"Opportunity," "Poverty," and "Teacher Quality" in England

• In Event: Investigating Teacher Quality Around the World

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: This paper reports on our study of the changing landscape for teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) in England by focusing on the provision of targeted post-qualification education and training to teachers in high-poverty communities designated as ‘Opportunity Areas’ by the UK government (DfE, 2017). The aim of the paper is show the relationships between public policy, aspects of redefined professionalism for teachers such as notions of ‘teacher quality’ (Skourdoumbis, 2017; Hanushek, 2011), and the kinds of further training available for teachers, specifically in high-poverty schools.

The focus for our analysis are organisations that won funding in the first round of the Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund (TLIF), offered by the UK government in 2017. Our analysis in this paper maintains an emphasis on understanding change and historical transformation through explicit attention to political economy by paying close attention to:
the interaction of political and economic processes within a society: the distribution of power and wealth between different groups and individuals, and the processes that create, sustain and transform these relationships over time. (Collinson, 2003, p. 3)

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: In seeking to understand these interactions in the field of CPD for teachers, we have adopted the multiple method approach of critical policy sociology (Taylor, 1997). This analytic focus views policies such as the TLIF as ‘ideological and political artefacts which have been constructed within a particular historical and political context’ (Gale 1999, p. 399).

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: The primary data consist of public records (such as financial accounts, annual reports, registers of interests and government contracts databases) available on the websites and in the archives of official regulatory bodies in England such as Companies House and the Charity Commission. We also refer to the websites, course materials, and public communications of the eight organisations awarded funding under the first round of TLIF in 2017, as well as relevant policy texts. We draw on responses to our Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the UK government. Finally, we generated, and use in our analysis, original data through interviews with some of the organisations that won funding and also with organisations that were unsuccessful in their bids.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions: Our paper shows how, specifically in relation to one national CPD initiative in England, the economistic link between ‘teacher quality’ and the political imperative of ‘social mobility’ has restricted both the extent of the provision of CPD for teachers in public schools and also narrowed the focus of the training to practices that have the demonstrated potential to further disadvantage children and young people experiencing economic and social inequity. As such, determined by the economistic notion of ‘teacher quality’, the CPD provision for teachers in these areas has the potential to reproduce rather than transform existing educational opportunities.

Authors

• Viv Ellis, Monash University

• Sarah Steadman, King's College London