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Teachers, the reluctant professionals?
A call for an individual response
Alison Jackson
St.Martin’s College/ESCalate ITE
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Warwick, 6-9
September 2006
ESCalate – the Education Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy Advancing Learning and Teaching in Initial Teacher Education
The new standards for classroom teachers1 come into effect in September
2006. These standards use the word ‘professional’ in relation to teachers over
fifty times, suggesting that teachers are viewed as professionals by the state.
And yet I want to argue that the notion of ‘professional’ is not a concept which
sits easily with beginning teachers. My research carried out with Newly
Qualified Teachers (NQTs) between 2002 and 2004 discovered that teacher
professionalism as set out in policy documents does not automatically transfer
to the practitioner. There is a significant suggestion that teachers need to be
actively engaged in the definition of their own professionalism. It is important
to note that this suggestion, although drawn from time limited research, is not
confined to the limitations of that timing; I would argue that it describes a basic
need, fundamental to the commitment, motivation and contentment of
teachers.
1 Draft revised professional standards, April 2006, available at www.tda.gov.uk (accessed June 2006).
1
The question of teachers’ professionalism formed part of a case study of ten
NQTs over the first two years of their career in a large comprehensive school
in England. My research was prompted by the profound changes taking place
in education policy, particularly from 1997, and the effect that this was having
on the teacher’s perception of self. In a paper written in 1999, Ball suggested
that teachers were being ‘re-made‘ (Ball, 1999:2) and I was curious as to the
effect of this ‘re-making’ on the new generation of teachers. Ball was referring
to global, managerial trends which ‘are changing what it means to be a
teacher. Managerialism stresses competitiveness, accountability and audit:
stressing productive efficiency, producing an elaboration of explicit standards and
measures of performance in quantitative terms that set specific targets for personnel,
an emphasis on economic rewards and sanctions, and a reconstruction of
accountability relationships. (Fitzsimmons, 2005:1)
And it seemed to me that global trends were surely also changing what it
meant to be a professional. What form was this new professionalism taking
from the perspective of the new generation of teachers?
My research question asked simply, ‘Are you a professional?’ expecting an
affirmative answer and a conviction of response and it found neither. My
participants had proclaimed themselves to be autonomous, albeit an
autonomy defined within the bounds of their acceptance of government
frameworks and prescriptive policy, and they were very sure of their purpose
and vocation. But when I asked this question about their professional identity,
it unearthed a lack of clarity about the word itself which ranged from total
rejection of it as a descriptor of teachers to a supposition that they must be
2
professionals but had no idea what that meant either in government terms or
as part of their own definition of self. In this paper I will first set out the
historical context for teacher professionalism by considering elements of
Grace’s paper on ‘Teachers and the State in Britain’ (Lawn and Grace,
1987:193-222) and then by looking at recent government documentation,
pertinent to the participants at the time of my research. I will then investigate
traditional and managerial images of professionalism and go on to explain my
research design and give an analysis of the data I collected. I will explain how
I feel that Critical Theory and Interpretivism give possibilities to teachers to
critically engage with government definition of professionalism and, at the
same time, build their own personal response. I will then offer some
recommendations for practice suggested by my research.
The search for professionalism amongst teachers is not new and the notion of
‘trust’ is fundamental to that search. Teacher professionalism has been a
contested terrain since the early years of the twentieth century when
elementary teachers’ first claim to be regarded as a profession triggered a
reaction of constraint and control from the state, followed by militancy from the
teachers (Grace in Lawn and Grace, 1987:201). The policy of ‘trusting’
teachers’, endorsed by Percy, President of the Board of Education (1924-9)
sought to separate politics from the practice of teaching and engendered a
relaxation of state control, defusing potential conflict rather than creating
confrontation, and brought about ‘legitimated professionalism’ in the 1930s.
This form of professionalism:
implicitly involved an understanding that organised teachers would keep to their
proper sphere of activity within the classroom…and the state, for its part, would grant
3
them a measure of trust, a measure of material reward and occupational security and
a measure of professional dignity. (op.cit:208)
Teachers were accorded the status of one of the accepted ‘lesser’
professions.
Teacher professionalism seems to have been given a boost after the Second
World War as education policy makers realised that education could be
transformational. A partnership between state and teachers to ‘regenerate the
nation’ should have cemented a firmer professionalism than it did, but the
state was reluctant to reward teachers with either increased salary or better
conditions of service, so that trust between them continued to be elusive and
by the 1960s militancy was to the fore as the path of professionalism that had
distanced itself from trade unionism was seen to be weak. ‘Legitimated
professionalism’ was rejected by unions as it had been accepted as a
settlement with the government in the 1930s and was now seen as weak
when it came to wage bargaining, and the ‘measures’ of professionalism and
reward it offered were rejected as insufficient. However, professional
autonomy, that is to say the lack of central directives in pedagogic matters
rather than economic matters, was the one aspect of the ‘profession’ with
which teachers were content. Unfortunately, radical factions who were far
from apolitical were seen as ‘exploiting school and classroom autonomy to the
full and for the wrong reasons’ (op.cit:214) and the result was distrust again
between state and teachers, and significantly, because of negative media
attention, the start of a critical distrust of teachers from the general public.
There arose a blame culture where teachers were ‘the culprits for the
economic failures of the 1970s’ and ‘standards were being betrayed by a
4
significant sector of teachers’ (op.cit:212.) The effects of this erosion of
teacher professionalism in the eyes of the public as well as the state still has
its repercussions today and precipitated increased state control. This leaves
the question of trust – that is to say the amount of trust granted by the state to
the teachers and the amount of trust given by the teachers to the state - at the
heart of teacher professionalism.
The government White paper Excellence in Schools, issued in 1997, made it
clear that teaching and professionalism were congruous in government eyes:
We are committed to ensuring that teaching is seen as a valued and worthwhile
career for our best young people; a profession that is recognised and valued by the
wider community. We will play our part in raising the profile and esteem of the
profession. (DfEE, 1997:5.4)
And four years later, the pamphlet, ‘Professionalism and Trust’ (Morris, 2001)
set out ‘a new era of trust in our professionals’, but it would seem that the
government is setting the parameters of this ‘trust’. In this pamphlet, it is
acknowledged that the aims and ambitions of a ‘world class’ education system
in the UK are impossible without the help of teachers. There is an
acknowledgement of teaching as a profession, albeit a new ‘professionalism
for the modern world’ (op.cit:19), making a definitive break with any ‘old’
professionalism of legitimacy through qualifications, such as might have
existed previously:
Gone are the days when doctors and teachers could say, with a straight face, ‘trust
me, I’m a professional’. (op.cit.19)
The notion of trust is displaced, no longer automatic and we see the
juxtaposition of the ‘old’ trust tempered by monitoring and accountability:
5
It is important to trust our professionals to get on with the job. That does not mean
leaving professionals to go their own way, without scrutiny – we shall always need the
constant focus on effective teaching and learning, and the accountability measures…
But what it does mean is that we shall increasingly want to see professionals at the
core, to join us in shaping the patterns for schools of the future. (op.cit:26)
Thus the definition of the professional teacher is a ‘cast-iron’ government
‘vision’ (op.cit:28) that will be shared by all and not be diverted by ‘the
opponents of change’. Trust is given within the bounds of scrutiny and ‘we’ will
be working together, that is to say joining the government ‘mission’.
Trust formed the basis of the traditional interpretation of professionalism, not
just in education but in other spheres. Dent and Whitehead, writing in the
present era of what could be called an ‘audit-based professionalism’ give this
definition of what the ‘trusted’ professional used to be:
The professional was someone trusted and respected, an individual given class,
status, autonomy, social elevation, in return for safeguarding our well-being and
applying their professional judgement on the basis of a benign moral or cultural code.
(Dent and Whitehead, 2002:1)
But this trust and respect are now earned, not through qualifications and
expertise, but through the ability to perform to performance indicators; to fulfil
objective external criteria, rather than use subjective ‘gut’ feeling. This
managerial professionalism is accountable, it has rules and outcomes and it is
still continuing to be written. It is as if professionalism is being written by
governments because the trust that was afforded to ‘gut’ feeling can no longer
be trusted. Clarke and Newman (1997:78-80) make a distinction between ‘old’
and ‘new’ professionalism; the ‘old’ traditional professional is professional by
dint of expertise, trusted simply because the word ‘professional’ implies trust
6
without the need to question, the ’new’ managerialist professional is
constantly held accountable through measurable performance. Interestingly
both these definitions of professionalism suggest certitude; traditional through
internal feelings and managerial through external prescription. One would
expect therefore a convinced description of ‘professionalism’ from beginning
teachers. But Carr and Hartnett suggest that the situation in schools has been
removing certitude from professionalism:
The tasks for which teachers and schools are being held responsible have
accumulated at such a rate as to destroy any hope that they can all be achieved. In
these circumstances it is unsurprising to find that there is now a growing confusion in
the minds of teachers about the limits of their professional responsibilities and the
nature of their educational role. (Carr and Hartnett, 1997:1)
To investigate whether Carr and Hartnett's somewhat pessimistic view of the
'confused' professional still pertained among the ten participants in my
research I firstly attended their induction programme in school and then
followed this up with a series of individual and group interviews over two
years. I chose open-ended, semi-structured interviews to allow the interaction
to be free and open and soon found that my research took on an
emancipatory intention because of the enthusiasm of my participants who
were eager to engage in the interviews and were anxious to discuss and
evolve their own sense of teacher identity.
The school I used as the research site is a mixed, split-site comprehensive of
1500 pupils. The school is over subscribed and the economic and social
background to the school is generally above the national average. The
7
management of the school at the time of the research could be described as
managerial. Thus the school management supported the 'new' accountable
professional as there was an emphasis on performativity with wide use of
Ofsted type observation of lessons to monitor teacher effectiveness. The main
mission of the school was focussed on a culture of achievement and
government directives with a commitment to formally measure improvements
on an annual basis. There was an insistence on the need to improve external
examination results at all key stages to evidence improvement and witness
success in comparative league tables. Management had been keen to recruit
a high percentage of NQTs in a bid to change the age profile of the staff which
had become 'top heavy' with a large number of teachers who were nearing
retirement age. There had been conflicts between the ‘new’ performance-
driven professionalism of management and the traditional ‘old’
professionalism of the staff in post before the new management had arrived.
The latter were anxious to retain their autonomy and suspicious of prescriptive
policies and audit-based practice. The participants in the research would be
aware of these tensions and be confronted with arguments for both types of
professionalism in their day to day work.
My research is limited in scope. I accept that case study findings are criticised
as a weak vehicle for generalisation but feel strongly that they are relatable.
Bassey (1981:86) expresses this sentiment in this way:
If case studies are carried out systematically and critically, if they are aimed at the
improvement of education, if they are relatable, and if by publication of the findings
they extend the boundaries of existing knowledge, then they are valid forms of
educational research.
8
I was fortunate to be able to approach ten Newly Qualified Teachers, three
men and seven women whose experiences, I would suggest, are typical of the
broad class (Bryman, 1988:91) of NQTs. Any subsequent research could then
focus on the validity of the propositions in other milieus. For the purposes of
this paper, I will refer to the participants by using a pseudonym to protect their
anonymity.
The school and the Local Education Authority (LEA) were keen to implement
the government directive to give a full induction programme to the NQTs1 and,
interestingly, there were already signs of ambiguity in the definition of
‘professional’ in the advice offered to the NQTs. The induction programme
brought together a worthy range of established members of staff who told the
NQTs about various aspects of school life. At these meetings, there were
some oblique references to the government which alluded to the fact that
what we were doing was different to the past and unavoidable because it was
the government who was setting the agenda, but there was no overt mention
of government definitions of professionalism. Mostly the NQTs were given a
knowledge base of the way things were, with interesting occasional hints of
some indistinct autonomous ‘professional’ possibilities; an Assistant
Headteacher responsible for pastoral matters suggested:
‘What you do in registration is up to you.’
And
‘You can put them on report if it is your judgement to do this.’
The irony here was that there was no guidance at all as to what was meant by
their professional judgement. They were prescribed in virtually every situation
1 Qualified teacher standards, (TTA, 2002a) and Induction pack, (TTA, 2002b)
9
and suddenly expected to have the kind of ‘gut feeling’ professionalism of
experienced teachers to deal with putting children onto report. Trust was
handed out sparingly here because ‘we’, that is to say the school, were
following government direction. The sudden invitation to be trusted to use
professional judgement suggested that ‘old’ professional values were still
lurking somewhere amongst prescriptive policy.
In the induction programme, there was no evident distinction between advice
and compulsion. It was extremely rare for anyone but the speaker to speak,
so there was monologue, not dialogue. It could be argued that a valuable
opportunity to engage the NQTs in the formulation of their new identity as
teachers was lost. In the same Autumn term of their induction year, I started
my interviews with the participants on an individual basis. Now they showed
themselves to be articulate and enjoyed the opportunity to discover their own
thoughts on identity; this enjoyment increased over the two year research
process as they became more comfortable with the research process.
The first time that I asked ‘Are you a professional?’ it was immediately
apparent that ‘professionalism’ was a difficult concept for my participants. Gill
stopped and stared at me:
‘How do you define professional?’
I explained that I was hoping that she would have her own definitions and
declined to answer. However, throughout the interviews I had to share the
onus of response with the participants to help them unravel their thoughts, not
mine. Throughout the whole debate on professionalism there were constant
10
hesitancies from all participants, suggesting that the outline provided by the
government of a partnership of pressure and support was either not known or
not accepted by them. Carol seemed quite surprised that she did not know
whether she was a professional or not:
‘It’s very strange. It’s a strange terminology.’
There was discomfort with the word; it was not part of their vocabulary, as
witnessed by Rachel:
‘It’s really hard. Plumber’s a trade. I don’t know. That’s really got me thinking now. I
wonder what it says in the dictionary.’
Inadvertently she had picked on the whole point, which was to get them
thinking about their professionalism.
Emma started out with absolute surety:
‘Teaching is definitely a profession,’
but immediately capitulated when I eagerly asked her to define what she
meant by that:
‘ … ’ (total blank and then) ‘maybe you’re focussed. Um, I don’t know really.’
‘Is any job a profession then?’
‘I don’t think you could definitely say yes or no to be honest, it’s hard.’
This suggested that for Emma the surety of the ‘old’ professional had been
eroded; even if the word was acceptable, it had no substance. There was
some debate over the difference between professional as a noun and
professional as an adjective. The latter use was easier for them to deal with:
‘You have a professional manner. It’s being fair, not getting angry, remaining calm,
not letting your feelings cloud your judgement in a situation.’ Sandra
11
But Sandra was not keen on the word professional as a descriptor of her
identity and was looking for another and, even though we tried together, we
could not find anything which satisfied her.
As I evidently was not going to let the question go away, the participants
started to find definitions. There was a notion of professionalism implying
distance and ‘being a role model’, recalling ‘old’ professionalism where one is
trusted because one is a professional by dint of expertise:
‘It’s being a role model. Professionalism is about boundaries – it’s about having the
best relationship you can with the kids without being “matey”.’ Maria
At first every job was a ‘profession’ for most participants:
‘Anyone who can do the job to the best of their abilities, irrespective of qualification
and irrespective of job.’ Edward
But as the discussion continued, some participants began to consider that
teachers were different and that teacher professionalism was exclusive.
Rachel certainly did draw a distinction between teaching and other ‘jobs’:
‘I know it sounds really snobby but I wouldn’t say if you’re a cleaner you’re a
professional. I get annoyed when people undermine the teaching profession because
you do a damn good job and you work hard and it’s an important job – I mean, we
teach the professionals.’
Simon put a training time limit onto the definition of professional as he
searched for some exclusivity:
‘How I would define professional is somebody who is trained to do a job …but then so
would most people be …so I suppose you could draw a line at 2 years training or 3
years training, an arbitrary line.’
The problem of an elusive exclusivity went on to confuse his definition:
12
‘Somebody who has the ability and authority to make their own decisions … but I
guess in most professions people are or in most jobs people are.’
Every way he turned with his definition, he allowed all other jobs in:
‘I am in charge of my own development, but I guess in most professions people are or
in most jobs people are.’
He did finally find an exclusivity in teaching which sets it apart from other
‘traditional’ professions such as doctor or lawyer through two specific things;
one was the raw material, that is to say the children and the second was the
structure and intense accountability:
‘Kids are assessed and assessed and assessed and the work we do is assessed and
assessed and assessed and it does feel we are assessing for the sake of assessing,
producing figures and targets and levels for the sake of it.’
This difference was addressed by Chris:
‘I think it is now a profession and the expectations that are placed upon us are very
rigorous. We are held accountable now for not only predicting where they (the pupils)
are at but where they should be and we carry the can if they don’t achieve.’
He implies that it did not use to be a profession when there was little or no
accountability and so is suggesting the ‘new’ professional image rather than
the ‘old’. He explained this further because:
‘Now you have to have a degree.’
This further qualification raised the stakes in his eyes to create a profession
rather than a job. His conclusion was that professionalism equated with
responsibility, and the teacher’s responsibility is huge:
‘If you try and compare us with lawyers, they are responsible for the outcome of a
particular case but ours is an extended version of that – we just have many more
cases.’
Thus ‘professionalism’ for these participants in the early days of their career
was something of a closed book, but two significant things had emerged;
13
firstly that teachers are ‘different’ and secondly that the participants were
starting to consider professionalism and to formulate their responses to it.
By the end of the first year I expected that the participants would have
adopted a firmer stance with respect to their definition of themselves in
professional terms, but, when I asked if they felt any closer to being sure that
they were ‘professionals’, the question was greeted with total silence.
Evidently the concept of ‘professionalism’ remained a closed book, irrelevant
or unfathomable. Interesting as the silence was as an indicator of resistance
to the concept of professionalism, I decided to outline more specifically the
concepts of ‘old’ and ‘new’ professional to generate debate. I therefore
explained ‘old’ traditional views of professionalism as endowed with trust
through expertise and ‘new’ managerial professionalism which demanded
accountability through measurable criteria. There was consensus that
professionalism should be accountable in this way, regardless of the fact that
their ideals, values, love of ‘gut instinct’ and desire to be trusted without
scrutiny expressed in other parts of the research had suggested that this
would not be the case. Emma expressed it in these terms:
‘Why should I be paid the same as someone else and they don’t do any work?’
This would back up the government outline of a professionalism which needs
to be closely monitored and defined (Morris, 2001). The idea of defining
professionalism was taken up by Maria:
‘If you can’t define it, you can’t measure it.’
A teacher’s accountability to society had to be uppermost and their
professionalism must be ‘proven’:
‘A professional should know what they have to achieve and achieve those results. I
14
can be trusted but not all teachers can be.’ Emma
Sarah took up the idea of trust, stating that a professional should be left to get
on with the job and be trusted – the ‘old’ professional – and then immediately
contradicted this, saying that teachers should be monitored – the ‘new’
professional – because:
‘Being monitored is negative because I don’t like being observed, but the end result, if
it’s done well, is good because I can improve and I’ll do a better job and the children
get more out of what I’m doing.’
Hence the uncertainty over professionalism was still evident, the participants
seemed to want both ‘old’ and ‘new’; they want to be trusted and have
autonomy but they not only accept accountability and close monitoring but
they almost demand it to prove their worth and make the system ‘fair’.
My next interviews were with individuals in the Autumn term of their second
year. This time I deliberately deleted the word ‘professional’ from my
questions to pursue other aspects of my research, but now the term kept
recurring, initiated by the participants. When it was not under the microscope
and being dissected, the word ‘professional’ had to do, for want of anything
better, to express the uniqueness of their chosen path and the lack of
boundaries to the commitment it demanded. For example, Rachel who had
wanted to look up ‘professional’ in the dictionary now claimed teaching as a
‘profession’ without demur:
‘It’s an individual profession, you’re independent.’
Gill, who had wanted to quiz my definition of ‘professional’ rather than commit
to her own, suddenly used the word unthinkingly as if it was a normal
descriptor of a teacher:
15
‘I’m a teacher 7 days a week whether I like it or not – as a committed professional
your work does not stop at 4.30.’ Gill
But the word ‘professional’ had been used as a subconscious expedient here,
not as a convinced and well-defined concept so I did not pursue this. However
I noted that the use they were making of the apparently indispensable term
did imply ‘old’ professional values, not audit and accountability.
I returned to the question, ‘Are you a professional?’ after a year without
mentioning it in the Summer term of their second year. A definitive answer
was still not available but the participants had now considered their ideas and
there were no silences. Significantly, they wanted to find a definition, to invent
a way to describe their professionalism from their experience of their trade. All
the participants tried to formulate a definition but there was still that feeling of
unease within the word itself and, this time, no desire to embrace the ‘new’
professional. There was a yearning regret for the ‘old’ professionalism which
did not surprise me because of the number of times throughout the interviews
when ‘gut feeling’, trust, autonomy and caring for the child rather than the
statistics had been mentioned. Emma, for example, was hesitant when faced
with the word ‘professional’ again, but then chose the ‘old’ values of
uniqueness and dedication as the definition of professionalism:
‘Teaching is a job that no one understands unless they have done it and I’d say the
dedication that we have to put in … we have to be totally engrossed, you can’t wake
up with a hang-over on Monday morning and come in.’
When I suggested ‘new’ values of competency and performativity she replied:
‘It demeans it rather,’
rejecting any attempt to merge new ideas into her concept of professionalism.
16
Other examples of the participants’ attempts to define their professionalism
were still the ‘old’ concepts. Simon claimed autonomy over decision making:
‘I see myself as a professional because I want to make decisions that I will justify as
my professional opinion. I don’t refer to people before I make those decisions.’
Although this is undeniably possible, it must be acknowledged that this kind of
professional autonomy is limited and that the decisions that teachers make
are influenced by and dependent on the current climate of managerialism.
The contradictions evident in their acceptance and rejection of ‘new’
professionalism are perhaps explained by Simon. He made a definite
distinction between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ professionalism, taking the former as
true professionalism and the latter as something else entirely. Getting the
results did not belong to professionalism:
‘I wouldn’t define that as professional, I would define that as effective.’
Finally, one group debate illustrated the problem of the ‘new’ professional very
well. As no one wanted to fully commit to being a professional, they decided
that the word ‘professional’ was inadequate. Therefore the only thing to do
was to create a new word for a new concept:
A teacher could be classed as an academic to make a distinction. You need a new
word to distinguish – a professional academic – an ‘acafessional’’. Gill
In the induction twilight meetings, the Headteacher had suggested the need
for teachers to ‘distil’ the directives coming from the government, but these
participants had distilled very little with regard to teacher professionalism.
They gave no impression of ever having considered the term, let alone its
definition or its applicability to them. Dent and Whitehead (2002) suggest that
professionalism has lost its exclusivity and, at first, the participants were
17
reluctant to separate teaching from any other job. But, as they struggled to
define their professionalism, they began to contradict themselves and
gradually reclaimed exclusivity with vehemence. For them, teachers are
unique, dedicated, committed, accountable, role models. Teaching is
dependent on training, it is ‘different’, not the stereotypical concept of a
professional. Society’s image of them mattered, they were proud of their job.
Willis (2002:15) asks if we speak language or if language speaks us. If we are
defined by external forces we surely are being spoken by the language of
those external forces, whereas if we assume a type of professionalism that
insists on self-definition, then we begin to devolve our own vocabulary and
syntax, which is precisely what happened to these participants by the time
‘professionalism’ came round in the final group sessions. As NQTs they had
been neither ‘re-professionalised’ nor ‘de-professionalised’, because they
were just starting out, but they most certainly had not been ‘professionalised’.
I do not mean this to be an external formulation of their professionalism, but
rather an internal realisation; the concept was not in their self-image, they had
no conception of their professional identity and gradually became eager to
discover it. The overall impression was that the participants needed
something that the word ‘professional’ had once fulfilled but was no longer
able to and that they wanted to define it and name it, to claim ownership of it,
to endow it with trust and dignity. There seemed to have been nowhere,
except in these research dialogues, that they had had the opportunity to begin
this quest and they were anxious to continue the debate to gain self respect
and a truer sense of self definition than they had at present.
18
To underpin my research with the Newly Qualified Teachers I used aspects of
Critical Theory and Interpretivism in a complementary way. I started my
investigation of professional identity from a clear premise – my own conviction
that a personal understanding of one’s own professionalism will prevent the
‘confusion’ which Carr and Hartnett (1997:1) thought would be the evitable
outcome of work overload and questionable limits of professional
responsibilities. I would argue that the participants’ ‘need’ for something,
encapsulated within their ill-defined concept of ‘professionalism’, confirms this.
Cox (1980:128-130) explains that Critical Theory stands apart from the
prevailing order of the world and questions its inception; it challenges the
status quo. If one does not know or understand the status quo, that is to say
in this situation the government definition of teacher professionalism, how can
one challenge it or accept it? Case study research by Bottery, (1998:40) into
professionalism amongst teachers reported:
What is perturbing is … that they (the respondents were a cross-section of
experience and seniority of the staff of two schools) failed to locate their own
problems within a wider context, which would have helped to explain their genesis
and effects more clearly, and allowed them to understand and perhaps even cope
better with the situations they found themselves in.
A deeper understanding of the forces behind daily practice makes for a far
more rational and measured approach to effective practice at all stages of a
teacher’s career.
There is danger with Critical Theory’s challenge of the status quo and that is
that it tends to dictate terms, replacing one concept with a new and ‘better’
19
one. This would negate the emancipatory effect of challenging external views
on professionalism as one definition is not necessarily any better or worse,
simply different. It is essential that the status quo is never discarded cynically
and that beginning teachers are invited to probe current thinking deeply with
the aim of agreeing or disagreeing, but, most importantly, being convinced of
good reasons for their accord or disaccord. For this reason I turn to the
Interpretive paradigm to aid the individual’s search for professionalism
because Interpretivism uses language to question and keep the debate alive.
The term ‘professional’ has different currency, depending on who is using it;
there are differences between each individual teacher’s interpretation of the
word and the definitions proposed by government. I would argue that this is a
healthy state of affairs. An Interpretive questioning alerts beginning teachers
to explore their professionalism in a way which is vibrant, constantly changing,
and constantly developing.
My recommendations for practice are born of my research and my
participants’ struggles with their professional identity, but I freely admit that
they are influenced by my own professional values and my concern for the
professional values of my colleagues. As a teacher starting out in an era when
there was little prescriptive policy and few documents on teacher
professionalism, I must report that a convinced professionalism did not
magically appear before me; I had to struggle for my own way of positioning
my professionalism without any forums to aid my endeavours. What I suggest
here is that this was not helpful then and is not helpful now. Teachers should
be encouraged to actively engage in the definition of their professionalism.
20
This should start in training, continue through the induction year and be
followed up through Continuing Professional Development throughout their
career. This is not suggested as a time-consuming adjunct where no extra
time exists, but as a focus engrained in the culture of teachers and teaching.
Encouraging all teachers to embrace their job as a ‘profession’ and involving
them in the articulation of their own professional identity would raise self
esteem and re-define ‘trust’ as a positive feature between government and
teachers. It would give confidence to the individual who would work to limit the
contradictions within his or her own personal definition of professionalism. On
a wider scale, there could be significant repercussions to the benefit of the
retention of teachers within the profession because they had developed the
concept of teaching as a profession for themselves. Bottery and Wright
(2000:124) suggest that:
A teaching profession that has been duped into a false professionalism will be unable
to decide or recognise where it is being led.
A teaching profession which has defined and embraced its own
professionalism within the external framework will, I suggest, be able to lead
itself in a more effective partnership with the state.
References
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Bottery, M. (1998) Professionals and Policy: Management Strategy in a Competitive World, London, Cassell.
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