Teachers, Professionalism and Class

A Study of Organized Teachers

J T Ozga, M A Lawn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351847209
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1981, this book examines the concept of professionalism in the context of the development of organized teachers. The argument is presented that the concept of professionalism is a complex one and its different meanings must be located within a historical context. Thus, its use as an ideological weapon aimed at controlling teachers must be appreciated, whilst, at the same time, it should be understood as a weapon of self defence for teachers in their struggle against dilution.

PART ONE

Chapter 1.
Organized Teachers:
A Review of the Literature

This chapter looks at the major published sources relating to teacher union activity from three broad perspectives which we have characterized as:

1. The Historical Approach

2. The Sociology of the Professions

3. Pressure Group Theory

Though some of these studies were published some time ago, they continue to be influential, as can be seen from a glance at journal articles on teacher unionism or at the titles of M.Ed. theses in the area. Despite the different origins of the authors of these studies, we suggest that there is a broad convergence of views between them and that, moreover, the essential interdependence of their views has led to the establishment of an orthodoxy which is only now being questioned, particularly by critical trends within the sociology of the professions and by Marxist, or neo-Marxist, historians. The dichotomy between professionalism and unionism has inhibited examination of teachers’ own perceptions of their working conditions and working relationships, and how these have changed and. altered over time. Instead, discussion has been focussed on two opposed, ill-defined abstractions: ‘professionalism’ and ‘unionism’. In this review of the literature, we wish to reveal the assumptions on which that discussion was based.

Our argument is that the concept of professionalism is an extraordinarily complex one and its different meanings must be located within a specific historical context. Thus, its use as an ideological weapon aimed at controlling teachers must be appreciated whilst, at the same time, it should be understood as a weapon of self-defence for teachers in their struggle against dilution. Such appreciation of the complexity of professionalism and its multiplicity of meanings is, on the whole, lacking in the studies which we review in this chapter.

The Historical Approach

The major works in this category are by Thompson (1927), Tropp (1957), Roy (1968) and Gosden (1972).¹ These authors each deal with the historical development of teachers’ unionism (especially the NUT) in parallel with the growth and development of state provision of education. They provide invaluable secondary source material for any student of organized teachers. However, they make little connection between change and development among organized teachers and developments in society generally and among the organized labour force in particular. These studies either characterize the teachers’ unions as ‘reactive’ bodies, responding to central government initiative, or as a group following an almost predestined path to professional status. As aids to explanation of the growth of unionism such studies are useful but limited and their limitations become more apparent when we attempt to apply their conclusions to more recent organized teacher behaviour.

Tropp’s study outlines the gradual development of teaching as an occupation and the range of his study, from 1800-1950s, lends weight to the impression of consistent progress towards professional status – measured by the various education acts, by increasingly stringent regulation of teacher qualifications etc. His overall position is indicated in this quotation:

It [the profession] was created by the state, and in the nineteenth the state was powerful enough to claim almost complete control over the teacher and to manipulate his status while at the same time disclaiming all responsibility towards him. Slowly, and as the result of prolonged effort, the organized profession has won free and has reached a position of self government and independence.²

The driving force behind the ‘prolonged effort’ is never fully analyzed, nor is the role of the state, in monitoring or controlling or resisting this effort, discussed.

Yet some considerable attention is devoted to ensuring that we fully understand that the ‘prolonged effort’ was neither class – nor political-party-based. Both Tropp and Roy share an overwhelming concern to establish the non-aligned nature of teacher unionism. Roy, an influential NUT executive member, is anxious to stress this point:

This investigation has revealed that the NUT is free from the influence of party political pressure groups to a remarkable extent. It has successfully resisted attempts at communist infiltration, and the communists today have neither control nor a powerful voice in the higher councils of the union; among the rank and file, there is hostility to communism as such. The rejection of moves to affiliate either to the TUC or the Labour Party represented the clear majority, though the TUC affliation is again under active consideration. When it comes to the political questions of the day, there is a firm stand against party political involvement, and an attitude of keeping out of party politics at all costs, based partly on a teachers’ conception of his job (his professional status) partly on his instinct for self-preservation at a time of encroachment by the major parties on the educational service, and partly on the recognition that the greatest danger to professional unity comes from alignment with political groups. However much it may be accused of sitting on the fence, it can face a whole complex issue [secondary reorganization] in the knowledge that it is itself an organization free from any party political ideology or party bias, and without worrying about the serious internal problems, which, in other organizations, are caused by party political pressures.³

As Beryl Tipton⁴ remarks ‘leaving aside the subsequent election of a communist president and decision to affiliate to the TUC, this interpretation creates a feeling of dissatisfaction’. Ms. Tipton is concerned about Roy’s ‘image building’ as a member of the executive, and feels that a greater political consciousness among both executive and rank and file members must exist. Tropp shares Roy’s ‘non-political’ position, stating that whenever teacher unions have appeared to deviate from the policy of political non-alignment in the past by alliance with organized labour, this has been for purely strategic reasons and represented no political commitment on the the part of the union concerned (the NUT):

Each alliance has been for a specific purpose as were the alliances of the NUT with working class groups during World War I and during the 1942 – 44 campaign for education advance.⁵

Tropp, Roy and Gosden all promote the impression of organized teachers acting consistently in a non-political, non-class based movement towards professionalism. It is not surprising, then, that authors looking at organized teacher behaviour in the late 1960s and 70s see strike action and sanction implementation as a new departure.

The difficult question of the class position of teachers is not satisfactorily discussed – Tropp defines teachers as middle class and, thus, non-party political. In the same way, no definition of ‘professionalism’ is attempted, except in terms of increased control by teachers over their own affairs and decreased control by their employers, yet the similarity of such aims to those of the organized workforce in general is not remarked on.

Donna Thompson⁶ shares the general approach of Tropp, Gosden and Roy and, in describing the growth of the NUT, reduces the significance of some events whilst elevating others into a general theory of professional development. From her reading of ‘The Schoolmaster’ and NUT reports she finds evidence of ‘The professional spirit which has always characterized the organization’.⁷ Although these sources also demonstrate the incidence of strike activity and alliance with organized labour in the period 1912-20, Thompson interprets the NUT’s action in this period as ‘resembling’ a trade union but distinguished from it by an overriding professionalism and concern for education exhibited by ‘the dignified way it has conducted its affairs even when using the strike weapon’.

Thompson at least discusses the NUT’s strike action but emphasizes that the union always recognized ‘the relationship between the welfare of the general public and their own interests’. However, her overall treatment gives less of an impression of irresistible progress along the professional road. Poor pay, poor promotion prospects, extraneous unpaid duties and no control over qualifications are all characteristics of the teacher’s job to which she gives attention. In addition, she characterizes the state’s role as one of stringent control, quoting Sir George Kekewich’s description of the Board of Education as always ‘on the watch to find something which deserved a lecture or chastisement’.⁸

The class origin of the majority of teachers is acknowledged by Thompson who claims that, in consequence of the adverse conditions of work experienced by teachers, ‘a class consciousness, though feeble, was beginning to develop’. Yet, in Thompson’s conclusion, professional status remained the overriding, and preferred, aim to extended union activity. She sees the two as contradictory, the claim for ‘professional’ status is not seen by her as a likely extension of union activity and she rejects the possibility that it could be pursued in alliance with party politics or the labour movement (though she is unusual in even considering this):

the past policy of the union has been, and its present policy is, to achieve a self-governing profession, and while this aim might be achieved if the union were more closely allied to labour organizations, yet it would seem that this policy can be pursued best if the union is not pledged to any labour or political group.⁹

A rather different approach to the growth of teacher unionism can be found in Beatrice Webb’s ‘New Statesman’ supplements on the teaching profession.¹⁰ The NUT is identified as a trade union, formed in defence against such state-controlled systems as payment by results and against the power of local managers. She also focuses on the social isolation of teachers, caught between the working class of their origins and the middle class they are presumed to aspire to. Beatrice Webb examined the structure of the NUT, and concluded that, like manual trade unions, it used ‘mutual insurance and collective bargaining, with the ever present alternative of the strike’.¹¹ The ‘professional’ claims of the union, as demonstrated by demands for a register and increased status are dismissed by Beatrice Webb as ‘manifestations of a professional egoism in the teacher which tends to impair the social value of his service’.¹² Webb also analysed what she perceived as a change in the pattern of behaviour of the NUT.

The Trade Unions of the workers will more and more assume the character of professional associations … each trade union will find itself, like the NUT, more and more concerned with raising the standard of competency in its occupation, improving the professional equipment of its members, ‘educating their masters’ as to the best way of carrying on the craft, and endeavouring by every means to increase its status in public estimation.¹³

The interesting point she makes about the general trend of trade unions to assume professional characteristics, thereby indicating a possible convergence of union and professional interests rather than a dichotomy between them, has not been followed up, nor has the similarity of these NUT aims to the traditional aims of craft unionism been adequately discussed. However it appears that Webb, herself, saw such an alteration in NUT behaviour as a deterioration, and disapproved of the shift from direct to indirect action:

like a trade union (the NUT) is not above bargaining with a local authority, and frequently supports individual teachers who refuse to accept certain terms. Though it has even in one case in the course of half a century organized a successful strike it has steadily subordinated this direct action to the indirect pressure exercised by teachers’ representatives in Parliament and on the local authorities, and by perpetual deputations and representations to the Education Department and the Local Education Committees.¹⁴

The ‘indirect pressure’ exercised by the NUT in pursuit of its professional aims receives a great deal of attention from writers in this category, as we have indicated earlier: strike action is barely acknowledged and the activities of local associations, over terms and conditions of service and salary negotiations, are of only secondary i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• Conclusions
• Index