ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the distinctiveness of late capitalist society arguing that the changed way in which late capitalist society conceives of the individual is particularly significant. Curriculum making can be understood as a call for teachers to assert their power over curriculum at the local scale, as resistance to late capitalist pressures. A late capitalist view recognises the influence of financial capital through globalisation and the multinational corporation across all aspects of society. Neoliberalism provides a distinctive societal-economic lens with which to analyse the influences over teachers’ curriculum enactment. Critical accounts of neoliberal society explain how intensified competition and privatisation in recent times have influenced schools, teachers and curriculum. The relationship between the geography teacher’s identity and curriculum has been explored through research into the teacher’s use and conceptions of subject knowledge. The internet is causing a shift in the power and authority that the teacher holds over the learner’s curriculum.
