Critical Teacher Education, New Labour, and the Global Project of Neoliberal Capital

Abstract

The first part of this article contextualises ‘education reform’ – the restructuring of education and teacher education – within the global and national requirements and demands of Capital in the current epoch of global neoliberalism and neoconservatism. The second part analyses developments in teacher education in England and Wales under both Conservatives (1979–97) and New Labour (1997–2006) and the extent of continuities between the two. These developments have resulted in the detheorised, non-egalitarian and technicist state of teacher education in England and Wales, with its marginalisation of issues of the social contexts of education, and issues of equality/inequality. These silences work to produce teachers more fit to develop children and young adults fit for the purposes of Capital. The third part sets out a series of progressive egalitarian policy principles and proposals that constitute an egalitarian manifesto for education and for critical teacher education and critical pedagogy, very distinct from both the Conservative and New Labour policies, and calls for critical transformative egalitarian education.