Conference Agenda

Education systems around the globe are experiencing shortages of teachers (Welch, 2022). While the causes of such shortages are many, one contributing factor has been identified as teachers’ working conditions and in particular their workload (Heffernan et al., 2022). Concerns about the volume and scope of teachers’ work are international, with reports of work overload appearing in, for example, countries including England (2019), Germany (Kreuzfeld et al., 2022), and France (Huyghebaert et al., 2018). In Australia, these discussions have included a focus on the ‘administrative’ work undertaken by teachers, which is relatively high when compared internationally (Thomson & Hillman, 2020). These concerns have been followed up in NSW state education policy, for example, with suggestions to reduce teachers’ time in lesson planning. However, such suggestions have been critiqued for the way in which they have positioned lesson planning as ‘administrative’ work, and therefore not ‘core’ to the work of teaching (Wilson et al., 2022). This policy response, and subsequent controversy, is emblematic of the contested nature of teachers’ work around the world, and what is, and is not, ‘core’ to the profession today.

It is within this context that we present this paper, which aims to consider how teachers’ ‘core work’ may be defined. We draw on literature exploring the nature of teachers’ working conditions and intensification (e.g. Fitzgerald et al., 2019), alongside conceptualisations of ‘good teaching’ in both research (e.g. Llopart & Esteban-Guitart, 2017) and policy (e.g. Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2014). Using this framing, we develop a conceptual matrix for how ‘core work’ might be defined, as an ever-evolving combination of work undertaken and valued by the profession, tested against the research literature and considered in light of policy objectives. What is missing from this equation, however, is robust empirical evidence of what teachers do and what they value in what they do. We theorise that both teachers’ frequency and valuing of different activities must be taken into account in order to support a form of occupational professionalism (Evetts, 2009) that is meaningful to teachers and which supports workforce retention. It is here that we contribute, providing large-scale data to document the work that teachers actually do.

To do this, we provide an analysis of a large-scale, detailed quantitative investigation of the nature of teachers’ work, in particular the activities they undertake on a daily, weekly, and less-than-weekly basis, and whether or not they value these activities as important/necessary. The research questions for the paper are:

1. What do teachers do on a daily, weekly, and less-than-weekly basis?
2. To what degree do they perceive this work to be important/necessary?

By answering these questions using the empirical data gathered and which delineates what teachers in NSW, Australia ‘do’ in their work, and what they do and do not value about this work, we aim to explicate our proposed conceptualisation of teachers’ ‘core work’. The analysis thus developed will therefore provide important grounding for how ‘core work’ in teaching might be defined, and supported, in policy moving forward - both in Australia and elsewhere.

In recent decades there has internationally been an increasing emphasis on evidence in education (Levinsson & Prøtz, 2017) which has led to various initiatives aimed at bridging the, since many years asserted, ‘research-practice gap’ (Biesta, 2007; Neal et al., 2019). One initiative is the establishment of formal organisations with the main task to synthesise and disseminate research, using the systematic review format. Since one prominent expression for the gap between research and practice includes limited use of research in practice, an assignment for these formal organisations is to facilitate bridging the research-practice gap by establishing channels of communication between researchers and practitioners (Neal et al., 2019). To narrow the gap between researchers and practitioners a reconsideration of the disseminating process is suggested, from a traditional view of dissemination as a linear rational process to a more complex and differentiated phenomenon (Vanderlinde & van Braak, 2010). A more realistic representation of the process will then be an interactive model, where interdependencies and connections between different actors influence each other in different ways.

In Sweden, the Swedish Institute for Educational Research (SIER) was established by the Swedish government in 2015 with the mandate to synthesise research that can provide knowledge support for professionals at various organisational levels. This was a response to increased evidence-based requirements in the field of education. The main task of SIER is to enable practitioners to plan, carry out and evaluate teaching based on research-based methods. This objective is supposed to be achieved by carrying out systematic reviews and other research summaries in a way that is useful to those who work in the school system. Being in the borderland between politic, research, and practice when conducting a systematic review, SIER have a mediated role between researchers and those who work in the school system. To manage the tension between two different social worlds and the fact that various stakeholders place diverse, and sometimes conflicting demands on organisations as SIER, Parker and Crona (2012) highlight the importance of ‘boundary management’ as an adaptive, navigating, and negotiating continuous process to handle these dynamic tensions over time.

The aim of our study is to contribute to deepen the understanding on how boundary management at SIER, when producing a systematic review, can be understood. To deepen the understanding on boundary management at SIER, this paper draws on concepts from the interdisciplinary research field of Science and technology studies (STS). STS regards science as a complex and socially constructed activity. To understand boundary management at SIER the concept of boundary work (Gieryn 1983) is a fruitful analytic tool with “broad applicability” (Sismondo 2012, p. 34), that could make visible how cooperation; the various ways in which different social worlds, are handled in various sites and situations (Star & Griesemer 1989, p. 393).

This paper outlines the complexities of teacher professionalism as advocated in the Professional Standards for Scotland’s teachers, alongside a consideration of the central role of GTC Scotland in enhancing trusted teaching. In a current context of educational reform, the positioning and core purpose of GTC Scotland is considered, offering implications for international contexts in defining and supporting individual and collective teacher professionalism.

GTC Scotland as one of the oldest teaching councils in the world was established to address concerns about teacher quality in response to increasing numbers of uncertified teachers. GTC Scotland is now the teaching profession’s independent registration and regulation body, and works to support and promote teaching in a complex landscape of governance, policy and professionalism. This complexity has resonance across all education systems where there is an expectation that teachers operationalise imperatives created in other parts of the system.

GTC Scotland was granted independence from Government in 2011, meaning, unlike other jurisdictions, the profession has responsibility for its own teaching standards under the guardianship of GTC Scotland. The refreshed Professional Standards published in August 2021, define what it means to become, be and grow as a teacher in Scotland and aims to scaffold current practice, encouraging teachers to develop new ways of working to ensure learners needs are met. Therefore, we argue that GTC Scotland is not an external agent in the Scottish education system, but integral to teacher professionalism at individual, group and system level.

GTC Scotland refreshed the suite of five Professional Standards in partnership with stakeholders from across the education system these refreshed Professional Standards illustrate what professionalism means in practice. However, it is acknowledged that professionalism is “mutlifaceted” (Kennedy, McGregor and Barlow, 2012) and is “mastered through acquisitions” (Gee, 2015, p.189). Therefore, the role of GTC Scotland in the Scottish context to support the “enculturation” of teachers into the social and political world of teaching through scaffolding and supporting professional actions and illustrations, as outlined in the suite of Professional Standards will be discussed.

Central to Scotland’s Professional Standards for teachers are shared professional values, supporting a shared understanding of professionalism and outlining the responsibilities and accountabilities that are inherent, in belonging to a profession. The professional standards work with a number of other factors such as agreed entry criteria, a commitment to ongoing learning, a code of professionalism and conduct, and a regulatory system to provide the “privilege of self-regulation” (Teaching Scotland, 2021). This offers the opportunity for the profession to make decisions on the knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities that matter most.