Charter School Teachers and Governmentality: Mission-Driven Entrepreneurial Professionals or Tools for Student Growth?

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 50
  In Roundtable Session: Poststructuralism, Neoliberalism, and Education in the 21st Century

Abstract

Charter schools can be described as a quintessentially neoliberal educational policy. As charter schools become increasingly common, a larger proportion of teachers work within these policy contexts. Governmentality theory provides a useful theoretical lens through which to understand teacher professionalism in charter schools. Part of a larger study of teacher professionalism in charter schools, this project uses a governmentality approach in order to destabilize current conceptions of professionalism and more fully understand charter school teachers’ work. Teachers in this study defined professionalism by their own, and their students’, growth. As they did so, they positioned themselves as both subjects of their own entrepreneurial lives and tools to be used toward their students’ aspirations.

Author

• Beth Wright-Costello, University of Southern California