Governing teaching practice - a study of the teaching professions technical core
Extant research testifies to considerable effects on different public sector professions due to the reforms of last two decades in terms of formalization, standardization and control and the output of professional work increasingly measured and valued according to non-professional norms. Teachers seem to follow that trend, their work have been subject to intense and enduring attempts to redesign the practice of teaching at the classroom level. But the teachers are at an important "anomaly" compared to the development in other, similar "semi-professional" groups. Their transformation has been in quite different direction; the methods and approaches advanced by national agencies, the local principals and teacher colleges are consciously distancing the general teaching practice from the use of explicit knowledge, standardization and evidence based methods.
We intend to investigate how the technical core of teaching has changed using a longitudinal and retrospective research design to unfold the development of changes over time, but also map the landscape governing professional practice in the Swedish school system. The teaching practice is approached as an object of control to actors, forces and contexts within the larger school system. The project intends to analyze a) the emergence of a new direction in the governing of teaching practice, and b) how and in what ways the technical core of teachers work have been affected by the new forms of governing teaching practice.
We intend to investigate how the technical core of teaching has changed using a longitudinal and retrospective research design to unfold the development of changes over time, but also map the landscape governing professional practice in the Swedish school system. The teaching practice is approached as an object of control to actors, forces and contexts within the larger school system. The project intends to analyze a) the emergence of a new direction in the governing of teaching practice, and b) how and in what ways the technical core of teachers work have been affected by the new forms of governing teaching practice.