Mathematics teachers as democratic agents

This paper considers the role of schools, and particularly that of all teachers (including mathematics teachers), in the construction of social democracy. It is argued that, in the present context of economic rationalism, in which teachers are becoming progressively deprofessionalised, and in which schools are being increasingly subjected to market forces, there is an urgent need to challenge the effects of economic rationalism on education, and especially to produce better educated and more highly professionalised teachers. Further, and more significantly, it is argued that such teachers, having (i) a significantly broadened knowledge base, (ii) a deep commitment to political change leading to democratic social life, and (iii) greatly increased power enabling them to regain control of their professional discourse and the process and content of schooling, might then, as teachers of subjects and children, simultaneously undertake a leading role in the difficult task of social reconstruction directed towards promoting increased autonomy and real democratic participation of the citizenry.