ABSTRACT
This chapter explores developments in how teachers’ professional ethics are practiced within a context of increased accountability. Professional ethics are seen at a broader level as it is practiced in the profession within a contested and dynamic educational policy in which teacher quality is being continuously redefined. Drawing on recent research conducted in the Norwegian context, the analysis shows that increased political expectations to use broader professional knowledge, student performance data to support learning, and more collaborative approaches to practice development have actualized new dimensions of professional ethics. These are related to evaluating the validity and relevance of professional knowledge, including the role of student performance data in promoting such values as educational equality, social mobility, and inclusion. Using empirical examples, we illustrate that the way professional ethics are being practiced makes value-laden, ethical dilemmas underlying professional practice more visible. We conclude that the new dimensions of professional ethics direct attention beyond the micro-level of situated ethics of care and classroom interactions to a macro-level of broader professional values and the social mandate. This suggests a more collective understanding of teacher quality, one related more closely to the quality of collectively developed professional knowledge and knowledge practices at schools than to teachers’ individual performances.
