Systemic curricular injustice in initial teacher education through curriculum control and marketization

Abstract

This paper argues that recent initial teacher education policy in England, combining curricular control and marketisation, presents a case of systemic curricular injustice. The initial teacher education core content framework, the government mandated content for all initial teacher education in England, represents a centralised curriculum that ignores local contexts and needs. Combined with the impact of the accreditation process for all providers embedded within the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Market Review, these policies create a two-pronged system of exclusion: the core content framework restricts intellectual access to alternative ways of thinking about education, whilst the ITT Market Review restricts physical access to teacher education seeking to present such alternative approaches. Combining and mutually reinforcing social and spatial injustices, this paper argues that the policy space in England is actively producing and reproducing structural inequalities.