Inequality, Poverty, and Invisible Discourses in Teach First New Zealand

• In Event: Globalization, Privatization, Marginalization: Assessing Connections and Consequences in/Through Education

Abstract

Objectives
Touted as a key intervention aimed at ameliorating a global education crisis (Sahlberg, 2011), Teach For All (TFAll), a global education reform network, asserts that placing high-performing candidates into low socioeconomic status (SES) schools will address endemic underachievement and reduce inequality. Drawing on qualitative data collected in New Zealand over a six-month period, we examine the ways in which participants in Teach First New Zealand (TFNZ), an affiliate of TFAll, discuss issues of poverty and educational underachievement in their teaching contexts.

Theoretical Framework
We adopt a conceptual framework in which SES is central to understanding issues of educational achievement (Harker, 1995). We view differences in SES not as a result of differences in the decisions, qualities or abilities of individuals, but of forces that govern the structure of economic and social affairs (Davies & Bansel, 2007). We argue that a related concept, social class, is helpful in framing an understanding of socioeconomic inequality and its impact on education.

Methods
Data presented stem from a phenomenological research study focused on the experiences of TFNZ participants and organizational stakeholders within New Zealand. Phenomenological research foregrounds the life histories of participants while simultaneously examining specific phenomena (Schwandt, 2003), in this case the participants’ decision to join TFNZ. To understand and document the experiences of stakeholders and participants, we used in-depth, semi-structured interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 2005; Wengraf, 2001) that allowed participants to extend ideas and themes presented in the initial set of questions.

Data Sources
Data for the study, collected over a 6-month period from January 2016 to June 2016 in Auckland and Northland, New Zealand, consisted of formal and semi-structured interviews (Seidman, 2005; Wengraf, 2001) with TFNZ thought leaders and key personnel (n = 3), current TFNZ participants (n = 16), alumni of the program (n = 5), school principals (n = 2), university professors and leading experts in teacher preparation practices (n = 6), and a representative from a national teachers’ union who actively advocated for specific changes to the TFNZ certification process (n = 1).

Findings
Findings suggest that TFNZ participants privilege themes of personal responsibility, individual agency, and social mobility when discussing educational disparities, voicing global neoliberal discourses that blame students, parents, and communities for underachievement. Additionally, with confidence in their own roles as trainee teachers, TFNZ participants perceive quality teaching as a decisive factor in alleviating educational underachievement and even poverty itself. Lastly, many participants had limited experience with issues of poverty prior to joining TFNZ and few had meaningful exposure to or engagement with the high-poverty communities in which they were placed.

Significance
Taken collectively, these findings reinforce global discourses that elide the complexities of endemic poverty and reinforce neoliberal perspectives that place the onus of academic failure on individuals—specifically teachers, students and families (Brewer, 2014). As TFAll expands globally, more empirical work is needed to document how participants articulate their mission, how these understandings translate into practice, and the ways in which implicit and explicit educational discourses shape their perspectives on students and communities.

Authors

• Katherine Crawford-Garrett, University of New Mexico

• Sam Oldham, University of Melbourne