“Is this actually a good thing?”: Teacher professional identity and professional ethics under neoliberalism

Abstract

This study considers the way teacher professional identity and ethics come into tension with governing policies in education.

Informed by institutional ethnography, the research is a case study of a public secondary school in Sydney, Australia. This case study begins from the standpoint of five teachers, mapping outwards through significant policy texts to the ‘ruling relations’ and discourses that articulate a vision of teacher professionalism in New South Wales. A series of classroom observations contrast these governing discourses with the material reality of the classroom. In this way the design of the study mirrors the tension between neoliberal policy and the practices of teachers as they engage in policy enactment.

Through the course of this research, a mandated professional development process emerged as a significant mode of discursive governance that conceptualises professional identity in particular ways. Reflecting neoliberal accountability approaches as well as diluted goals of ‘equity and excellence’ expressed in Australian education policy, this process purports to define teachers’ work and professionalism. While teachers find the process useful, it contributes to the growth in administrative workload that is emblematic of neoliberalism. This thesis understands policy enactment as involving practices of attachment, aversion, and indifference, designed to mitigate the impacts on teacher workload of new accountability demands and frequent policy changes. However, there is also an excessive and contingent dimension to classroom practice for which teachers must also prepare: something that cannot be captured in policy and paperwork. This dimension demands a strong sense of ethical identity and professionalism; practices that are not privileged in the quantifiable, thinned-out logic of neoliberalism.

This thesis contributes to ethical and political debates about the nature of teacher professional identity under neoliberalism. It argues that teachers have a role as ‘truth speakers’ as well as an ethical duty of care to help their students prepare for the challenges of a transformed and transforming world. While professional development processes may be helpful in developing some elements of pedagogical and professional practice, this thesis shows that the attitudinal and ethical domains of teacher professional learning deserve a greater emphasis in education policymaking, and teachers deserve greater freedom to strengthen the moral and transformative capabilities of their students.