Southampton Education School research seminar: 'Teachers as entrepreneurs?' (India)

On 30th November 2021, Dr Achala Gupta (Lecturer in Sociology of Education within Southampton Education School) held a research seminar entitled 'Teachers as entrepreneurs? Teacher identity formation in a neo-liberalising education landscape.'

Drawing on interactions with 38 schoolteachers in private schools in Dehradun city in India, this talk examines educators' perceptions of their role, work, and practices in an increasingly privatising and marketising educational landscape. Specifically, it explores why and how educators adopt entrepreneurial strategies and the implications of these for teachers' identity, more particularly, and educational practices more broadly.

This talk shows that teachers are both products and carriers of the neoliberal agenda, and as entrepreneurs (working within and across formal schools and private tutorial centres), they sustain neo-liberalisation in its varying forms and, in doing so, bolster its legitimacy.

Implications for practice or research: This talk offers valuable insights into the often-underestimated transformative capacity of neoliberalism in the education sector. By privileging the voices of teachers, it discusses the ways in which teacher-entrepreneurs enforce, promote, and nourish market regulations in the empirical context.

If you missed this session, you can view it below, or you can watch it here .