Globalization, Professionalization, and Educational Politics in British Columbia

Abstract

Globalization is decried by some people as the spectre of capitalism on the eve of the new millennium and extolled by others as the inevitable consequence of removing the fetters that restrict capitalisms engine, competition. Among the most concerted efforts of those devoted to the cause of globalization is the elimination of restrictions on trade among nations, including the removal of restrictions on the flow of goods and services among nations as well as the free flow of capital and labour. The harmonization of occupational requirements across national boundaries is aimed at facilitating the free flow of labour. Because harmonization is unlikely to mean adoption of the most rigorous professional standards, globalization threatens to erode professional status, autonomy, and working conditions achieved in those jurisdictions. Despite the fact that they are public employees in a bureaucratic institution, teachers in British Columbia, Canada, have achieved a measure of professional autonomy and influence unparalleled in other North American jurisdictions. This achievement is in part a consequence of conflict between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and successive provincial Social Credit governments, groups representing divergent views about education, the part education plays in the lives of citizens, about the relationship between citizens and the state, and about globalization. The teacher professionalism that developed in British Columbia during the past 25 years was, in part, a consequence of an ideological struggle between a teachers organization animated by the spirit of social reconstruction through education and a government animated by the spirit of unfettered individualism and entrepreneurial capitalism. As this paper will show, attempts to harmonize the requirements for teacher certification in British Columbia with the requirements of other jurisdictions under NAFTA, while consistent with an ideology of individualism and laissez faire capitalism, are likely to meet with significant opposition from British Columbiasteachers, who are led by an organization committed to its own ideology of democratic social justice and who enjoy professional status, autonomy, and working conditions which teachers in other jurisdictions do not.