Accountability, teacher professionalism and education reform in England

Abstract

In recent years, education policies and reforms in the United Kingdom, particularly in England and Wales, have sought to establish greater accountability to stakeholders, largely through establishing greater central control and regulation of the school curriculum and assessment system. Such an emphasis on accountability has had an impact on the ways in which professionalism has been conceptualised by governments, and by teachers themselves in the micro-political climate of individual schools. This article examines the ways in which accountability has functioned as a keyword in relation to teachers' professionalism; it also examines specific ways in which teachers identified and articulated changing notions of accountability as a consequence of reforms in education in England in the 1990s.