Teacher Policies in Europe: Strengthening Collaboration?

Description

In this paper, we present the findings of a comparative study of the policy discourses of teacher collaboration which have emerged through the European Union Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) strategic framework and individual Member State education reforms. Using Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodological approach, we focus principally on key policy reports and recommendations of the European Commission and national policy documents from England, Ireland and the Netherlands between 2010 and 2017. This longitudinal, documentary research enabled an exploration of both the temporal and spatial continuities and changes, and the national distinctiveness of the teachers’ professional mandate (Whitty, 2000). We argue that collaborative professionalism (Whitty, 2008) is promoted as a ‘common sense’ solution to teacher, school and system improvement. However, the extent to which teacher collaboration is given semantic status and/or legitimated as a professional project – and not part of a wider neoliberal reform agenda linked to national structural reforms or performance in the local or global school market – is dependent on the principal actors involved in the policy production and a wider range of situational, political and cultural factors.

As education systems globally adopt large-scale policy reforms of decentralisation, deregulation and privatisation, the organisational context of teachers’ initial education, professional practice and continuing development has become increasingly divided between a market of public and private providers. To counter the concomitant fragmentation in the knowledge base of the teaching profession, collaborative working practices in and between schools are being promoted by policy actors at international level (European Commission, 2015; OECD, 2013). The European Commission, particularly, has highlighted professional collaboration as a way to strengthen teaching in Europe. In a 2015 synthesis of research evidence related to teacher quality and effectiveness across the region, it noted that the presence of collaborative practice in schools is ‘positively linked with teachers’ levels of satisfaction - both their satisfaction with the profession and with their work environment’ (2015, p. 4). Equally, citing a report by Isac and her colleagues (2015), it highlighted ‘the association between teachers’ participation in professional development activities (such as engaging in collaborative research, conducting observation visits to other classrooms or participating in teachers’ networks) and their likelihood of using innovative pedagogies more frequently’ (Isac et al. 2015, pp. 128-129). Still, despite the perceived benefits of teacher collaboration to professional knowledge, community and the overall attractiveness of the profession – significant when there is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis in many EU Member States – there is no comparative research on how national policy makers have implemented the necessary support mechanisms to facilitate such practices. More critically, in neoliberal ideological cultures of competition and comparison, there is a need to investigate the extent to which policies of collaboration might simply be manufactured by policymakers, employers and managers to serve their political, economic and organisational aims and interests (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012). This paper aims therefore to explore the policy discourses of teacher collaboration in three different EU Member States – England, Ireland and the Netherlands – by addressing the following questions:

What are the dominant discourses of teacher collaboration in the EU and national policy texts?

Is teacher collaboration a clear policy focus in all three national contexts, or is there a notable difference in the emphasis placed on it?

Can the dominant discourses of teacher collaboration be understood as simply a reflection or an extension of EU policy, with clear evidence of ‘intertextuality’ (Hyatt 2013), or are there significant variances in how ‘collaboration’ is construed?

Finally, how do the policy discourses of teacher collaboration link to wider debates in education at European and global level?

Period	4 Sept 2018
Event title	European Conference on Educational Research 2018: Inclusion and Exclusion, Resources for Educational Research?
Event type	Conference
Location	Bolzano, ItalyShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International