An Exploratory Study on the Manifestations of New Public Management (NPM) in Teacher Education

Abstract

Scholars have written extensively on the impact of neoliberal ideology on global economies and society, in general. Included in these studies has been the impact of neoliberalism on public education in the US and the spawning of a neoliberal-based form of organizational management known as new public management (NPM). Beginning in the 1980s, literature on NPM began to emerge as scholars reported findings associated with the management system’s pervasive principles in public organizations, including institutions of higher education. Absent from this scholarship, however, are the effects of NPM on traditional four-year university teacher preparation programs. Perhaps even more unexplored are faculty perceptions of NPM’s principles and practices. Based on this significantly unexplored area of research, the purpose of this study was to explore the manifestations of new public management (NPM) principles, ideas, and practices within a particular teacher preparation program located at a large public research university in the Southwest United States. Drawing from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study investigated faculty perspectives to forces shaping their teacher preparation program through text and discourse analysis stemming from semi-structured interviews, non-participatory observations, and the institution’s strategic plan. Considering the emancipatory goals of CDA, this study expanded the boundaries of its research by identifying faculty-suggested opportunities and ways past their current new public management derived obstacles and challenges.