Protecting jobs and lives
Teachers’ passive resistance and subtle protest to curriculum policy in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12928804 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Godsend T Chimbi (0000-0002-6417-4355, corresponding author), Loyiso C Jita (0000-0001-6871-6820) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-49 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Power and Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-7438 • E-ISSN: 1757-7438 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/17577438241297235 |
| OpenAlex | W4403806125 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
Most studies on teacher resistance to curriculum policy and reform implementation focus on teacher activism and visible acts of resistance. But there is growing interest in teachers’ passive resistance and covert protest in the face of intimidating state power. This paper theorises subtleties of teacher protest in three Southern African states – Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In these countries, teacher strikes, class boycotts and sit-ins have received heavy handed reaction from the government, resulting in psychological intimidation, physical assaults and incarceration. The key question driving this paper, therefore, is: Faced with shrinking democratic space, how are teachers in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe recalibrating protest strategies? This paper argues that state repression pushes teachers to retreat from active protest and resort to subtle protest, to protect their jobs and lives. The unique contributions of this paper are that it borrows James Scott’s typology of ‘everyday invisible acts of resistance’, developed from an anthropological study of peasants struggle in a Malay village, to theorise teacher resistance in pseudo-democratic spaces. It also generates novel insights on how teachers continue to resist curriculum policy while sending false signals of compliance to repressive state power
Curriculum · Economic growth · Economics · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Education Systems and Policy · Gender Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Public Administration · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies
Learning to Labour
Stretching the Iron Cage
Teacher Agency
Theorizing Resistance in Education Research
Champions of the poor or “militant fighters for a better pay cheque”? Teacher unionism in Mexico and South Africa, 1979–2013
Restorative justice in Zimbabwe’s reconciliation process
Data is [G]od”
The Evolution and Implementation of a National Curriculum Under Conditions of Resistance
The affective dimension of everyday resistance
The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity
Conceptualizing Resistance
Repression, Literary Dissent and the Paradox of Censorship in Zimbabwe
The battle hymn of the activist teacher
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |