ABSTRACT
This book has made clear its sympathy for the situation of many teachers today. From being perceived-and perceiving themselves-as central players in the grand social engineering project called the welfare state, consulted on its expansion and shape, facilitated by conciliatory management and politics in operating it, they have come to find themselves increasingly marginalised from the policy process, increasingly distrusted by media and the general public, and being invited to provide no more than their technical expertise within managerial strategies and policies devised elsewhere. As Pollitt (1992) so trenchantly remarked, professionals are nowadays much more likely to be ‘on tap’ than ‘on top’.
