The impact of the economic crisis in Greece on the professional lives and teaching practices of primary school teachers: A critical pedagogy approach

This study presents a discussion of the ramifications of the economic crisis ravaging Greece since 2009 on the professional lives and the teaching practices of Greek primary school teachers. Placed in the general framework of a global attempt to reform education by making it comply with neoconservative and neoliberal directions, my thesis discusses the particular case of Greece and investigates the possibility of an international educational paradigm seeking to impose a market reasoning on school culture and create a disciplined privatised educational sector in pursuit of profit. The issue is approached through the Critical Pedagogy Approach and thus, uses Marxist analytical tools and places the whole thinking within the philosophical framework of dialectical materialism. This is an attempt to fully understand and interpret the causes and nature of the crisis, along with its impact. For this reason, a holistic approach is employed based on both empirical evidence and a coherent theoretical and philosophical framework that examines schools and education in an economic, social, political and ideological context. The analysis of the data shows that all aspects relevant to the educational process have been severely affected in terms of infrastructure, relationships, personal development and quality of teaching and learning. Due to the nature of their profession, teachers proved a rich source of data regarding all aspects of the crisis and its repercussions on themselves, their students and Greek society as a whole. The findings confirmed the initial assumption that was formulated at the beginning of this thesis, that a critical and radical approach of the crisis is needed in order to fully comprehend its real causes and unmask the attempts to implement the complete neoliberal transformation of education.