The Discursive Utility of the Global, Local, and National: Teach For All in Africa

Abstract

Teach For All (TFAll) is a global network dedicated to cultivating its unique brand of fast-track teacher training and policy reform. Launched in 2007, TFAll programs now exist in 60 countries—including Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda—and utilize particular discourses to recruit teachers, court donors, and support ongoing operations. Scant research has focused on TFAll programs in Africa or the spatialized discourses of the network itself, however. This study draws on critical and multimodal discourse analyses to explore the discursive utility and deployment of the “global,” “local,” and “national” by TFAll and three of its African affiliate programs. Our findings suggest the “global” is depicted as expansive, universal, and progressive; the “local” is peripheral, authentic, and a site for humanitarian gaze; and the “national,” though often elided, is framed by patriotic yet apolitical discourses, when invoked at all. We posit that these spatialized discourses help legitimate the work of TFAll organizations.