The ‘Civic-minded’ Professional? An exploration through Hannah Arendt’s ‘vita activa’

Recent reform initiatives calling for ‘civic’ (‘public-good’ or ‘democratic’) professionalism can be seen as a response to the widely reported decline in public trust in the professions and an attempt to partially remedy this problem through a more publically engaged professionalism. The author draws on the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt, identifying the strong, albeit in the professionalism literature rarely acknowledged, affinities between civic professionalism and her concept of action as (collective) freedom through public deliberation. Using the three modalities of the active life that Arendt discusses in The Human Condition (labour, work and action) as analytical tools, the author suggests that changing conditions in the public sector have led to professional life increasingly taking on the forms of labour and work, at the expense of action. The implications of these developments are highlighted before the author proceeds to show that a professional life oriented strongly towards action is consistent with ‘civic’ professionalism based on community engagement. Some of the main approaches traditionally taken to promote a civic orientation among university students are noted; the article concludes with a discussion of how the specific concepts underlying Arendtian action can be put to work in university pedagogies to intentionally promote the public ‘civic-minded professional’.     

Transforming critical and participative teacher research into communicative action: a possible direction for teacher professional learning

ABSTRACT

This paper is an account of how a group of Japanese English language teachers, who questioned current teacher professional education and English language education reforms, learnt to challenge the dominant discourse and find ways of conducting more democratic teacher professional education. It describes how those teachers, including the author, generated a collective theory on communicative competence through the process of their inquiry. It explains how they came to appreciate the action research methodology used for this study, grounded in reflective practice, which in turn helped to develop the author’s understanding of second person action research. It also tells how the teachers learnt to take the initiative in communicating the thinking which informed their practices to others and began to engage in ‘communicative action’ As a result of these outcomes, the paper suggests a potential new form of teacher professional learning aimed towards more democratic relationships between participants. It is hoped that the implications of the research findings could contribute to broader discussions about policy pertaining to teacher professional development.     

The Activist Professional

In this paper I present an argument for thedevelopment of a new form of teacher professionalism,which I refer to as activist professionalism. Ibriefly identify two types of professionalism,democratic professionalism and managerialprofessionalism which I argue have informed recentdebates about teacher professionalism. I indicate howan activist view of professionalism recasts thepolitical and professional roles of teachers in quitefundamentally different ways. At the core of theargument is the development of Anthony Gidden'snotions of `active trust' and `generative politics'.I indicate how these two ideas provide a conceptualand political basis to rethink the activities ofteachers and others working in the collectiveeducation enterprise. I draw on some recent schoolbased teacher research projects in which I have beeninvolved to develop and provide evidence for how thistype of professionalism can be achieved individuallyand collectively.     

Teaching for Democracy in Higher Education

Britain, South Africa and Russia all have national policies that acknowledge that higher education should play a role in the development of democracy. This paper reports how a group of teaching staff in British, South African and Russian universities view the relationships between their teaching and their understandings of its democratic purposes. There are some common ways in which the relationship between teaching and democracy is understood. These point towards a concern for greater equality between teachers and learners. There is also a widely held view that globalisation may impact in ways which are counter to lecturers' educational and democratic purposes. However, the different cultures and histories of the countries heavily influence such understandings. The study suggests that professional development of university teachers might pay more attention to the democratic purposes of higher education.     

Philosophy in a ‘Syncopated Cadence’: Living race,living philosophy

Designing education policy, curriculum and competences which promote and nourish the values and/or morals believed to underpin democratic culture is both contentious and something which has occupied philosophers, policy-makers and educators from Ancient Greece to present. This task has become even more challenging as people and ideas have become more mobile and voting rights have been extended to include a more diverse citizenry. With the rise of populism, ‘Brexit’ and the far right, determining what constitutes education for democratic culture and the values which underpin it would seem to be more prescient than ever. This article considers how the Council of Europe (CoE) is addressing the question of what education for democratic culture is and the values that underpin it through its’ recently unveiled framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC). As a unique step, it explicitly identifies values it deems to be necessary for democratic cultural competence, including the oft-conflicting values of cultural diversity and human rights. While potentially useful and timely, I argue that the framework is vulnerable to misuse and instrumentalization. I explore how Badiou's philosophy and his interpretation of Plato might help educators move beyond these challenges when presented with the framework.     

Using dentistry as a case study to examine continuing education and its impact on practice

Continuing education is a defining characteristic of work in the professions. Yet the approach various professional groups take to continuing professional development (CPD) differs widely in terms of regulatory frameworks and requirements, modes of delivery and funding. Importantly, little is understood about how CPD impacts on practice.This paper compares the regulatory context of different professional groups and devises a two‐dimensional model to explore differences in CPD practice by mapping control over CPD content and mode. The emergent quadrants we label as liberal, regulated, managed and controlled. The paper continues by using empirical data from two studies of continuing education in dentistry and the wider literature to explore factors affecting CPD impact. The paper ends by considering how the regulatory context may affect impact and concludes that changes in the control of CPD have potential to influence the power of education to make a difference to professional practice.     

The Development of Professional Attitudes Among Administrative Staff in Universities and Colleges of Advanced Education in Australia

This paper reviews the situation of administrative staff in universities and colleges of advanced education with a view to assessing the degree to which they have a professional attitude to their work or might be described in more common terms as professionals.

The numbers and functions of such staff in tertiary institutions are surveyed in the first section and some of the factors affecting the attitude of these staff are noted. The second section looks at the definition of a profession and at the alternative terms professionalism and professionalisation in order to establish a basis of comparison. The establishment and subsequent history of the Australian Institute of Tertiary Educational Administrators is then examined to see what light it throws upon the changes of attitude which have taken place in the last few years. In the fourth section the various criteria by which professionalism is judged are reviewed to determine to what extent the attitudes of administrative staff may be regarded as professional. Finally, I give my views on the degree of professionalisation existing at present.     

BUT CAN YOU PROVE IT?

This paper offers some perspectives on quality assurance for those who wish to retain the reflective practitioner approach to professional training. It takes its examples from teacher training, but is equally addressed to those in other professions whose work uses this approach. It contends that the way forward in finding a useful system of quality assurance which is compatible with institutional demands and the intentions of courses based upon the reflective practitioner approach, is to understand the different values that lie beneath two very different models of professionalism, and to use this understanding to seek rapprochement between them. This paper explores the industrial model of quality assurance, which currently strongly influences higher education. After contextualising the current debate about quality, this paper shows how the industrial view relates to the technical rational model of professionalism. This is contrasted with the professional artistry model of professionalism which lies at the heart of the reflective practitioner approach. Appraisal and reflection are considered and a framework for reflection is offered drawn from on‐going research. This might enable practitioners to capture data which might be used as evidence of quality. The beginnings of reciprocity between the two models are sketched, and a grim warning is issued.     

Developing values in primary classrooms and the place of the humanities

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss how the context of children’s classroom activities and the quality of their participation and agency are key to learning around values. These pedagogical approaches lie in a socio-cultural theoretical framework which I use to show how ‘empowered’ participation in classrooms and in enquiry activities in curriculum areas is bound up with learning democratic values. Focusing on humanities subjects, I show how such values-based democratic pedagogical approaches in these areas of the curriculum (along with others) can be transformative, promoting values education, personal agency and social change.     

Professional autonomy versus managerial control: The experience of teachers in an english primary school

This article examines the relationship between primary teachers' professional autonomy and the increasing managerial control over teachers' work. It considers how the education policies of successive Conservative and New Labour administrations in Britain have tightened central control over education undermining teacher discretion and directly impacting upon the labour process of the professionals concerned. The research was undertaken in an English primary school and data gathered in a variety of contexts including observations of the teachers in classrooms and the staff room, a governors/parents meeting, informal conversations and a series of semi-structured interviews with staff. The study explores how teachers make sense of the managerial culture in education, and how this is reconciled with their ideas about teaching and learning, and their professional interests and individual career aspirations. Structuration theory (Giddens, 1976, 1979, 1984) is used as a theoretical framework to explore whether there is conflict between teachers' professionalism and the new managerialism and examine how primary teachers make sense of this inextricable relationship.     

Professional practice,learning, and continuing education: an integrated perspective‡

The popular wisdom among professionals is that the knowledge they acquire from practice is far more useful than what they acquire from more formal types of education. This observation contradicts the dominant viewpoint in society and the professional education establishment that has given legitimacy to knowledge that is formal, abstract and general while devaluing knowledge that is local, specific and based in practice. This viewpoint has strongly influenced continuing education, which has followed the model set at the preservice level in focusing on the transmission of formal, abstract knowledge. In this paper, I describe and provide evidence for three propositions that build on the importance of knowledge gained from practice. These are: (1) the goal of professional practice is wise action; (2) knowledge acquired from practice is necessary to achieve this goal; and (3) a model of learning from practice should become the centrepiece of systems of continuing education for the professions.

     

Turning heads: The impact of political reform on the professional role,identity and recruitment of head teachers in Wales

This article considers the professional work, identity and recruitment of head teachers (HTs) in Wales. Drawing on the sociology of professions, the article illustrates how intensive educational policy reform post‐2011 has restricted HTs’ professional agency and re‐orientated the head teacher role towards organisational professionalism. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews (n=30) with both head and deputy head teachers, the article argues that issues with the recruitment and retention of HTs in Wales can, in part, be explained by the promotion of managerial and technicist approaches to professional practice. This role reconfiguration is the result of myriad and, at times, overlapping accountability mechanisms. The article illustrates how these changes to HT professional roles and identity are more intense within a small education system where HTs had, traditionally, enjoyed an elite professional status. To ameliorate these issues, the article proposes policy initiatives which the Welsh Government could introduce to foster the agency of HTs within a revised professional framework for educational leadership in Wales.     

PROFESSIONALISM, PROFESSIONALITY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS

ABSTRACT:  What purpose is served by renovation or redesign of professionalism, and how successful a process is it likely to be? This article addresses these questions by examining the effectiveness as a professional development mechanism of the imposition of changes to policy and/or practice that require modification or renovation of professionalism. The 'new' professionalisms purported to have been fashioned over the last two or three decades across the spectrum of UK education sectors and contexts have been the subject of extensive analysis, and this article avoids going over old ground and revisiting issues that have already been much debated. Nevertheless, the example of UK government education policy during this period is used as a basis for considering the pitfalls associated with mechanisms for modifying professionalism through a reform and standards agenda. The article's analysis incorporates re-definition and examination of the concept and substance of professionalism and offers new perspectives in the form of three distinct conceptions: demanded, prescribed and enacted professionalism. Exploring the existentialist status of 'new' or 'modified' professionalisms and the relationship between professionality, professional culture and professionalism, it examines how professionalism may be interpreted and utilised for the development of education professionals.     

高职院校学生职业素养缺失之审美文化探析

职业素养,包括两个方面。一是硬件:主要指专业技术方面的职业技能;二是软件:包括职业道德、职业意识、职业情感、职业心理、职业伦理等审美文化元素。二者缺一不可,互为表里。由于职业素养培养的时间性和空间性的不衔接、不统一,导致高职院校的学生职业素养软件方面的缺乏,因此加强对学生的职业素养教育至关重要。高职院校学生职业素养养成的主要审美文化途径是以传统经典文本为载体的语文情意教学。传统经典文本具有情感涵养功能和崇高壮美激励功能,可以使学生在潜移默化中得到审美文化的熏陶,促进职业素养的养成。     

Democratic Values and Purposes: the overlooked challenge of competence

Interest in professional development based on competence‐based education and training (CBET) is growing. Competence models undoubtedly pose some important, constructive challenges to traditional arrangements for developing knowledge and expertise at all occupational levels. However, CBET's impact goes far beyond this. Its processes profoundly affect how teachers and learners view learning, assessment and the purposes of education itself. CBET is also symptomatic of wider changes in notions about ownership, pluralism and breadth in post‐compulsory education and training. It therefore poses a profound and forceful ideological challenge to particular educational values, and to the way teachers approach their professional role. This article uses post‐16 teacher education as a focus for exploring some of these wider effects. It reviews recent critiques of CBET and argues that many are preoccupied with attempting to improve its efficiency at the expense of examining the wider political and ideological context in which it is being implemented. In order to counter the drift towards a narrow utilitarian curriculum in all sectors of the post‐compulsory system, analyses of CBET will need to show its powerful effect on some important democratic traditions in learning and education. This would provide the basis for a more coherent model of professional development than the limited and fragmented choices currently on offer.     

Paradoxical tensions in creating a teaching and learning space within a graduate education course on spirituality

Much has been written recently about inclusive learning environments in higher education. Most of this writing has unproblematically assumed a simple link between inclusion and access to institutions. In this paper I suggest that inclusive learning environments need to be reconceptualised as contexts within which a 'democratisation of knowledge' occurs. I draw upon my experience as a tutor on a professional development course for university lecturers to explore this reconceptualisation, looking in particular at issues to do with experiential knowledge, gender and sexuality.     

Facilitating democratic professional development: exploring the double role of being an academic action researcher

Abstract

This article focuses on the double role of the academic action researcher working as facilitator and researcher in democratic professional development projects. The inquiry is based on three partnership projects: ‘research circles’ in Sweden, ‘dialogue conferences’ in Norway and ‘tailored professional development’ in Finland. In a self-study and through the lens of practice architectures, we, as action researchers, explore how our practices are enabled and constrained in, as well as are enabling and constraining, professional development partnerships with teachers and educational leaders. A critical perspective is provided on how and what democratic practices evolve. The inquiry opens up understandings about how the academic action researcher’s practices entails multi-faceted ways of working to be able to accomplish different and somehow contradictory objectives, yet at the same time enacting democratic working methods. Furthermore, the act of recognition as a connecting aspect between prefiguring arrangements and evolving practices will be elaborated on to supplement perspectives offered by the theory of practice architectures.     

Teacher professionalism: why are we still talking about it?

It is now more than 10 years after the publication of the monograph, The Activist Teaching Profession, which, at the time, could be described as a call to action for the teaching profession. I reflect here on how far has the profession progressed in responding to that call to action. The idea of a ‘call to action’ could be seen to born out of industrial rather than professional discourses: 10 years ago different factors were shaping teachers’ professional practice and identity and a call to action was a metaphor and a strategy to mobilize teachers. In this paper, I identify the factors that are still influencing and shaping the teaching profession and argue that different times require different responses and that current thinking and debates around teacher professionalism circulate around professional learning. In this paper, I argue that the time for an industrial approach to the teaching profession has passed. I make the case for systems, schools and teachers to be more research active with teachers’ practices validated and supported through research.     

Competence-based Approaches: A discussion of issues for professional groups

An increasing number of professional groups are adopting some form of competence-based approach to education and training. Despite their increasing popularity, there remains a fierce debate in the academic literature as to the appropriateness of such approaches for the professions. This paper explores how the teaching, engineering, medical and management professions are using competence-based approaches in the workplace. Some of the key difficulties of the competence-based approach as identified in the literature are examined from a perspective rooted in the practice of these four professional groups.     

The professional role and identity of teachers in the private and state education sectors

Abstract

This paper compares the professional role and identity of teachers in private and state schools. It brings together theory within the sociology of the professions and approaches influenced by Basil Bernstein. It utilises his work on recontextualisation to identify the nature of teachers’ professional role; and Beck and Young’s (2010) Bernstein-influenced analytical framework to understand changes in these teachers’ professional identity. Drawing on focussed qualitative research the study shows how, within private schools, when cloistered from the Official Recontextualising Field (ORF) an idealized account of teachers’ professional work flourishes. This idealized understanding of occupational professionalism is contingent on the ‘othering’ of the state sector: to do this private-school teachers adopt a deprofessionalization discourse which represents the state teacher as a passive receiver of the ORF. In contrast, state teachers foreground their agency to negotiate competing professional logics which they express through hybrid approaches to professional practice.