Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the pedagogy of misdirection

This chapter interrogates the role of government intervention in schooling as it manifests in educational performativity and as a disconnect between policy and the routines, rituals and realities of those who experience education as a dystopic pedagogy of misdirection. Under such misdirection, the realities of schooling are constructed by those in authority and imposed on those with little or no power. Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix frames the challenges of educational contexts, where teachers become impelled to raise standards, whilst their work practices reify neoliberal performativity and surveillance.