recognise and respond to how one’s own practice may be being inadvertently
hollowed out by the global education reform agenda.
In this chapter, I provide an overview of these concerns in one particular national
and sector context, primary school teaching in New Zealand. Focussing on a
specific context is helpful here because it allows us to consider how teachers
respond to reform and take up the possibilities for contesting it alongside an
assessment of the historical, social and political constraints and possibilities
afforded by a particular setting. New Zealand is a small nation with only 4.5 million
people and about 2000 primary schools and is a place where many global education
reform developments are still relatively embryonic. This makes it much easier to see
the interrelated issues affecting the potency of teacher education in New Zealand
compared to larger systems with state or local authority level differences in policy
and where there is often now a longer history of contested neo-liberal reform. The
New Zealand history may be shorter but the education reform movement is grad-
ually taking hold in New Zealand schools. The current Government led by Prime
Minister John Key is into its third term and pushing on with a privatisation agenda
as boldly but pragmatically as ever (Edwards 2015 ).
This chapter starts by considering some relevant features of the culture of pri-
mary teaching in New Zealand. Second, I note how changes in university-based
initial teacher education provision and professional learning for practising teachers
since the 1990s have reduced the opportunities for critically oriented discussion.
Third, this has occurred against the background of a more general decline in the
influence of universities on New Zealand teachers compared to the rise of business,
philanthropic and media influences. Fourth, and related to all of the above, I discuss
some specific examples of practices where New Zealand teachers are being critical
but not critical enough. I conclude by noting actions that vigilant teachers can take,
with or without the support of teacher educators.
27.1 Primary Teaching in New Zealand
During the decades after World War II, New Zealand primary teachers became
acculturated into a distinctive and internationally regarded professional culture
(Middleton and May 1997 ). This professional culture, many elements of which
continue today (Fraser and Hill 2015 ), has been learner-centred with a broad and
progressive approach to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It has been the
result of educational politics and policies within a mostly public education system
that, until recently, often sought genuine consultation with teachers and where
teachers expected to be heard. Often their influence on policy has been through the
New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), the sole teacher union for primary
teachers and principals and one which most belong to.^1 Another significant
(^1) Support staff in schools and early childhood teachers also belong to NZEI. There is another union
for secondary teachers, the Post-Primary Teacher’s Association (PPTA).
402 M. Thrupp