“Reconstruir o Mundo”: Neoliberalismo, a Transformação da Educação e da profissão (do) professor

Susan L. Robertson*

 

O presente artigo pretende apresentar o caminho através do qual o neoliberalismo transformou o modo como pensamos e o que fazemos como professores e aprendentes. O argumento principal desenvolvido neste artigo é o de que a mobilização das ideias neoliberais implicadas na reorganização das sociedades e dos sectores educativos é um projecto de classe norteado por três objectivos: (i) a redistribuição da riqueza pelas elites dirigentes através de novas formas de governação; ii) a transformação dos sistemas educativos de modo a que a produção de trabalhadores para a economia seja o seu mandato primeiro; iii) o colapso da educação como monopólio do sector público, permitindo a abertura do investimento estratégico às empresas lucrativas.

A realização destes objectivos exige a ruptura dos interesses institucionalizados dos professores, dos sindicatos dos professores e dos sectores da sociedade civil que defendem a educação como um bem público.

Contudo, este projecto apresenta-se de forma altamente desigual, em grande parte, por causa da resistência considerável dos professores e dos seus sindicatos.

Palavras-chave: Neoliberalismo; profissão docente; sindicalismo docente; globalização; resistência

 

 

‘Remaking the World’: Neo-liberalism and the Transformation of Education and Teachers’ Labour

This paper sets out to outline the way in which neo-liberalism has transformed how we think and what we do as teachers and learners. A core argument of the paper is that the mobilisation of neo-liberal ideas for reorganising societies and their education sectors is a class project with three key aims: the (i) redistribution of wealth upward to the ruling elites through new structures of governance; (ii) transformation of education systems so that the production of workers for the economy is the primary mandate; and (iii) breaking down of education as a public sector monopoly, opening it up to strategic investment by for-profit firms. Realising these aims requires breaking down the institutionalised interests of teachers, teacher unions, and fractions of civil society who have supported the idea of education as a public good. However, this project has been highly uneven, in large part because of the considerable resistance of teachers and their unions.

Keywords: Neo-liberalism, teachers’ labour, teacher unions, globalisation, resistance

 

 

Texto completo disponível apenas em PDF.

Full text only available in PDF format.

 

 

Referências bibliográficas

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large, Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press.         [ Links ]

Apple, M (2001). Comparing neo-liberal projects and inequality in education, Comparative Education, 37 (4), 409-23.

Apple, M. (2006). Understanding and interrupting neoliberalism and neoconservativism, Pedagogies: An International Journal 1 (12), 21-26.

Ball, S. (2003). Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage, London & New York: Routledge.

Bonal, X. (2002). ‘Plus ça Change... The World Bank Global Education Policy and the Post-Washington Con-The World Bank Global Education Policy and the Post-Washington Consensus’, International Studies in Sociology of Education 12(1), 3-22.

Bourdieu, P (1998). Utopia of Endless Exploitation: The essence of neoliberalism, Le Monde Diplomatique, December.

Brenner, N. (2004). New State Spaces: urban governance and the rescaling of statehood, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brint, S. (2006). Schools and Societies (2^nd Ed). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Burkett, P. (1991). ‘Poverty Crisis in the Third World: The Contradictions of World Bank Policy’, International Journal of Health Services 21(3), 471-479.

Cox, K. (2005). From Marxist geography to critical geography and back again, Department of Geography, Ohio State University, October 28th at http://geog-www.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/kte.edu/Cox9.pdf

Cox, R. (1996) Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cox, R. com Schechter, M. (2002) The Political Economy of a Plural World: Critical Reflections on Power, Morals and Civilisation, London and New York: Routledge.

Dale, R and Robertson, S. (2004). Interview with Robert Cox, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2 (2), 147-160.

Edwards, T. Fitz, J. and Whitty, G. (1989). The State and Private Education: An Evaluation of the Assisted Places Scheme, Lewes: Falmer.

Ford, B. (2005). The significance of Charter Schools and the privatisation of standards: holding the wolf by the ears, Policy Futures in Education, 3 (1), 16-29.

Fine, B. (2001). Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the turn of the Millenium, London and New York: Routledge.

Fourcade-Gourinchas, M and Babb, S. (2002). The rebirth of the liberal creed: paths to neoliberalism in four countries, American J of Sociology, 108 (3), 533-79.

Fraser, N. (1995). From redistribution to recognition? Dilemmas of justice in a Post-Socialist Age, New Left Review, 212, July/August.

Gewirtz, S. Ball, S. Bowe, R. (1995). Markets, Choice and Equity, Buckingham: Open University Press.

Grootaert, C. (1994). ‘Education, Poverty, and Structural-Change in Africa - Lessons from Cote-Divoire’, International Journal of Educational Development, 14(2), 131-142.

Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwells.

Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford U. Press.

Harvey D. (2006) Spaces of Global Capitalism: toward a theory of uneven geographical development, New York: Verso.

Henschke, G. (2005) Characteristics of growth in the education industry: Illustrations from US Education Businesses, A paper presented to the symposium on “New Arenas of Educational Governance: The Impact of International Organisations and Markets on Educational Policymaking”, U. of Bremen, Sept 23-24.

Held, D. and McGrew, A. (2002) Globalization/Anti-Globalization, Cambridge: Polity.

Hobsbawm, E. (1994). Age of Extremes: the Short Twentieth Century 1914-91, London: Abacus.

Hood, C. (1995). The “New Public Management” in the 1980s: variations on a theme, Accounting, Organisations and Society, 20 (2/3), 93-109.

ILO (1996) Impact of Structural Adjustment on the Employment and Training of Teachers, (Report for discussion at the Joint Meeting on the Impact of Structural Adjustment on Educational Personnel), Geneva: ILO.

ILO (2004) A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities For All, The World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization, Geneva: ILO.

Jessop, B. (2002) Globalisation and the national state, in S. Aronowitz and P. Bratsis (eds) Paradigm Lost: State Theory Reconsidered, Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press.

Jones, K. (2005) Remaking education in Western Europe, European Educational Research Journal, 4 (3), 228-242.

Karen, D. (2002). Change in access to higher education in the United States 1980-1992, Sociology of Education 75, 191-210.

Kelsey, J. (1993). Rolling Back the State, Wellington: Brigit Williams Books.

Kohl, B. (2006). Challenges to neo-liberal hegemony in Bolivia, Antipode, 38 (3), 304-326.

Lauder, H. & Hughes, D. (1999). Trading in Futures: Why Markets in Education Don’t Work, Basingstoke: Open University Press.

Macpherson, C. B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press.

Madrid, R. (2003). Labouring against neo-liberalism, unions and patterns of reform in Latin America, J. Latin American Studies, 35, pp. 53-88.

Marchak, P. (1991). The Integrated Circus: The New Right and the Restructuring of Global Markets, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

Michie, J. and Smith, J. (1995). Managing the Global Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maroy, C. (forthcoming). Review of “Convergences and hybridation of educational policies around post-bureaucratic models of regulation”. Compare.

Molnar, A. (2006). The commercial transformation of public education, J. of Education Policy, 21 (5), 621-40.

Moore Johnson, S & Landman, J (2000). Sometimes bureaucracy has its charms, the working conditions of teachers in deregulated schools, Teachers College Record, 102 (1), 85-124.

Murillo, M. (1999). Recovering political dynamics: teachers’ unions and the decentralization of education in Argentina and Mexico, Journal of InterAmerican Studies and World Affairs, 41 (1), 31-57.

Olssen, M. (2000) Ethical liberalism, education and the ‘New Right’, J. of Education Policy, 15 (5), p. 481-508.

Ong, A (2006) Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty, Durham and London: Duke University Press.

OECD (2006). Personalising Education, Paris: OECD

Polanyi, K. (1944). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston: Beacon Press

Robertson, S (1996). Teachers’ work, restructuring and post-Fordism: Constructing the new professionalism, in I. Goodson and A. Hargreaves (eds) Teachers’ Professional Lives, London and New York: Falmer Press.

Robertson, S. (2000). A Class Act: Changing Teachers’ Work, the State and Globalisation, New York and London: Falmer Press.

Robertson, S. (2003). The politics of re-territorialisation: space, scale and teachers as a professional class, in H. Athanasiades and A. Patramanis, Teachers and European Integration, Athens: Educational Institute.

Robertson, S. and Lauder, H. (2001) .Restructuring the education/social class relation: a class choice, in R. Phillips and J. Furlong (eds). Education Reform and the State: Twenty-Five Years of Politics, Policy and Practice, London: Routledge/Falmer.

Robertson, S. Bonal, X. & Dale, R. (2002). GATS and the Education Services industry, Comparative Education Review, 46 (4), 472-96.

Robertson, S., Novelli, M., Dale, R. ,Tikly, L., Dachi, H. & Ndebela, A (2006). Education and Development in a Global Era: ideas, actors and dynamics in the global governance of education, Report to the DfID: London.

Robinson, W.I. (1998). ‘Latin America and Global Capitalism’, Race & Class (Institute of Race Relations), 40(2/3): 111-131.

Rodrik, D. (2002). After neoliberalism, what? A paper presented to the Alternatives to Neoliberalism Conference sponsored by the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, May 23-24.

Santos, B. S. (2004). ‘The WSF: Toward a Counter-Hegemonic Globalisation (Part I and II)’. In J. Sen (ed) World Social Forum: Challenging Empires, Third World Institute, available online at http//www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.htm last accessed 01/07/06.

Smith, P. & Morton, G. (2006) Nine years of New Labour: neo-liberalism and workers rights, British J of Industrial Relations, 44 (3), 401-20.

Stephens, R. (1997). Financing tertiary education. In M. Olssen & K. Morris Matthews (eds). Education Policy in New Zealand; the 1990s and Beyond, Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.

Stiglitz, J. E. (1998). ‘Towards a New Paradigm for Development; Strategies, Policies and Processes’, 19th Oct 1998 Prebisch Lecture for UNCTAD, Geneva: UNCTAD.

Stiglitz, J.E. (2002). Globalisation and its Discontents, New York: Penguin.

Sweeney, S. (2004). The case for global justice unionism, New Labor Forum, 13 (3), 57-66.

Tickell, A. & Peck J. (2005). ‘Making Global Rules; Globalisation or Neo-liberalism?’ in J Peck, H Yeung (eds) Remaking the Global Economy: Economic – Geographical Perspectives, London: Sage, 163-181.

Torres, C., Cho, S., Kachur, J., Loyo, A., Mollis, M., Nagao, A & Thompson, J. (2000). Political Capital, Teachers’ Unions and Collaborative Strategies in Educational Reform in the United States, Canada, Korea, Mexico and Argentina, Report of a Study funded by Pacific Basin Research Centre-Soka.

UN (2005). The Inequality Predicament: Report on the World Social Situation 2005, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, available at http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss.html last accessed 01/07/06.

UNDP (2005). Human Development Report 2005: International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid Trade and Security in an Unequal World, New York: UNDP, available at http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005 last accessed 01/07/06.

Van Zanten, A. (2005). New modes of reproducing social inequality in education: the changing role of parents, teachers, schools and educational policies, European Educational Research Journal, 4 (3), 155-169.

Waterman, P. (2001). Trade union internationalism in the Age of Seattle, Antipode, 33 (3), 312-326.

Whitty, G., Power, S. & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and Choice in Education, Basingstoke: Open University Press.

Williamson, J (1993). Democracy and the Washington Consensus, World Development, 21, 1329-36.

Wolf, M. (2004). Why Globalization Works, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Woodall, M. (1994). ‘The Effects of Austerity and Adjustment on the Allocation and Use of Resources for Education and Training’ in J. Samoff (ed), Coping with crisis: Austerity, Adjustment and Human Resources, London: Cassell.

 

 

Tradução do original em Inglês de Inês Sacchetti. Revisão científica de António Teodoro e de Madalena Mendes.

*Centre for Globalisation, Education and Societies, University of Bristol, s.l.robertson@bristol.ac.uk