EDUCATIONAL PARAPROFESSIONALS: UNDERPAID, UNDERVALUED AND NOW OVER HERE

ABSTRACT

Educational paraprofessionals have had an increased presence in English state schools since the first decade of the 21st century, but research has been limited in terms of who undertakes paraprofessional roles, what they entail and how such work is perceived by others. This paper compares one such paraprofessional role, the learning mentor, with the ‘community agent’, found in the United States of America during the 1960 s. It identifies a number of similarities around the lived experience of this work in terms of status, career progression and policy assumptions about the efficacy of these roles. It argues that a historical analysis is invaluable in gaining a more complete understanding of how such roles have an air of impermanency, are subject to the vagaries of policy but nevertheless continue to be recycled as a limited and partial response to deepening social and educational inequalities.

Keywords:

• community agents
• learning mentors
• new careers
• paraprofessionals

7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professor Robin Simmons and Dr Ron Thompson for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

8. Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

Jo Bishop is a Senior Lecturer in a range of programmes related to Education, Children and Young People.

1. Job descriptions for these can be found at www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles

2. Exact numbers for each group are difficult to extrapolate as learning mentors come under the Teaching Assistant category and behaviour workers come under the category OSS (Other support staff) or BEHM (Behaviour Manager/Specialist)

3. The GCSE (General Certificate in Education) is the academic qualification used to measure pupil attainment in all subjects in the final year of compulsory schooling.

4. The CWDC was subsequently disbanded by the incoming Coalition Government in 2010

5. Foundation degrees became available in areas like teaching and learning as well as areas of support taking place outside of the classroom with an emphasis on utilising counselling skills, advice and guidance, careers and a knowledge of outside agencies for pupil referral if necessary.

6. All names are pseudonyms