From Craft to Engineer: Exploring the Impact of Accountability on English Teaching From 1980 to 2010

• In Event: 63.057 - When the Pressure Is On: Effects of Accountability on Instruction

Abstract

Research on the accountability movement in education lacks empirical insight into its impact on the way teachers internalize professional attitudes and roles. To address this gap, this paper examines the professional discourse used by secondary English teachers in The English Journal from 1980 to 2010. The changes in the discourse reflect a fundamental difference in how professional roles and attitudes were constructed in the 1980s compared to patterns in 2000s. In Perrow’s (1967) job configuration terminology, the accountability movement altered the dominant conception of teachers’ work from one that defined teaching as a “craft” (characterized by subjective judgment and tacit expertise) to one that defines it as an “engineering” activity (characterized by mandates and regulations, and a technical efficiency orientation).

Author

• Sarah Marten, The University of Kansas