Using Curriculum Design to Open Up Agential Spaces in Neoliberal Education

• In Event: 69.040 - Positionality, Agency, and Emotion in Professional Development

Abstract

In this paper we draw on Davies and Bansel (2007) and Shamir’s (2008) notions of neoliberalism and its effects on educators working in high poverty schools in the United States to examine data from a yearlong pilot study. Specifically, we explore the subject positions available to the 7 middle school teachers who participated in this pilot study, and how thinking about curriculum design and implementation differently allowed teachers to reconsider the kinds of agency available to them. We suggest that by engaging teachers in curriculum design and implementation, we can create new openings for teachers to pushback against the limited ways neoliberalism produces the very act of teaching, which currently allows for no acting or action at all.

Authors

• Hilary E. Hughes, University of Georgia - Athens

• Christine Patricia Trinter, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Matthew John Moulton, University of Georgia - Athens