Teachers' Work in a Globalizing Economy

Alistair Dow, Robert Hattam, Alan Reid, Geoffrey Shacklock, John Smyth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781135700294
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Extended critical case studies provide a tangible working expression of the labour process of teaching, showing how teachers are simultaneously experiencing significant changes to their work, as well as responding in ways that actively shape these processes. For teachers and researchers, this book shows what processes are at work in the global economy which impact on, and sometimes control, the role of the teacher. It also reveals how teachers accommodate, resist or redefine their working circumstances, and explores methods researchers might employ in order to increase our understanding and knowledge of the effect of globalization on teaching.

1
Deindustrialization, Global Capital and the
Crisis in Teachers’ Work

Introduction

All political processes require a narrative or convincing story to carry them, and because teaching is a political process, recent worldwide reforms of teaching have had their own unique hallmark which has tended to coalesce around the notion of crisis. The narrative about teachers’ work that we want to unmask in this book is around teaching as an occupation being subjected to, resisting and accommodating to, forces of globalization bent on transforming teaching into something quite different from what it was even a decade ago.

The genesis of the changes in teachers’ work lie within the identifiable socio-cultural and geopolitical paradoxes that are restructuring societies and economies to conform to a particular global view of the way some interests want the world to be. Within the dramatically changed circumstances of globalization, schools are being required to act as if they were private businesses driven by the quest for efficiency, pursuing concrete specified outcomes, and operating in a supposed atmosphere of marketization and competition with each other for resources, students, reputation and public support for their continued existence. So pervasive has this ideology of schools as cost centres become, that there is negligible public debate and discussion on whether this might be a desirable path to follow or not—it has become an unquestioned and unchallengeable article of faith. Teachers are increasingly expected to follow directives and become compliant operatives in the headlong rush to encase schools within the ideology, practices and values of the business sector—never mind that they have histories, aspirations and professional cultures that make them decidedly different to car plants, breweries or fast-food outlets.

We believe Waters (1995) provides some sage advice as we struggle to make sense of the social, economic and political changes referred to as globalization. He defines globalization as ‘a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding’ (p. 3). He offers a ‘guiding theorem’ that traces globalization as it operates in three arenas of social life—the economy, the polity, and culture:

1. The economy: social arrangements for the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of goods and tangible services.
2. The polity: social arrangements for the concentration and application of power, especially insofar as it involves the organized exchange or coercion and surveillance (military, police, etc.), as well as such institutionalized transformation of these practices as authority and diplomacy, that can establish control over populations and territories.
3. Culture: social arrangements for the production, exchange and expression of symbols that represent facts, affects, meanings, beliefs, preferences, tastes and values (pp.).

We agree with Taylor et al. (1997) that globalization is not an amorphous or homogeneous entity. In fact it is a very complex phenomenon (see Smyth and Shacklock, 1998) in which simultaneous processes of ‘global integration’ and ‘national fragmentation’ are at work. For instance, in the case of the former: ‘New politics associated with social movements such as feminism, green politics and the peace movement operating transnationally have destabilised traditional political organisation within nation states’ (Taylor et al., 1997, p.).

On the other hand, in respect of the latter, there has been: ‘the disintegration of some nations into…“ethnic tribalism”…. In various ways…the links between ethnicity and the nation, which forms the artifice of “the nation” are being challenged and rearranged through these contrary pressures for integration and disintegration’ (p.).

Elsewhere we have argued (Smyth and Shacklock, 1998) that this more complex view of globalization:

acknowledges hybrid identities and the manner in which the technicisation of educational policy works to efface difference. Keyman (1997) proposes that we take a critical reading of postcolonial criticism ‘by placing the question of identity/difference at the centre of critical analysis by stressing the importance of culture’ (p.). According to Keyman (1997) we need ‘to dismantle the signifying practices of global modernity’ (p.) through approaching the question of identity/difference not at an abstract/ philosophical level, but rather in terms of the concrete discourse in which it is situated/located: ‘This shift is necessary…for the assertion and affirmation of a denied, silenced subjectivity’ (p.). It is, Keyman (1997) argues, ‘in this sense that the situated/located notion of difference constitutes a precondition for “engendering” and “decolonising”’ (p.) the notion of globalization. Only by doing this will it be possible to ‘create an ethical space for the Other not to be spoken of but to speak and assert its subjectivity’ (emphasis in the original, p.).

(Smyth and Shacklock, 1998, p.)

Having said this, we want to start our analysis by giving primary attention to aspects of ‘economic globalization’, and pick up in considerable detail on the cultural and symbolic aspects in Chapter 6, as they operate to shape (and are shaped by) teachers’ work.

The Process of Economic Globalization

Worldwide forces are dramatically changing the way we think and conceive of schooling. Vastly improved forms of information technology, instantaneous communication, and a capacity of international capital to move around the world at short notice to take advantage of local circumstances (most notably, cheap labour), has meant that corporations as well as governments are faced with unprecedented levels of volatility, uncertainty and unpredictability demanding quite different kinds of responses—both in terms of work organization as well as workplace skills.

These new circumstances are characterized by:

1. flexible post-Fordist forms of production and restructured workplace organization;
2. a greater reliance on market forces as a mode of regulation, rather than rules, regulations, and centralized bureaucratic modes of organization;
3. more emphasis on image and impression management as a way of shaping consumers;
4. a re-centralization of control in contexts where responsibility for meeting production targets is devolved;
5. resorting to increasingly technicist ways of responding to uncertainty; and,
6. a greater reliance on technology as the preferred means for resolving complex and intractable social, moral and political problems.

For schools as industrial enterprises, these changes constitute quite a different regulative framework for the exercise of social control. We are experiencing a dramatic shift in the boundaries of control from direct, overt and bureaucratic forms of surveillance, to much more covert forms that take expression in the nature of the way in which work itself is being restructured. The ‘just-in-time’ (Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992; Conti and Warner, 1993) and ‘total quality management’ (Sayer, 1986) processes touted in the management literature are a particular case in point. The very success of processes like these relies on somewhat more self-regulative procedures that are predicated on an intensification of work practices brought about by the harnessing of peer pressure through ‘team work’ and ‘partnerships’ aimed at responding to ‘customer needs’, eliminating waste and generally promoting a culture of continuous improvement (Delbridge et al., 1992). We are experiencing the emergence of these trends in schools through so-called processes of ‘empowerment’ and the creation of schemes like ‘lead teachers’ (Ceroni and Garman, 1994; Ceroni, 1995) and Advanced Skills Teachers (Smyth and Shacklock, 1998).

Decisions and steerage in contemporary capitalism, therefore, is increasingly being removed from the control of national (and democratically elected) governments, and placed in the hands of transnational economic forces that operate largely outside the scope of any single government and which are accountable only to their head offices in London, New York or Tokyo. This process of global economic rearrangement is producing a new international economic order as well as generating a new international division of labour and new and unstable settlements and sets of social forces that are time specific.

Castells (1989) argued that there are really three identifiable aspects to this wider economic restructuring: (1) a fundamental realignment of the relationship between capital and labour, such that capital obtains a significantly higher share in the benefits of the fruits of production; (2) a new role for the state in the public sector, which is not so much about reducing the role of government intervention in the economy, but a changing of its style; and (3) a new international division of labour in which low cost labour is profoundly shaping what is happening in the ‘developed’ world.

There are a number of outcomes occurring regarding the first of these contemporary trends that might best be summarized in terms of: higher productivity through technological innovation; lower wages, reduced social benefits, and less protective working conditions; decentralization of production to regions of the world with more relaxed labour and environmental restrictions; greater reliance on the informal economy—i.e. unregulated labour; and, weakening trade unions, which is the single most important factor in restoring the level of profits (Castells, 1989, pp.).

As to the second, Castells (1989) argues that we are not witnessing the withdrawal of the state from the economic scene; rather we are witnessing the emergence of a new form of intervention, whereby new means and new areas are penetrated by the state, while others are deregulated and transferred to the market (p.). He sees this emerging redefinition of the role of the state as embracing: deregulation of many activities, including relaxation of environmental controls in the workplace; shrinkage of and privatization of productive activities, in the public sector; regressive tax reform favouring corporations and high income groups; state support for high technology research and development and leading industrial sectors; priority and status for defence and defence-related industries; shrinkage of the welfare state; and, fiscal austerity, with the goal of a balanced budget.

These changes have implications for the way in which schools are organized and administered, and these along with their implications for teachers’ work, will be addressed in later sections of this book.

Third, the opening-up of new markets through global expansion (or ‘internationalization’) has been possible as a consequence of several noticeable developments: industry taking advantage of the most favourable conditions anywhere in the world; capital taking advantage of ‘around-the-clock capital investment’ opportunities; homogenizing markets, and making up market loss in one area through increases in another (pp.).

All of these have quite pronounced implications for schools, how they are organized, and what constitutes teachers’ work within them.

The Crisis in Teaching

Seddon (1997) summarized the package of changes occurring to teachers’ work across several Anglo-Saxon countries in the following way:

unions are under pressure as a result of changes in industrial relations; salaries have declined; teachers’ work has intensified as social and organisational demands have increased; teachers feel less valued in the community; teachers’ work has become more routinised and subject to accountability; and, as a result of cuts in education funding, teachers work in increasingly poorly resourced workplaces.

(p. 230)

The crisis in teachers’ work can really be summarized as a crisis in confidence around the purposes for which schools exist—as annexes of industry, spot welded on to the economy, rather than autonomous, dialogical or interpretive communities committed to enthusing the young with the tools and critical sensibilities necessary to interrogate society. An analysis of Australian schools by Susan Robertson (1994) concluded that: ‘It is essential…that observers begin the process of tracing out in detail what the theoretical arguments are, and that they seek to make sense of these by linking them to changes in the workplace’ (p.).

In a similar vein, speaking of Canadian schools, Heather-Jane Robertson (1998) argues that the changing rules of the game for schools closely mirror or follow the wider shift towards the tendencies of transnational capital as it rearranges and restructures itself in order to take advantage of the cheapest possible option for enhancing profits.

We don’t want this to be interpreted as yet another book that rails against the forces of globalization; our task is both more expansive and complex than that. We certainly want to establish a connection between the forces that are working to rearrange global capital and the effect that it is having on teachers’ work. But, in the process, we want to go beyond critique and suggest that the way out of the situation we find ourselves in is through attempting to restore social capital in schools, with a vision that might lead to the wider resuscitation of notions of civil society in our culture generally.

If we can return to the notion of crisis for a moment. Talk about a crisis in schools, teaching and education and you can almost be guaranteed to draw a crowd. We don’t want to appear to be adding to the circus that regularly manufactures these crises, but on the other hand, neither do we want to resile from our responsibility of accurately reporting on what is happening to the culture of teachers’ work, which is under intense and immense pressure worldwide. Public schooling, and within it the work of teachers, is undergoing dramatic changes at the moment, and mostly for reasons that reside a long way from classrooms, curriculum, pedagogy and learning. We believe that to understand what is happening, any analysis must get inside the culture of teachers’ work (Carlson, 1992) and regard teaching as a form of ‘cultural work’ (Anyon, 1998). Michael Apple (1996a) has written extensively of the importance of directing our attention to the various elements of this perspective: ‘economic goals and values; visions of both the family and race, gender and class relations; the politics of culture, difference and identity; and the role of the state in all of this’ (p.). Connell (1995) situates the issue of what is happening to teachers’ work when he locates its genesis in ‘rational choice theory’ within social theory, or ‘economic rationalism’ and ‘market-driven policy’ in the area of...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1. Deindustrialization, Global Capital and the Crisis In Teachers’ Work
• 2. Towards a Labour Process Theory of Teachers’ Work
• 3. The Critical Case Study Method
• 4. Teachers’ Work In a Post-Fordist Era: The Case of the Teacher-Managers of Gallipoli High School
• 5. Teachers’ Work-Storied Accounts of Professionalism and Intensification: The Case of Appleton College
• 6. Towards a Revitalization of a Critical Theory of Teachers’ Work
• 7. Struggling With ‘Global Effects’: Teachers As Pedagogical-Political Workers
• References