Teacher policy has evolved considerably over the last thirty years in many countries, reflecting the growth of political interest in the teaching profession and its link with the quality of education. Various trends in the education governance landscape can be observed such as the importance given to market-oriented strategies and accountability schemes, greater control of teachers’ work, and increasing fragmentation of teachers’ careers and trajectories (Ball, 1997; Webb, 2005; Maroy, 2008; Ozga, 2009; Mons & Dupriez, 2011). If these trends together tend to question what teachers are supposed to teach (curricula), how they are supposed to teach (their practices), and the working conditions of the teaching profession (Connell, 2009), they nevertheless take various forms depending on national contexts leading to distinct ways of regulating teachers ‘careers. The literature has indeed highlighted that several different ways of regulating teachers’ careers and trajectories can be observed across countries. Regarding initial teacher training (ITT), some countries are trying to favor short term and alternative training programs as well as multiple pathways for certification in what Lessard (2006) identifies as a “decentralized and market model”. Some others promote long-term university training that combines subject and pedagogical training in a so-called “professional model” of ITT (Lessard, 2006; Tatto & Plank, 2007). Recently, scholars as well as international organizations have tried to characterize several models of regulation of teachers’ careers (see OECD, 2005; Tatto, 2007). However, existing typologies often focus on a single aspect of teachers’ related policy (such as ITT, continuing professional development etc.) and suffer from a lack of theoretical foundations. Consequently, the literature struggles to build complex models of regulation of teachers‘ careers in a comparative perspective.

The purpose of our communication is twofold. We will first present an original typology highlighting dominants models of regulation of teachers‘ careers that takes into account central dimensions of the teaching profession (education and training, career pathways, and professionalism). Second, we will discuss the effects of these dominant models on teachers’ segregation, attrition and migration, which are central issues in many education systems. Indeed, we hypothesize that the models have differentiated effects regarding these key issues.

 As a theoretical basis, Friedson’ work (2001) allows us to distinguish three main ideal-types (Weber, 1993) of organization and control of work, or in other words three dominant models of regulation of teachers ‘work and the teaching profession – the bureaucracy, the market, and the professionalism as a “third logic” (Friedson, 2001). These dominant models encompass distinct mains actors, central policy tools and logics at work in order to regulate the teaching profession. They stand on three inter-related pillars: 1) the division of the labor that refers to the permanence of occupations, their degree of differentiation and types of specialization. In a market-oriented model, such as England, we can hypothesize that the vertical and horizontal mobility of teachers is encouraged in a labor market that favored employment flexibility. 2) Education and training deals as a second pillar with the organization of teachers’ education and training, the knowledge and skills teachers need to acquire as well as the level of required specialization. In a professional oriented model, such as Finland, teachers are trained in long-term university programs that focus on thinking processes and autonomous professional development (Silander & Valijarvi, 2013). 3) The third pillar refers to the professional and social status of teachers as well as to their power as a professional group regarding the definition, control and evaluation of their own work. 

This study, based on a mixed-method research design, is based on two distinct data sources and analytical phases. First, in order to elaborate our typology of teachers’ career regulation, we conducted both an extensive non-exhaustive literature review and a policy documents analysis. Relevant empirical and institutional literature linked to our central dimensions (education and training, careers pathways, professionalism) was selected in order to characterize dominant regulation models of teachers’ careers in several education systems in Europe, South and North America, and Asia. Second, we used the OECD TALIS 2013 database and multilevel regression models to analyze the effects of these dominant models on the status of the profession, teacher segregation, and teacher mobility in 33 education systems. Relevant variables in TALIS 2013 databases referring to these three central dimensions were selected.

Preliminary results indicate that the occupational model distinguishes from the two others on the perception that teachers have about the status of their profession, and on their intention of migration (between schools mobility). Teachers in this model seems to perceive their profession having a higher status and to be inclined to change their work contexts. The segregation of novice teachers in the low SES schools appear to be stronger in the market model, and even more in the bureaucratic model, which can be interpreted by the priority given to more experienced teachers in the bureaucratic management of careers. Thus, our work suggest that teachers‘ related policies should be interrogated regarding the values and conception of teachers underpinning them, the tools they advocate, and the effects they have on key issues such as teachers’ segregation, attrition and migration.

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