ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the public service context in which teacher professionalism grew; the way in which the marketisation of education, and the political context which sustained it, has altered the situation; and finally the possibilities for a resurrection of a new public domain into which teachers could fit. Teachers were trusted and they participated in the organisation, strategy and development of education at the local and national level. The period from the 1950s to the early 1970s has been described as an era of social democracy in which many public organisations were shaped by 'the mantle of professionalism'. The political context, in which the new Labour Government is a defining factor, contains an educational direction, focusing on modernising the system and improving schools, around which the older structures of agency and punitive discourse are still prevalent. 'Stakeholding' is the idea which informs the approach of New Labour to social policy.
