Primary Teachers, Inspection and the Silencing of the Ethic of Care

The author uses the example of a primary school in England during an inspection to understand teachers' experiences of the inspection process and the "notice to improve," how inspectors' reports of a specific school reflect wider national and global policy, and the dilemmas teachers identify when working within a performative framework. He explores how care involves relationships and political aspects and how teachers practices of care are coordinated and mediated through institutional relations that involve policies, guidance, and wider regulatory texts used within a performative agenda for schools. He focuses on teachers' experiences and understanding of care during this period of requiring improvement and discusses the concept of care and how it is understood within a political ethic, the ideological and political abstractions within wider children and families' policy that mediates and directs teachers' work through regulatory texts, the role of personal and professional moral boundaries in terms of teaching as a caring practice that focuses on educating the whole child and caring for the requirements of government and its regulatory agents, conflicts arising in teachers' talk and the organization of practices of care through inspectors’ reports, and teachers’ experience and understanding of care. -- Annotation ©2018 * (protoview.com) *