Affective Governmentality and Feeling the Cycle of Crisis: Why Teacher Education Reform in 21st-century Australia Has No End

This article uses affect theory to critically examine the discourses underlying initial teacher education (ITE) reform in 21st century Australia. We argue that contemporary ITE reform has persisted in the face of a quarter-century of scholarly critique not because that critique is wrong, but because reform operates through an affective governmentality, a regime in which the conduct of conduct is accomplished through the organisation of affect as well as the application of knowledge and technique. In this domain of reform, the public shaming of teachers and teacher educators, and the promise of evidence-based “rigour” compose a recurring cycle of alarm, shame, promise, and reassurance that makes technicist intervention feel necessary and alternatives feel irresponsible. We show how the recent turn to the “science of learning” and the brain offers an affective settlement, the feeling of certainty, which explains why refuting its evidence base leaves its authority intact. We conclude that any alternative must contest not only the evidence but the affective economy of reform, proposing a different relationship to the uncertainty constitutive of teaching.