New Teachers Encounter Neoliberal Educational Reforms: Discovering Aesthetic Education as a Curriculum of Political Action

• In Event: Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: Research in PK-12 Education: The Humanities and Other Content Areas

Abstract

This paper presents seven years’ of qualitative research into the emerging understandings of 456 beginning 7-12 English Language Arts (ELA) teachers located in urban schools that are focused almost exclusively on testing regimes and accountability systems. These participants were also enrolled in a total of 26 MSEd English Language Arts courses which presented and emphasized two divergent theoretical frameworks: (1) The neoliberal ideology of testing and accountability, and (2) the aesthetic education (AE) educational tradition. The study finds that education students need not passively acquiesce to imposed educational reforms, but can be active shapers of a curriculum they find professionally meaningful. AE practice creates opportunities for a socially critical pedagogy that seems to be prohibited by current neoliberal educational reforms.

Author

• Arthur T. Costigan, Queens College - CUNY