Teachers, school choice and competition: Lock-in effects within and between sectors

Abstract

Neoliberal forces since the latter part of the 20th century have ushered in greater devolution in state schooling systems, producing uneven effects on the working conditions of teachers, commonly the largest segment of the public sector workforce. Within this context, this paper examines secondary teachers’ working conditions as they relate to the restructuring of the professional landscape that school choice reforms bring. Drawing illustrations from a qualitative study of teachers’ working experiences in the lowest socio-economic status schools, through the ‘middle band’, to the most prestigious and affluent in a metropolitan city in Australia, this paper finds that teachers develop skill-sets that are context specific, creating possible ‘lock-in effects’ within but also between sectors. Moreover, various work arrangement issues seem to reinforce the lock-in effects by making changes between sectors risky and unattractive. We postulate that inter- and intra-sectoral differences, which are exacerbated through school choice processes, have the potential to reinforce and deepen the lock-in effects on teachers, with possible consequences for their future career mobility.

Vol 7, No 2 (2017)

“…For example, teachers in Sweden are working in an environment characterized by reform agendas such as choice, privatization, marketization, competition as well as decentralization (Parding & Berg-Jansson, 2016;. Similar trends can be found in the Nordic context and elsewhere, such as Taiwan and Australia (e.g., Kamp, 2016;Huang, 2016;Parding, McGrath-Champ, & Stacey, 2017). Indeed, competence development 1 is an essential aspect of professional work.…”

Governance reform in context: Welfare sector professionals’ working and employment conditions

“…Another point in which teachers’ experiences have been argued to differ with regard to geographical context, from the Australian context, is in relationships with superiors (McGrath-Champ et al, 2019), with greater ‘care’ apparent particularly in remote areas, where ‘the nexus between work and life outside work is often unclear as so much of remote life is intertwined with the workplace – socially, professionally and physically’ (Brasche and Harrington, 2012: 120). In our own previous research in this context, we found that how teachers describe their conditions for work clearly links back to local and regional circumstances; a differentiation in working conditions was identified (Parding et al, 2017). A contribution made in this article is to further develop this body of work through a focus on the welfare sector professionals working in the education sector – the teachers.…”

Conditions for workplace learning in professional work

“…As an example of welfare-sector professionals situated in changing governance contexts, teachers in Sweden work in a context that is characterised by decentralisation, as well as choice, privatisation, marketisation and competition. Similar trends can be found in the Nordic context and elsewhere, such as Taiwan and Australia (Kamp, 2016;Huang, 2016;Parding et al, 2017a). These governance changes can be assumed to influence teachers' working conditions, including conditions for learning and development [1].…”

“…However, these three transitions can take different shapes depending on context, such as regional or even local workplace levels. Based on this line of argument, we argue that it is important to take specific contexts into consideration when examining conditions for professionals' learning (Parding et al, 2017a;Parding et al, 2017b). We can understand why the line of arguments brought forward in the education and the workplace learning fields are not always what we see in practice assisted by the sociology of professions.…”