ABSTRACT
We argue in this chapter that the accountability movement of the late 1970s onwards succeeded in its tacit intention to curtail the power of the public service professions, including teaching. Professionalism was reconceptualized as the efficient delivery of a client demand-led service. It also became substantially incorporated into the process of managing public service organizations such as schools. This incorporation had two aspects. The structural aspect entailed headteacher and teacher roles and tasks becoming increasingly managerial. The cultural aspect entailed the incorporation of headteachers and teachers into the ideology of managerialism, particularly through their internalization of the emerging language of management. However, despite this incorporation, there are indirect indications that headteachers and teachers are maintaining more longstanding professional values in the interstices of managerial structures, and the chapter adopts an ironic perspective to capture this process. We will assert that, although there is a case for a collective, principled defence of professionalism, there is also a case for fostering a client-centred professionalism at the school level. The success of this endeavour depends on temperate school leadership supporting a pragmatic professionalism.
