Conceptualising teachers’ work in a uniting Europe

Abstract

In this article I would like to situate teachers' work-defined, following Ozga & Lawn (1988), in terms of the labour and social process of teaching-within wider economic, political and cultural contexts. The reference to "a uniting Europe" in the title of this article links in with my current research agenda in response to my country's application to join the European Union. Despite this specificity, I will argue that the European context which defines the work of close to 5 million teachers (Andrieu, 1992) is not that different from other contexts, be these North American or Australian. Such a claim is possible given the overwhelming evidence of what Giddens (1989) refers to as the "globalizing of social life", where we can now speak of "forms of social association which span the earth". "The world", argues Giddens, "has become in important respects a single social system, as a result of ties of interdependence which now virtually affect everyone. The global system is not just an environment within which particular societies .. . develop and change. The social, political and economic connections which cross-cut borders between countries decisively condition the fate of those living within each of them" (Giddens, 1989, pp. 519-520).