Globalization, Cultural Logics, and the Teaching Profession

Globalization has not had a uniform impact on the teaching profession. Understanding how teachers are affected by globalization, and what role they play in the process of institutional change, requires further theoretical elaboration of (a) the relationship between culture and institutions; (b) the “institutional work” teachers do to transmit or disrupt institutional patterns; and (c) how “institutional logics” may conflict or align with broader cultural systems of meaning, that is, “cultural logics.” Institutional logics are diffused globally across multiple levels, and resonance between national cultural logics and globally diffusing institutional logics aids their diffusion. Teachers, individually and collectively, may advocate for new institutional logics, and thus engage in institutional change, but their efficacy to mobilize on a national scale is often limited. The evolution of technologically supported, dense communication networks affords teachers opportunities to elaborate on diffusing institutional logics.