This paper offers a critical review of policy documents related to early career primary school teachers in England and Greece. It seeks to illustrate how the educational policy discourses form the teacher-subjects by constructing and delimiting their field of possibilities. In particular, it sheds light on the operating modes of governance within each country and the prevailing modes of subjectivation that they are linked to. The review focuses on beginning teachers, who are still negotiating their position and trying to navigate within the educational system, as they are at the start of their professional journey (Correa, Martínez-Arbelaiz & Aberasturi-Apraiz, 2015; Lanas, 2017).

Hence, this critical review aims to compare and contrast the way early career primary school teachers are formed as subjects and objects of the educational policy discourses in Greece and England. It illustrates the prevailing modes of governance and the strategic relations that are deployed to regulate teachers’ action and conduct in primary school education in Greece and England. Comparing and contrasting these two paradigms allows an insight on beginning teachers’ freedom, the prevailing modes of subjectivation, and the way they are encouraged to relate with their professional self.

Foucault’s theoretical framework is utilised as the lens to examine the formation of the teacher-subject through the educational policy discourses in Greece and England. The critical aspect of his theory and the useful concepts it provides the researcher with will be used as a tool to analyse the discursive formations and illustrate the way power strategies and relations actively constitute beginning primary school teachers. Examining primary school as an institution where power, discourse and knowledge are coming together, can empower an analysis of the limits, the dominant disciplinary techniques, and the cracks where resistance can be cultivated (Foucault, 1991; 1989; 1982). 

This critical review will examine a body of recent scientific literature and official policy documents. The documents of the sample will include official government documents, as laws, amendments and statutory guidance, documents from the national teachers’ unions in the examined countries, as well as scientific and non-scientific articles. These will be analysed using critical discourse analysis, in an attempt to understand the social and cultural context of primary school education in both countries and to identify the subject positions which can be occupied by the teachers within that (Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine, 2008). The choice of this analytical approach was informed by the theoretical framework of the research.

The key points from the analysis of the aforementioned documents will revolve around the mechanisms used to regulate beginning primary school teachers’ action and conduct in England and Greece, the limits set to their freedom and the ways they are encouraged to relate to themselves and others within the school system. The English educational system is founded on the principles of accountability and control. Therefore, it is expected that teachers experience a multi-level regulation, being monitored both at a school level and indirectly at a state level, through surveillance and other disciplinary techniques. On the other hand, the Greek educational system remains highly ethnocentric and the educational content is centrally planned. Hence, it is expected that regulatory mechanisms in Greece focus on teachers’ working conditions and the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the educational process (Ball, 2017; Jones, 2016; Kazamias, 2011; Stevenson &Wood, 2013; Traianou, 2009). The different regulatory mechanisms in the two countries are closely related to teachers’ field of possibilities. In the decentralised English educational system, beginning teachers’ limits are set by the intense monitoring mechanisms. However, teachers enjoy freedom regarding aspects of their working conditions and the choice of the educational content. Conversely, in Greece beginning teachers’ field of possibilities is delimited by central prescriptions, controlling their working conditions and the educational content. Howbeit, the lack of direct control and assessment allows early career teachers greater agency inside the classroom. Examining the main aspects of the two educational systems, as they have emerged from the analysis so far, we can state that different national traits and needs have led to the constitution of different modes of governance. However, both Greece and England aim at increasing their force in the global market by deploying mechanisms of control and surveillance.

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