Speaking Back to the Neoliberal Discourse on Teaching: How Teachers Have Used Social Media to Reframe Teaching and Push Back Against Neoliberal Policies

• In Event: Pushing Back as a Means of Moving Forward: Disrupting Neoliberal Pedagogical Approaches

Abstract

Mainstream media has helped put forth a neoliberal ideal of the good teacher, a young, inexpensive hard worker who sees his/her main goal as improving the test scores. This paper presents findings from a study of teacher-authored blogs that put forth counter-narratives to this version of a good teacher. Using virtual ethnographic and critical discourse methods, this paper analyses the blogs to address the following questions: (1) How do teachers define teacher quality for themselves? (2) How are they using social media to speak back or de-center neoliberal policies around teachers and teaching? And (3) How do teacher-authored blogs play a role in other kinds of social media activism to resist neoliberal polices in education?

Author

• Jessica Shiller, Towson University