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Professionals were once considered to be the civic leaders, the deliverers of the - society However, the old order has cracked under the pressure of social change, leaving a very different relation between professionals and their publics. This paper addresses some of the questions occasioned by these changes. Where does the altered pours relation between parents, students and teachers leave the notion of teacher professionalism? What is the role of professionals within the emergent order? The paper is a product of the ESRC-funded New Forms of Education Management Project (Local Governance Programme) It argues that, within the new management of education, the professional codes and practices point to a changing relation between teachers and what has traditionally been seen as their specialist knowledge. An outcome of this altered relation is the empowerment of parents and students in relation to teachers However, the new relation depends upon new shared understandings and new sets of agreement-making and these in turn depend upon new processes of agreement-making and a radically altered power relation between parents, students and teachers as they jointly develop these processes The paper reviews the changing purposes of professionalism during the second half of the 20th century and outlines a new version of teacher professionality based upon the enabling of learning, the accommodation of difference, and the practice of agreement Agreement is then 'theorised' in terms of the nature of agreement and the institutional structuring of agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the argument is made that forms of consciousness, knowledge, sentiments and values that teachers use as part of their cultural repertoires in schools are the result of social constitution The `social' is composed of a number of overlapping discourses that are characteristic of schools everywhere `Teacher culture' is a signifier for the production and consumption of these discourses Recent trends to emphasise the plurality of teacher culture(s) are countered by a review of work that suggests more uniformity in teacher culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of bricolage, as it is developed by Levi-Strauss, is useful in characterising the form of teacher's work, it subsumes extensive research on the form of teacher's work and provides a heuristic device for developing causal explanations of the form of teachers' work as well as drawing together and unifying explanations developed in the literature. This assists and informs interventions to promote progressive pedagogy. The paper begins with an account of bricolage and its relationship to a science of pedagogy Next,features of teachers' work which push it toward bricolage are discussed, viz. Conservatism, limited creativity, repertoire enlargement, teacher' use of theory, the use of devious means, and ad hocism. Causal explanations of various of these features are discussed, viz. anticipatory socialization, aspects of preservice teacher education experiences and constraints in the work situation. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for teacher education of taking seriously the suggestion that teachers' work is bricolage and taking seriously the associated causal explanations. It is argued that a critical starting point for progressive change in educational practice is the provision of inservice for tertiary educators who may themselves be bricoleurs. Without this, the significant necessary changes to preservice student's on-campus and within school experiences are unlikely to be supported or legitimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teacher's body has a dubious status within contemporary pedagogic practice. The impact of progressivism in many western countries, with its emphasis on student-centred learning, has resulted in a marginalisation of the teacher's role in many classrooms. While its influence appears to be waning, in Australian primary schools, student-centred methodologies such as group-based and independent learning tend to dominate classroom practice. Relegated to the role of facilitator the teacher's overall presence and bodily impact in classrooms has been greatly reduced. Drawing on a study of the practice of two kindergarten teachers in two schools in Sydney, Australia, this article will examine the ways in which they embody pedagogic space, the regimen they create and the techniques they employ in teaching their students how to write. In a sense the title 'Disparate bodies' has a dual focus. Not only does it relate to the different ways in which the two teachers deploy their bodies in the classroom, it also refers to the differential embodiment of their students which results from the affects that their teachers' pedagogies engender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers in Tasmania, Australia, gave accounts of their experience of increased workload in the 10 years between 1984 and 1994. They reported working longer hours, teaching more students and having increased professional, pastoral and administrative duties. The reasons for this increased workload include: (1) less money being spent on education; (2) changes in student assessment from a norm basis to a criterion basis; (3) a change in the administrative structure within the state colleges in which most respondents teach; (4) a change in the student population. The result, they reported, was that their workload was both increased and extended (intensified), leading to a much more complex workplace. Significantly, complexity was also produced by the attempt of teachers to maintain their professional commitment while adapting to the economic rationalist policies of administrators. However, loss of teachers through redundancy, stress and a move to part-time work has meant that those teachers remaining have had to rationalize their work and reduce their professional commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the specificity of the institutional dialectical dynamics of how recent policy impacts on teacher cultures and in turn how teacher cultures impact on policy. The study illustrates the complexity of the development of Occupational strategies and identifies at a time of rapid organisational change. This could not have been predicted on the basis of a "priori" sociological assumptions concerning teacher responses. Further theory-led empirical work might serve to demonstrate the wide range of responses to the restructuring of teachers' work. This may enable one, in relation to student responses to schooling, to move beyond a search for a teacher typology and construct a grammar of modes of challenge, which accounts for hegemonic and counter-hegemonic tendencies. This may facilitate the generation of theoretical models that help one to incorporate one's understanding of school work-pIace micro-politics within more general explanations of the changing nature and structure of teachers' work, at a time of rapid socioeconomic, political and technological change. In turn, this may provide much needed support at a critical time for State teachers, students and comprehensive schooling.