Teachers’ work under responsibilising policies: an analysis of educators’ views on China’s 2021 educational reforms

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers unique insights into the relationship between education policy and teachers’ work. It considers how globally pervasive responsibilising regimes make teachers’ work more burdensome. Drawing on interviews with 15 school teachers, this article shows how China’s 2021 Double Burden Reduction Policy has reconfigured educators’ (class)work practices and pedagogical approaches. Specifically, it unpacks the policy mechanisms that: 1) condense school time and make teachers’ work more methodical and 2) prolong teachers' working hours that are dedicated to offering students after-school educational support, thus reducing the demand for shadow education. This article argues that this policy shifts the education burden away from tutorial enterprises and parents and onto the teachers, which illustrates a case of the impact of policy regimes on teachers’ work within the broader context of neoliberal globalisation. Moreover, this article produces a novel typological spectrum – submission, substantiation, and scepticism – to capture and understand the diverse ways in which teachers may respond to policy-led changes to their professional work globally. Overall, it generates new knowledge on the impact of homogenising education policies on teachers’ work and the heterogeneity of teachers’ responses to these policies, thus contributing conceptually to the wider field of policy sociology in education.