Examination and (En)Actors: The Shifting Identities and Practices of Teachers Within an “Evidence-Based” Accountability Paradigm

• In Event: Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Discipline and Resistance in Education: On the Limits and Possibilities of Teachers and Other Subjectivities

Abstract

After several decades of policies intended to improve educational accountability and excellence, student data have come to play a central role in American schooling. This paper, grounded in Foucauldian theory, previous literature on data use, and school-based observations, explores how data-based discussions within an accountability framework shape the work and identity of teachers as mid-level institutional actors. Data-based discussions position teachers as “experts” on students, yet they are (en)actors of institutional goals over which they have little control. Teachers also become governable persons judged on their ability to subject students. This work deepens Foucauldian conceptions of bureaucracy and aims a critical lens on the (en)actors of the accountability paradigm.

Authors

• Hester Earle, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Pavithra Nagarajan, Teachers College, Columbia University