First presentation in the series "Professionalising teachers and raising the quality of care" (PAMAOK003); MA in Education Studies , Groningen University (RUG), 10 November 2010.
1. Professionalising teachers and raising the quality of care An introduction PAMAOK003: Professionalising teachers and raising the quality of care Lecture 1 | 10 November 2010 Ernst D. Thoutenhoofd To review this presentation see www.slideshare.net/ernstt
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Objectives for this introductory lecture Put the role of educational expertise in improving the quality of educational practice up for discussion. Firstly, by detailing a constructivist perspective, in order to make visible what is often taken for granted in the notion of professionalism. And secondly, by describing assessment-based intervention as a widely-used functionalist approach to improving educational practice, before other approaches are introduced. NB: ‘assessment’ is here used as English equivalent of the Dutch term ‘diagnosis’; in both cases what is meant is a formal, normative, expert appraisal aimed at determining a causal interaction.
7. Professional differentiation over time curriculum ¶ Based on Meijer et al. (2008): Leren met meer effect. teacher pupil scientist pupil curriculum advisor assistant teacher manager
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. Summary of professionalism as critique Constructivism is alert to socio-political dimensions, while functionalism focuses on the quality of the task. Education professionals confront both constructivist and functionalist dimensions of professionalism on a daily basis. There is a highly symbiotic (mutually enhancing) relationship between science, professionalism and policy; e.g. raising the quality of educational care. Education scholars are becoming increasingly interventionist, while education professionals become increasingly scientific .
14. Critical de- differentiation ¶ Based on Meijer et al. (2008): Leren met meer effect. scientist pupil curriculum advisor assistant teacher manager scientist pupil curriculum advisor assistant teacher manager
In this talk however, we take a step back from the management of these relationship, in order to ask the earlier, underlying question of what we actually mean by professionalism, why we need it, and what it does. I will present to you two different perspectives, in order to show you that this is not a matter of common-sense or obvious agreement. The two perspectives are in turn functionalist and constructivist. Of course, while these are here presented as contrasts, the point is sooner that you understand how different ways of thinking and reasoning lead to radically different insight. While it is often assumed that “professionalism” has a unified, collectively shared meaning, sociologists, historians and linguists in particular will often see reason to question that assumption. While a historian might ask how professionalism developed and changed over time, the question a sociologist may ask is, “who benefits from claims about professionalism, and how?”
Meijer discusses change in education in terms of increasing differentiation. Subsequent sessions of this module each address other ways of managing the relationships, especially in terms of delivering quality care in a professional manner. Question: What sorts of things are missing from this differentiation? Examples: parents, data, an ‘evidence’-base, technologies and technological insfrastructures, institutions, and policy….
PS: Michael Rosenberg is departmental colleague of Edward Pajak.
Functionalist perspectives on professionalism tend to black-box: the social construction of expertise, the convenient exploitation of problems, the dilemmas inherent in social webs of action, the reinforcement of prior existing inequities, self-interest, the collusion with popular and political ambitions, (et cetera)
Question: Can you think of other factors that help sustain the number of children ‘at risk’ in education? Given this, how might we otherwise conceive of the ‘child sciences’?
Contrary to Meijer’s conclusions, a critical constructivist sociology of professionalisation would forward the idea that boundaries are constituted and maintained as practice, so that defining differences between roles requires constant work . That ‘boundary work’ is what is made visible across the full range of texts used in this module: at the same time as intending to “divide the labour” involved in special needs education, it offers, through its insistence on particular forms of labour, a vision of the divisions that are taken to define practice. What results is the conclusion that instead of practice being ‘systematic’, orderly, structured or well-divided between roles, practice can equally be understood as messy, heterogeneous, locally achieved or performed. In other words, practice is underdetermined by reference to professionalisation alone.
Question: What critique can you give of professional practice?