ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses the use of concept of professionalism to assign teachers to middle class social class location, to characterize them as collaborators with the state, and to mark them off from other workers who were unionized. It discusses Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches to teachers' class location, which drew on assumptions about the meaning of professionalism to teachers which condemned them for invoking it to separate themselves ideologically from the working class. The book suggests that the creation of a 'new middle class' as a location for problematic white collar workers is a theoretical solution which depends on an acceptance of antagonistic class relations between these workers and the rest of the labour force which cannot be convincingly demonstrated. It examines that the process of proletarianization attacks the teacher's idea of professionalism at its roots – the 'service' idea and notion of autonomy.
