Do Teachers Want to Work with Inspectors? The Monitoring Programmes

Abstract

The emerging dichotomy between control and support/monitoring, which takes place when the performance of inspection at schools is at stake, was crucial to the definition of our goal: knowing the perceptions of teachers and inspectors regarding the relationship between them and the impact of this relation in the collaborative work that they must undertake in the context of the monitoring programmes. The methodological option, of a qualitative nature, comprised a case study involving five school clusters. We used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as data collection instruments. Data were analysed through content analysis and descriptive statistical analysis. In total, the study involved 130 participants, including teachers and inspectors. The research results show the contradictory nature of the multiple activities under the responsibility of this inspection body, which means that inspectors are not always well received by teachers, even if the activities have a different nature from the evaluation and control ones.