Professionalism, professionality and the status of the teaching profession

1
Professionalism, professionality and the status
of the teaching profession

• invited seminar paper presented at the University
  of Ballarat School of Education
• 7th July 2008
• Dr Linda Evans
• School of Education, University of Leeds, UK

2
The changing face of teacher professionalism in
England

• 1970s
• practically no centrally imposed curricular
  regulations
• religious education
• daily assembly broadly Christian
• anything goes
• autonomous professionalism
• late 1980s mid 1990s (the market phase)
• Educational Reform Act (ERA)
• national curriculum
• local management of schools (LMS)
• a new professionalism/re-professionalism?
• professionalism determined by market forces
• client-led focus
• 1997 present (the targets phase standards
  modernisation agenda)
• pursuit of excellence
• literacy and numeracy targets
• managerialism

3
Context and objectives

• new or modified professionalisms arising from
  the standards and modernisation agenda
• how successfully have professionalisms been
  renovated?
• what have been the effects on teachers and the
  status of the teaching profession?

4
Key foci

• new professionalism as an instrument of change
• the concept of professionalism
• the substance of professionalism
• (re)defining professionalism
• the capacity of reform for achieving professional
  development
• the concept of professional development
• the substance of professional development

5
The concept of professionalism

• Literature review
• socially constructed
• contextually variable
• service level agreement
• defined externally
• defined by the professionals themselves
• constantly being redefined
• status
• homogeneity

6
New professionalisms

• prescriptive
• descriptive
• analytical commentaries
• research reports and analyses
• key feature reduced autonomy and control
• re-professionalisation
• proletarianisation

7
Professionality

• Eric Hoyle
• professionalism - status-related
• the institutional component of professionalisation
  
• professionality - knowledge, skills procedures
• the service component of professionalisation
• extended-restricted professionality continuum

8
Professionality orientation teachers
Eric Hoyle, 1975

• Restricted professionality
• Skills derived from experience
• Perspective limited to the immediate in time and
  place
• Introspective with regard to methods
• Value placed on autonomy
• Infrequent reading of professional literature
• Teaching seen as an intuitive activity

• Extended professionality
• Skills derived from a mediation between
  experience theory
• Perspective embracing the broader social context
  of education
• Methods compared with those of colleagues and
  reports of practice
• Value placed on professional collaboration
• Regular reading of professional literature
• Teaching seen as a rational activity

9
The restricted-extended teacher
professionality continuum
10
Professionality and professionalism

• Professionality is an ideologically-,
  attitudinally-, intellectually-, and
  epistemologically-based stance on the part of an
  individual, in relation to the practice of the
  profession to which s/he belongs, and which
  influences her/his professional practice.
• Evans, L. (2002) Reflective Practice in
  Educational Research (London, Continuum)
• Hoyle (2008) the service component of
  professionalism

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Professionality and professionalism

• Professionalism is
• the plural of professionality
• professionality writ large
• the amalgamation of individuals
  professionalities.
• Professionalism is professionality-influenced
  practice that is consistent with commonly-held
  consensual delineations of a specific profession
  and that both contributes to and reflects
  perceptions of the professions purpose and
  status and the specific nature, range and levels
  of service provided by, and expertise prevalent
  within, the profession, as well as the general
  ethical code underpinning this practice.
• (Evans, L. (2008) Professionalism,
  professionality and the development of education
  professionals, British Journal of Educational
  Studies, 56 (1), 20-38)

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Professionalism and professionality

• Professionality is an ideologically-,
  attitudinally-, intellectually-, and
  epistemologically-based stance on the part of an
  individual, in relation to the practice of the
  profession to which s/he belongs, and which
  influences her/his professional practice.
• Professionalism is the perceived enactment of
  professionality-influenced practice that is
  consistent with commonly-held consensual
  delineations of a specific profession and that
  both contributes to and reflects perceptions of
  the professions purpose and status and the
  specific nature, range and levels of service
  provided by and expertise prevalent within the
  profession.

13
The impact of government policy on teacher
professionalism

• A closer look at professionalism
• 2 main perspectives
• subjective professionalism
• objective professionalism
• 3 reified states of professionalism
• Professionalism that is demanded or requested
• specific service level demands or requests
• Professionalism that is prescribed
• envisaged or recommended service levels
• Professionalism that is enacted
• as observed
• Only the 3rd of these is real

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From demanded to enacted professionalism

• The capacity of reform for achieving
  professional development
• A new professionalism isnt a new
  professionalism unless it is enacted.
• Reform or policy change is a professional
  development initiative
• How may reformers or change agents achieve
  professional development within a
  professionality-influenced professionalism?

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Key components of professionalism
Subjective professionalism
Functional component
Intellectual component
Attitudinal component
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intellectual component
What do practitioners know and understand?
What does the professional knowledge base
comprise? Are there specialist areas? Are there
minimum (general) practitioner knowledge
requirements?
comprehensive dimension
What is the basis of practitioners knowledge?

• Common sense and experience?
• Research and/or scholarship?
• In which disciplines/subjects?
• What depth?
• What width?
• Contextual differences?

epistemological dimension
To what extent do practitioners apply reason to
decision making?
Is practice underpinned by rationality,
intuition, or a mediation of the two?
rationalistic dimension
17
attitudinal component
How do practitioners perceive things (issues,
situations, people, activity, etc.)? How do they
perceive their profession and its purpose?
What perceptions do practitioners hold? What
perceptions do they not hold? How
widespread/consensual are specific perceptions? Ar
e there any key/core perceptions?
perceptual dimension
How do practitioners evaluate things (issues,
situations, people, activity, etc.)? How do they
evaluate their profession and its purpose?
What values do practitioners hold? How
widespread/consensual are these values? Are there
any key/core values?
evaluative dimension
How motivated are practitioners? What motivates
them?
How motivated are practitioners? What motivates
them?
motivational dimension
18
functional component
What processes do practitioners apply to their
practice?
Advising? Educating? Regulating? Policy
analysis? Knowledge generation? Learning? Inter-in
stitutional collegiality?
processual dimension
What procedures do practitioners apply to their
practice? What hierarchical procedures operate
within the workforce? What stratification exists
within the workforce?
Mode(s) of communication? Mode(s) of implementing
policy? Mode(s) of regulating? Mode(s) of
innovating? How is responsibility distributed
- for knowledge/role coverage? What layers of
practice exist?
procedural dimension
What is the nature of practitioners output? How
much do practitioners produce? What (if any)
productive yardsticks guide them?
What do practitioners do their remit and
responsibilities? Is their workload determined by
the clock set hours? Is workload determined by
the task in response to need?
productive dimension
19
The capacity of reform for achieving professional
development

• The problems
• Reform or policy change initiators
• focus predominantly on achieving functional
  development
• ignore, or neglect, the importance of attitudinal
  and, in some cases, intellectual development
• are unaware of, minimize, or ignore the
  professionality-influenced heterogeneity of
  professionalism
• manifest simplistic, naïve inadequate
  understanding of human nature.

20
The professional development process

• The process involves enhancing individuals
  professionality.
• progression along the professionality continuum
• What does the professional development process in
  individuals involve?

21
The professional development process in
individuals

• Components
• recognition that theres an alternative
• a better way
• encountering a specific alternative
• evaluating the specific alternative
• recognising the specific alternative as a better
  way
• implies recognition of the perceived relative
  inadequacies of previous practice/views/knowledge
  etc.
• adoption of the perceived better way
• evaluation of the newly adopted
  practice/views/attitudes etc. as better than what
  it/they replaced
• Evans (2008) work-in-progress

22
Professional development through reform or policy
change

• Dependent upon
• attitudinal development on the part of the
  developed or developee that is congruent with
  the reform/change agenda
• shared perceptions of deficiencies and
  imperfections
• shared perceptions of what constitutes a better
  way
• change initiators willingness to accommodate
  this heterogeneity.

23
The effect of imposed policy reform on teacher
professionalism

• Has teacher professionalism been redesigned?
• on one level, undoubtedly
• compare 1970s with present day
• on another level
• the professionality range remains wide
• lack of uniformity/homogeneity
• much irony of presentation
• manifests itself in the manner in which members
  of an organization present an image of the
  organization to the outside world that is not
  wholly congruent with the reality of its daily
  practices.
• (Hoyle, E. and Wallace, M. (2007) Educational
  reform an ironic perspective, Educational
  Management, Administration Leadership, 35(1)
  925 )
• the paying lip service approach
• pernicious differences between the paper and
  the real
• (Stronach, I. et al (2002) Towards an
  uncertain politics of professionalism teacher
  and nurse identities in flux, Journal of
  Education Policy, 17 (1), 109-138)

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Professional status

• Have teachers lost any of their status as
  professionals?
• Is teaching any less of a profession than it
  previously was?
• How do we define a profession?
• How important is it to be a profession?
• Developmentalism is professionalism re-invented
  and re-named, for greater applicability to 21st
  century working life.

25
Developmentalism

• means a commitment to (self-)develop(ment).
• is an antidote to complacency.
• is the mindset that engages practitioners in the
  business of striving to improve their practice.
• manifests itself as relatively frequent and
  regular engagement in ostensible CPD.
• is a component of the individuals stance in
  relation to the practice of the profession to
  which s/he belongs, and which influences her/his
  professional practice
• professionality

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Practitioners with a strong developmentalist
attitude will typically

• be analytical and self-critical in evaluating
  their own practice
• manifest single-minded concern for the quality of
  their work
• continually strive for excellence, according to
  her/his own definition and measurement of it
• perceive each new task as a challenge an
  opportunity to perform better, and achieve more,
  than ever before
• be extended professionals.

27
From professionalism to developmentalism

• The calibrations on the profession -
  semi-profession non-profession yardstick are
  being increasingly blurred.
• How may we make qualitatively-based distinctions
  between occupational groups?
• Developmentalism
• autonomous developmentalism
• compliant developmentalism
• How developmentalist are teachers, in comparison
  with other occupational groups?