Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux

Abstract

Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux 'Few professionals talk as much about being professionals as those whose professional stature is in doubt.' (F. Katz, in A. Etzioni The semi-professions and their organisation. Teachers, nurses, social workers 1969.)Our first purpose is to look at the epistemological, methodological and narrative strategies whereby 'professionalism' is currently conceptualised. We will try to show that the professional -as 'teacher' or 'nurse' -is an indefensibly unitary construct.There is no such thing as 'a teacher', and the notion of 'nurses' or 'teachers' is already too much of a generalisation. Similarly, we will hope to complicate the nature of 'professionalism', arguing that the analytical moves by which professionals are typified, staged, and judged betray a rather simple moral bias, chopping good from bad in unhelpfully crude ways.

The imagined and the real: identifying the tensions for academic identity

“…Such a view is more appropriate within the dynamic environment of the current university. Stronach et al (2002) have asserted that the academic's "professional self and its disparate allegiances (are) a series of contradictions and dilemmas" (p. 109) and as professionals, academics can develop ways of addressing these. In so doing, they "re-story themselves in and against the audit culture" (p. 130).…”

“…Thus, how an individual identity is both developed and maintained, has a significant effect on the effectiveness of workplace positioning. Stronach, Corbin, McNamara, Stark & Warne (2002) point to the tension between the economy of performance (how professionals are assessed & evaluated) and the ecologies of practice (one's own beliefs and practices which have developed during work over time). The result may be a struggle to articulate the identity of both themselves and their colleagues (Churchman, 2006), sometimes resulting in the development of transitory identities in response to shifting circumstances (Stronach et al, 2002).…”

Variations in Teachers' Work, Lives and Effectiveness

“…their personal and professional identities. Stronach et al's (2002) research with nurses and teachers, like others before it (Nias, 1989;Kelchtermans, 1993;Hoyle and John, 1995;Bowe and Ball, 1992;Furlong et al, 2000;Friedson, 2001;Hanlon, 1998) claims that 'professionalism' is bound up in the discursive dynamics of professionals attempting to address or redress the dilemmas of the job within particular cultures (p109). Their reading of professional identities and their own data from teachers in six primary schools in England, though limited, and, 'walking the tightrope of an uncertain being' (p121), resonates with much other empirical research on teachers' plurality of roles (Sachs, 2003) within work contexts which are characterised by fragmentation and discontinuities (Huberman, 1995) and a number of tensions and dilemmas (Day et al, 2000) within what is generally agreed to be increasingly intensive external audit policy cultures (Power, 1994) which are present in many developed nations.…”

Communities and Professional Identities: South African Women Students’ Accounts of Applied Psychology Training

“…To be a professional we are not simply expected to have a set of professional knowledges, or to act professionally: we are required to be a professional. As Stronach et al (2002) suggest, professionalisation involves regimes of surveillance and go e e talit that o st u t a i age of the authe ti p ofessio al. The suggest that the o st u tio of professional identity results in the production of a idealised olle ti e i di idual -The Nurse, The Teacher.…”