Between Caring & Counting: Teachers Take On Education Reform
by Lindsay Kerr /
2006 / English / PDF
2.6 MB Download
One of the key planks of conservative Ontario premier Mike
Harris's 1990s platform was education reform. Amid a sea of
official reports, policy documents and 'expert' opinions on
education, however, the voices of actual classroom teachers were
difficult to find. This omission is redressed in Lindsay
Kerr's
One of the key planks of conservative Ontario premier Mike
Harris's 1990s platform was education reform. Amid a sea of
official reports, policy documents and 'expert' opinions on
education, however, the voices of actual classroom teachers were
difficult to find. This omission is redressed in Lindsay
Kerr'sBetween Caring & Counting
Between Caring & Counting. Through a focus group
of present-day secondary school teachers in Toronto, Kerr
delivers a passionate account of the unassailably negative
changes affecting secondary education and teachers' work.
. Through a focus group
of present-day secondary school teachers in Toronto, Kerr
delivers a passionate account of the unassailably negative
changes affecting secondary education and teachers' work.
From a critical feminist perspective and using institutional
ethnography, Kerr situates the problem in education squarely as a
conflict between an 'accounting logic' and 'an ethic of care at
the centre of education practice.' She exposes paradoxes inherent
in education reform such as the increase of government control at
the same time that government funding for education decreases.
She also connects educational restructuring to changes in the
power relations of gender, class and race across the public
education system. These local changes, she finds, do not reflect
sound pedagogy but the imperatives of neoliberal globalization.
From a critical feminist perspective and using institutional
ethnography, Kerr situates the problem in education squarely as a
conflict between an 'accounting logic' and 'an ethic of care at
the centre of education practice.' She exposes paradoxes inherent
in education reform such as the increase of government control at
the same time that government funding for education decreases.
She also connects educational restructuring to changes in the
power relations of gender, class and race across the public
education system. These local changes, she finds, do not reflect
sound pedagogy but the imperatives of neoliberal globalization.
Counteracting despair with hope, Kerr explores self-reflexive
suggestions for teacher-educators to exercise agency in their
lives and to continue to work toward a just and equitable public
education system.
Counteracting despair with hope, Kerr explores self-reflexive
suggestions for teacher-educators to exercise agency in their
lives and to continue to work toward a just and equitable public
education system.