Open Collections

Werbitsky, Laura

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how discourses circulating through a Chinese high school, an international edu-business, during a period of comprehensive curriculum reform produced the subjectivities of core subject area teachers (i.e. English Language Arts, Math and Science). This critical, qualitative study employs Foucault’s concepts of power, discourse, governmentality and subjectivity to explore teachers’ relations to curriculum, to students and colleagues, and to themselves and their work. Data sources include transcribed interviews with the teacher participants, curriculum documents, generated by both the participants and the edu-business, and researcher reflective memos. Through Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, I identified the neoliberal discourses of competition and active individualism circulating throughout the edu-business. Additionally, I determined that the neoliberal discourses had drastically different effects on the subjectivities of the two participating teachers. While one teacher participant was de-professionalized in relation to the curriculum reform agenda, the other took on the role of a curriculum leader and became a hero of the reform. The study revealed the significance of the high school’s relationship with other international edu-businesses that were accrediting the new curriculum and which proved to be the largest constraint on the curriculum content and on teachers’ professional work and identities. This study offers insight into the workings of one international edu-business in China in the midst of a neoliberally driven curriculum reform.

Text

2024-06-11

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88455

Curriculum Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/