Abstract
This paper seeks to analyze Teach for America (TFA) in terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence in an attempt to expose the ways in which this organization perpetuates structures of inequality in the existing social order. The paper begins with a general description of TFA, followed by an overview of several studies in support of and opposition to the program. Next, Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence is outlined, after which the program is analyzed in terms of the ways in which it has perpetrated symbolic violence against both corps members and TFA-taught students. This analysis suggests that TFA cannot “create the systemic changes that will help end educational inequity” because it fails to take seriously its own embeddedness within and reproduction of these inequitable structures (Teach for America 2011a, p. 1). In effect, the ways in which TFA aims to accomplish its mission reveal the hidden, violent acts against both corps members and the students whom it purports to help.
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Notes
Although most corps members are recent college graduates, this is not a prerequisite to apply. Rather, admission is open to all who have achieved a college degree.
Typically, these groups meet every 2 months at TFA regional meetings, though corps members may also experience similar school-based professional development events.
Although TFA advertises that its corps members will eventually achieve master’s degrees via their completion of the requisite coursework for full teacher certification, this is certainly not the case everywhere. For example, in North Carolina, TFA corps members have the option of working towards an MA degree, but this is not a requirement for alternative teacher licensure programs. What’s more, should corps members decide to pursue an MA, they must do so at their own expense, as these sorts of programs are facilitated by partnerships with various colleges of education and are not paid for by the organization (TFA Eastern North Carolina regional office, January 2, 2012, personal communication). TFA’s website statements regarding the MA, then, are misleading at best.
This review is not exhaustive; rather, I seek to highlight some of the major arguments in support/critique of TFA’s impact on student achievement.
See also, Glazerman et al. (2006).
See, for example, Boyd et al. (2009), who point to a narrowed gap in the distribution of teacher qualifications between high- and low-poverty schools since 2000. In light of the fact that “achievement in high-poverty schools has improved and come closer to that of low poverty schools,” the authors indicate that there is a relationship between improved teacher qualifications, especially in high-poverty schools, and the resulting improvement in student achievement (p. 805). Because TFA teachers have, on average, stronger test scores and prior academic experiences than those of other teachers and because TFA teachers are disproportionately placed in high-poverty schools, this finding suggests that the academic strengths of TFA teachers have helped to close the gap between the distributions of teacher qualifications in high- and low-poverty schools, which may contribute to higher student achievement in high-poverty urban and rural schools.
According to Farr (2010/2011), “Our most effective teachers show that great teaching is leadership. Although excellent core knowledge, instructional strategies, content pedagogy, and classroom management are all essential to successful teaching, what most differentiates the great from the good are the leadership principles that govern how the teacher employs those skills” (para. 17).
With this study, Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) replicate the results of the Raymond et al. (2001) study, though the researchers “go beyond their analyses to examine a wider range of achievement measures over a greater number of years with additional controls, and we include examination of teacher certification pathways more generally” (pp. 3–4).
According to Darling-Hammond et al. (2005), “TFA recruits who become certified after 2 or 3 years do about as well as other certified teachers in supporting student achievement gains; however, nearly all of them leave within 3 years” (p. 2).
Darling-Hammond (1994) suggests that “TFA candidates often have difficulty with curriculum development, pedagogical content knowledge, students’ differing learning styles, classroom management, and student motivation” (p. 27). Whereas previously TFA had embraced the perceived advantages of extensive content-based preparation in its recruits, its current emphasis is primarily on its corp members’ demonstrated leadership skills. However, critics continue to point to the inadequate preparation experienced by corps members, thus suggesting that neither content knowledge, nor extensive records of leadership, alone are sufficient to prepare effective teachers.
According to Heilig and Jez (2010), “most studies find that the relatively few TFA teachers who stay long enough to become fully credentialed (typically after 2 years) appear to do about as well as other similarly experienced credentialed teachers in teaching reading; they do as well as, and sometimes better than, that comparison group in teaching mathematics. However, since more than 50 % of TFA teachers leave after 2 years, and more than 80 % leave after three years, it is impossible to know whether these more positive findings for experienced recruits result from additional training and experience or from attrition of TFA teachers who may be less effective” (Executive Summary, para. 4).
The sort of prestige offered to TFA recruits does not come cheap. In fact, the organization begins to solicit donations from its members while they are still in the program, typically in their second years of service.
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Ashlee Anderson is a doctoral candidate in LEEDS (Learning Environments and Educational Studies) with a primary specialization in Cultural Studies in Education in the department of Educational Psychology and Counseling at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research interests include sociology of education, social justice and education, qualitative research methodologies, and postcritical ethnography.
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Anderson, A. Teach for America and Symbolic Violence: A Bourdieuian Analysis of Education’s Next Quick-Fix. Urban Rev 45, 684–700 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-013-0241-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-013-0241-x