Conclusion: Attachment Aware Schools—Changing Education or Social Control?

This chapter draws together the arguments of the previous chapters. It considers the role of top-down and bottom-up approaches, targeted against universal strategies—particularly in relation to teacher concepts of professionalism, learning and theoretical perspectives—and wider management issues. It further considers these issues in terms of the social structure as a whole and the specific areas of inequality identified in the previous chapter. The chapter proposes a number of specific policy options which might be implemented to improve the quality of English education and to address the polarised positions set out in the earlier chapters. It concludes that AAS can be transformational for schools, students and families. However, there are significant barriers. These include school/MAT managerial cultures, which either oppose AAS approaches or which perceive them in limited terms as a control mechanism, as well as an external performative culture, policed by organisations such as Ofsted. Any policy shifts will take place within an overall neoliberal society, polity and value structure. It is only by addressing the inequalities which underlie these that a truly transformational approach can be developed. AAS can be a factor within that transformation, but the change needs to be conscious and substantive.