This paper is based on empirical research undertaken for the Scottish Executive. It examines how teachers view their working lives in the light of major changes to working conditions, following the publication in 2001 of the McCrone Agreement. The paper will explain the background to this landmark agreement ( including the introduction of the concept of the 35 hour working week as well as the introduction of mandatory Continuing Professional Development). It will then discuss the findings from the focus group element of the Teacher Working Time Research which formed a vital contextual element for the Scottish Executive project. This contextual element involved extensive questionnaire and interview data collected from representative constituencies among Scottish teachers. This data showed that Scottish teachers were involved in processes of change arising from the policies put in place following the McCrone Agreement. While the policy inevitably dealt with strategic issues such as working time, place of work, and continuing professional development, it did more than this in that it recast meanings of what it is to be a professional teacher in Scotland. This recasting has had implications for how teachers conceptualise thier work. Arguably, Scottish teachers have long worked with concepts of professionalism which in many ways have been taken for granted by stakeholders including policy makers. Furthermore, they ahve had to contend with discourse of derision which have questioned the concept of teacher professionalism. It could be argued that having clear notions of professionalism at the heart of education policy is a positive move. However, it could equally be argued that the notions of professionalism at the core of the McCrone Agreement are simplistic and instrumental and do not fully reflect the complex notions of professional identity that Scottish teachers inhabit. The research in particular draws on the work of Kelchtermans and his conceptualization of the connection between emotion, cognition, self, context and purposeful action and with his argument that teachers actions are bounded by their sense of professional identity. This research is therefore of interest in any national context where educational policy has to be implemented, as it argues that policymakers need to understand the professional contexts for teachers’ actions, especially where policy is designed to impact upon practice. In this sense, the Scottish study can be seen as a case which has much wider implications. The interview and questionnaire data from our extensive national study show in some respects a mismatch between teachers' expectations of the new professional landscape that they feel the McCrone Agreement was supposed to develop. This paper will present an insight into the ways in which teachers conceive of their professionalism within the new policy context and will offer analysis into the reasons why the mismatch has occurred. We shall discuss teachers' views of the move to the 35 hour working week, the introduction of new promotion and management structures into Scottish schools, their responses to the mandatory continuing professional development requirement and the new arrangements for classroom support which more fully embeds the work of para-professionals within the school system.

National sample questionnaires Interviews of individual teachers nationwide in Scotland Focus groups on a national geographic and population basis Interviews with local authority representatives

Conclusions reveal that the perceptions of policy makers and the policy community on issues of teacher professionalism are differentto the conceptions of professionalism held by the teachers themselves in a number of vital ways.