Sunday, May 18, 2008

No Child Left Behind or Every Teacher under Surveillance?

"Revealing Patriarchal Ideologies of Surveillance and Control

This paper addresses how the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act uses patriarchal control to paper over issues of inequalities in education. While NCLB is set up to “save” public schools, I argue that it fails both students and teachers: it does not attend to the structural reasons why poor children and children of color are left behind or even center these children in its reforms; instead, it relies on and furthers the feminization of teaching, using teachers as convenient scapegoats, and it leaves class and race privilege intact. Its central focus on “high quality teachers,” in conjunction with centralized policies of curriculum and pedagogy, targets and blames predominantly female teachers as workers, ultimately reproducing patriarchal relations." Source: UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Thinking Gender Papers. Paper TG08_Pitzer.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

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