Session Information
27 SES 08 C, Teacher's Autonomy and Habits across Curriculum Reforms
Paper Session
Contribution
Teacher autonomy has remained a subject of heated debate in many European contexts during the past decades. Boundaries of teachers’ decision-making capacity and action; what teachers can, and cannot do, are topics of political, academic and practice-based debates at local, national and international contexts. Take the Swedish teacher autonomy debates as an example. For a number of years, due to its success in international comparisons, Finnish education system became the dream of a good school in Sweden, and it’s autonomous teachers were considered a key contributor to the success (Stenlås, 2009; SOU 2014). Similar arguments have been put forward also, for example, in Germany (Eller, 2013) and England (DfE, 2010). On the other hand, also negative examples occur in international comparisons, as, for example Swedish researchers have pointed out how New Public Management reforms have considerably limited teachers scope of action in England (Lundahl, 2011; Lundahl, Erixon Arreman, Lundström & Rönn 2010).
It is important to draw a distinction here between the concept of school autonomy and teacher autonomy; concepts that are often used interchangeably in education policy rhetoric, and as such create considerable confusion concerning whose autonomy truly is in question. For example recent education policy reforms in England and Sweden have focussed on school autonomy (Glatter, 2012; Holmgren, Johansson, Nihlfors, & Skott, 2012), which many proponents of the reforms have argued to enhance the autonomy of teachers. However, research has pointed out that increased school-level autonomy has not necessarily increased the autonomy of teachers, but rather the governance and management involved (Salokangas & Chapman, 2014; Wermke, 2013).
Arguably international comparisons concerning teacher autonomy should remain sensitive to the contextual properties in which teachers operate and consider what autonomy actually means in different national, and local contexts for the particular teachers in question. Teacher autonomy also comprises differing dimensions in different national contexts, which confuse simple comparisons. A body of literature concerning multidimensionality of teacher autonomy exists from the Nordic countries. Earlier works (Berg, 1993; Helgøy & Homme, 2007) explored collective an individual nature or autonomy. Later, Fredriksson (2010) proposes a vertical/horizontal distinction focussing on the relationships between teachers and institutions of state governance. Forstenson (2012) again proposed three dimensions of autonomy: professional, faculty or staff , and individual dimension. Wermke and Höstfält (2014) add institutional, and service dimensions to this.
In academic literature, teacher autonomy is often discussed from the perspective of teacher professionalism and is considered an essential component of the teaching profession; something teachers should possess in order to qualify as professionals. Apart from this line of research and discourse, we argue that teacher autonomy remains somewhat under-theorised and examined. This contribution takes a broader approach to the concept by reviewing conceptual and empirical work conducted on teacher autonomy. Consequently, we will not discuss the professionalisation of teachers, nor their professionalism, but instead different conceptualisations of teacher autonomy. The ways in which literature has approached its multidimensionality, context dependency, different types of autonomy, and the relationship between autonomy and control and/or constraint, will be at the heart of our contribution. Furthermore, it will discuss both theoretical and empirical approaches to teacher autonomy through an extensive literature review in the area.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
DfE (2010a) The importance of teaching – the Schools White Paper 2010 Available at: www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationdetail/Page1/CM%207980#down loadableparts Eller, A. (2013, 2013-06-04). Trygg tjänst för tysk lärare. Lärarnas Nyheter. Retrieved from http://lararnasnyheter.nod1.se/lararnas-tidning/2013/06/04/trygg-tjanst-tysk-larare Gewirtz, S., & Cribb, A. (2009). Understanding education: a sociological perspective. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Glatter, R. (2012). Persistant preoccupations: the rise and rise of school autonomy and accountability in England. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40 (5), 559-575. Holmgren, M., Johansson, O., Nihlfors, E., & Skott, P. (2012). Local school governance in Sweden: Boards, parents, and democracy. Journal of School Public Relations, 33 (1), 8 - 28. Lundahl, L. (2011). The emergence of a Swedish school market. In R. Hatcher & K. Jones (Eds.), No country for the young: Education from New Labour to the coalition(pp. 37-50). London: Tufnell. Lundahl, L., Erixon Arreman, I., Lundström, U., & Rönnberg, L. (2010). Setting things right? Swedish upper secondary school reform in a 40-year perspective. European Journal of Education, 45(1), 49-62. Salokangas, M., & Chapman, C. (2014). Exploring Governance in Two Chains of Academy School s: A Comparative Case Study. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 42(3), 372-386. SOU. (2014: 5). Staten får inte abdikera –om kommunaliseringen av den svenska skolan [The state is not allowed to resign. On the municipalisation of the Swedish school] (Vol. 5). Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Stenlås, N. (2011). Läraryrket mellan autonomi och statliga reformideologier [The teaching profession between professional ideal and state reform. Arbetsmarknad och Arbetsliv, 17 (4), 11 - 27. Wermke, W., & Höstfält, G. (2014). Contextualising teacher autonomy in time and space. A model for comparing various forms of governing the teaching profession. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(1), 58-80.
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