In recent years the discourse of professional ethics in the teaching profession has been dominated in many countries around the world by debates over the introduction of standards and codes of practice. At the same time there has been increasing acknowledgement of the importance of situated professional learning and an 'activist' role being ascribed to teachers. In this changing context, it is interesting to consider the extent to which, and in what ways, teachers are "re-storying" their own professional roles and priorities to take account of the expectations articulated within this discourse. The language of some published codes of professional practice for teachers carries strong warning messages about inappropriate conduct as well as positive aspirational statements regarding enhanced and extended professional roles and responsibilities. These mixed messages are clearly open to a range of interpretations both by teachers themselves and by other stakeholders in education. The present paper presents the results of a study of teachers in Scotland and Israel, two countries of equivalent size, but with contrasting professional conditions for teachers. A sample of eight experienced teachers who were involved in Continuing Professional Development activities in each country was asked firstly to provide a self- characterisation sketch from which key professional constructs were extracted. Secondly, a set of statements of professional values and commitments derived from an international sample of documented professional standards and codes of practice, translated into English and Hebrew, as appropriate, was offered to the teachers who were then asked to rank these in terms of their importance. Thirdly the teachers were asked to explain their rankings in relation to their own personal constructs of professionalism derived from the characterisation sketches. The results provide an insight into the ways teachers construe professional ethics and into underlying professional values which are rarely explicitly articulated. The similarities and differences between Scottish and Israeli teachers are discussed in relation to salient features of the social, political and professional contexts in the two countries.