Holding our Ground in the Face of Public Mistrust: The Future of Professionalism in Teaching and Teacher Education

Abstract

Globally, enduring skepticism around professionalism in education systems has questioned the efficiency in which teachers meet students’ educational needs and their authority to do so. Presently, efforts toward professionalization in teacher education (TE) are threatened by neoliberal reforms promoting alternative pathways into teaching and performance-based accountability mechanisms to monitor teachers and schools. In the face of public mistrust and external threats, this conceptual paper aims to envision the future of TE in light of the complexities inherent to the notion of professionalism. To this end, two competing ideals of teaching, which represent co-existing conceptions of professional work in education are examined: The teacher as an expert clinician ideal entrenched in expertise-driven professionalism and the teacher as a democratic pedagogue grounded in democratic professionalism. I offer ways in which these competing discourses could be fused to set the discussion about professionalism in teaching and its implications for TE on firmer grounds.