Professional Capital in Emerging Economies

• In Event: Professional Capital: A New Agenda to Transform Teaching in Every School

Abstract

Objectives

This presentation examines how five educational systems in emerging economies are developing professional capital to revitalize the teaching profession. Models to develop professional capital are discussed in terms of the possibilities they enable and some of their limitations.

Perspective

Solutions to the problem of developing and circulating professional capital in educational systems are placed in a spectrum that has on one end the creation of an educational system that strives to resemble those of existing high-performing countries. In the opposite end, the solution is found in building a new educational system that radically redefines teaching and learning and the relationship between education policy and practice.

Data sources and modes of inquiry

Five educational reform initiatives from emerging economies were selected for their demonstrated improvement in student achievement over the past few years: Madhya Pradesh (India), Minas Gerais (Brazil), Western Cape (South Africa), Escuela Nueva (Colombia), and the Learning Community Project (Mexico). A literature review was conducted to examine their strategies to develop professional capital in contexts of initial low-capacity.

Conclusions

Successful initiatives aimed at building educational systems that resemble those in high-performing countries keep a conventional top-down separation between teachers and students and between policy and practice. In this case, the role of education ministries has been to develop minimal instructional materials, coordinate implementation, establish new leadership positions, and ensure availability of instructional materials and constructive feedback for teachers. A key limitation of this approach is that, in the best possible scenario, it will reach only as high as the highest-performing countries, all of which are reaching capacity and are facing the challenge of radically redefining teaching and learning so that students develop skills and dispositions that go beyond what current tests measure.

On the other end of the spectrum, some successful initiatives have departed from conventional wisdom and radically redefined teaching, learning and education policy. They promote instructional practices that transform the instructional core in such a way that teachers become students and students become teachers. They have developed horizontal relationships of mutual influence between policy and practice, whereby one informs the other in a dialogic, rather than a hierarchical way. These initiatives are similar in their genesis and development to social movements. Teachers and local educational authorities have mobilized in coordination with initiative leaders to activate social networks, spread interest and gain support. Leaders have gained access to institutional power and political influence to disseminate the new practice on a large scale. A key limitation of this approach is that it is subject to marginalization or disappearance when there are drastic shifts in the political agenda. Ritualization or mechanization of the original model is also a risk when the innovation is brought to scale.

Scholarly significance

This presentation clarifies possibilities and trade-offs of courses of action for revitalizing the teaching profession, an important contribution in a moment when there is increased awareness of the limitations of current educational reform efforts worldwide and, at the same time, a need to re-imagine instructional practice and education policy.

Author

• Santiago Rincon-Gallardo, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education