Abstract
Skourdoumbis and Bennett draw attention to the constantly changing global environment in which education systems are embedded and to which they have been required to respond. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman’s characterisation of the apparently ‘liquid’ economic, social and political environments that characterise late modernity in which it seems nothing is solid, irreplaceable, permanent or in a sense deeply trustworthy and dependable, they discuss the consequences for education. The global response has been widely described as a neo-liberal response with its characteristic demands for accountability, efficiency and compliance with standards monitored through management and policy strategies that require measurable outcomes. The consequences for teachers’ work in this environment of increasingly routine procedures and decreasing professional autonomy are deeply troubling. Teachers are increasingly drawn away from the personal, humane and community relations that they still know are the fundamental characteristics of their daily work and are confronted with ethical issues, if not crises, arising from the apparently contradictory discourses of audit, accountability and compliance that constrain them. The authors illustrate these moments of ethical confrontation with reference to typical challenges faced daily by teachers as they strive to retain a sense of authentic endeavour.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
NAPLAN (The National Assessment Programme in Literacy and Numeracy is a standardised testing regime implemented by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority—ACARA. Australian students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to sit for the tests each May. Students are tested in literacy, numeracy and ICT literacy). The MySchool website is administered by ACARA and hosts a variety of information on Australian schools including NAPLAN results.
References
Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ayers, W. (1995). Becoming a teacher. In W. Ayers (Ed.), To become a teacher. Making a difference in children’s lives. NY and London: Teachers College Press.
Ballet, K., Kelchtermans, G., & Loughran, J. (2006). Beyond intensification towards a scholarship of practice: Analysing changes in teachers’ work lives. Teachers and Teaching, 12(2), 209–229.
Baltodano, M. (2012). Neoliberalism and the demise of public education: The corporatization of schools of education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 25(4), 487–507.
Bauman, Z. (2009). Does ethics have a chance in a world of consumers?. Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press.
Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers.
Biesta, G. (2015). Resisting the seduction of the global education measurement industry: Notes on the social psychology of PISA. Ethics and Education, 10(3), 348–360.
Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 355–372.
Carr, M., & Claxton, G. (2002). Tracking the development of learning dispositions. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 9(1), 9–37.
Coburn, C. E., Hill, H. C., & Spillane, J. P. (2016). Alignment and accountability in policy design and implementation: The common core state standards and implementation research. Educational Researcher, 45(4), 243–251.
Connell, R. A. (2013). The neoliberal cascade and education: An essay on the market agenda and its consequences. Critical Studies in Education, 54(2), 99–112.
Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds. Changing teaching in complex times. New York: Routledge.
de Ruyter, D. J., & Kole, J. J. (2010). Our teachers want to be the best: On the necessity of intra-professional reflection about moral ideals of teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 16(2), 207–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540600903478474.
Dewey, J. (1902). The child and the curriculum. In L. A. Hickman & T. M. Alexander (Eds) (1998) The essential dewey. Volume 1. Pragmatism, education, democracy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Dewey, J. (1997). Experience & education. NY: Touchstone.
Gerrard, J. (2017). The state of public schooling. In T. Bentley & G. C. Savage (Eds.), Educating Australia. Challenges for the decade ahead (pp. 55–67). Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press.
Gill, R. (2013). Breaking the silence. In R. Ryan-flood & R. Gill (Eds.), Secrecy and silence in the research process: Feminist reflections (pp. 228–244). Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
Giroux, H. A. (2004). The terror of neoliberalism: Authoritarianism and the eclipse of democracy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Griffiths, M. (2014). Encouraging imagination and creativity in the teaching profession. European Educational Research Journal, 13(1), 117–129.
Hardy, I., & Grootenboer, P. (2016). Cultivating community: Detailing school and community engagement under complex conditions. Teaching Education, 27(1), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2015.1034683.
Hargreaves, A. (1994). Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers’ work and culture in the postmodern age. London, UK: Cassell.
Hursh, D. W. (2015). The end of public schools. The corporate reform agenda to privatize education. London & New York: Routledge.
Hursh, D. (2008). High-stakes testing and the decline of teaching and learning. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Joshi, D., & Smith, W. (2012). Education and inequality: Implications of the world bank’s education strategy 2020. In Education strategy in the developing world: Revising the world bank’s education policy (pp. 173–202). Published online: 08 March 2015.
Lingard, B., Martion, W., & Rezai-Rashti, G. (2013). Testing regimes, accountabilities and education policy: Commensurate global and national developments. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 539–556.
Lingard, B., Martino, W., Rezai-Rashti, G., & Sellar, S. (2016). Globalizing educational accountabilities. London & New York: Routledge.
Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2013). ‘Catalyst data’: Perverse systemic effects of audit and accountability in Australian schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 634–656.
Lipman, P. (2013). Economic crisis, accountability, and the state’s coercive assault on public education in the USA. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 557–573.
Lupton, R., & Hempel-Jorgensen, A. (2012). The importance of teaching: Pedagogical constraints and possibilities in working-class schools. Journal of Education Policy, 27(5), 601–620.
Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Manchester, UK: Manchester Univesity Press.
McNeil, L. M. (2000). Contradictions of school reform: Educational costs of standardized testing. New York, NY: Routledge.
Moon, J. (2005). Guide for busy academics No. 4: Learning through reflection. Higher Education Academy.
Olssen, M., & Peters, Michael A. (2005). Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: From the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, 20(3), 313–345.
O’Neill, J., & Bourke, R. (2010). Educating teachers about a code of ethical conduct. Ethics and Education, 5(2), 159–172.
O’Neill, O. (2013). Intelligent accountability in education. Oxford Review of Education, 39(1), 4–16.
Slater, G. B. (2015). Education as recovery: Neoliberalism, school reform, and the politics of crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 30(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2014.904930.
Smith, W. C. (2014). The global transformation toward testing for accountability. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(116). http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v22.1571.
Strathern, A. (2000). Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy. London and New York: Routledge.
Suspitsyna, T. (2010). Accountability in American education as a rhetoric and a technology of governmentality. Journal of Education Policy, 25(5), 567–586.
Thrift, N. (2005). Knowing capitalism. London, UK: Sage Publications.
Valli, L., & Buese, D. (2007). The changing roles of teachers in an era of high-stakes accountability. American Educational Research Journal, 44(3), 519–558.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Skourdoumbis, A., Bennett, S. (2019). Renegotiating Reflective and Ethical Practice in a Liquid Education System. In: Webster, R., Whelen, J. (eds) Rethinking Reflection and Ethics for Teachers. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9401-1_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9401-1_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-32-9400-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-32-9401-1
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)