Effecting Change from Within, Beyond, and Between: Comparative Perspectives of Advancing Alternative Teacher Education Policies

• In Event: New directions in comparative education policy (Part 1): Transnational policy dynamics and processes

Proposal

New forms of teacher recruitment and training have emerged over the past several decades that seek to radically reform educational systems globally (Dumay & Burn, 2022; Nesje, 2021; Tatto & Menter, 2022; Schneider & Abs, 2021). Programs associated with the Teach For All network, which are based on a model developed first in the U.S. and then the U.K., serve as one example, and now exist in approximately 60 countries, from Slovakia to Spain to Sweden (see Thomas et al., 2021). Despite discursive depictions of uncomplicated expansion (Lefebvre et al., 2022b), their global proliferation has only been possible because of considerable, neoliberal policy changes in various jurisdictions, due in part to TFAll’s consistent role in advancing and benefiting from heterarchical forms of governance (Olmedo et al., 2013, Thomas & Xu, 2022). Indeed, instead of working within existing educational policies and structures, TFAll has frequently positioned itself as a progressive neoliberal ‘disruptor’ to the status quo (Lefebvre et al., 2022a).

Building on this backdrop, this paper examines the varied ways in which Teach For All affiliates have engaged in effecting policy change, both to facilitate their entrée into new policy environments and, later, to further alter them to fit particular educational ideals and assumptions. It first analyses cases from across the Teach For All literature and draws on empirical data in the form of interviews with policymakers (n=6), policy documents, and digital ethnography to provide a comparative analysis of the forms of policy change that may be necessary for alternative programs to enter new jurisdictions, such as reforming teacher certification and licensure policies. In particular and in conjunction with the broader panel(s), the paper highlights the networked and multi-scalar efforts of Teach For All and its constituents in seeking to gain inroads into varied contexts. Second, the paper explores the means through which Teach For All organizations have sought to effect change prior to and after their emergence, drawing on examples from specific (sub)national contexts. The paper likewise considers some of the logics at play in justifying these changes as necessary. It then offers a typology of policy movements and strategies utilized by Teach For All, including working within, beyond, and between existing structures. The paper concludes by raising critical questions about the future of global teacher education policy as well as the methodological challenges involved in studying its shifts, particularly as advanced by closed networks working across amorphous and dynamic policy spaces.

Authors

• Matthew A.M. Thomas, The University of Glasgow

• Elisabeth E Lefebvre, Bethel University