The teaching profession against the background of educationalisation: an exploratory study

Abstract

This article focuses on the teaching profession against the background of educationalisation in the Netherlands in the sense that Dutch schools are increasingly regarded as focal points at which to address and solve social issues. Our research project concentrated on the extent to which teachers, being key figures in the school organisation, understand their role as one that embraces a social in addition to an educational mission. It explores teachers’ professional identity and their awareness, task perception and self-efficacy with respect to performing a social mission. The results show that ‘addressing social issues’ can be identified as a dimension of teachers’ professional identity. However, teachers report low self-efficacy as regards carrying out social tasks, irrespective of their task perception and awareness. The phenomenon of educationalisation is occurring in other Western European countries and in the US. The results of this exploratory study raise questions about the feasibility of educationalising social problems.

Keywords:

• educationalisation
• teaching profession
• social problems
• teacher motivation
• self-efficacy

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Professor S. Waslander (Tilburg University) for her thoughtful and valuable reflections on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1. Information obtained from the Central Financial Institute (CFI), executive agent of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

2. Information obtained from the Central Financial Institute (CFI), executive agent of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.