There is strong evidence that peer tutoring, as a form of cooperative learning, has a positive impact on tutor and tutee outcomes. However, little previous research has been reported as to the differential effects of engaging in cooperative learning in dyads for peer tutors and peer tutees, respectively. A randomised controlled experimental study was undertaken involving 295, 11- to 13-year-old students, drawn from 12 classrooms, across three secondary/high schools situated in areas of low-socio-economic status, in the north east of England. In total, 146 students engaged in cooperative learning for a period of 12 weeks, and 149 students served as a comparison group. Gains were significantly greater on independent standardised reading comprehension tests for those engaged in cooperative learning than those in comparison classes, and greater for tutors than tutees. The results are explored by critically reflecting on the underlying theories of education that may be at play in classrooms using this form of cooperative learning.

This paper argues that through their proactive promotion of particular frameworks of teacher competence, governments and international organisations seek to create an institutionalised discourse that functions to win voluntary cooperation from teachers in redefining their professional roles, in order to meet the economic imperatives of globalisation. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of biopolitics and governmentality, as well as Dean’s notion of rules of conduct, we review the mechanisms through which social discourses become institutionalised within specific sociohistorical contexts, allowing them to be used as a technology of governance. Ball’s work on performativity and Robertson’s writing on the governance of teachers’ work are invoked to argue that teacher competence has become an institutionalised discourse which, through appealing to the rationality of teachers, enlists their commitment to a reformulation of education that centres on national development. This discourse legitimises and empowers governments to define the contents of teacher competence and professional development.