Between the desire to teach and the demand to comply: Teacher subjectivity in neoliberal times

Abstract

In recent decades, neoliberal education reforms have profoundly transformed teachers’ work, particularly in contexts where these policies have been implemented forcefully and persistently. Chile represents a paradigmatic case of advanced neoliberalism, making it a particularly revealing setting for examining the deeper and less visible effects of these reforms on teacher subjectivity. This article offers an interpretive reading of 40 empirical studies published between 2006 and 2023 on primary and secondary school teachers in the country, with the aim of analyzing the predominant features of their subjectivity. The central finding is the experience of a persistent tension in everyday work, produced by the intersection of two forces operating in different directions: on the one hand, work overload and lack of time associated with a normative-administrative logic; on the other, the desire to sustain meaningful pedagogical relationships as an ethical reserve of the profession. This tension gives rise to three predominant modes of professional action: accepting, setting boundaries and resisting, and leaving the profession. The article argues that teacher subjectivity, despite the performative force of neoliberal logics, constitutes a space from which teachers set limits on such rationalities and occasionally articulate forms of resistance to safeguard their pedagogical voice.