“Its Influence Taints All”: Urban Math-ematics Teachers Resisting Performativity through Engagement with the Past

In England, globalisation and neoliberal political agendas have created an en-vironment in which teachers are constantly measured and ranked and subjected to a discourse of marketisation, managerialism, and performativity. This is par-ticularly strongly felt in urban schools, where a discourse that recognised the sys-tematic disadvantages that many urban children experience has been replaced by a discourse of “failing” students, teachers and schools. The effect is to erode teachers’ sense of independence and moral authority and to challenge their indi-vidual and collective professional and personal identities. The need to understand the current policy environment, to step aside and look on critically, becomes more important even as it becomes more difficult.