Teacher as a performer or a professional? An exploration into the possible impacts of performative culture on teachers’ identities

ABSTRACT

From the early 1980s, neo-liberal shifts in educational policy aligned private sector values and practices with the public sector (Albo: 2009). This alignment provided an influx of performative policy in education, driving outcomes-based decisions rather than permitting teachers to make independent choices; this de-professionalises and restricts teacher autonomy. This restriction of autonomy is a common theme in what constitutes a professional. Since the Educational Reforms Act (1988) there has been an emergence of the New Public Management (NPM). With the NPM being based upon rules, guidelines, standards and benchmarks teachers have become caught up in a managerial milieu where their autonomy is restricted. I argue that the influx of performative neo-liberal education policy is a key factor in the restriction of teacher autonomy. Having been a teacher for the last 8 years, this is something I can attest to. I will discuss the formation of an activist teaching identity as a means to legitimise teacher autonomy. As autonomy is identified as a crucial factor in teacher retainment (NFER: 2020), opening discussion about performative culture could not only be a step towards resisting de-professionalisation (Sachs: 2003), but a step towards retaining experienced teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Performativity
• professional
• education
• autonomy
• identity

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hannah Fox

Hannah Fox is the Deputy Head of English in a state secondary school, with responsibilities for curriculum creation and management alongside researching and leading education improvements within her department and school. Having gained her PGCE and QTS in 2012, she went on to complete her Masters in Education in 2019.  After completing this, Hannah continues to maintain strong connections with her university, and voluntarily delivers seminars on the Masters in Education course and symposiums for the university’s education conferences. Her interests include educational policy and its impacts on teachers’ practices, identities and professions, curriculum design and cognitive learning theory.