Teams Were the Answer, but What Was the Question? Governance in the Danish Vocational Education System in the Wake of and Beyond Neoliberalism

Abstract:

In the 1990s, Danish vocational education and training (VET) underwent significant changes with regard to what was perceived as the ideal form of governance. These implied new understandings of school management and of the role of the vocational teacher. These changes formed part of a broader reorganisation of the Danish public sector, which concerned both the relationship between citizen and state and the sector’s internal organisation and governance, and was inspired by the neoliberal trend influencing the transformation of Western welfare societies. Building on Foucault’s concepts of governmentality and neoliberalism, the chapter analyses how these ideas have travelled from the highest political levels to the education sector, and more specifically to the VET sector. The effects on VET are illustrated using the concept of teacher teams as a reference point. Teacher teams were introduced as a key tool supporting the transformation of Danish educational governance.