Hyper-Socialised: How Teachers Enact the Geography Curriculum in Late Capitalism

Hyper-socialised explores the challenges of late capitalist times for education systems, schools and teachers. It looks at how trends of accountability, ’teaching to the test’, using pupil voice and reliance on network technologies are all connected to powerful social and economic forces, shaping the curriculum as it is taught in classrooms. Such forces threaten to overwhelm teachers but, in the right hands, they can also be harnessed to create, influence and teach a truly powerful curriculum for their students.

Presenting a historical view of curriculum change, the book examines how society, curriculum and teachers are linked. Using geography as an illustrative subject, the chapters investigate what influences teachers, to what extent they are in control of the curriculum, and what else is shaping it. Divided into two parts, it offers

• An in-depth exploration of the relationship between society, teachers and the curriculum, including that what and how to teach remain wide open to debate
• Evidence-based research into the significance and implications of ’hyper-socialised’ curriculum enactment for teachers and teacher education
• Four case study ’portraits’ of geography departments and personal curriculum stories of each Head of Department
• Insights into the nature of teaching as a profession and how a crisis of teacher recruitment and retention may be addressed.

Written in clear and accessible terms, this book is an essential resource for teacher educators, subject teachers, headteachers and educational researchers who want to understand how and why schools and teaching are changing - and what this means for them.

David Mitchell is a lecturer in education at UCL Institute of Education (IOE). He taught geography in secondary schools and colleges before becoming a teacher educator. His current role is researching Geography education and leading the Geography Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course at UCL-IOE. Prior to that, he led the Secondary PGCE programme at UCL-IOE (a programme which each year prepares up to 700 new High School teachers in 18 different subjects). He is interested in the influences over the school curriculum, teachers’ roles as ’curriculum makers’ and how teacher education can support curriculum leadership in schools.