Democracy, Teachers and the Struggle for Education: an essay in the political economy of teacher education

Teachers, and their educational opportunities, have been under sustained attack from the New Right in England since the late 1970s. An adequate democratic theory of teacher development (which could challenge the New Right agenda) needs to connect with social and political theories; to be located within particular historical, political and educational traditions; and has to develop political support for its ideas and proposals. Such a theory has to see teachers at three interconnected levels: as citizens, as workers and professionals, and as persons. The task is then to find those who are able to reinterpret and redefine traditional values of democracy and equality in a way that relates to the complexity and variety of societies at the end of the twentieth century.