Session Information
23 SES 02 C, Policy Reforms and Teachers’ Work (Part 1)
Paper Session to be continued in 23 SES 03 C
Contribution
This paper presents some of the early results of a broader project investigating the relationship of the marketization of schooling with early-career teachers and their experience of their work. In this presentation, two contrasting case studies will be presented – both metropolitan schools, one is a ‘disadvantaged’ boys’ high school in greater western Sydney, and the other a high-end, elite ‘corporate’ girls’ school in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Through these apparent ‘extremes’, the paper seeks to present nuanced and highly contextualised narratives of the teachers’ experiences, as two individual accounts of work within the NSW system of schooling.
The topic of this study has both research and real-world significance. Real-world significance is visible given the current sweep of neoliberal reforms in schooling that are visible globally (e.g. Chitty, 2013; Ravitch, 2010), of which the increased support of school differentiation has formed one ‘wave’ in Australia (Brennan, 2009). Australia’s system therefore forms a part of the global policy mosaic, making an exploration of its mechanisms internationally pertinent. In Australia, gaps in student achievement have been thoroughly linked to social class status and have been seen as more dire than in other comparable OECD nations (Lamb, Jackson, Walstab & Huo, 2015, p. 50). Particularly, the market of schools in NSW has been noted to result in a residualisation of students with particular and varied needs within local government comprehensive schools (Campbell & Sherington, 2004, p. 15; Considine, 2012). Indeed unlike devolution of schooling (e.g. Gobby, 2014) or issues of ‘teacher quality’ (e.g. Mockler, 2014), marketization via differentiation of school ‘type’ is an aspect of neoliberal reform that has itself seen rather less academic interest despite its ongoing ramifications for teachers. While there is some, mainly international literature that looks at teachers in relation to their developing political and economic situation (e.g. Robertson, 2000), and some historical Australian research which looks at teachers as workers within systems (e.g. Connell, 1985), only Considine’s work (2012) has differentiated between different groups of teachers within the system of NSW Australia, and even this work was limited to the public arena and supported by an entirely different methodological approach. In the words of Richard Teese (2006), “the question we need to ask is not whether the schools serving the poorest 10 to 15 per cent of the population have succeeded, but whether the systems of which they form a part have been successful” (p. 3). Nuanced, in-depth research such as this project offers is needed in order to develop an understanding of this system, providing a distinct and, it is hoped, important contribution to the development of future directions in education policy.
This study therefore locates itself theoretically within discussions and debates about the role and nature of neoliberal education reform globally (e.g. Connell, 2014; Peck, 2010). It also draws on key concepts surrounding social class and the mobilisation of ‘capital’ within schooling systems (e.g. Reay, Crozier & James, 2011).
The research question for the broader project from which this presentation draws is as follows: how is teachers’ work shaped by current social, political and economic structures? This is further supplemented by three sub-questions:
- How do early-career teachers working across the market spectrum experience and understand teaching?
- What is required or expected of such teachers working in different schooling contexts?
- How do these teachers respond to such requirements or expectations?
Through providing developing answers to these questions, this presentation aims to make a useful contribution to some potential, and perhaps challenging, future directions for education research and policy, with what are likely to be both international and local implications.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Brennan, M. (2009). Steering teachers: Working to control the feminized profession of education. Journal of Sociology, 45(4), 339-359. Campbell, C. & Sherington, G. (2004). Public comprehensive high schools in New South Wales: School principals discuss the challenges and opportunities. Sydney: Public Education Council of New South Wales. Chitty, C. (2013). New Labour and secondary education, 1994-2010. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Connell, R. (1985). Teachers’ work. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin. Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (Vol. 2nd). Cambridge: Polity Press. Considine, G. (2012). Neo-liberal reforms in NSW public secondary education: What has happened to teachers’ work? (PhD), University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Gobby, B. (2014). Putting “the system” into a school autonomy reform: The case of the Independent Public Schools program. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2014.943158 Lamb, S., Jackson, J., Walstab, A., & Huo, S. (2015) Educational opportunity in Australia 2015: Who succeeds and who misses out. Melbourne: Mitchell Institute. Mockler, N. (2014). Simple solutions to complex problems: Moral panic and the fluid shift from 'equity' to 'quality' in education. Review of Education, 2(2), 115-143. Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system. New York: Basic Books. Reay, D., Crozier, G., & James, D. (2011). White middle-class identities and urban schooling. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Richardson, L., & St Pierre, E. A. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 959-978). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Somers, M. R., & Gibson, G. D. (1994). Reclaiming the epistemological 'other': narrative and the social construction of identity. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Social theory and the politics of identity (pp. 37-99). Oxford & Cambridge: Blackwell. Stalker, L. H. (2009). A tale of two narratives: Ontological and epistemological narratives. Narrative Inquiry, 19(2), 219-232. Robertson, S. L. (2000). A class act: changing teachers’ work, globalization and the state. New York: Falmer Press. Stake, R. E. (2006). Multiple case study analysis. New York: Guildford Press. Teese, R. (2006). Condemned to innovate. Griffith Review, 11.
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