ABSTRACT
Teachers’ accounts show clearly that to assume that this is an ‘implementation gap’, requiring more attention to their transition from ‘prescription to professionalism’ as centrally defined, is an over-simplification. Teachers at Castlegate and New Futures not only exercised different degrees of agency in constructing their environments, but also had agency in constructing their situated selves, thereby their professional identities, as agents of change. The sustainable way forward is to support teachers’ participation in constructing education environments and processes, so that they contribute to decisions about the nature and purpose of schooling and can take the lead in making changes to these ends. Negotiations, discussions and enactments of professionalism are likely to be more valuable to the wellbeing and continuation of the profession than definition. Agentic approaches can help to reduce the discontinuities between professionality as demanded and as enacted that can cause so much soul searching, tension and stress.
