Changes in public sector management need to be unpacked for different
sectors to understand their impact in a particular country. This article focuses
on the governance of the feminized profession of teaching in Australia, the
single largest professional grouping in the country. Neoliberal assumptions have
been built into teachers’ work through policy change in three related ‘waves’.
The first wave in the 1980s installed managerialism in public education by
recentralizing curriculum policy, establishing ‘self-managing’ schools, and
downsizing infrastructure. The second wave in the 1990s steered teachers’
work through federal intervention into curriculum, and individualization of
teachers’ work in contexts of marketization; this wave consolidated a national
political role in education. The third wave in the 2000s emphasized the
codification of knowledge through establishment of standards and criteria for
teacher employment and promotion. The article concludes that the governance
efforts to steer teachers’ work by neoliberal assumptions have been significantly,
but not totally, effective.