“We are weakening teachers, so they are more likely to accept forms of subordination” – Libération

In “Teachers, the new proletarians”, the doctor of educational sciences demonstrates the link between the new public management and the social weakening of the teaching profession.

The start of the school year is a high point for national education, but changes often take place quietly. A change in the status of principals here. Less power for unions over careers there. Each time, a handful of teachers and unionists rise up and try to resist, but public opinion pays little attention. Too technical, not spectacular enough. In Teachers, the new proletarians: Taylorism at school (ESF Sciences humaines), Frédéric Grimaud, doctor of educational sciences and primary school teacher, brilliantly shows how, little by little, the teaching profession is changing, notably as a result of a breakdown of the collective and an inflation of reforms and injunctions. A few days before the start of the school year and in the midst of political uncertainty, he returns to this disintegration of the function.

How are teachers being proletarianized?

What marks proletarianization is the great subordination to the task. Increasingly, tools are imposed on teachers and work is very prescribed. There is a loss of professional expertise. The second stage is the arrival of new public management, in other words the importation into the public service of the work standards of the sector