The Occupational Culture of Teachers

‘Most of those who have passed unfavourable judgements on teachers,’ Willard Waller observed in 1932, ‘have been teachers themselves.’ In this respect, at least, those teachers who have become sociologists of education have remained loyal to their original occupation. Yet the occupational culture of teachers has been a surprisingly neglected topic in the sociology of education. What teaching does to teachers, and the determinants of the occupational type, are themes which, as usual, were subjected to pioneering scrutiny by Waller; but this inspired only meagre subsequent investigation from teachers-turned-sociologists in the following 50 years. ¹ This neglect is not, perhaps, wilful so much as an unintended by-product of diversionary theoretical developments. Role theory, for instance, stimulated some important studies of teachers but under the influence of symbolic interactionism this vein was channelled into other directions, such as Goffmanesque studies of the teacher's self-presentational work. ² Waller understood his own analysis of teachers as but one substantive exploration of the more general issue of ‘what does any occupation do to the human beings that follow it?’ and whilst some notable studies addressed this question, such as Merton's exploration of the ‘bureaucratic personality’, the broader field moved progressively towards the study of the professions and the process of professionalisation.