Hill, David Stanley; (2001) The radical Right and teacher education : an analysis of, and response to, the restructuring of initial teacher education in England and Wales under the Conservative and New Labour governments 1979-2001. Doctoral thesis , Institute of Education, University of London.

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Abstract

Following the 1979 general election, Conservative governments radically restructured Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England and Wales (a process that I argue is substantially retained by New Labour in its policy on ITE and in education more widely). The aim of this thesis is to examine and evaluate Radical Right policy on ITE and responses to it, and to propose an alternative Radical Left policy based on the theories and data analysed. The thesis begins by describing the content and context of the restructuring and by charting various responses from the education community. It proceeds to identify ideological approaches to ITE that are 'alternative' and 'oppositional' to the Radical Right. To make sense of the restructuring, I examine five theoretical analyses of state policy and of the articulations and disarticulations within the ITE policy process. These are 'state autonomy', postmodernist, 'quasi- postmodernist', culturalist neo-Marxist, and structuralist neo-Marxist analyses. I then describe and evaluate what aimed to be a Radical Left 'critical transformative' ITE course (the Crawley BEd) that I led from 1990-1995. Here I present data on student teacher and NQT reactions to that course, which I compare to other courses that I surveyed. In the light of this data I then revisit the theoretical explanations by referring to the limited 'transformativeness' of the Crawley BEd, and to the success of Radical Right policy on ITE (and education more widely) nationally. My theoretical conclusion is that a structuralist neo-Marxist analysis best explains the data and policy developments. Finally, I suggest some implications for policy, deriving from structuralist neo-Marxist analysis.

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