文献出处：Hargreaves L. The status and prestige of teachers and teaching [M]//International handbook of research on teachers and teaching. Springer US, 2009: 217-229. 原文
The status and prestige of teachers and teaching
Linda Hargreaves
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Introduction
Teacher s are entrusted with the task of ensuring children‟s intellectual growth and preparing each new generation to meet the challenge of the future. One might expect that such important work would enjoy high status and considerable respect and reward within any society, but as we shall see this is not always the case: while teachers in some countries enjoy high salaries and comfortable working conditions, elsewhere they may have to do two jobs in order to survive, or they may not have been paid for months. Fortunately, as Lortie (1975) pointed out, teachers tend to seek the ‘psychic‟ rewards – the desire to give children a good start in life and the pleasure of seeing them learn –rather than material rewards for their work. Unfortunately, Hoyle (2001), noting th e British Labour government‟s d
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etermination to raise the image, morale and status of teachers [e.g., DfES (Department for Education and Skills), 1998] sees this vital relationship with children as …an intractable barrier‟ to improved prestige for teachers. In this chapter we shall explore these matters further, beginning with definitions of status and prestige, moving on to consider the current status of teachers, the hypothetical determinants of teachers‟ sta tus, the impact of various policies and, finally, the consequences of the status of teaching for the profession.
How Is Teachers‟ Prestige Determined?
Several models and lists of the determinants of teachers‟ occupational prestige exist and we shall consider a few of them here. The common features of these models include socio-historical precedents, the size and nature of the teaching force, salaries
财经月历and qualifications, image, knowledge and expertise. Hoyle‟s (2001) framework of hypothetical determinants of occupational prestige includes the inter-relationships between these separate elements.
Hoyle‟s framework has three branches which stem from the fact that teachers‟ clients are children, and culminate in their contributions to the image of teaching.
(i) The first branch refers to the nature of the teaching force. State education, in England at least, resulted in a large, urgent and sustained need for teachers to supervise the nation‟s children, and hence, because the size of the workforce limits teachers‟ pay, compromised the socio-economic status and academic quality of potential teachers. It also resulted in large numbers of women being recruited into elementary school teaching.
(ii) The second, and middle, branch concerns the close but potentially fragile relationship between teachers and their young clients. As these clients grow-up and leave school, so they leave their teachers behind, forever associating them with childhood rather than adulthood. The most significant impact on teachers‟ status however, is the mere possibility that their clients could get out of control. Hoyle calls this …the most intractable barrier‟ to enhanced prestige for teachers (p. 143) (iii) The third branch carries the ambiguities and diffuseness inherent in the goals of education itself, as teachers must not only train children in specific and measurable skills, but also, prepare them socially, emotionally, and intellectually, for the myriad wide-ranging possibilities that might await them. This range places limits on the feasible level of specialisation in teachers‟professional knowledge and expertise. While secondary teachers typically have a specialist subject area, teachers of younger children tend to be generalists, possibly with specialist knowledge of child development.
For Hoyle all three branches conspire to de press teachers‟ occupational prestige.
Hoyle‟s model accounts for the prestige of teaching in England, and recent research by Hargreaves et al. (2007) tended to confirm the view that having to control a class, and deal with difficult behaviour were the principal detractors from the attractiveness of teaching. Citations of teachers pay dropped from second (20%) to
fourth (12%) most frequently mentioned detractor from the attractiveness of a teaching career between in 2003 and 2006.
Socio-historic factors m ay or may not provide a vantage point for teachers‟ prestige. In England, for example, the urgent need for a huge workforce to educate the masses in 1870 resulted in the recruitment of anyone willing and able, and in the formation of the National Union of Teachers (NUT: originally the National Union of Elementary Teachers), determined to raise the status both of teachers and of education (Banks, 1971). In North America, Lortie (1975) refers to the teacher‟s …special but shadowed‟ place in the Colonial tradi tion (p. 10), providers of the Puritan linkage between literacy and salvation, but …symbolically and literally outranked by preachers‟ (p. 12). In contrast, Fwu and Wang (2002, p. 217) locate the high status of teachers in Taiwan in traditional Chi
nese culture, which placed teachers in the realm of heaven, earth, the Emperor and parents, and deemed them especially privileged to explore and explain the essence and operations of the …True Way‟.
This very high status is maintained today as Taiwanese teachers are drawn from the top 10% of junior high school graduates, and pass a highly competitive entrance examination. They enjoy salaries 25% higher than other graduates and have the option to retire at 50, on a pension equivalent to 75–95% of their full salary (Fwu & Wang, 2002).
Hwang, Chang, and Kuo (2007) compared the social prestige of teachers in Taiwan, with those in the UK and US, noting the rapid turnover of teachers and relatively low graduate salaries in the west. They cite Wolfensberger‟s (2000) mode l of the determinants of status, defined as the salaries, the image and competence of teachers, three factors that align with Hoyle‟s three branches. The model suggests upward and downward cycles of teacher prestige, dependent upon the academic calibre and socio-economic pool from which new teachers are drawn. Thus in the upward cycle, higher entry requirements, higher salaries and high quality continuing professional development (CPD) will attract candidates of higher socio-economic status, who will in turn attract more such candidates, thus further raising the prestige of teachers. Unfortunately, they suggest, England and parts of the U
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stuck in a downward cycle. Recently, initiatives such as …Teach for America‟ and …Teach First‟ in England,which target top graduates from top universities, could contribute to an upward cycle as they appear to be having some success in retaining these high fliers in the profession (Hutchings, Maylor, Mendick, Menter, & Smart, 2006; Ofsted, 2008).
In Finland, too, teachers‟ enjoy high prestige, and unusually, primary teaching is a sought after, high status occupation. Malaty (2004) relates this to the transfer of responsibility for teaching basic skills from the church to the village primary school in 1921, su ch primary teachers became …the enlightening candle of each village‟ (p. 11). Then, in 1974 all primary teacher education was transferred to universities, heralding the present situation in which all teachers have Masters‟ degrees. He notes also the good working conditions, small classes, welfare role and professional autonomy in curricular decision-making that teachers enjoy, together with freedom from discipline problems, inspections and pressure from a private sector. Parents trust teachers to support th eir children‟s growth. Paradoxically, the Finns‟ mathematical superiority has emerged from is based on a curriculum that emphasises the visual arts, music and physical education, with relatively few maths lessons per week. Since some argue that the high proportion of women in teaching con- strains its pr
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中学estige (e.g., Basten, 1997; Hoyle, 2001), it is worth noting that women enjoy higher status in Finland than elsewhere (Lewis, 1988).
Hall and Langdon (2006) offer what might be seen as a 21st century model of status determinants derived from their research on teachers‟ status in New Zealand. They found that in …the “old days”… … status was accorded more to those who were “pillars of the community” which sometimes included the local teacher … … people seen as having the power to influence society‟, but nowadays, status depends on people having some form of exclusivity, or image which differentiates them from …ordinary folks‟ (p. 27). Hall and Langdon identify three present day …drivers‟ of status, namely power, money and fame, and say that …without at least one of these, an occu pation does not appear to have any status at all in the wider community‟ (p. 26).
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设计These are supported by two secondary influences on status: …influence on people‟s lives‟, and skills, training and expertise. Insufficient on their own, …it is only when [these secondary influences] “cause” the career to be seen as making people rich, famous or powerful that status happens‟ (p. 26). Teaching fails to make the highest status career, because t eachers‟ power over people has been eroded as …kids know their rights‟, and their pay does not equal that of doctors, politi cians or professional sportspeople. While teaching is unlikely to make one famous, one might dream, frivolou
sly, about what the Teac hing Awards ceremony in England, or …Education Oscars‟ in Austria (OECD, 2005) might achieve!
Finally, pursuing what Turner (1988) defines as American thinking on the determinants of status, teachers‟ subjective status may have a contribution to make to t heir prestige. In England, teachers‟ persistently negative perceptions of their status, and universal but out-of-date conviction that they have a negative image in the press, may exert a depressing effect on their prestige (Hargreaves et al., 2007). On the other hand, good facilities and buildings undoubtedly enhanced their subjective status, as did involvement in research and in provision of initial and continuing professional development for colleagues. Likewise, being funded to seek higher qualifications, or given significant professional challenges with support by enterprising school leaders strongly enhanced their subjective status. Thus, in addition to higher salaries and evidence of government trust, teachers felt that greater public and policy maker awareness of these essentially vocational aspects of their work would improve their status.
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