The early career teachers’ subjection, resistance and resignification. Policy discourse with Butler, Lacan and Foucault

This paper presents an alternative to resisting constructs of the early career teacher identity as evident in recent education policy in England and in its dominant critical voices, through the inclusion of mentoring practices informed by psychoanalysis. Drawing on Butler, Lacan and Foucault’s work on subjectivation, we explore the possibilities afforded by Butler’s insights for resisting the process of subjection which new teachers experience in the current policy climate, particularly the ‘Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework’. We acknowledge the underrepresentation of psychoanalysis in the field of educational studies and thus draw on original empirical work that uses psychoanalytic methods in interviews with trainee teachers. In conversation with Butler’s critical discussion of both subjection and resistance, we argue these interventions offer a resource for the resignification of teacher professional identity and make a case for the radical rethinking of the teacher beyond discourses of identity via mentoring processes.