A NOTE ON TEACHING AS A PROFESSION AND THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF TEACHERS IN DE

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Seminar presentation 28 September 2005
A NOTE ON TEACHING AS A PROFESSION AND THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF TEACHERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
by
Steinar Askvik and Abdul Quddus
University of Bergen and University of Chittagong
1. Introduction
The following is based on some theoretical ideas developed in connection with a study of primary school teachers in Bangladesh where we depart from a concept of teaching as a profession.
Our point of departure is that in order to understand the dynamics of basic schooling in a country such as Bangladesh one has to grasp who the teachers are and how they stand out as an occupational group. That is, we need to know what kind of training and skills they have, how their jobs are defined within the education system, and what kind of status and power they possess in relation to other occupational groups and in a wider societal context.
2. The sociology of professions
Two major approaches can be distinguished in the study of professions: one trying to characterize different occupational groups and their particular role in the society, and the other concentrates on the process through which an occupational group becomes a profession.
Scholars writing mainly in the 1930s claimed that a profession is an occupational group with particular features or traits. Among writers in this tradition we find Carr-Sauners and Wilson (1933) and Marshall (1938). Some decade later attention was directed towards the development of the profession, but there were writers such as Parsons (1951) and Wilensky (1964) who did concentrate on its attributes. For instance, Wilensky argues that selflessness is an important characteristic of a professional. In the 1970s writers like for example Leggatt (1970:156) identified the following criteria that according to him determines whether or not it is sensible to speak of an occupation as a profession:
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Practice is founded upon a base of theoretical, esoteric knowledge
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The acquisition of knowledge requires a long period of education and socialization
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Practitioners are motivated by an ideal of altruistic service rather than the pursuit of material and economic gain
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Careful control is exercised over recruitment, training, certification and standards of practice
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The colleague group is well organized and has disciplinary powers to enforce a code of ethical practice
Another group of writers such as Freidson (1970a, 1970b), Johnson (1972) and Larson (1977) brought the profession into the political arena, emphasizing its role in the community and its connection to the state. What was of major importance now was not the attributes but the ability to be recognized by the state in order to safeguard a degree of autonomy and to have a secure platform from which a producer monopoly could be established. As Freidson remarked:
The foundation on which the analysis of a profession must be based is its relationship to the ultimate source of power and authority in modern society?the state. (Freidson, 1970b)
Freidson highlights the role of state recognition and the delegation of power, which gives the profession a high degree of autonomy. This makes it different from other occupational groups. For Freidson, the term ?profession? refers to specialized work by which one gains a living in an exchange economy (Freidson, 1994). The kind of work, professionals do is esoteric, complex and discretionary in character and it requires theoretical knowledge, skill and judgement that ordinary people do not possess, may not wholly comprehend, and can not readily evaluate. For Freidson, professional work suggests two basic elements of professionalism: (a) commitment to practicing a body of knowledge and skill of special value and (b) to maintaining a fiduciary relationship with clients. Abbott (1988) observed that a profession was an occupational group with some special skill. For Abbott, this was an abstract skill, one that required extensive training. It was not applied in a purely routine fashion, but required revised application case by case.
With regard to teaching Hoyle (2002) observes that a professionalisation process seems to be taking place. The education of teachers has gradually been lengthened and linked up with university education at the same time as its scientific profile has become more clearly anchored in disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical theory. National teachers' associations have also become stronger and more successful vis-a-vis the state in promoting an image of teaching as an occupation based on expert skills. The emergence of mass public education all over the world may have contributed to this situation and increased teachers' social status and occupational prestige among their immediate clients.
Traditionally the professionalisation project of teaching has been seen as a positive development. It has been assumed that the establishment of teaching as a profession implies that teachers emerge as a publicly recognised expert group the members of which possess certain knowledge-based skills acquired through formal training and especially geared to the tasks of teachers. The relevant knowledge base has been referred to as a "pedagogical content knowledge" (Shulman 1987, quoted in Goodson and Hargreaves 1996:6), i.e. the combination of subject matter knowledge and the knowledge of how to teach a subject. Entailed in such a positive conception has also been an assumption that teachers' possession of expert knowledge more or less automatically will render them professional autonomy and social status as an occupational group. They will have more control over their own field, who is allowed
to practise as teachers, relevant career options, working conditions including salary etc.
In recent discourse a distinction has been made between teaching as a profession and the professionalism of teaching. While the former refers to the social status of teachers as an occupational group and to what extent they have achieved control over certain tasks, the latter refers to teachers' competence and skills. Teaching as a profession departs primarily from a sociological perspective on teachers as an occupational group that may or may not acquire public recognition and control over their working conditions. The professionalism of teaching approach is more concerned with what kind of skills teachers have and what they need in relation to their tasks as educators. Thus professionalism in teaching denotes that teachers are competent and capable of solving their tasks in a proper way.
The traditional assumption was that professionalism was a condition of teachers becoming a profession. More recently this link has been challenged and it has been claimed that, on the one hand, the professionalisation project of teachers may inhibit professionalism in so far as it creates a distance between teachers and their immediate clients. The more teaching becomes a strong profession, like medicine or law, the less concern will teachers show for the learners and their families and the less competent will they be in stimulating learning. On the other hand, professionalism may be interpreted as an ideology or a rhetorical strategy of teachers' associations to gain legitimacy and claim exclusive control over the education system because they are more competent than other groups, not only to conduct classroom teaching but also to manage the system.
3. The four actors model of professionalization
We adopt a framework proposed by Burrage et al. (1990). They identified four main actors that according to them, determine the form and success/failure of professionalization processes. These are:
Practising professionals: For Burrage et al. practising professionals themselves are the key actors in their own development. In order to pursue and uphold professional goals i.e. protect and enhance the corporate interests, monopoly of services, maintain professional autonomy etc., practising professionals use their essential ?resources? e.g. organization, ideology and ?proximity and persistence?. According to Burrage et al. there are four major/ ideal types of practitioners? organization. First are those that give primary emphasis to the knowledge base of the profession for example, academy or learned society. Second are those, which primarily seek to represent and lobby on behalf of the profession and to obtain some legislative relief or support. This representative association is primarily oriented towards the state. Third are those, which negotiate on behalf of their members and are often barely distinguishable from trade unions but the trade-union type of organization is primarily concerned to protect members having to deal with organized users of professional services, whether public or private. Finally, there are those that seek to regulate the members of the profession.
States are the second important actors identified by Burrage et al. They are both regulators of professional life and instruments of professional advancement. In fact,
states are directly or indirectly involved in every facet of professional existence, their organization, their resources and ?education and licensing?, their relationships with other professions as well as the ?market? for their services. The power, resources and prestige of any profession, therefore, depends largely on the policies of the state to which they are subjects (Burrage et al. 1990).
Users of professional services are the third significant actors in the professional domain. On the one hand there are individual users, like the ?fee-for-service? clients or patients that pay for the advice or treatment they receive as in the cases of the legal and medical professions. Individual users may control individual practitioners by withholding fees or taking them to court for malpractice, yet when users are organised they are in a better position to influence professions. Collective users, on the other hand, may be trade unions, private companies, business associations or states. Sometimes, as in the case of state provided schooling, a profession will have two groups of users: its immediate clients (students/parents) and its employer (the state and the ministry of education).
Training Institutions, for Burrage et al. (1990) are the fourth significant actors in the professional domain. Their major resources are the knowledge and expertise they generate which professions depend upon to be trusted by their clients. The degrees awarded by the institutions of higher learning render status and legitimacy to professional practitioners. In some professions academic knowledge is the sole source of professional status and professors are key players in the professionalisation process. In other cases legitimate expertise is also acquired through practice, and academic knowledge is less important.
Based on this framework we want to discuss the role that the four actors have played in the development of the primary teaching profession in Bangladesh.
4. Dimensions of professional training
Profession type of training on the other hand takes place in an institution attached to higher education i.e. university and outside the labour market. The trainers of the professional training school is expected not only to teach but also play role as catalyst in the improvement and expansion of existing profession?s body of knowledge and skills by means of both theorizing and research. The ?restriction? of practitioners numbers is an intrinsic part of the professional project what Larson (1977:9-18) called the professions? ?market project? can be ensured through imposing rigorous standards on admission to professional school and requiring trainers to pass through some sort of set examination in order to prove their ability in gaining knowledge and skill and also get their qualifying credential. Freidson (2001) identifies the following dimensions of profession type of training:
a) Curriculum for professional training
There is no agreement among scholars about what should be incorporated in the curriculum for professional training. For Freidson (2001:95), in professional training basically theory and first principles are taught in training schools. In this case both trainees and trainers are not under instant practical demands of everyday professional
service rather trainers obtain their working knowledge after completion of the training programme and leave school. The ideology of professional training put emphasizes on curricula that emphasize basic theory rather than applied work, which enable practitioners to exercise of discretionary judgement rather than the routine application of a limited number of mechanical techniques. Individual occupational groups that fall into the category of professional or semi professional status have relationship of their training programmes with university and the development of a curriculum that emphasizes new or syncretic theory, which intellectualizes their work. Freidson (2001:.95-96) adds:
But even when apprenticeship instead of schooling has been used for professional training apprenticed professionals are also required to be exposed to book learning in the academic or liberal studies, theories, and works treasured by the cultivated elite. Such book learning is not only necessary for the social status desired by professionals??.The connection of training with the high culture valued by the elite and often respected by the masses, even when training does not take place in schools, establishes an essential part of the ideological foundation for the occupation?s status.
On the other hand, Eraut (1992:4) emphasises that the structure of professional education for both pre-qualification and post-qualification should uphold the integration of theory and practice. He also depicts that the very nature of professional work, ?incorporates a significant amount of professional learning and development?. For Firestone (1993:7), ?efforts to professionalize teaching should both build teacher commitment and improve curriculum and instruction?.
b) Control of professional knowledge
Professionalism has a linkage between knowledge, expertise and status as well as reward. Professions depend upon knowledge that can be justified as worthy of reward. The concept of ?profession? denotes a structural link between relatively high levels of formal education and desirable positions and/ or rewards in the social division of labour? (Larson, 1990:30). Professionals? demands for autonomy and material rewards rest on their expertise or professional knowledge (Burrage, 1990:216). One crucial aspect of professional training institutions is that their faculties can dedicate themselves ?to systematizing, refining, and expanding the body of knowledge and skills over which the profession claims jurisdiction?. Moreover, faculties of these institutes are composed of credentialed members of the profession who devote themselves to teaching up-to-date knowledge and skills as well as engaging in research and scholarship to develop new knowledge and skills. Professional faculties resemble professors rather than practitioners (Mayhew, 1971:29). In addition, professional training institute with its credentials faculties has much more flexible and powerful resources (i.e. highly esoteric procedure and techniques to do a job, create standards for work performance as well as limiting how it can be done etc) to control market for particular profession (Freidson, 2001:98).
c) Occupational solidarity
Freidson (2001) opines that the institutionalization of training in formal higher institute (e.g. university) creates the conditions for the relatively secure establishment and expansion of the specialized knowledge and skill of professions. Moreover, such
institutionalized training provides trainers a sense with the prestige of higher education rather than technical education. Freidson (ibid) also argued that the training process creates among trainees a strong sense of ?occupational community? by way of:
a.
all who aspire to be a practitioner of a particular ?profession? always choose in advance to undertake special course or examination required for admission in relating training institute to have credentials in order to qualify as practitioner;
b.
Undergo training over a sustained period of time and same basic courses;
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Trainees are under high demand of their credentialed faculties
These according to Freidson (ibid) resulted trainees? commitment to and identification with a particular occupation hence create a degree of solidarity with other trainees who have gone through the same process of acquiring special body of knowledge from training institutes. Freidson (2001:101) adds:
The sense of community, or solidarity, among those trained at professional schools is strengthened by the common problems they confront in the course of their work, and both together encourage an inclination to form societies or associations in which they can come together to ??share new knowledge and techniques.
He also argues that professional training is likely to socialize the trainees into an occupational culture that is shared with fellow-students.
d) Professionals? status
One of the key characteristics of professions is that they are knowledge based occupational groups. Thus, professional education in the ?semi professions? such as teaching has moved from a ?vocational? model to an ?academic? model (Smeby, 2004:2). For Freidson (ibid) professional training is the source of knowledge base that help in shaping professionals? high cultural (social) prestige. The connection of professional training with higher education fosters social status. As Freidson (ibid) argues that ?the prestige attached to professions stems less from the social origin of their members than from the fact of their attending institutions of higher education that are respected by the elite, and their service to elite interests?. For Torstendahl (1993:111), the universities in Europe were established to train the specialized servants to serve the elite:
..university objectives were professional in learning from the very beginning. They were designed to assure that groups of people would be given a training which would enable them to cope with problems of certain defined fields of practice of particular concern to princes and churches.