Teachers’ professionalism and professionality in different time and space On teachers’ autonomy between pedagogical practice and state governance

Author(s):

Wieland Wermke(presenting / submitting)Gabriella Höstfält

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 07, Parallel Session H 07

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-13

14:00-15:30

Room:

JK 27/106,G, 42

Chair:

Graham Hallett

Contribution

This contribution describes several theoretical conceptions of the teaching profession in order to develop a heuristic tool for the comparison of the teaching profession in different national contexts. In order to understand and explain collective behaviour and beliefs of teachers it requires a theoretical approach that relates the imperatives and constraints of their pedagogical practice to their work in a state-regulated organisation as the school. This builds a field of tension teachers have to act in; between on the one hand, teachers’ development of and in the profession, on the other hand the space and freedom they have for the development. Both sides can be described empirically and historically: firstly by the relation between the individual teachers’ professionality and the professionalism of the collective teacher; secondly, by the autonomy teachers have in their pedagogical decisions in the constraints of an organisational framework of a school system.

Method

Based on these considerations about the particularities of the teaching profession the contribution finally combines Hopmann’s (2003) idea of two different forms of curriculum evaluation resulting in a process- and product-related professionalism and Hoyle’s (1975) distinction between restricted and extended professionality. Both concepts make it possible to relate teachers’ profession to the (national) context they are embedded in. Both concepts are related to different compartive studies on the teaching profession as of Broadfoot et. al. (1993), Carlgren & Klette (2008) and Wermke (2010).

Expected Outcomes

This article closes with a proposal of a model that make it possible to compare the teaching profession in different contexts (figure 1). At the same time it also makes an appeal for the application of contextualized comparisons to understand the teaching profession. It describes this relation and gives examples for different combinations of time and space. Using firstly different forms of school governance and secondly Swedish teachers in different periods of the 20th century as examples the heuristic usefulness of the model for the description of certain cases and the comparison of different cases is proved. The model aims to contribute to an understanding of the contextuality of the teaching profession in time and space. This problematizes universals truths and magic recipies and might help to develop development programmes fitting to the nation-specific culture of teachers.

References

Broadfoot, P., Osborn, M., Gilly, M., and Bucher, A., 1993. Perceptions of teaching. Primary school teachers in England and France. New York: Cassell. Carlgren, I. and Klette, K., 2008. Reconstructions of Nordic teachers: reform policies and teachers’ work during the 1990s. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 52 (2), 117–133. Evans, L. 1998. Teacher morale, job satisfaction and motivation, Paul Chapman, London. Evans, L. 2008. Professionalism, professionality and the development of educational professionals. British Journal of Educational Studies, 56, 20-38. Gehrmann, A., 2003. Der Professionelle Lehrer. Muster der Begründung – Empirische Rekonstruktion. Opladen: Leske und Budrich. Hopmann, S. 2003. On the evaluation of curriculum reforms. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35, 459-478. Hopmann, S. 2006. Im Durchschnitt Pisa oder bleibt schlechter. In: Lehrpläne und Bildungsstandards. Was Schüler und Schülerinnen lernen sollen. eds L. Criblez, P. Gautschi, P. Hirt Monico & H. Messner), HEP, Bern, pp. 149-169. Hoyle, E. 2008. Changing conceptions of teaching as a profession: Personal reflections. In: Teaching: Professionalization, development and leadership. eds D. Johnson & R. Maclean), Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 285-304. Wermke, W. (2010) Professional development in context. Teachers’ professional development culture in germany and sweden. Professional Development in Education (onlinefirst)

Author Information

Wieland Wermke (presenting / submitting)

Stockholm University

Department of Education

Stockholm

Gabriella Höstfält

Stockholm University, Sweden

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