The Politics of Teacher Professional Development

Policy, Research and Practice

Ian Hardy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136274534
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Politics of Teacher Professional Development: Policy, Research and Practice provides innovative insights into teachers' continuing development and learning in contemporary western contexts. Rather than providing a list of "how-tos" and "must dos," this volume is premised on the understanding that by learning more about the current conditions under which teachers and other educators work and learn, it is possible to understand, and consequently improve, the learning opportunities teachers experience. Teacher professional development is not simply construed as an isolated series of events, such as day-long workshops marking the beginning of each school year or term, or individualistic "one-off" activities focused on new teaching approaches, curricula or assessment strategies. Rather, through application of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's understanding of social practices as contested, teacher professional development is revealed as a complex social practice which exists as policy, as a research product and process, and as an important part of teachers' work. The book reveals how PD as policy, research and teachers' work are inherently contested. An extended series of case studies of teacher professional development practices from Canada, England and Australia are employed to show how these tensions play out in complex ways in policy and practice.

1
Introduction

Professional Development in Context, and as Contest

We do not say that a man [sic] who shows no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

(Pericles’ funeral oration, in Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, p. 147)

INTRODUCTION

Teacher professional development (‘PD’) is increasingly seen as vital for renewing and reforming national education systems in a global context of pressure for improved educational outcomes. National governments throughout the world promote professional development as a way of fostering quality teaching, student learning and enhanced learning outcomes. However, despite more directed attention to and interest in professional development, the influence of the broader conditions in which decisions about professional development are made remains insufficiently recognised and understood. For this reason, teacher professional development needs to be thought anew.

PD is not simply a program of activities, lectures or workshops undertaken by teachers at the beginning of a new school semester, or at other specific times during the school year. PD is not just an abstract, individualistic undertaking—something which happens inside teachers’ heads—in response to a variety of departmental, bureaucratic, school or teacher-instigated initiatives. Rather, PD is a multi-faceted, reflexive social practice involving the active decision-making by individuals and groups under the specific social settings in which they live and work. This book argues that teacher professional development (PD) (sometimes described as ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD)) is a situated, socio-political practice. As a result, teacher professional development practices, and support for such practices, are inherently political.

The book conceptualises teacher professional development in new ways—theoretically, empirically and practically. It applies Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the social world as comprising identifiable ‘social fields,’ comprising contestation between the practices considered of most value, to reveal how teacher professional development exists not as a single, decontextualised entity, but as the product of competing policy, research and work practices. Specifically, the book provides fresh insights into how broader neoliberal and managerial pressures exist in tension with more profession-oriented and democratic impulses, and how these competing influences help constitute PD as policy, as a research product and process (both in schools and beyond), and as part of teachers’ work. The book draws upon existing literature in each of these domains, and empirical research from international cases of professional development undertaken in England, Canada and Australia, to theorise how these tensions play out in practice. This international case data reveals the complexity and specificity of professional development practices, in practice, and also how broad competing pressures have influenced the PD considered of most value.

Importantly, this book reveals not only how these neoliberal and managerial influences have exerted influence, but also how they have been challenged by educators seeking to sustain a focus upon more educational practices, even as they experience significant pressure to conform to such demands. Policy-makers, researchers and practitioners have not simply sat idly by and passively accepted the changes which have characterised their work. Rather, they have sought to challenge and critique narrowly focused conceptions of their work, striving to enact and facilitate alternative practices under sometimes trying conditions. Consequently, while this volume provides insights into how educators have been treated as instruments of economic and bureaucratic fiat, it also reveals how they have simultaneously sought to foreground the intrinsically educational qualities of their work, and the needs of the students whom they serve. While the conditions under which educators work influence the relations between individuals and groups and the broader circumstances in which they act, these conditions are also a product of the actions and influences of these same individuals and groups. These conditions are amenable to change, alteration and improvement. It is the relationship between individual/groups of educators, and their conditions, which is responsible for the teacher learning which arises.

Consequently, PD is not conceptualised as something simply ‘done’ to teachers—such as a series of one-off days at the start of a school term— which seek to ‘produce’ teachers who will enact and manage particular state-sanctioned initiatives and programs. PD is not a unified, formulaic process which is applied in all instances and designed to ensure homogeneity of practice. Nor is it understood as an individual or group activity, or activities, which are somehow practised beyond the contexts and conditions within which they are undertaken; teachers are not simply the architects of their own learning, even when it may seem as if they are learning ‘alone,’ and to be making active decisions about the nature of the learning in which they will engage. Rather, it is the relationship between educators and the conditions under which they work which serves as the primary unit of analysis.

In exploring the complexity of this relationship, the book firstly reveals teacher PD as policy and policy-making, as a research process and product, and as an important part of teachers’ work. It then draws upon empirical research undertaken in England, Canada and Australia to reveal how these conceptions of PD play out within and across different national contexts in relation to specific PD practices. Awareness of professional development as a multi-faceted and complex social practice is a necessary precursor to cultivating the conditions and dispositions likely to lead to improved teacher learning for student learning. In this way, this book is a positive intervention in the work of promoting productive teacher learning.

In brief, this book argues that:

• PD is a social and political practice. PD is intimately influenced by the circumstances under which PD is undertaken, and the individuals and groups engaged in, supporting and creating PD. The relationship between these conditions and individuals/groups is responsible for the PD which arises.
• PD can be understood as policy, as research, and as a part of teachers’ work.
• PD practices reflect competing socio-political tensions within and between PD as policy, as research and as part of teachers’ work, and the individuals and groups who participate in policy, research and practice.

UNDERSTANDING CURRENT CONDITIONS: PD AS COMPLEX AND CONTESTED

This book is written on the assumption that teachers are learners, and that teachers can learn. The book challenges those conceptions of teachers as already pre-formed, ‘constructed’—as born, not made—as a finished canvas, rather than works in progress. In this regard, it seems counterintuitive to the ways in which teachers’ work and learning are often, perhaps typically, framed. At the same time, this learning does not occur in isolation from the multi-faceted conditions under which it occurs, and which seek to influence teachers’ learning. The conditions under which teacher learning occurs, and the conditions which seek to influence teachers’ learning, matter. However, teachers, and those who support and endorse teacher PD, are able to influence these conditions. They are able to exert influence upon the teaching and learning practices in which they engage; they are not simply ‘fleas in a cage’ (Connell, Ashenden, Kessler and Dowsett, 1982, p. 78) powerless to make decisions about their own or others’ actions, or the settings in which they work and learn.

While possibilities and options for change are always open to teachers and school-based administrators, they are not open-ended, but are instead influenced by the broad circumstances under which educators work and learn. These circumstances do influence teachers’ dispositions, capacities and proclivities to learn, and the ways in which such learning is manifest. In very broad terms, the circumstances in which teachers engage with professional development may inspire teachers to engage fully with their learning needs, or may actively inhibit or quash the desire to learn, or, perhaps more likely, encourage an approach to learning somewhere along a spectrum between these poles. These conditions may stimulate creative, imaginative educational experiences or act as an enervating influence— leading to apathetic approaches to teachers’ learning. They may encourage teachers to engage passively with information delivered to them by an external ‘expert’ at the start of a school term, or to construe PD activities as something to be endured. These conditions may lead to involvement in a series of related short-term courses and workshops within or away from school sites, foster ongoing classroom and school-based enquiries, promote participation in institutionalised modes of study—such as Masters-level work through a university or professional association—or involvement in a plethora of other self-directed modes of learning. PD is construed as multi-faceted, and intricately connected to the specific and broader social settings and circumstances in which it is undertaken—circumstances which are not uniform, and always subject to change. From a normative position, this book argues that everything possible should be done to ensure that these conditions are conducive to improved teacher learning for student learning oriented to a more socially, politically, economically and environmentally sustainable world, and that there are opportunities for wider participation of educators in decision-making about PD, and that barriers to engaged, ongoing, student-centred teacher learning are dismantled. To fail to do so is to condemn teachers and students to circumstances which militate against their active engagement in making the most of life opportunities, and contributing as productive social, political and economic citizens.

This book construes the current contexts and conditions within which PD is enacted as multi-faceted, and productive of competing demands. Understanding the relationship between educators and the conditions in which professional development is undertaken means acknowledging the multiple and competing standpoints of those who seek to influence professional development practices in schooling settings. That is, there is a need to recognise and appreciate the tensions which invariably characterise teachers’ learning. The positions these individuals occupy, and the dispositions they display, influence how individuals and groups of teachers respond to their learning needs. Providing insights into the competing approaches which characterise professional development practices—including those most likely to lead to beneficial change, and those which seem to be detrimental to such change—is an important goal of this volume.

In recent times, these conditions have been influenced by broad sets of processes which encourage a focus upon the individual within society, the economy, and the management of resources. While these processes, in and of themselves are not problematic—who could argue against our recognition as individuals, that a strong economy is important for a stable and functioning society, and that resources should be managed appropriately?—the way in which they have become reified within society over recent decades, influencing all aspects of our lives, relationships and work, makes them worthy of further scrutiny and critique.

Setting the Scene: Neoliberalism, Economism and Globalization

The logic of neoliberalism has had a significant influence upon all sectors of the public service, including education. Harvey (2005) defines neoliberalism as a theory of political economy which advocates the safeguarding of private property rights, free markets and free trade as the principal means of addressing the needs of all in society. Sometimes described as ‘economic rationalism,’ (after Pusey (1991)), neoliberalism is seen as synonymous with free market economics, structural adjustment and supply-side economic reform. Such approaches frame the economy as paramount, and government’s role as ensuring circumstances for the establishment of market mechanisms throughout both the public and private sectors. This necessitates a strong state only insofar as governments are able to support institutions in the interests of private accumulation. The role of the state should not include involving itself in markets any more than is absolutely necessary. However, and paradoxically, the state does have a role in establishing markets in areas which have not previously been subject to market mechanisms. In this way, neoliberalism differs from more laissez-faire approaches in that it actively involves the state in the creation of the ‘freedoms’ associated with free enterprise by ‘creating’ markets (Rose, 1999). Neoliberal logics frame governments as actively promoting more economically oriented practices and principles.

In terms of traditional public sector service provision, this has resulted in a redefinition of the role of the state into one of promoting market mechanisms, leading to reconceptualising the polity in new and unfamiliar ways. Peters and McDonagh (2007) argue neoliberalism redefines citizens as consumers, or what Clarke, Newman, Smith, Vidler and Westmarland (2007) refer to as ‘citizen-consumers.’ Traditionally provided public services then become just another commodity to be consumed in the market. In educational contexts, such commodification is exemplified by the way in which curricula are rearticulated into packages of materials to be applied by teachers in classrooms. Luke (2004) describes teachers dominated by such commodification of education and educational resources as ‘commodity fetishists.’

This emphasis upon the commodification of everything, including public services, has been achieved by promoting a general ethos of ‘economism,’ beyond the economic field. Economism advantages the economic above other realms of socio-political endeavour: ‘The politics of economism is a strategy of defining certain institutions as “economic” and using the doctrine of economic neutrality to produce a boundary between the “economic” and “political” sphere’ (Teivainen, 2002, p. 1). Teivainen (2002) argues that economism exerts influence through various mechanisms including the privatisation of formerly public institutions, and the application of practices typically associated with private industry to the public sector. The rise of neoliberalism has meant that economistic emphases are dominant in all areas of public endeavour, including education. So pervasive are these principles that anything which hampers the economising of all areas of human endeavour is construed as problematic (Cobb, 1999; Collier and Esteban, 1998).

In their efforts and struggles to respond to the economic challenges presented by an increasingly neoliberal ethos on a global front, governments have typically responded by adopting neoliberal principles in a wholesale manner; such responses are evidence of the deliberate linking of notions of neoliberalism with globalization (Colas, 2005), even though the latter is manifest in a myriad of cultural and political, as well as economic ways. Pusey (2003) points out how economic globalization and interests have dominated over other interests, resulting in the naturalization of economistic, neoliberal iterations of globalization. That is, more economistic, neoliberal logics of practice become dominant within fields beyond the broader political (and economic) fields in which they are perhaps more obviously evident.

However, this reconstruction of public policy and the polity have not gone unchallenged. Wright (2003) calls into question the ethics surrounding neoliberalism, and its effects. Neoliberalism is not seen as the solution to providing for the needs of the citizenry because some services are simply not practically amenable to provision via markets. Wright (2003) uses examples such as footpaths and lighthouses which serve important public functions which cannot be sufficiently regulated to determine who benefits from them, and how they should pay for this benefit. Pusey (1991; 2003) is particularly critical of what he sees as government policies which do not take into account the needs of all within society. Writing from what he describes as a ‘middle-of-the-road social democratic position,’ Pusey (2003, p. 12) argues that moderate positions such as his are often construed as irrational oppositions to beneficial public policy. Finally, the effects of neoliberalism as a global orthodoxy are recognised as being far from uniform. In spite of the influence of the movement, in local contexts, there is evidence of resistance, accommodation and active engagement with globalized, neo-liberal principles and practices (Appadurai, 2001; Muppidi, 2004; Ozga and Lingard, 2007; Rizvi and Lingard, 2010).

Managerialism

Education, as with all other social arena, has also been influenced by the rise of managerialism. Since the mid-1980s, there has been an increasingly centralised focus upon the provision of public services within the public sectors of western countries. As part of this process, finance ministries have exerted increasing influence, leading to an emphasis upon public service provision as a cost. Private sector practices and principles have been adopted and adapted to the public sector, with a view to minimising ‘waste’—thereby seeking to increase efficiency—and more carefully scrutinising the effects of public expenditure—thereby seeking to increase effectiveness. The push for efficiencies resonates with the cost-cutting measures associated with the ‘New Public Management’ in the UK, and ‘economic rationalism’ in Australia (Pusey, 1991). Managerialism has resulted in increased scrutiny of the effects of the expenditure of public funds, increased control on the part of managers to achieve greater efficiencies within their departments, and the development of mechanisms to account for this expenditure.

Since the 1990s, and in conjunction with neoliberal principles, there has been a further shift towards a more entrepreneurial model of service provision which has seen the construction of a more marketised approach to the provision of public services. This construes managers as managing various ‘providers’ of public services competing against one another for the provision of services. In this way, the logics of regulation have given way to market-mechanisms as the means of ensuring improved service provision. Such an approach, with its emphasis upon economic rationalism, contrasts with what Yeatman (1997) refers to as the ‘post-bureaucratic’ model of public management which she describes as a more consultative and trust-oriented approach.

As these more managerial logics have become increasingly pervasive, there has been an increased push for accountability within the public sector, including amongst educators, resulting in the accumulation of data as evidence of the attainment of various levels of achievement deemed beneficial by the state. This has included a strong focus upon quantitative measures of student attainment, particularly standardised tests (Hursh, 2008; Lingard, 2010; Stobart, 2008). In part, such an approach may be seen as a natural extension of Lyotard’s concept of performativity (Lyotard, 1984), with its emphasis upon satisfying the demands of the particular language games which constitute the current high modern/postmodern world:

The decision makers … attempt to manage these clouds of sociality according to input/output matrices, following a logic which implies that their elements are commensurable a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Professional Development in Context, and as Contest
• PART I Professional Development as Policy and Research
• PART II Professional Development in Practice
• About the Author
• Notes
• References
• Index