Shadow Elite of Teacher Education Reforms: Transnational Policy Networks, Global Neoliberal Designs

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Globalization and teacher education I: Ideologies, agents and policies

Proposal

Teacher education reforms have been increasingly influenced by intermediary organizations – non-profit and for-profit organizations, research institutes, think tanks, advocacy groups. Yet apart from activities of Teach for All (Thomas et al., 2020; Lam, 2019; Lubienski, et al., 2016), less attention has been paid to the echo chambers of crisis narratives and market solutions that these organizations create as they seek to reform teacher education around the world. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by reconstructing network connections, analyzing policy activities, and interrogating assumptions in the policy products circulated by intermediary organizations, such as Brookings Institution, Teach for All, McKinsey & Co, as well as for-profit providers.
This paper draws on Wedel’s (2009) concept of “shadow elite” – policy actors who span the boundaries between state, private, and non-profit sectors and whose activities lie outside of the public eye. Attending to the policy networks of shadow actors and organizations that influence how teacher education policies are conceptualized around the world, this paper unveils how neoliberal designs get elevated and circulated around the world.
The methodological approach deployed in this paper is rooted in the tradition of anthropology of policy that attends to policy networks and policy discourses circulated within them (Wedel et al., 2005). Data sources used in the analysis include video recordings of policy events and IO actors’ presentations, transcripts of talks and interviews, policy reports, funding records, as well as online artifacts. Applying the tools of social network analysis (Borgatti, et al. 2018) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003), this paper traces the interconnections between teacher education redesign in the U.S., Russia, the U.A.E., and other countries around the world.
Intermediary organizations influencing teacher education policies in different parts of the world include nonprofit organizations and interactions among actors on their advisory boards. For example, Teacher Preparation Inspectorate in the U.S. was started in conjunction with Michael Barber’s role on the advisory board of the National Council on Teacher Quality. Formal and informal partnerships influence what policy designs become circulated and disseminated. Brookings Institution works closely with Teach for All. As Brookings produces its reports meant to inform policy around the world, Teach for All gets repeatedly described as a solution to the problem of educational inequities. From lauding Teach for All’s “disruptive innovation” in producing new leaders to hailing its focus on teacherpreneurs, Brookings markets a model that ultimately maintains the status quo of unjust and inequitable systems. Yet because these ideas are presented as solutions at various transnational and global events, including the meetings that accompany the United Nations General Assembly and WISE conference in Qatar, Teach for All approaches emerge as universally applicable and beneficial despite their flaws. Similar policy processes support the circulation of modular designs and micro-credentialing in lieu of formal teacher preparation.
The significance of this paper lies in extending the understandings of how network activities of intermediary organizations influence teacher education reforms around the world. Neoliberal designs circulated globally decrease teacher educators’ influence and devalue their professional knowledge.

Author

• Elena Aydarova, Auburn University