Acuña Ruz, F; (2020) The Political-Pedagogical Teacher. A Narrative Study on Subjective Limits and Experimental Practices from Dissident and Organised Chilean Teachers. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This research problematises what it means to be a teacher in Chile after 35-40 years subjected to working within an established neoliberal regime. It is focused on the subjective limits that this type of regime imposes on teachers and on some possible ways of struggling and experimenting beyond these limits. Since the early 1980s, thorough neoliberal policies have reshaped Chilean society. In 2006 and again in 2011, widespread student demonstrations were the first significant social movement and political critique against this neoliberal regime. During this period, teachers were described as an absent subject. However, in 2014 dissident teachers spontaneously asserted themselves inaugurating ‘the teachers’ spring’, which in 2015 involved a 57-days strike, and again 50 days in 2019. Following a narrative approach, I conducted 35 interviews with 10 leaders and eight grassroots teachers of eight different dissident teachers’ organisations. I did a set of three interviews with the grassroots teachers concerning their story, everyday limits and experimental practices as teachers. I analysed the interviews by creating ‘personal narratives’ and used these narratives to analyse the broader topic of their struggle as organised and dissident teachers. I argue that the dissident teachers’ phenomenon is a struggle in the field of pedagogy, enabling the composition of a political-pedagogical teacher subject. Each chapter of analysis provides support for this argument. First, I analyse the problem of agobio as the overarching notion mobilised by teachers to give an account of and delineate the effects of 35-40 years of neoliberalism (‘a struggle’). Second, I analyse political-pedagogical dissent as the main criticism and critique the dissident teachers have articulated to problematise and disrupt the problem of agobio (‘in the field of pedagogy’). Lastly, I examine three types of relationship where the dissident teachers are experimenting with political-pedagogical teaching practices (‘the constitution of a political-pedagogical teacher subject’).

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