Resistance, reprochement, and renewal

• In Event: Teacher unions and university academics: Unlikely Bedfellows

Proposal

Education International, the umbrella organization for teacher unions around the world, commissions scholarly research on topical educational issues with a comparative lens in order to help teacher unionists understand and act upon the situations with which they are currently confronted. One such recent project focuses directly on teacher unions themselves: it explores how teacher unions are responding to changing conditions that place significant challenges on teachers and on unions themselves. The seven countries studied reflect a wide range of profoundly different contexts, ranging from places where teacher unions are participants in policy decision making, where teacher unions are under attack by government, and where teacher unions have no legal existence. The challenge of this research has been to use comparative research on a relatively small number of cases in such a way that conceptual clarity can be achieved that will actually provide practical direction for diverse teacher unions. The paper describes the conceptual framework arising from the study – a typology of union strategies: resistance, reprochement, and renewal – and provides both illustrations and descriptions of ways teacher unions can find direction from the theoretical work.

Author

• Nina Basica, University of Toronto