Abstract

ROBERTSON, Susan L.. ‘Remaking the World’: Neo-liberalism and the Transformation of Education and Teachers’ Labour. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2007, n.9, pp.13-34. ISSN 1645-7250.

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.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )