LAUSR

In this paper we focus on one specific case to explore how networks of governance and concomitant processes of “heterarchization“ operate in practice in education. We analyse the relationship between the Brazilian Federal Government and an advocacy coalition for national learning standards, named Mobilization for the National Learning Standards (MNLS). We employ network ethnography, with social network graphs, interviews and fieldwork, to establish how the MNLS has been configured as a space of collaboration between new philanthropy and the state, and as a policymaking space in its own right. We explore how this space and the network of relations that constitute it can be seen as one example of the heterarchical state in practice, illustrating how, within such a heterarchy, new policy spaces are created, developed and reconfigured over time. We also aim to demonstrate how the method of network ethnography can facilitate the analysis of such policy spaces and networks.