Transnational power relations in education: How it works down south

This chapter examines how transnational policy maneuvers that draw on advanced liberal mechanisms have affected teachers’ everyday work in Australia. While dominant global discourses tend to frame educators’ work in terms of individual performance (for example via professional standards, and targets on large scale tests), many teachers have taken to social media to argue against policy ensembles they believe are harmful for students, teachers, and communities. This chapter explores the disjuncture between educators’ lived realities and official accounts of education policy. We provide an overview of IEs that have explicated these tensions, including research projects that we have worked on. Assembling this body of scholarship reveals the operation of ruling relations from early years’ education through to post-secondary education. After considering the broader ideological codes that underlie significant education policies, we show how educators’ work is textually orchestrated via transnational forces flowing from governments to bureaucrats and ultimately into education institutions.