Professionalism and teacher education in Australia and England

In the past decade, notions of teacher professionalism have been associated with increased accountability, standards, performance assessments, and teacher testing, and impacted by alternative pathways into the profession that downplays professional education and foreground subject content knowledge expertise and opportunity to learn on the job. This paper examines the relationship between teacher professionalism and teacher education in Australia and England. It analyses the ways in which professionalism is constructed in teacher education policy and related directives in each country. We argue that professionalism in these countries is being (re)constructed through performance management, standards and increased accountability as managerial professionalism. Teacher education policies fail to acknowledge the importance of preparing research literate teachers and teacher-researchers. They also fail to capitalise on opportunities for teacher education research to inform evidence requirements for accountability purposes. In these ways, teacher education policies in Australia and England are de-professionalising teachers and teacher educators.