Teacher education in Scotland, as in many other European countries, is currently undergoing significant reform. As part of this reform movement, 2011 saw the publication of two significant reports: the ‘Donaldson Report’ on teacher education and the ‘McCormac Report’ on teacher employment. Both of these reports, and the subsequent policy development and implementation working groups, draw heavily on the concept of ‘professionalism’ as a central construct in the reform process. Phrases such as ‘enhanced professionalism’, reinvigorated professionalism’ and ‘twenty-first century professionalism’ pepper both reports, and the key means through which such professionalism is to be enacted is suggested as greater partnership working. This paper adopts a critical discourse analysis approach in interrogating both the Donaldson and McCormac Reports, together with subsequent publications from the National Implementation Board, with a view to identifying and making transparent the way(s) in which the concept of professionalism is being used as a mode of governance. Results reveal a powerful agenda which simultaneously promotes professionalism as a means through which teachers might gain greater autonomy, while also acting ‘as a way to get teachers to … comply willingly with increased intensification of their labour in the workplace’ (Hargreaves & Goodson, 1996).