Perceptions of the Teaching Profession and Its Professionalisation in Spain

Abstract

The article is based on a novel theoretical framework for studying the teaching profession and its professionalisation from a broad view of Education as a common field in which many different actors take part. The way the field of Education is (re)produced is rarely researched. Rather, its current order is assumed as valid, ignoring the infighting between different actors to control and legitimise particular areas of knowledge, know-how and practices that comprise it as a field. The article presents a survey-based study with the following objectives: (1) identify how the teaching faculty perceive the structural and structuring aspects of the teaching profession in the field of education and (2) analyse how those aspects affect the development of a horizontally, democratically and collaboratively articulated profession and its professionalisation with all the other fields in education. The survey was taken by 7145 preschool, primary and secondary teachers at schools in Spain. The results show the structural and structuring features of a field of education, in tatters, differentiated and hierarchical, characterised by an uneven distribution of opportunities for its actors to ‘say’, ‘do’ and ‘decide’. At the same time, the results offer a chance to explore a more horizontal articulation of the teaching profession and its professionalisation within the field of education.