ABSTRACT
The transformation of the work of teachers is, of course, an international policy priority. Policy orthodoxy sees the condition of the teaching force as a major problem and its reform as a necessity. It recognizes, too, that this reform is not merely ‘internal’, relating to the organization of teaching and learning, but ‘external’, in that it must effect a change in the positioning and influence of teachers’ organizations in the public arena. This chapter particularly addresses this external dimension, through a focus on the politics of teaching in England, which it hopes to grasp both in terms of what England shares with other countries in Europe, and in terms of the specific national pathway England has followed to arrive at its current, ever-ongoing process of transformation.
