Reframing teachers’ work for global competitiveness: new global hierarchies in the governing of education

This chapter addresses the politics of the reframing of how teachers are governed globally and the implications of the reconfiguring of power. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed and implemented a Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and it focuses on teachers’ work and school leadership and represents some of the most ambitious efforts so far to generate knowledge about teachers. The chapter focuses on three substantial relationships constitutive of the TALIS ensemble and explores the nature of the dual globalization dynamics at play. It provides a critique of the mechanisms for improvement underlying the TALIS program. The chapter shows that the program involves tensions and contradictions regarding the reform of the teaching profession and teaching. It sets out to examine the changing nature of the global governing of teachers’ work by breaking open the TALIS ensemble.