Pedagogical Knowledge and the Changing Nature of the Teaching Profession

OECD

• Publisher: OECD
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9789264270725
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

PART I. Teachers’ knowledge and the teaching profession

Chapter 1. The teaching profession and its knowledge base1

by

Sonia GuerrieroOECD

Karolina DeligiannidiOECD

This chapter outlines the context for investigating teacher knowledge by providing a brief overview of the teaching profession. First, we summarise some of the sociological literature on professions, including how professions have been conceptualised, what their main attributes are and how teaching is seen within these approaches. Second, we review the main factors that have exerted influence on the status of the teaching profession such as autonomy, governance, self-regulation and teacher education. These reflections prompt questions on teachers’ scientific knowledge base, their professional competence and how the two are related. Questions raised in this introduction provide the rationale for this publication: the need to derive evidence-informed suggestions for educational policy and future research by examining the current state of teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and implications for the instructional process.

To introduce the major policy and research issues concerning teachers and knowledge, this chapter provides the reader with a contextual overview of the teaching profession. Scholars from different fields have been trying to operationalise what a profession is and what its attributes are. The status of teaching as a profession has been largely debated. This chapter is not meant to provide an extensive review of literature; rather it introduces some of the arguments in this debated field and thus serves as a rationale for investigating teachers’ pedagogical knowledge as a component of professional competence.

Contextualising the teaching profession

In recent decades the teaching profession has been on the policy agenda of most OECD countries and partner economies. Some of the key issues include how to attract motivated and high-achieving candidates to the profession, how to retain quality teachers and how to improve initial teacher education and professional development. The teacher clearly contributes to student learning and achievement, and the empirical research base showing the value of high quality teachers in learning outcomes is growing. For example, even after accounting for prior student learning and family background characteristics, several studies indicate that teacher quality is an important factor in determining gains in student achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Hanushek, Kain and Rivkin, 1998; Muñoz, Prather and Stronge, 2011; Wright, Horn and Sanders, 1997).

Often, the status of the profession has been implicated in the recent challenge in recruiting and retaining good teachers. The teaching profession is perceived to have a lower status than other professions such as medicine, law or engineering (Ingersoll and Merill, 2011). However, defining what is meant by the status of a profession in general, and the status of the teaching profession in particular has long been debated. In 1966, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) addressed the importance of the status of the teaching profession. The publication “The ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers” states that:

“the expression ‘status’ as used in relation to teachers means both the standing or regard accorded them, as evidenced by the level of appreciation of the importance of their function and of their competence in performing it, and the working conditions, remuneration and other material benefits accorded them relative to other professional groups.” (UNESCO/ILO, 2008: 21).

Commonly, the word “status” is used as a generic term to indicate social standing. Scholars, however, have proposed to operationalise the concept by decomposing it. For example, Hoyle (1995a; 2001) proposes to distinguish occupational status from occupational prestige and esteem. According to Hoyle (2001), occupational status is the category to which knowledgeable groups (e.g. politicians, sociologists) allocate an occupation. On the other hand, occupational prestige is “the public perception of the relative position of an occupation in a hierarchy of occupations” (Hoyle, 2001: 139), whereas occupational esteem is “the regard in which an occupation is held by the general public by virtue of the personal qualities which members are perceived as bringing to their core task” (Hoyle, 2001: 147). In their usage of the word, UNESCO/ILO appear to be referring to the concepts of prestige and esteem.

Status is a relative concept and shows cross-cultural variation (Hargreaves, 2009). In the review which follows, we show that the status of the teaching profession is closely linked to whether teaching is (or is not) acknowledged as a profession. Sociologists have been interested in the study of professions for a long time, and we briefly review some of this debate as it relates to teaching, before returning to discussing the status of the teaching profession specifically.

What is a profession?

There are different approaches to characterising professions and those that are based on determining criteria may emphasise different elements. Many scholars have written about the distinction between professions and semi-professions, and for one reason or another, some have characterised teaching as a semi-profession (e.g. Hoyle, 2001; Howsam et al., 1985; Krejsler, 2005; Ingersoll and Merrill, 2011). For example, Howsam et al. (1985), who use a taxonomic approach to defining professions, conclude that teaching is a semi-profession because it does not have all the characteristics of a profession, as illustrated in Box 1.1.

Box 1.1. Characteristics of a profession

1. Professions are occupationally related social institutions established and maintained as a means of providing essential services to the individual and society.
2. Each profession is concerned with an identified area of need or function (e.g. maintenance of physical and emotional health, preservation of rights and freedom, enhancing the opportunity to learn).
3. Collectively and individually the profession possesses a body of knowledge and a repertoire of behaviours and skills (professional culture) needed in the practice of the profession; such knowledge, behaviour and skills normally are not possessed by the non-professional.
4. The members of the profession are involved in decision making in the service of the client, the decisions being made in accordance with the most valid knowledge available, against a background of principles and theories, and within the context of possible impact on other related conditions or decisions.
5. The profession is based on one or more underlying disciplines from which it draws basic insights and upon which it builds its own applied knowledge and skills.
6. The profession is organised into one or more professional associations which, within broad limits of social accountability, are granted autonomy in control of the actual work of the profession and the conditions which surround it (admissions, educational standards, examination and licensing, career line, ethical and performance standards, professional discipline).
7. The profession has agreed-upon performance standards for admission to the profession and for continuance within it.
8. Preparation for and induction to the profession is provided through a protracted preparation programme, usually in a professional school on a college or university campus.
9. There is a high level of public trust and confidence in the profession and in individual practitioners, based upon the profession’s demonstrated capacity to provide service markedly beyond that which would otherwise be available.
10. Individual practitioners are characterised by a strong service motivation and lifetime commitment to competence.
11. Authority to practice in any individual case derives from the client or the employing organisation; accountability for the competence of professional practice within the particular case is to the profession itself.
12. There is relative freedom from direct on-the-job supervision and from direct public evaluation of the individual practitioner. The professional accepts responsibility in the name of his or her profession and is accountable through his or her profession to the society.

Source: Howsam, R. B., et al. (1985), “Educating a profession”, http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED270430.

Professions and semi professions

Howsam et al. (1985) classify teaching as a semi-profession because it lacks one of the main identifying characteristics of a full profession: professional expertise. They argue that teaching lacks a common body of knowledge, practices and skills that constitute the basis for professional expertise and decision-making. This is a consequence of the practice of teaching not being founded upon validated principles and theories. In their view, few teachers use existing scientific knowledge, nor do they contribute to building a scientific knowledge base through the development of principles, concepts and theories or to validating practices. As a consequence, there are no agreed-upon performance standards for evaluating teachers to continue in the profession. Importantly, the quality of the preparation of teachers and induction into the profession is poor as a consequence of the absence of a common body of scientific knowledge underpinning professional expertise and transmitted via teacher educators during initial teacher education.

Likewise, Hoyle (1995b) argues that teaching satisfies some but not all criteria of a profession. His defining criteria, also within a taxonomic perspective, are somewhat different from those of Howsam et al., but there are some important similarities. For example, in characterising full professions, Hoyle (1995b: 12) argues that “although knowledge gained through experience is important, this recipe-type knowledge is insufficient to meet professional demands and the practitioner has to draw on a body of systematic knowledge”. Furthermore, in the case of professions, the acquisition of knowledge and developmen...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Legal and rights
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Executive Summary
• PART I. Teachers’ knowledge and the teaching profession
• PART II. Measuring teacher knowledge and professional competence: Opportunities and challenges
• PART III. 21st Century demands on teacher knowledge
• Contributors
• About the OECD