ABSTRACT

In light of the bizarre educational world shaped by positivistic top-down standards, it is important that we now turn our attention to a careful delineation of those forces that have been shaping the educational cosmos. We will focus on those powerful dynamics that shape education and our consciousness that are typically hidden from everyday experience. In this chapter we will study longer-term processes that create hierarchies which disempower teachers and produce irrational practices. It is extremely important that teacher researchers understand these issues, because such forces undermine their attempts to establish a new culture of the workplace that honors and respects teacher scholars. In such a new culture the needs of students could be better met and students who are now overlooked could gain new access to the benefits of education.