Teachers’ Principled Resistance to Curricular Control: A Theoretical Literature Review

The purpose of this project was to conduct a theoretical literature review of the research that has documented examples of teachers’ principled resistance to curricular control. Principled resistance occurs when teachers reject curricular policies and programs that control their work and conflict with their professional principles. The authors examined the pedagogical commitments that led to teachers’ principled resistance and drew upon Lacey’s and Sikes et al.’s model of teacher socialization to analyze how teachers have engaged in principled resistance. The authors located 62 studies published between 1984 and 2022. Teachers resisted forms of neoliberal curricular control they believed did not meet their students’ academic and social needs, most negatively impacted ethnically diverse and impoverished students, and was not culturally responsive. Teachers enacted principled resistance through strategic compliance, strategic compromise, strategic redefinition, overt and outright resistance, and leaving. Implications for researchers, school administrators, policymakers, and teachers are discussed.