ABSTRACT
Teachers, and those who observe them, remain unclear about whether they do or do not belong to a ‘profession’. The reasons for these persistent doubts are analysed and assessed here in two very different contexts: England and the United States. Teachers do not compose a tightly-knit group, do not earn fees and do not control entry to their own ranks.
Two conflicting versions of the attempts by teachers to become acceptably ‘professional’ are then explored. One of these has stressed the acquisition of marketable skills and of competency, and has done so by elevating the importance of severely practical experience in schools. The other – both in England and the United States – has striven to confer professional acceptability upon teaching by associating it with the prestige and with the values of a university. This has tended to distance both teacher preparation and educational research from what are perceived as the needs of ‘the real world’. It is an urgent task of university schools of education to reconcile these tensions and ambiguities.
