Undermining teachers’ social capital: a question of trust, professionalism, and empowerment

Abstract The question of professional trust urgently needs closer attention in relation to teacher recruitment and retention, as this research shows it has significant bearing on the symbolic capital that may help to attract, motivate, and sustain high quality teachers. In Australian schools, teachers are frequently subject to initiatives to improve their practice, address their perceived limitations, and hold them accountable for failing students, schools, or systems. We argue that teachers, in the advent of these reforms intended to improve them, come to believe they are distrusted in their professional roles. Denying teachers the sense of themselves as capable professionals risks contributing to the problems of retention that are becoming ever more urgent in the Australian context and elsewhere in the world. This article explores the impacts of discourses and policy directions on teachers’ perceptions of professional trust. Drawing on case study data from two schools in the state of Victoria, Australia, we highlight the ways discourses of professional distrust emerge through policy directives that position teachers as ‘the problem’ in education.