Dislocating Ourselves: Naming Teachers as Policy Makers

• In Event: Fight the Power: Intersections of Teachers Lives With Policies and Politics

Abstract

The relationship between teaching and policymaking is rooted in contradiction: teachers live in, embody, and circulate policies daily in schools, yet are most often considered recipients of policy. This narration of teachers out of policymaking is exacerbated by contemporary trends of education decision-making moving away from schools and toward central governments and an empowered private sector. This paper reports on participatory action research with teachers in three schools where we sought to name our roles in policymaking and build spaces for policymaking. It suggests that, through an inquiry process rooted in ideas of dislocation and decolonization, teachers are able to build complex understandings of policymaking, and that such understandings reveal tensions with respect to teacher identities and policymaking.

Author

• Eric Shieh, Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, New York City Department of Education