The paradox of the ‘good teacher’: navigating power relations and subjectivity in China’s recorded courses

This article uses Foucault’s concept of the dispositif to analyze the power relations and the subjectivities of teachers within the recorded courses model, a system designed to advance educational equality in China. Drawing on classroom observation and semi-structured interviews with 11 teachers from both provider and recipient schools, this article reveals how this apparatus positions teachers within a network wherein they must negotiate their positions in relation to both the cultural, institutional, and material elements and the other subjects they are engaging with, such as students and parents. While teachers and students at the provider school are constituted as co-creators and practitioners of desired pedagogical approaches, their counterparts in recipient schools are reconfigured as assistants and passive listeners. Although the recorded courses expand the reach of ‘high-quality’ educational resources, they subtly and painlessly reinforce the surveillance culture and behaviour control, at the expense of autonomy of both sides.