Personal Context

In Chapter Two, I noted that researchers in education have argued that data on teachers’ personal lives is important to understanding the decisions teachers make in the workplace (Goodson and Hargreaves, 1996; Goodson, 2003; Brooks, 2007). Within subject conceptions research, Brooks (2007) also explicitly theorised the role of teachers’ ‘personal cultures’ in affecting how they thought about geography and the work that they did. I have also suggested that an important part of who teachers are relates to personal embodied attributes. In the following discussion, I provide (non- exhaustive) examples of how different aspects of embodiment are implicated in the work that Singapore teachers do.

The Singapore state’s role in controlling what is deemed valuable knowledge, as well as the paradoxical discourses that stem from state education policies, have already been discussed in the preceding sections. In the same way, the Singapore state and its policies also play a large part in shaping the subject identities of the Singapore population. For example, Teo (2011) described the ways in which state policies produced Singaporean society through the ways in which it shaped practices and produced meaning around family and gender roles. In this section, I illustrate how discourses in Singapore around different aspects of the material body can frame teachers’ identities and practice by focusing on the research available on the gender, race and sexuality of teachers. I also outline the expectations surrounding teachers’ conduct and appearance in the Singapore context.

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Singapore society has often been charged with being overtly patriarchal in nature, revealed in both state policies and in the utterances of state officials (PuruShotnum, 1998; Chan, 2000). In 1993, then Prime-Minister Goh Chok Tong stated that in

… a largely patriarchal society, minor areas where women are not accorded the same treatment should be expected so long as the welfare of women and the family is protected. I would not regard them as ‘pockets of discrimination’ or ‘blemishes’ but as traditional areas of differential treatment. (cited in Chan, 2000: 39-40).

This is not to say that women did not benefit from the social advancements that came with education in Singapore. I would however argue that this social advancement took place within a larger patriarchal national context. This differential treatment has implications for female and male teachers’ roles and responses in the workplace as well. Studies found that male teachers in general tended to be more positive about their work while women experienced lower morale and levels of motivation (Ho, 1985; Wong, 1986; Lee, 1999; Lee H.P., 2001). In a study of pre-service teachers, D’Rozario and Wong (1996) suggested that females reported more stress during Teaching Practice as they perceived that others had higher expectations of them due to teaching’s feminised character as a whole.

Another example of the importance of teachers’ personal attributes and how these linked to teachers’ working lives in the literature lies in the intersection of education and race (and cultural) discourses. Singapore is a Chinese-dominated state (numerically, politically and economically). The state espouses a race-neutral meritocratic ideology, while at the same time assiduously cultivating an East Asian/ Confucian values system

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in society. Within this system, Malay under-achievement is attributed to a Malay culture that is not aligned with the larger society’s emphasis on hard work and sacrifice (Ooi & Shaw, 2004), an impression that is perpetuated even within the stereotypical depictions of race depicted in primary school textbooks (Barr, 2006). At the same time, because the state vigorously upholds a race-neutral meritocratic ideology, especially in education discourse, these differences are often invisible and left unexplored in education research in Singapore.

Cultural differences associated with race may also affect teaching and learning in Singapore. For example, research found that when it came to pedagogical preferences, Malays professed a greater affinity for constructivist methods of teaching and learning compared with the Chinese (Chan et al., 2007; Lim, 2010). The authors of both studies attributed this to a traditional Chinese view of teachers as the sole custodians of knowledge and a preference for a top-down approach to pedagogy, with a low threshold for ambiguity and a great need for instant correction (Kennedy, 2002: 433 cited in Chan et al., 2007). Given the dominance of the cultural characteristics and values of the Chinese in the education context in Singapore, Malay teachers may face discursive pressure to abandon their own preferred pedagogies in the classroom.

The literature cited in Chapter Two also noted the taboo on overt signs of sexuality for teachers and a general preference that teachers dress conservatively. This is no different in the Singapore context. Figure 3.4 is an image from a poster found throughout the

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NIE. From the poster, it is clear the preferred image of pre-service teachers is one that reflects decorum and respectability.

Figure 3.4 Appropriate Attire for Pre-Service Teachers

A look at the APT form with which pre-service teachers are assessed also stresses the importance of dressing ‘professionally’. Indeed the furore in the Singapore media over a Singaporean teacher taking part in an online bikini contest, as well as the public outcry over her image as a ‘gangster girl’ complete with tattoos on her blog (The New Paper, Oct 31 2008), points to the conservative image that is expected of teachers in Singapore.

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In addition, the sexuality of teachers is also scrutinised in Singapore in a number of ways. For example, ‘schools have guidelines and measures to ensure that the daily interactions between teachers and students’ are conducted in ‘open spaces’. School leaders also ‘regularly remind teachers about appropriate behaviour through briefings and case studies’ (MOE Parliamentary Reply, 19 Jan 2012). Even the sexual orientation and preferences of teachers has come under scrutiny with MOE’s statement in June 2012 that only teachers ‘whose values align with the ministry’s values’ can teach sexuality education in schools (Today Online, 6 June 2012). These values included state- defined norms of abstinence before marriage and heterosexuality.