many families already embrace educational approaches that prioritize collective care, community engagement, and ecological awareness (e.g., Jeffery, 2019; Zhang, 2024; Zhang & Gibson, 2024), providing practical examples of how small-scale initiatives can inform broader transformations. These homeschoolers’ lived experiences illustrate how education can take place outside institutional schooling while fostering “commoning”-the collective creation of shared knowledge, values, and relationships. By failing to engage with these examples or draw lessons from them, the book risks presenting its critique as detached from the realities of those already reimagining education in everyday life, remaining a powerful theoretical provocation rather than a catalyst for meaningful change.
Overall, Against School is still a timely and necessary challenge to entrenched assumptions about education. It forces us to face uncomfortable truths about how schooling perpetuates inequality and ecological harm. By provoking deep reflection rather than offering easy answers, the book opens the way for imagining education anew in the face of urgent global crises. Hopefully, the provocations will lead to action rather than remain a “work of fiction” (Ball & Collet-Sabé, 2025, p.147), providing readers who are inspired by its arguments with a clearer sense of how to translate these ideas into practice.
To conclude, over the years, Ball and Collet-Sabé have offered a sustained and incisive critique of education, urging a fundamental rethinking of its structures, purposes, and nderlying ideologies. By interrogating both the practices of schooling and the broader social, economic, and ecological forces that shape them, they challenge educators and policymakers to envision more equitable, socially conscious, and ecologically attuned forms of education. Their work not only exposes the limitations of current systems but also opens possibilities for imagining what education could become in a rapidly changing world.
References
Ball, S. J. (2008). The education debate: Policy and politics in the twenty-first century. Policy Press.
Ball, S. J. (2012). Global education Inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. Routledge.
Ball, S. J. (2024). A letter to Martin Thrupp “changing the subject”. New Zealand Journal of
Educational Studies, 59(2), 691-693.
Ball, S. J., & Collet-Sabé, J. (2025). Against school: Thinking education differently (1st ed.).
Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80415-1
Collet-Sabé, J., & Ball, S. J. (2024a). The school is irredeemable: Proposing discomfort for a different future for education. In Beyond school: The challenge of co-producing and commoning a different episteme for education. Springer.
Collet-Sabé, J., & Ball, S. J. (2024b). Without school: Education as common(ing) activities in local social infrastructures—an escape from extinction ethics. British Journal of Educational Studies, 72(4), 441-456. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2023.2298776
Jeffery, J. M. (2019). What can homeschooling teach public schools? Resources for an emergent theory of collective parent engagement (Ed.D. dissertation, Southern Connecticut State University). ProQuest LLC.
Means, A. J. (2024). Beyond epistemic exodus in educational studies: A response to Jordi
Collet-Sabé and Stephen J. Ball. Journal of education policy, 39(3), 480-489.
Zhang, K. C. (2024). Greater expectations: An appreciative inquiry into how UK home educating families support their children’s learning. Education Sciences, 14(3), 235-250. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14030235
Zhang, K. C., & Gibson, L. (2024). Exploring the lived experiences of home-educating families with young children in the UK: The untold stories. European Journal of Investigation in Health Psychology and Education, 14(9), 2598-2615..