Markets,Ideologies and Primary Initial Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

The British government's proposals for the reform of primary initial teacher education (ITE), including the transfer of major responsibility to schools, are examined in the context of their plans for more centralised control over the curriculum and the imposition of traditional methods of teaching. A model of appropriate objectives for school‐based primary ITE is outlined and an alternative concept of partnership based on co‐operation between higher education institutions and schools put forward. Implications of the reforms for primary schools are considered. In an attempt to make sense of the government's proposals, the apparent contradiction between its commitment to an educational market and the actual concentration of power in its own hands is explored. The reforms are shown to be part of a sustained attack on education professionals, and to illustrate how market relations may be used to promote the dominance of the central state by fragmenting opposition.