Organising teaching: developing the power of the profession

A new report written by Nina Bascia and Professor Howard Stevenson has been published today by Education International.

Summary

This study reports on the experience of several teacher unions as they respond to the challenges facing teachers in a range of national contexts: Chile, Kenya, New Zealand, Poland, Scotland, Turkey and the United States of America. These challenges arise out of the global educational reform movement in education that emphasises particular policy orthodoxies - standardised curricula, high stakes testing, system fragmentation and the creation of quasi-markets. However, these education-specific issues are also nested within a broader set of changes in society, from rapid changes in technology which impact every aspect of our lives through to shifts in the way people engage in democratic processes. In this increasingly globalised world, teacher unions cannot remain isolated and must share ideas, intelligence and strategies across borders.

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