Accountable for what and to whom?

The educational policy discourse increasingly emphasises student performance, while teacher accountability is currently represented as a central, but contested, aspect of professionalism (Mausethagen and Granlund, 2012). Yet, how do teachers make sense of being a teacher when professionalism is reconstructed in policy? The research questions guiding the analysis is: (1) How are accountability policies accepted (legitimized) and resisted (de-legitimized)? (2) And in this landscape of acceptance and resistance, if and how are new ideas about being accountable constructed?

Representations of legitimation and acceptance: To be accountable for student results To be accountable to curriculum and national policy To be accountable to parents and principal

Representations of delegitimization and resistance: To be accountable for broader aims of education To be accountable to professional knowledge However, between external and internal accountability, new representations develop: To be accountable in workplace relations To be accountable for scientific knowledge A new, emerging (counter) discourse ? Scientific knowledge situated as coming from outside (authorities), but much more positively evaluated than external control Research-informed practice placed within teachers value systems - important for enhancing professional status and legitimacy

Theoretical and empirical contributions find teacher accountability / responsibility a defining, yet contested, aspect of teacher professionalism. However, changes in teacher work is often articulated in a dichotomous manner, rather than looking at how aspects of external accountability challenge teachers internal accountability.

External accountability (input and output control)

Teachers (new) responses

Teachers internal accountability (ethics, service-ideal)

Teachers legitimation around accountability questions dichotomous notions of professionalism. New policy discourses call for new responses among teachers, where both acceptance and resistance are articulated. In particular, scientific knowledge is an important representation to enhance legitimacy. The findings also illustrate how difficult it is for policy to be effective. How and why teachers accept or resist accountability policies should have implications for policy makers.

The analysis is based on focus group interviews (90 min) of 22 teachers who work in stable units. Legitimation strategies and tools from discourse analysis are used in the analysis to investigate nuances and variations in teachers responses, also being attentive to value systems.

Mausethagen, S. and Granlund, L. (2012). Contested discourses of teacher professionalism. Current tensions between education policy and teachers union. Journal of Education Policy. DOI:10.1080/02680939.2012.672656

Legitimation is here understood as creating a sense of positive, beneficial, ethical,understandable, necessary or acceptable action - what is regarded appropriate ?

Slvi Mausethagen PhD Research Fellow Centre for the Study of Professions Oslo and Akershus University College solvi.mausethagen@hioa.no