Quality in teacher education: Managing discursive change

The paper explores the terms secularism, democracy, globalisation and quality with particular reference to shaping learners’ identities and ascribing quality to teacher education in two developing democracies: India and South Africa. Key terms are interrogated in order to clarify how quality is subjected to current discursive pressures. The terms are seen as axiomatic to contemporary ideals of whole human development and citizenship. The nature of the contemporary self is explored in terms of Taylor’s (2007) juxtaposition of preand post modern selves engaging with global discourse where expressivist and rational modes of argument compete for hegemony. First, the paper deconstructs ‘secular’; second, it examines tensions between hegemony and agency in the language of globalisation; third, it uses Bernstein’s taxonomy of learners’ rights and conditions to locate the democratisation of education in practice and finally, suggests how globalisation and democratic rights may impact on notions of quality in teacher education.