Deskilling

Deskilling refers to the process by which educators lose their dynamic roles as curriculum workers when they no longer are allowed to create or modify curriculum. Instead, they must deliver tightly controlled, packaged, fragmented, and “teacher-proof” curricular content such as commercially produced worksheets, scripted questions, and prepackaged units. Although deskilling chiefly refers to the work experiences of teachers, this [Page 284]phenomenon has ramifications for learners and schools as deskilling ultimately discourages reflective practice, arts integration, multidisciplinary curriculum, creativity, intuition, and critical thinking. Deskilling has become a crucial issue in curriculum studies because it leads to the suppression of teachers' intellectual and moral responsibilities.

The theory of deskilling emanates from Harry Braverman's book, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, published in ...