Neoliberal Education Reform : Gendered Notions in Global and Local Contexts

A gendered view of teaching stresses how policy is done and how it leads to particular outcomes, while not changing the conceptual focus: understanding the implications of neoliberal education reform on teachers’ work. This volume examines gendered labor processes, the behind-the-scenes work done to make sense of education reform. It includes interviews and observations revealing what it means to be a teacher in the reform context, and explores the ways masculinities and femininities shape teachers’ decision-making on implementing policy and practice.

The restructuring of teaching is a global issue, the result of a transnational movement of policy. Gender shapes the occupational reform and binds the global-to-the-local movement of reform ideas. Gender is also implicated in how policy is done and how it leads to particular outcomes. This volume examines the behind-the-scenes work done to make sense of reform and implement it during the workday and questions the new forms and controls over teaching reforms—the labor process—revealed to understand the implications of neoliberal education reform on teachers’ work.

Based on ethnographic research undertaken at public high schools in Argentina, this volume introduces the everyday work lives of teachers. It includes interviews and observations revealing what it means to be a teacher in the reform context, and explores the ways masculinities and femininities shape teachers’ decision-making about reforms. At a time when teachers are at the center of political controversy around the world, this volume is an important reminder that school change is about changing the work of teachers.