‘These reforms have teeth’: The affective dimensions of teacher education policy enactment

Abstract The affective dimensions of education policy enactment have often received less attention in the research literature, especially regarding teacher education policy. This article reports on a study of the affective responses of university‐based teacher educators in England to the significant initial teacher education reforms of 2019–2022: the Core Content Framework and the Market Review, and the associated inspection regime. Using data from focus group discussions with 42 university‐based teacher educators across England, and drawing on affect theory (particularly from Moore) and Foucauldian explanations of power, we show how the fear of the material impact of executive or ‘sovereign’ power and the psychic fear associated with the teacher educators' sense of loss, as well as anger and disgust about the policy processes and the individuals associated with it, intersected to produce a dominant form of administrative compliance with the policies while leaving open or actively creating opportunities for forms of resistance to disciplinary power. While documenting the affective dimensions of an internationally significant education reform, the article also contributes to our understanding of the affective production and co‐existence of compliance and resistance in the enactment of policy.