Critical conceptions of "professional"knowledge for the EF/SL teacher, and theirimplications for administrative orientation

Graham CrookesUniversity ofHawai'i

IntroductionIn this paper I take up some related topics that respond tothe theme of the conference, with its emphasis on critique aswell as reflection and practice. I hope they will be seen assomewhat forward-looking, but of course, we should beaware that there is little if anything new under the sun, andideas presented as new or at least different and worthy ofinterest are often also past concepts dressed up in freshclothing. For that matter, when we use the language ofcritique, and the concept of the critical, we are often referringto a non-mainstream, non-dominant stream of tradition thathas co-existed, often uncomfortably, with dominant ideas,perhaps for as long as those ideas have themselves been inexistence. Certainly radical critiques of schools as institutions,and of professionals, have been existence as long as school asa formal institution has existed. The tradition of radicalcritique in the West clearly goes back at least to the middle1700s (not to mention egalitarian trends associated withvarious peasant revolutions and the first Republic ofEngland), and perhaps intensified after the abortiverevolutions of the 1830s. For school and teaching, both the1890s and the 1960s also saw radical critiques. On the otherhand, it is also the case that at any given time, ideas may be'in the air', and shared, and then come to be articulatedsomewhat independently at much the same time -so some ofwhat 1 say will overlap with and I hope connect with otherdiscussions of terms such as 'profession' and 'professional' atthis conference. Clearly, when different speakers addressmatters professional from a critical point of view they mayhome in on the same long-standing critique of the subject,

Syed, Z., Coombe, C., & Troudi, S. (eds.). 2003. Critical reflection and practice (TESOL Arabia 2002 Conference Proceedings)Abu Dhabi, UAE: TESOL Arabia. (pp. 42-79).

but one which is important enough to be taken up more thanonce.

My paper has three parts; that is, it draws on three literatures,or domains of discussion. They are inter-related, though it isnot entirely a matter of A implying B implying C. Rather, it is1 think that all three derive from the same place: a criticaltheory of society and the individual within it and constitutedby it; and they have the same concern: social improvement,social justice, a democratic and emancipatory vision.

I propose to begin by continuing the discussion that has beengoing on for many years, intermittently, concerning how wedo, and how we should, conceptualize the knowledge and theprocesses that go with it, that we think of as central toprofessional practice in our field. This in tum naturally leadsto some, or further, critical reflection on the conditions andcontexts of professional practice. The 'We' in this case, referspardy to individuals like myself who are primarily academics,researchers, and teacher educators, as well as those of us whoare also administrators, as I am at the present time, as well asthose of us who are primarily teachers, as I certainly havebeen and may yet again be.

One (personal) reason for addressing this topic is a sense thatwhat I take to be the basic understandings of the terms I justmentioned, understandings which are probably non-criticalones, are not entirely appropriate for the needs of manyteachers. The ones I work with most directly are moderatelyexperienced teachers. who are part of the English LanguageInstitute, a service English program I am the Director of; Ialso work with many TESOL teachers near the beginning oftheir career and doing their Masters degree with me and mycolleagues in the Department of Second Language Studies atthe University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

And a second reason for this topic is that, as I am also aresearcher, in some sense one of the supposed creators ofknowledge in our field, and as I am a professor, someonewho is supposed to profess knowledge, though 1 sometimes

43

profess ignorance, I feel a certain responsibility for thismatter of 'knowledge', not to mention 'profession'. Andparticularly since for the last couple of years I have been anadministrator, having resisted becoming one for some time,that has naturally affected the way I see the world; that hasbeen part of the reason why I have begun to question thesesomewhat established views. Third and finally, since thetheme of this conference specifies critical reflection (and Icompletely agree with the need for that), given theimportance of these two concepts it seems appropriate tosubmit them to critical inspection.

I suspect that these dominant conceptions of knowledge andprofession are not necessarily good for our teachers or forour educational institutions; and since I hope my commentswill be generally relevant, I should say that I suspect theconcepts are inadequate for all of us, and for the field. I amconcerned, then, with how we represent our practices toourselves, not necessarily to governments, parents, or thegeneral public. Some of these groups have separate quitedifferent understandings of words like profession and, inparticular, "professionalization".

I am going to circumscribe my discussion of conceptions ofknowledge by placing it in terms of what has often beencalled "the profession"; our profession, that is. In fact, thisterm is important because a key sense of it is why we mightbe particularly concerned about the other term underquestion here, knowledge. Professionalism, or the status ofbeing a professional, seems to be closely tied up with the ideathat a professional has, constructs, thinks with, or usesknowledge, perhaps knowledge of a particular kind. Thatdoes connect with what has been identified as an evenmessier area - the matter of a profession; it indeed does begthe question concerning whether we are a profession at all,and indeed, whether we want to be, or whether we want touse that term.

In the end, I will certainly agree with other speakers that theconception of profession and professional with which our

44

field seems most often to work is an uncritical one that doesnot do justice to the conditions of our work and certainly notto a critical conception of society; in addition, it is inadequatebecause although it depends for much of its strength on aconception of knowledge as central to the discharge ofprofessional duties, that conception of knowledge again doesnot do justice to the realities of professional work. Theinadequacies of that conception would make us look toprofessional activity and knowledge as much more embeddedin context and systems, and thus for educationalprofessionals, in the school itself and in its various groups ofteachers. I will end up by drawing on literature that see theschool as an enabling organization for professional work, andtherefore has continually developed a critique of associatedadministrative practice as important for critically reflectiveand thereby professional practice in our field. Finally, if Ileave aside the extended discussion of the profession, inpaper my position is critical not directly via a critique ofsociety, but by way of a critical theory of the individual, andby means of a social theory of knowledge and cognition,which stands implicitly as a critique of individualist theoriesof knowledge and thought. Once one has a social theory ofthings elsewhere claimed to be individual or not social at all,one also has a way in for political critiques of these matters,of course.

So let me get going seriously here, and as the first substantivepart of these remarks explore the matter of knowledge in"professional" contexts.

Professions defined, and their knowledgeProfessions deftned, or theorizedOur field has clearly used the term professional quite a lot.Since we include among ourselves both teachers andacademics, and possibly translators and interpreters uponoccasion, it has certainly been convenient to have a term forthe membership which is not just 'teachers' - the othergeneral term being 'practitioners'. But more than thatindividuals in TESOL have regularly called for the increasedprofessionalization of the field (see e.g., Pennington, 1992,

45

Staczek, 1981; Wright, 1988); and elsewhere in FL education(e.g., Schrier, 1993). In some cases this has been simply a wayof saying 'let's not have so many part-time and casual hires'; ithas also been a way of pushing for more graduate degrees,and less backpackers. Professional standards, whatever theyare, have been called for. If we had them universally, ofcourse, we probably wouldn't be talking about them.

When one digs into terms that appear to make up the wayour world is, elements of social life, it is often surprising atfirst to discover that they have a history. An importantelement of the critical tradition calls upon scholars tonistoricize their work, to recognize, that is, that ideas have asociocultural location and are the creation of women andmen. Seeing a key term as indeed having a history, and havingchanged, one can see it as more likely to be impregnated withlimitations, and also perhaps capable of being improved; onemight say as having a moral dimension.

So let me recognize that the term "profession" is, like almostevery other term related to education, itself a contested site.And that efforts have been going on to theorize it and «theprofessions" for a long time - for most of the twentiethcentury (according to Bennett & Hokenstad, 1975). One ofthe earliest efforts (Flexner, 1915) states that "a profession (1)is based on intellectual activity, (2) requires from its membersthe possession of a considerable amount of knowledge andlearning, (3) has definite and practical purposes, (4) hascertain techniques which can be communicated, (5) has aneffective self-organization, [and} (6) is motivated by a desireto 'work for the welfare of society" (Bennet & Hokenstad,1975, p. 253). The archetypal professions are medicine andthe law. Others involved in this apparently long drawn outprogram of analysis were Carr-Saunders, 1928; Parsons, 1937;Wilensky, 1964; and Moore, 1970. In more recent, turn-of­the-century discussions, many of those original ideas arepreserved. For example, according to Middlehurst andKennie (1997), some key characteristics sse "expectations ofindividual autonomy, expertise, and intrinsic motivation forself-actualization through worthwhile work". This strand of

46

'work also, at some point in the opnmisuc, scientistictwentieth century, picked up a sense of progress in many;fields of work being associated with the term}professionalization'. Hence Wilensky's article, entitled "the'professionalization of everybody", This call, with its impliedvaluing of a not very well defined set of features, has certainlybeen heard repeatedly at conferences in our field and withinarticles on the status of EFL teachers, or their workingconditions.

At some point, particularly from the 19605 on, dissent fromthe positive conceptions of profession implied above hasbeen articulated. Etzioni was a scholar who became well­known for his analyses of what he called "the semi­professions" (Etzioni, 1969). These are generally taken toinclude school teaching, nursing, and social work. Somepropounding this position say that the areas just mentionedare never likely to gain full professional status. One of themain differences between the semi-professions and theprofessions, and this is an acute problem with TESOL evenmore than with other subject area domains of education, iscontrol over entry into a field of work. TESOL in particularhas even less control over entry; and we do not "police" (asthe term is) ourselves for violation of standards ofprofessional conduct. Indeed, the last time I looked, TESOL- unlike for example the American Association of UniversityProfessors and the US National Association of Education ­didn't even have a set of professional ethics.

Also from this time on, if not earlier, there was thedevelopment of more radical critiques of all majorprofessions, in which "professional aspirations are seen as...detrimental to humanistic and/or egalitarian goals" (Bennett& Hokenstad, p. 259). Individuals from that period associatedwith these more general critiques in education includeGoodman (1956, 1962), Newman & Oliver (1967), andbroadly also Paulo Freire. More recently, see the work ofMark Ginsburg (e.g., 1988). As Hoffman (1989, p. 3)summarizes the difference between these lines, "Traditionalmodels have tended to treat attributes such as the knowledge

47

base as structurally given, relatively static, and non­ideological. There were seen as social facts, not claims,viewed as in the mutual interest of client, professional, andsociety, not as self-serving. Similarly, professions were seen ashomogenous and cohesive communities .... Critics, on theother hand, have emphasized political process and outcomerather than intrinsic attributes. They have seen professions asoccupations which achieve occupational control bycredentialing and licensing. . . . From this perspective,knowledge and expertise are not . . . neutral scientificelements ... but political resources in the battle for powerand status, constructed and advanced by occupations andsegments within occupations to forward collective aims."Some of this critique has surfaced in TESOL-relateddiscussions of professionalism. Johnston's (1997) study ofPolish EFL teachers alludes to the destructive critique of theconcept lately articulated by Burbules & Densmore (1991),Popkewitz (1994) and Welker (1992).

Knowledge's) - a keycharacteristic of professionLet us explore this knowledge aspect of professions as anaspect of our work, and move to some acceptance of acritique of it. .A prominent analyst of the professions for thelast 30 years, Eliot Freidson, refers to "the use of acircumscribed body of knowledge and skills" (p. 18), andregards this as "one of the two most general ideas underlyingprofessionalism" (2001, p. 17; see also Freidson, 1970).Professionals, Freidson observes, make use of "discretionaryspecialization .... [which] requires the employment of a bodyof knowledge that is gained by special training" (p. 24). It isprecisely for that reason that we claim (and other professionssimilarly claim) that not anyone should or could do what wedo, and that we have therefore professional discretion andabilities for which we should be given some recognition andnot subjected to bureaucratic control when we are engaged inour work.

Obviously the field of education has been making such claimsfor quite some time, indeed, perhaps at least since the first eraof reform, which in the US is associated with the 1830s and

48

the name of Horace Mann. One strategy used to argue forincreased discretionary powers, or at least to push backagainst de-skilling efforts, has been efforts to delineate theknowledge in question. In the last twenry years or so seriousefforts have been made to define and delineate the supposed"knowledge base for teaching" (Galluzzo, 1999; e.g.,Shulman, 1987). Even though the idea of the possibility ofidentification of a definitive knowledge based wasimmediately disputed (Ayers, 1988; Henderson, 1988),starting from this initiative, publishers such as Pergamonincreasingly began to tum out encyclopedia-sized tomeswhich present this knowledge. This they have done as part ofa deliberate agenda for professionalization, it appears.Reynolds (1989), in the introduction to one such heavy item,states "this book seeks to demonstrate that teaching doeshave a distinctive knowledge base, that the knowledge isexpressed in articulated understandings, skills, and judgmentswhich are professional in character and which distinguishmore productive teachers from less productive ones" (p. ix).As Galluzo (1999) points out (see also ]enlink, 2001), thisproject has faltered; but I fear that this is not sufficientlyappreciated in TESOL quarters.

Problems with the way "knowledge" in professional contextsis conceptualizedI suspect that most of us in TESOL, who use this term,knowledge, rarely stop to examine it or its associations indetail, except from one main perspective. We have had plentyof discussions of the difficulties of applying the supposed"scientific" knowledge of SL learning and teaching to theactual realities of the classroom, by the actual classroompractitioners. Those difficulties have often been attributed tothe form in which such knowledge has been generated andpropounded, along with the working conditions of thosesupposed to make use of it; and at the same time thedevaluing of the actual knowledge of practice thatpractitioners themselves have. There are, however, otherproblems.

49

1 will follow the analysis of one specialist in this area,Friedson (20tJ1). His perspective on this point calls for usfirst to separate knowledge and skill in the practice ofprofessionals. "Skill may ... be kept analytically separate fromthe substantive knowledge connected with the task itself' (p.25) "Skill is itself a kind of knowledge, namely, of thetechniques for using or applying substantive knowledge ... Itis facilitative in character". "Some of the skills required forapplying knowledge to the performance of a task are formalin character, codified in texts, or otherwise described clearlyand systematically in the course of training for work. Otherskills, however, are tacit - unverbalized, perhaps evenunverbalizable, but in any case not part of a formal corpus ofcodified technique." (p. 25).

Another useful distinction of Friedsons's is between"everyday" and "formal" knowledge. The former is thatwhich is acquired through normal socialization and is neededto perform "the everyday tasks of daily life" (p. 28). Butdistinguishable from that is "formal knowledge", which hasalso been called "public codified knowledge" (Myers &Simpson, 1998, p. 77). This is "institutionalized into and bywhat Foucault (1979) called 'disciplines' and Holzner(1968:68-70) 'epistemic communities' (p. 29). Describing thisarea, Friedson comments. "These are of course inevitablyrooted in everyday knowledge but are organized ininstitutions set apart from everyday life.. .. The formalknowledge of particular disciplines is taught to those aspiringto enter specialized occupations with professional standing.Much of it is abstract and general in character, however, andcannot be applied directly to the problems of work. Foractually performing work, formal knowledge may be neededin some cases, but so also are specialized knowledge and skillof a more concrete nature, and of course, everydayknowledge" (2001, p. 29). Myers & Simpson (1998, p. 78)comment on this, too, remarking that academic disciplines areusually formulated by researchers and scholars ... in ways thattit their purpose, rather than by practical users of the ideas ...when teachers use a particular set of ideas for professionalpurposes, they cannot simply select them without

50

reconfiguring them .. , (Eraut, 1994)", These "take onmeaning only as they are acquired by teachers andtransformed by them into forms that become pan of thoseteachers' individual professional knowledge, competencies,and value systems (ibid)." Others (e.g., Kennedy, 1999)would distinguish a third kind of knowledge, "expertise", inthis, again with a highly contextual character. Similarly,Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1999) refer to knowledge-for­practice (formal knowledge), knowledge-in-practice (theembedded, contextual variety already mentioned underseveral headings) and knowledge-of-practice, which last has astrong teacher-research character.

The two more concrete, less disciplinary forms of knowledgeare valuable, indeed essential for practice; unfortunately theyare deprecated and devalued by knowledge creation practicesand personnel central to an uncritical concept of a profession.

It is this formal knowledge, not all of which is conscious, andnot all of which is disembodied or separate from specificsituations, that is inherent in what Friedson calls the "ideal­typical professions". "The ideal-typical position ofprofessionalism is founded on the official belief that theknowledge and skill of a particular specialization requires afoundation in abstract concepts and formal learning andnecessitates the exercise of discretion:' He goes on,incidentally, to remark that "'When so recognized a numberof distinctive institutional consequences follow", the mostobvious of which, of course is a profession's monopolisticcontrol over its own work.

Formal knowledge is the kind of knowledge that academicspecialists in TESOL (like myself) have mainly concernedthemselves with. Besides concerns about its applicability,dearly the critical turn also would question this form ofknowledge on other grounds. As Friedson says, "All workpresupposes knowledge, that it is the practice of knowledge,and that the social and economic organization of practiceplays a critical role in determining both what knowledge canbe employed in work and how that knowledge can be

51

exercised" (p, 27). Here we come up against the blunt factthat the working conditions of teachers do not afford themthe opportunity or encouragement to create formalknowledge. In addition, it is important in an internationalorganization for TESOLers to recognize, as we increasinglydo, that a lot of the creators of formal knowledge for ourfield come from specific national, class, race, and genderbackgrounds, which may show up in the forms thisknowledge takes.

Continuing this process of dissecting our professional lise ofknowledge in doing our work, Friedson on to focus onthis "specialized knowledge and skill of a more concretenature" that is nevertheless needed for lIS to discharge ourprofessional duties adequately. He draws on the work ofScribner on 'practical thinking', which is "thinking that isembedded in the larger purposive activities of daily life andthat functions to achieve the goals of those activities ... Soconceived -embedded and instrumental practical thinkingstands in contrast to the type of thinking involved in theperformance of isolated mental tasks undertaken as ends inthemselves (Scribner, 1986, p. 15)." Friedson continues that"Much of the knowledge and skill this thinking employs isdeveloped and learned siruationallv, on the job, asinformation about the tasks to be performed and as skills tobe employed in performing them" (p. 31). The almostinextricable association of skill and thinking with knowledgeis important for my aq:.,'Ument.

In one approach to categorizing this knowledge (Myers &Simpson, 1998), a tripartite analysis is used. Practice-basedprofessional teacher knowledge is divided into technicalknowledge, practical or craft knowledge, and tacit knowledge.

Myers & Simpson exemplify technical knowledge as"knowing that having clear and well organized classroomroutines and firm behavior management strategies contributeto the smooth operation of classes; knowing that studentattention during recitation lessons can be maintained betterby raising questions for the whole class before calling on a

52

specific student" (p. 82). Clearly one could find a statementof that kind in a book, but the point here is that it is morelikely to be developed through practice, and possibly is quiteoften developed solely through practice, reflection onpractice, or direct transmission from other practitioners.Myers & Simpson remark that "it can also be transmitted inthe form of principles of practice and can evolve intocodified professional knowledge" (ibid).

Practical or craft knowledge is the 'knowing how' aspect ofknowledge: the ability to do, rather than know about,something. "Some people think of it as being learned only byindividual teachers from their personal practice... and asbeing specific to the situations in which it is learned... It isnot often thought of as something that can be passed fromteacher to teacher. Instead, it is seen as something thatindividual teachers do but not something they write about orformulate into generally useful statements for other teachersto study" (p. 83). Whether this is correct or not seemsdisputed.

Tacit knowledge is something that would be even moredifficult to transmit, I suppose. This is a long-standingconception of professional knowledge that appears in thismini-taxonomy. It is basically knowledge that we possesswithout knowing that we know it. As many here undoubtedlyrecall, it is a concept that was further developed by Schon inhis explorations of professional practice. These days it seemsthat it is central to concepts of reflective practice, much ofwhich involve raising tacit knowledge to consciousness.

The processual, or dynamic, and potentially interpersonalaspects of this approach to knowledge creation, and thisapproach to conceptions of knowledge for our profession, isimportant. It is one reason why the idea that young teachers,students in the profession, can over the course of a couple ofyears graduate, or post-graduate work, somehow acquirethrough study at a university that which they need to know todischarge their professional duties subsequently, is clearlywrong. This goes along with the greatly increased recognition

53

of the local and contextualized nature of almost all knowledgeof the human world. Rather than having <l body ofknowledge, teachers need to know how to make knowledge,or get knowledge, or integrate with others in the use andapplication of knowledge,

The foregoing conceptions of knowledge in professionalpractice have focused on the individual professional. This isprobably because professions, although having a corporate,collegial, or "body" aspect ·-as in the body of professionals"d10 police themse1ves-, have nevertheless been seen as madeup of individuallv-practicing people. Hoffman (1989, p. 193)remarks that "Professional l:,'TOUpS are typically locked intoindividualistic methods and concepts both by training andpractice" (a position he particularly attributes to C. \X/rightMills, 1943). W'ltb regard to teachers, it is clearly the case thatan individualist ethos is still widespread. But there have beenefforts to break down the individualist model of teaching.\,(!h~r? Partly for political reasons, 'which I support namely,that united we conquer and divided we fall. That is, teachershave often failed to create or take advantage of solidarity to

press for better working conditions. Exactly opposite to thosewho work in factories and have shared workspaces and thusdevelop solidarity, teachers into their rooms, shut thedoor, and spend the part of the day nor with their

and equals. but with their juniors. over whom they havea petty power.

But as schools and schooling grown, the people whowork inside the school building have grown more diverse anddifferentiated. Even though today teaching is still a "flat"profession, with lirrle or 110 career ladder - by that J mean,you are either a teacher or you are in administration. a vice­principal or head, or head of studies now there are morethan just janitors, cafeteria workers, the secretary and usteachers. There are more specialists of all kinds: Testing andassessment personnel, counselors, special educationspecialists, just to name a few. Thus the network ororganization aspect of school can be seen as more prominent.

54

The well-educated teacher knows a lot ~ has to know a lot ~

must perhaps better also be able to find out a lot. Andsomehow, this information, whether knowledge per se orknowledge-getting skills, must apparently reside in the backof their individual brain, ready to be called upon whenneeded. But is this really the case ~ does it do justice to therealities of day to day practice in the increasingly complexorganization that we call school?

Perhaps any claim that it does do justice merely reflects whoit is that provides the dominant conceptions of many thingsin our field. It seems to be the academics who are the image­makers of TESOL; yet academia outside of natural scienceresearch teams is a domain of education which has a greaterdegree of isolation than ordinary schools, which goes alongwith its cultivation (perhaps creation) of persons ofsupposedly exceptional individual brilliance - the so-calledacademic stars. And as academics have considerable influenceon the education of TESOL professionals, they mayimplicitly transmit to TESOL teachers an image ofprofessional knowledge that reflects their own isolatedworlds, or at least their individualist conceptions of them. Inthis they follow along with the dominant expectations ofeducation: what has been called "solo intelligence": "Thecommon assumptions of solo intelligence as a central goal ofeducation guides the investigation of learning, the cultivationof mental abilities ... and the design of classroom instruction,with relative disregard for the social, physical, and artifactualsurroundings in which such activities take place" (pea 1993,p.71).

I am glad to say that developments of an alternativeunderstanding of knowledge and thought provide anotherway of looking at the knowledge professionals have and howit is deployed in action. This is the conception of "distributedcognition" .

"When we look at actual human practices, we see that humancognition aspires to efficiency in distributing intelligence -

55

across individuals, environment, external syrnbolicrepresentations, tools, and artifacts - as a means of copingwith the complexity of activities often called "mental". Sincesuch aspirations do not inevitablv lead to the fulfillment ofculturallv valued goah of invention and innovation in the faceof todav's rapid societal and global change, a principal aim ofeducation ought to be that of teaching for the design ofdistributed intelligence. We should reorient theeducational emphasis from individual, tool-free cognition tofacilitating individuals' responsive and novel uses of resourcesfor creative and intelligent activitv alone and in cooperation.... This goal 111ight be achieved through the examination ofliving, everyday examples (building from cases where theyalrcadv do distributed intelligence in rhe world) and perhapsthrough case studies of the role of information structures (e.g.matrices, flow charts, templates) and social structures (workteams, apprenticeships) in mediating learning and reasoningas activirv systems of distributed intelligence" (pea 1993, P:82).

The development of this recent line of work comes fromboth a critical reflection on previous models of cognition, aswell as actual observation of sites of what I am inclined to callprofessional practice. Though it is not by any means arevolution, not a sudden change, and not ~l matter of blackand white.

Just the same, clearly the dominant conception of thinking.the mind, and knowledp«, in western thought in the lastcenrurv, has been that thinking takes place in a mind thar isattributed to and in some sense the property of an individual,and that it is the individual (rather than any other entity) whoknows sorncrhinn. All of this zrows out of concerns with

L u

individual rationality and individual rights (not to mentionprivate property and free markets) in the EuropeanEnlightenment. Critiques of the individual concept of mind inpsycholo",)' go back at least to G. H. Mead, in the early 30s;but a more strongly critical tradition is associated with thesociocultural perspective of Vygotsky and his associates andfollowers. The emphasis on interpersonal aspects of

56

cognition, and latterly on the contextual aspects of cognition(here I am thinking of the work of Lave and others), I don'tsee as necessarily having a strongly critical dimension, butonce one brings in context as essential to cognition, ratherthan viewing cognition as disembodied, impersonal, anddecontextual -once one does that, then the realities ofeveryday life, with their potentially associated sociopoliticalaspects, can come in too. Thus one can have a "criticalpsychology" (Sullivan, 1984). And of course, similarly, whenone sees teaching as inherently located in society and asaffecting society, then one can have a "critical pedagogy" aswell.

But at first blush, then, what I want to say is that a distributedcognition, distributed knowledge, distributed intelligence viewof the practice of teachers might seem just to be a better, orat least more productive alternative, to the way we've beeninclined to think of the role of knowledge in teachers'professional practice.

Let me try to say a bit more about this line of inquiry as itseems to have shaped up, as rather a small line of work overthe last 10 years. Currently, one well-known name in it isEdwin Hutchins (e.g., 1991, 1995). He has mainly worked oncontexts where skilled individuals work together toaccomplish tasks with a fairly obvious computational aspect,most notably navigation; but these are tasks wherenevertheless it is fairly obvious that the computation does nottake place just inside one person's head; and indeed, does noteven take place inside several people's heads, since all kindsof physical manifestations of the computation, as well asphysical embodiments of the interactions betweenindividuals, are clear. One published collection and book­length work to appear prior to Hutchin's book is theCambridge collection edited by Salomon. Gavriel Salomon, aseditor, in turn attributes the initial use of the term 'distributedcognition' as well as important early impetus for the work toDavid Pea (of Northwestern University, IL). In the 1980s,Pea was using the related term 'distributed intelligence'. Moreimportantly for checking on the critical heritage of this

S7

approach, Pea is quite firm about the sources of thisdevelopment of sociocultural approaches to cognition. Hesays,

As a developmental psychologist in the early 1980s with along-term interest in the social foundations of cognitivegro\vth, I became very intrigued with the increasinglyprevalent use of technologies in society, including thewidely hyped developments in artificial intelligencesystems of the time. \Vhat consequences would this havefor rethinking human development, learning, andeducational goals and practice. I developed a cultural­historical perspective, influenced by the works ofVygotskv, Luria, and Cole and rooted in the theories ofVico, Hegel, Marx, and Engels, for addressing thesequestions (1993, p. 57).

And just to take the history one step further back, Colehimself (Cole & Engestrorn, 1993) point to an even earlierconcern with non-individual consciousness and thought. Wecan identify a non-individual perspective in the work of\Vundt, around the turn of the nineteenth century. Wundt isoften identified as the father of psychology. He distinguisheda physiological psychology, which also drew on individualintrospection, as a way of getting at elementary aspects ofcognition. But he also spoke of the study of higherpsychological functions, reasoning and the use of language,which he subsumed under the heading T/iilkerpJ]chologie, whichcould not be studied experimentally and for which thesociocultural milieu is essential. At the same time, thesociocultural perspective on mind and cognition of Vygotsky(not to mention Mead) has interesting roots in the work ofpsychologists Janet and Baldwin and philosopher Royce(Valsiner & van der Veer, 1988).

Now, getting back to recent developments. . . In thisapproach, a couple of key concepts should be mentionedbefore I move to an example. One of these is "mediation".Once we accept that thought is not exclusively inside theindividual head, we have to come to grips with the ways inwhich it is aided (or inhibited) by the environment. The

58

environment, in this sense, is a cultural product, which mayinclude physical artifacts, as well as symbolic artifacts, such asconceptual frameworks or the accumulated knowledge ofprior generations and of course other people. And the otherconcept is "activity system". Cole & Engestrorn (1993, P: 9)note "a natural unit of analysis for the study of humanbehavior is activity systems, historically conditioned systemsof relations among individuals and their proximal, culturallyorganized environments".

What would an application of this sort of understanding looklike? Engestrom worked over some time with the structureand practices of a health care center (in Finland), which has Ithink some interesting and provocative similarities, andperhaps also differences, with some aspects of life in our ownschools. And he approached the study of this site with atheory of the organization which also should be verycomfortable to those of us who, in our growing critique ofprofessional practice, have taken on board ideas from actionresearch as a way of doing critical teacher reflection. Let meprovide you with some quotes as a means of summarizingthis work:

Work activity in a complex organization is an obviouscase of distributed, artifact-mediatedcognition.... In whatis called 'developmental work research', researchersprovide data and conceptual tools for the practitioners,who analyze the contradictions of their own work anddesign a new model for it in order to master and solvethose contradictions (p.30).

Part of Engestrom's work reflected the fact that "a workplaceis not a homogenous activity system". He cites as pointingout with regard to medicine that "many disparate groups nowlive under medicine's tent" and that "contemporary medicineis not a unitary profession" (p. 189). This echoes what I havealready mentioned with regard to the nature of schools.

Within the activity system concept I mentioned earlier,Engestrom looked first at potential "mediating artifacts", inthis case the conceptions that the doctors in the health center

59

had of their own practice. As he says, "Competing schools ofthought and practice originate in different historical periodsand conditions, Old traditions persist and arc modified....Competing and conrradictorv historical layers of expertise canreguLuly be discovered within one and the same organization,and often within the actions and thoughts of one and thesame practitioner" (1998: 31)

From interviews with rhe doctors, and analyses of videotapedpatient-doctor consultations, Engesrrorn arrived at the viewthat a range of frames of reference existed along with scriptsfor dealing with patients; a "rich source of resources", as heputs it, distributed among the medical personnel. However,administrative structures interfered with the deployment ofthese resources. "The physicians were compartmentalized intheir work.... Orga.nizationally, any patient could see anydoctor, depending on who happened to be on duty. Doctor­patient relationships were dominated by anonymity anddiscontinuity... [and] strong production pressures" (p. 33).The latter manifested in rules for swift throughput ofpatients. The same patient, on different occasions would seedifferent doctors and might not only get a different diagnosisbut would also be treated bv means of different frames ofreference with 1'e"I')ect to professional practice.

Engestrorn's interim conclusion was that there were threecontradictions in the activity system. "The first contradictionwas that between the complexity of the patient's problemsand the arbitrary distribution of patients to physicians .... Thesecond contradiction was that between the demand forquality care for complex problems and the rule requirIngspeedy consultations. . The third contradiction was thatbetween complex patient problems and rather traditionaltools of biomedical diagnosis."

Since this was developmental work research, Engestrorn fedback this analysis to the health center workers, and theyredesigned their practice. Teams consisting of four physiciansand two health care assistants took on responsibility forpatients in specified geographical areas, Related changes were

60

a reworking of the "mediating artifacts" or conceptions ofmedical care, allowing, among other things, a morecomprehensive model of care, a community diagnosis, and anassociated improvement of the database on patients that all ofthe health care members worked with.

Engestr6m comments:

The new activity structure does not emerge out of theblue. It requires reflective analysis of the existing activitystructure - participants must learn to know and understandwhat they want to transcend". Looking back on thetransition process, he says "Expertise can be understood asa system of cognition. distributed as an activity system.The type of distribution observed in the health center atthe beginning of the project was one ofcompartmentalization. The type of distribution achievedthrough the [period of change] was one of teamwork. Thetransition from compartmentalized expertise to team­based expertise was essentially a process of redistributionof cognition based on design from below. It can beassumed that such a design will be incorporated into thenew team-based type of expert practice as a novelcognitive resource" (p. 40).

This particular example took place in the late 1980s. Perhapsit simply sounds like a move to a team administrativestructure, which is certainly much more common nowadays,and again, "nothing new". And indeed, many have developedthis line since. (For Engestr6m's more recent work, seeEngestr6m & Middleton, 1998.) But for me the key point isthat the move was made following a commitment to adistributed cognition conception of skilled professional work,And incidentally, it was also facilitated by a heightenedconcern for reflection in practice, by way of the incorporationof a research team within the work environment.

Let me turn now to the structural and administrativeimplications that a critical and distributed cognitionconception of professional knowledge has for the conditionsof professional practice.

61

What are the implications of seeing professionalknowledge as distributed for the administration andorganization of "professional" TESOL practice?So far I have counterposed a somewhat critical, at least anti­individualist model of cognition with the pre-existing, non­critical view of professional knowledge. I am suggesting thatit does better justice to teachers' practice as well as beingbetter grounded in a conception of human beings that hasemancipatorv potential. The practical implications of thisopposition are that we need a revised theorv of professionalwork, or specifically of how teachers, at least, apply theirprofessional knowledge. That is to say, we need to examinethe conditions and contexts of our, or teachers' work,critically.

As I mentioned at the outset, there have been many calls to

improve teachers' working conditions - calls which have oftenmade use of the term 'professional', of course. Most of themimply a covert or explicit recognition that teaching shouldn'tbe an isolating, isolated experience, even though it often is.Some COOle out of a sense of entitlement - that we arc, orshould be, professionals, and therefore are entitled to better(and less isolated) working conditions; what you might call abourgeois critique of the school as an organization CODlingfrom a mainstream theory of professions. Others, perhaps,may come from a more radical critique of the school, COIningfrOID critical social or educational theon'.And some comefrom further right, from politicians and ministries ofeducation, who wish to control teachers. (It has been noted[Ozga & Lawn, 1981, P: vi], that professionalism can "bothoperate as a stratc,,']' for control of teachers manipulated bvthe state, while also being used by teacher to protectthemselves against dilution:") In TE50L, unfortunately, thereis simply a very small literature on administration ~lltogether,

so we must look elsewhere for advice.

62

Current discourse about school administrationLet us just glance at the mainstream, liberal critique of schoolorganization. It seems to rest on some discussion of non­individualist conceptions of teaching, and would clearly besympathetic to the implications of distributed cognition viewof teachers work, though does not directly involve asociocognitive analysis. Myers & Simpson (1998) follow apopular line of advocacy when they refer to schools aspotentially "learning communities". They mention the workof Little (e.g., 1987, 1990) on 'collegiality', which is "acombination of commitments, relationships, and caring" (p.69). When present, according to Little, teachers are morelikely to work together, which enables them to "try curricularand instructional innovations, visit each others' classes,observe each other teach, and study classroom-related issuestogether" (ibid.). "Key elements" for this "include personalcloseness, mutual caring, and professional interdependence"(ibid.), Others in this literature (e.g., Sergiovanni, 1992) referto it as covenantal and spiritual (ibid.),

Now while I would like to see all of the above, they are beingcalled for out of a different perspective on critique. It is not acritique of cognition, nor a critique of society which seems tobe there; rather, perhaps, a critique of values and ethics (forexample, an attachment to Nel Noddings' 'ethic of care').And while I think I would like to work in a school oreducational institution which had such a high degree ofunanimity and positive human values, in current practice itseems they rarely exist. Even the optimistic Myers andSimpson recognize that and note that "collegiality as we aredescribing it rests on different intellectual norms than thosepresent in most schools today". They also admit (followingGrimmett & Crehan, 1992; Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990) thatcollegiality is not likely to develop unless it is sustained by aconception of professional work different to the previousindividualistic one.

From a critical perspective, schools are political institutions.So, precisely because they are fully infused with the practicesof power, and because they act very much to determine who

63

gets whar, when, under what conditions Cone of the majordefinitions of politic" Lasswell, 19361, they are alwayscontested sites. And this is something that the iusr-rnenuonedAndy Hargreaves has made much of. That is all the morereason why, in pluralistic societies, we In:1y be less likely to getthose warm fuzzy feelings or indeed manitesrarions ofcollegialitj that Myers and Simpson seem to think areessential for teachers to work together. I suspect thar a criticalperspective on teacher knowledge and cognition couldrecognize this but also dispute the absolute necessity for this.This perspective does not require the minds involved havehearts that beat as one.

What we do dearly require, however, art' administrativesvstems that facilitate the distnbuiion of cognition across.ictivity structures. They should also reflect critiques ofprofessional knowledge which emphasize the non-unitarynature of this knowledge, and thus put gre:1ter emphasis onteacher knowledge and reacher development of professionalknowledge. So perhaps I em direct these two lines of critique,the: one 1110re social critique of the concept of a profession,the other more psychological critique of the concept ofprofessional knowledge, one from LOp and t-he other from thebottom, on the matter of school itself

For at least the last 10 years, mainstream educationaladministration discussions have featured a range of variationson the topic of "schools as learning institutions". TIle phraseis associated with the organizational theorist Senge. 1f impliesa re-cognition that of course, schools should be places whereeveryone learns, but there is a sugg"estion that particularlvbecause of the isolated nature of much teaching practice,opportunities for teachers (as opposed to students) to learnmay be inadequate. Indeed, it. may well be the case that. theschool, 8S a whole. as a systenl, does not do well in le::trIlingto adapt to changing conditions. The typical school, in thisanalysis, is like Engesrrom's health care center - in itsorganizational structure not doing justice to the distributednature of professional practice.

64

So what is needed is an administrative structure thatemphasizes openness and communication. In a typicalarticulation of this position, Wallace, Engel, & Mooney 1997)remark: "Traditionally, schools have been governed on thebasis of a hierarchical decision making model not unlike afactory or the military, with prescribed roles for personnel ina command structure with highest authority at the apex" (p.109). What they and others like them call for is a professionalcommunity. For them this involves reflective dialogue amongteachers, and certainly interaction and collaboration amongthem (they adopt the term "de-privatization of practice" fromLouis & Kruse, 1995). For these things to be achieved, theyclaim shared governance of a school is needed (p. 108). Theycomment "In general, shared governance can refer to a broadrange of matters from instructional policies and practices todecisions related to budget and personnel. What is importantis that the people affected by such policies (i.e. teachers) beinvolved in the decision-making process, especially in regardto issues associated with instruction and student learning"(ibid).

Shared governance: Not as radical as it used to beNow actually, calls for this sort of thing, and of course actualimplementations of them, have been going on for a very longtime. In some of the English-speaking countries, this sort oflanguage is associated with the school-community basedmanagement reform wave that began in the 1980s. AsZeichner (1991, p. 363) puts it: "Since 1986, the literature hasbeen flooded with calls for the empowerment of teachers toparticipate in a more central way in the determination ofschool goals and. policies, and to exercise their professionaljudgment about the content of the curriculum and the meansof instruction. Along with these calls... have come proposalsfor the restructuring of schools to become more professionaland collaborative work environments."

However, in some parts of the world, schools with this sortof approach to internal governance have had a long, albeitnon-mainstream existence, going back a century before whatZeichner has just referred to and calls "the second wave of

65

school reform". In fact, the language J'vejust mentionedsounds a lot like rhc libertarian perspective on schools that

could be found in the work ofA. S..\JcjJl and other radicalschools that have survived since at least the 11:::90s, on and uff(see, t.g., ~eiU, 1903; Smith, 1983/: it appeared in the 50sunder the beading of "dernocratic teachlng" (Stile" & Dorsey,J950); and it also could be found in the crop of "freeschools" that appeared mushroom ·likt III the 196(1,

i)Vrcrcogliann, 1l)98" 1110St of which. like mushrooms 1"n1

afraid, did not h.iv« a IOllg sheJfJjfe. There seem to becornparativelv few actual ;malyses of schools with suchstructures, though one substantial ex.nnple is C-:;'oodman(19921. \Vhat is interestingly rnissing from the literature that\,\'allace et al are all example of and to whic-h Zeicher refers, isthe language of radical critique that you would find in the freeschool literature. \X/hat's present, increasingly, j" actualaccounts of how more mainstream schools have moved inthe direction of shared govc-rnanct:. For this, sec: e.g. the fivecase studies of change provided by Louis & Kruse (J90S>. Ihaw said that] think that the anti-individualist critique ofprofessional cogIlluon has administrativc' srructuralimplications that: are consistent with some of the changescalled tor by liberal, teacher-centered ethics based analvses.\Vhat are the administrative and structural implications ofmore radical critiques of school, of teaching, of the educationprofession? I)() they also come together?

The missing piece~: radical/'critlcal thcorie~ of schooladministration and adtninisrrative the01)' in TES()L and inthe critictl peda\'ogy literatureApproaching rhis literature from the viewpoint of critical andradical theories of pedagob'J.·, nor just of critical theories of theindividual or of professional knowledge, I was initiallypessunisric about finding marenal that would provide a usefuladministrative response to such positions. Similarly, havingreviewed the literature on critical approaches to educationfrom an organization standpoinr, Earle & Kruse (1999, p.170) comment that this work "rcnd]s] to focus all broadersocietal patterns .... and tend]s] to have underdevelopeddiscussions of the detailed particularities that constitute

66

school organizational processes. '" Although some criticaleducation scholars have focused on school organizations asthe primary unit of analysis these efforts have not been builton and expanded neatly to the extent that they might be.New critical work has been done in looking at businessorganizations but little has been done recently tegardingschools."

Kanpol (1997) draws implications from the criticalpedagogical literature to end up with some advice forsympathetic principals. However, he notes "there has beensparse literature directed to principals regarding the role theymay play in challenging forms of oppression, alienation, andsubordination" (p. 79). He does not cite any such literature,though one obvious source would be the one work in whichPaulo Freire himself talks about his administrative experienceas a supetintendent of schools for the city of Sao Paulo(Freire, 1993). Kanpol also comments: "when we do havesome administrators in my graduate foundations courses, weare often met with disdain and/or a numbing coldness, as ifcritical pedagogy is cancerous" (p. 79). Marshall (1991, p. 142)remarks "No comprehensive review of research on theculture of school administration exists. However, ... we knowthat white males with a bureaucratic maintenance orientationhave dominated the ranks of school administration" (insupport she cites five studies in Boyan, 1988). Kempner(1991) gives a little more helpful detail. Drawing on an earliersurvey of 420 Oregon educational administrators (Goldman,Kempner, Powell & Schmuck, 1990), conducted a detailedanalysis of interviews with 144 of those respondents.Summarizing, he remarks "as this analysis has indicated, mostadministrators either lack a level of awareness or do notpossess the socialization and language to communicate ademocratic vision for their leadership or a philosophy for theschools. Rather than value those administrators who arecritically aware of themselves and society, the dominantideology of administration favors and selects those whosubscribe to a rationalistic approach that assumes a science ofadministration.... The perspective is one of organizationalmanipulation, not individual empowerment. .. . .It is apparent

67

that women, minorities, and others who do not share thephysical, social and cultural attributes of those who currentlypredominate in educational administration do not find easyaccess ... How individuals are systematically excluded fromadministration and who is prevented from entering arecertainly questions needing further research. From a criticalperspective, however, any training programs that simplyperpetuate the existing inequalities of who is allowed to leadthe schools are unacceptable" (p. 120).

Associated with evidence of the exclusion of those who donot share dominant physical and sociocultural attributes fromthe ranks of educational administrators is, I believe, the,effects of a disdain of administration and administrators onthe part of those involved in critiques of the system. Power,particularly that which appears to accrue to individuals inpositions of authority in systems of questionable moralintegrity, like schools under critical attack, is seen asundesirable; administrators in such systems are seen asinherently corrupt. Indeed, the libertarian tradition on the leftgoes to great lengths to set up administrative systems that willenable, for example, immediate recall of delegates, immediatefiring of union leaders, and so on (e.g. Earth First article).This, coupled with a very low visibility of argument aboutcritical educational administrative structures and practices,discourages pedagogues with a transformative orientationfrom entering the administrative ranks, I believe. Finally, inacademia administrative positions are felt to kill off academiccareers; in elementary and secondary education, not tomention proprietary institutions (i.e. private language schools)they are positions of high stress and long hours.

However, the analyses of William Foster (especially his 1986book, and see also Foster 1980a, 1980b, 1983, 1989, 1991a.b,1999) provide some help here (and see also the collection ofSmyth, 1989). Foster's work is valuable in providingguidelines for critical educational administration practice.(Foster also called for biographies of radical administrators asthe kind of research that would particularly aid practitioners

68

in this area, but there still aren't so many of these, as Lincoln(1991) pointed out.)

As an initial position, he joins with other cntics of theproducts of positivistic research in educationaladministration. He joins with Alastair McIntyre in denyingthat management science can identify universal laws ofadministrative or managerial behavior. "There IS nosystematic law-like knowledge base for ....educationaladministrators" (also Littrell & Foster, 1995). Then, he doesrecognize the darker side of administration. "Educationaladministrati;'n has taken as its goal the structuration andcontrol of institutional life, which forms the autonomousindividual but which has formed such individuals withinwider structures of domination and inequality" (1999, p. 111).He calls on critical educational administrators to seethemselves as "an oppositional tendency within structures ofcontrol", which he would call "postadministration" (ibidem).

Importantly for my purposes, he, like Cole et a!., hasconsistendy rejected a conception of "the social life that canbe reduced to the cognitions of individual actors" (1991, p.114). He provides an analysis which directs the criticaladministrator to support the development of meaningfulcommunities that can support practice; a position which hetook long before such calls became popular (before e.g.,Sergiovanni, 1992, etc.). And he backs it up to MacIntyre'smoral critique of modern society, which is embedded in aconcern for the virtues. So Foster would redeem our concernfor the profession on the grounds of the moral and ethicalaspects of our practice.

Speaking against an individualistic analysis, he remarks thatwe should "rethink [our] mission in terms of establishingcommunity rather than in terms of individualistic decision­making, for it is really within the community that socialproblems are addressed" (1991, p. 120). The criticaleducational administrator should have a "theory oftransformative action" (Fay, 1987), which "involves thecritique of current structures" and asks "what particular

69

strategies, viewpoint, and perspectives are important toachieving the kind of social reality which lends itself to moreequitable relationships within communities' (p. 1 And if itcomes to the matter of key of a community, \X/enger's(l098J three definitional terms-joint enterprise. mutualengagement, and shared repertoire..- useful sub goals.

For present purposes, Foster's emphasis 011 theadministrator's responsibility for developingcommunities nf practice {1991J is the key point. In this sense,the educational administrator is one who persuades, leads,and above all rather than merclv acts as a bureaucrator time-keeper.' Foster's point here is that educationaladministration musr be' educative or it becomes onlyadministration and loses its roots, thereby, in school as aneducational insriturion. And leadership here (Foster followingBurns, 19'78, p. 43), means "raising consciousness on a widescale". \x:1Jat should be aimed for in educationaladministrators is individuals who have a reflectiveconsciousness about then work, as well as a critical andernanciparorv conception of it. And what they should aim foris a particular kind of community. In his more recent work(1999) he cites Haber rl 994, P: 1(8) on the importance of acommunitv of practice which Ius a critical orientation (J 999,p. 111): "Since the subject is an effect of multiple communityformation, alternative subjects can only be formulated withinthe discourses of alternative communities. This is to claimthat there are no individuals, in the traditional sense and thatthe traditional autonomous subject must be replaced by theconcept of subjects-in- community". (Here, incidentally, weset the earlier sociocognirive forms transposed into adiscoursal mode reminiscent of Foucauldian analyses.) Howis this goal to be achieved? Gradually, undoubtedly. PauloFreire, when he was an administrator, remarked "Everythingthat can possibly be done .. , to introduce democratic change

J "In reality, we cannot even think about gaining teachers' compliancewith. for example, a model of teacher/student relationships that is moreopen, more scientific, and also riskier by imposing our point of view 011

them. We need, above all, to convince, almost convert" (Freire, 1993,p.391.

70

in the school structure must be done. There must be, forexample, permanent development of educators, withoutideological manipulation, but with political clarity, makingclear the progressive orientation of the administration." Healso referred to "other changes" which are very much part ofthe alternative education tradition that has resurfaced underthe heading of school-community based management:"curriculum reformulation, community participation inschool life, parents' associations, school councils, etc." (1993,p. 49). These things exist and have been worked for, in manyplaces. They are not always developed with a fully criticalunderstanding, perhaps.

To terminate this administrative discussion: From the pointof view of those who work for a more just form ofeducational practice, administrators are not usually positivefigures. Yet their work is important if the word 'professional'is going to be used meaningfully. Speaking to the criticalteacher, Foster concludes that "pockets of resistance are bothavailable and viable", but that "the project ... is not the finaland ultimate victory over forces of coercion anddomination... In a postmodern world, power and dominationwill always exist, and pure emancipation is, perhaps,deceptive, but we do what we can" (p. 110). Or, to use an oldslogan from a different domain, "politics is the art of thepossible".

Summary remarkI began, then, with a discussion of the concept of aprofession, and alluded to critical theories of the professions.One element of professions is that they work for socialimprovement, or at least to help people; this should beretained. The concept that professions and professionalsmake use of a specialized body of knowledge is alsoimportant but has to be critiqued and developed. This can bedone partly by means of a conception of the thinkingprofessional as embedded in society, not isolated. Someonewho thinks and acts together with others, and by means oftools, both mental and physical such a person is involved inan activity system in which we can say that cognition is

71

distributed. Taking this approach should make us call for acritical theorv of the school, considered as a place whereteachers nper'dte together. \\-:11en the individual consciousnessis seen as embedded in 'and deriving {ruIn social contexts, it isthen crucial io consider the devel. )p111ent of those socialcontexts if the individual is also to develop, to "be all s,/hecan be" .....I'hus we ll1LlS1 question older administrative 1110de1s,

and join with newer developments thar emphasizeprofessional teamwork, but at the same rim« we must nothOlSt si~ht of the connccnon bcrwcen individual andsociohisrorica! and cultural context. Teamwork to build anindividualist society docs not make sense: -] critical theory ofconsciousness has implications that cut across the. profession,knowledae, pedagogica1 rheorv, .ind the worklng conditionsand orienration-, of teachers and their schools.

ReferencesAyers, \"C. 1988. Fact or fanc),: the knowledge base quest in

teacher education. ](I/fl7l/11 ~/Tt/l(/Jcr Ed//mlio//, 39(5'1,24-21

) .

Bennett, W. S.• 8.: J-loken"oel.'v!. c..)r. 1973. Full-rimepeople workers and conceptions of the 'professional'.In .'\. Harris. ,\L Lawn, & \'0'. Prescott (Eels.),(~(/r;(J.Jl/ljl //l!j()j!c?!ft)/! (pp. 25(J· ~7t). l\;c~:w \"0rk: JohnWiley.

Boyan, !\ . .J. (Ed.~i. 198B. J-l(1/,'d//(lok ()j r(,J~[Jrc!J 0.1/ t'f/J/(a,f;;Oll{]/

m!lIIilli..f!mtioJl. ~cw Y ork: Long-lnan.

Burbules, N. C. 8.: Densmore. 1'-. 1991. The limits of makingteaching a profession. EdllC'[/l/(II/a/ Po/!:'1', .5, 44~6.l

Bums,]. M. 19"78. LeadmIJij). "'ew York: H~rper.

Carr-Saunders, A. I'vL 1928. Proussions: /be./I' OIZ!,r!!lizat/(J/! alldj)/({(t' in Jotit(v. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

72

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. 1999. Relationships ofknowledge and practice: teacher learning incommunities. In A. Iran-Nejad & P. D. Pearson(Ed.), Review ofresearch in education, 24 (pp. 249-305).Washington, DC: American Educational ResearchAssociation.

Cole, M., & Engestrom, Y 1993. A cultural-historicalapproach to distributed cognition. In Salomon, G. L.(Ed.), Distributed cognition: p!Jchological and educationalconsiderations (pp. 1-46). Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Earle, j., & Kruse, S. 1999. Org,anizationai literaryfor educators.Mahwah, N]: Erlbaum.

Engestrom, Y, & Middleton, D. (Eds.) 1998. Cognition andcommunication at work. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Etzioni, A. 1969. The semi-profissions and their organizations. NewYork: The Free Press.

Fay, B. 1987. Critical social science: liberation andits limits. Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press.

Flexner, A. 1915. Is social work a profession? In Proceedings ofthe NationalConference ofCharities andCorrection.Chicago, IL: Hildman Publishing.

Foster, W. 1980a. The changing administrator: developingmanagerial praxis. Educational Theory, 30(1), 11-23.

Foster, W. 1980b. Administration and the crisis of legitimacy:A review of Habermasian thought. HarvardEducationRelJiew, 50(4), 496-505.

Foster, W. 1983. Leadership as praxis: issues inadministration. Paper presented at the AnnualMeeting of the American Educational ResearchAssociation, Montreal, Quebec. Eric Document ED233473.

73

Foster, W. 1989. Towards a critical practice of leadership. InJ. Smyth (Ed.), Criticalper:rpectil!(;,S 0!1 educatioflalleadersbip(pp. 39-62). London: Falmer Press.

Foster, \X7• 1991a. The administrator as a transformativeintellectual. Peabod» Journal~lEducatioll, 66(3), 18.

Foster, W. 1991b. A model of far postgraduateeducation. In W. G. Tierney (Ed.), Cntiqse and ideologyill bigbn' eduali/on: adl'ilIlclng a critical agnlda (pp. 106­125). New York: Praeger.

Foster, \'iV. 1999. Administrative science, the postmodern, andcommunity. In P. T. Begley (Ed.), Values and('dum/jolla/leadership (pp, 97-113). Albany, NY: SUNYPress.

Foucault, M. 1979. Dirciplilll' andPlfllisb. New York: VintageBooks

Freidson, Eliot. 1970. The professio» o.ftlledicine. New York:Harper & Row.

Freidson, Eliot. 2001. Pro}t'sriollalism: tbe third/ogle. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Freire, P. 1993. PedagOg) o.lthl' New York: Continuum,

Galluzzo, G. R. 1999. Consensus and the knowledge base forteaching and teacher education. In]. D. Raths & A.C. McAninch (Eds.), U7hat co/wls as knoJlJ/edge ill teacheredsration? (pp. 69-84). Stamford, CT: Ablex.

Ginsburg, M. 1988. Contradiaious in teacher education and ,wciety: aaitical olla(y.riJ. London: Falmer Press.

Goldman, P., Kempner, K., Powell, \V. R., & Schmuck, R.1990. School administrators' leadership impact: a viewfrom the field. Paper presented at the Annual j\feetingof the AERA, Boston.

Goodman, S. 1956. GrolJ'illg ''1) absurd. New York: Vintage.

74

Goodman, S. 1962. Compulsory miseducation andthecommunit)' 0/'scholars. New York: Vintage.

Goodman, J. 1992. Elementary' schoolingjOr critical democrary. NewYork: SUNY Press.

Grimmett, P. P. & Crehan, E. P. 1992. The nature ofcollegiality in teacher development: the case of clinicalsupervision. In M. Fullan & A. Hargreaves (Eds.),Teacher development andeducational change (pp. 56-85).London: Falmer Press.

Haber, H. F. 1994. Beyondpostmodern politics. New York:Routledge.

Hargreaves, A., & Dawe, R. 1990. Paths of professionaldevelopment: contrived collegiality, collaborativeculture, and the case of peer coaching. Teaching andTeacher Education, 6(3), 227-241.

Henderson, J. 1988. A curricular response to the knowledgebase reform movement. Journal ofTeacber Education,39(5), 13-17.

Hoffman, L. M. 1989. Thepolitics 0/'knowledge. Albany, NY:SUNY Press.

Holzner, B. 1968. Realiry construction in society: Cambridge, MA:Schenkman.

Hutchins, E. 1991. In L. B. Resnick,]. M. Levine, & S. D.Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives onsociallY shared cognition (pp.283-307). Washington, DC: American PsychologicalAssociation.

Hutchins, E. 1995. Cognition in thewild. Cambridge, MA: MITPress.

Impey, G., & Underhill, N. 1993. TheELT manager's handbook.Heinemann.

75

Jenlink, P. M. Beyond the knowledge-base controversy:advancing the ideal of scholar-practitioner leadership.In T. J. Kowalski (Ed.), 21 ". crntnr» chdlll'1l,i!eJjilr scboo!adminiJ/mton' (pp. 65-88). Lanham, MD: ScarecrowPress.

Johnston, B. (1997). Do EFL teachers have careers? TESOLOllarkr!y, 31, 681·712.

Kanpol, B. (1997). IJJIICJ and trendsill Cliti"z/pedog~'!Y' Cresskill,NJ: Hampton Press Inc.

Kempner, K. 1991. Getting into the castle of administration.Peabody JOIII7101 ofEdll<"tio/l, 66(3), 104-123.

Kennedy, M. M. 1999. Ed schools and the problem ofknowledge. In J. D. Raths & A. C. McAninich (Eds.),IY//}at CO/ll/tJ OJ kffoJlia(~i' in teacher edll(ation? (pp. 29-46).Stamford, CT: Ablex.

Lasswell, H. 1936. Politio': I/'ho gdJ n-bat. IFhfff, bon: New York:.'\lcGraw Hill.

Lincoln, Y. S. Critical requisites for transformationalleadership: needed research and discourse. Peabody.folll71alofEdllcatiort, 66(3),176-181.

Littrell,J., & Foster, W. 1995. The myth of a knowledge basein administration. In R. Donrnover, M. Imber, & J. J.Scheurich (eds.), Tl» kffoJliedg,· baJc in ,dlleotiolfaladlflilfiJtmtioll (Pl'. 32-46). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Little, J. W. 1990. Teachers as colleagues. In A. S. Lieberman(Ed.), SrlJ()o!' as eollaboratil·e (11ltllm (pp. 165-193).London: Falmer Press.

Little,J. W., Gerritz, W. H., Stern, D. S., Guthrie,J. W.,Kirtst, M. W., & March, D. D. 1987. StaffdudoplflCfflill Ca/(for'llla: pl/blic (fJ!r! pt'!Jolltll jIll1tsllllfll!J:, pmgrrllll

prlllr::ms, {{lid poliO! Jioices. San Francisco: Far \X/estLaboratory for Educational Research andDevelopment.

76

Louis, K. S., & Kruse, S. D. 1995. Professionalism and community:perspectives on reforming urban schools. Thousand Oaks,CA: Corwin Press.

Marshall, C. 1991. The chasm between administrator andteacher cultures: a micropoliticaJ puzzle. In, Thepoliticsoflift in schools (pp. 139-160). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Mercogliano, Chris. 1998. Making it up as we go along: The storyoftheAlbany Free Schoo!. Heinemann.

Middlehurst, R., & Kennie, T. 1997. Leading professionals:towards new concepts of professionalism. In J.Broadbent, M .Dietrich, & J. Roberts (Eds.), The endoftbeprofessions? (pp. 50-68). London: Routledge.

Mills, C. W. 1943. The professional ideology of socialpathologists. AmericanJournalofSociology, 49(2).

Moore, W. E. 1970. Theprofessional.- rules and roles. New York:Russell Sage Foundation.

Myers, C. B., & Simpson, D. J. 1998. Re-creating schools.Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Neill, A. S.. 1993/1960. Summerhill School.- a neW vieu' ofchildhood. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Newman, F. M., & Oliver, D. W. 1967. Education andcommunity. HarvardEducation Ret'iew, 37(1), 61-106.

Ozga, J., & Lawn, M. 1981. Teachers, professionalism and class.London: Falmer Press.

Parsons, T. 1937. Structure of social action. (The professions andsocial structure.) New York: McGraw-Hill.

Pea, R. 1993. Practices of distributed intelligence and designsfor education. In G. L. Salomon (Ed.), Distnbutedcognition: psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47­88). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

77

Pennington, M. C. 1992. Second class or economy? Thestatus of the English language teaching profession intertiary education. Prospect, 7(3), 7-19.

Popkewitz, T. S. 1994. Professionalism in teaching andteacher education: some notes on its history, ideology,and potential. TurclJillg alldreadier edlh'tltioll, 10. 1 14.

Remolds, M. 1989. Preface. In M. C Reynolds (Ed.),KIIOlJ'ledgr basejor rbe beJ!itl!li/~g teacher (pp. ix-xii).Oxford: Pergamon.

Schrier, L. L. 1993. Prospects for the professionalization offoreign language teaching. In G. Guntennan (Ed.),Det'L'lopi.t~g lallglftl/!/ t(wbmfor a dhlt~gil{g world (pp, 105-1 Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.

Scribner, S. 1986. Thinking in action: some characteristics ofpractical thought. In R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner(Eds.), Prm1iml itlte!ligeltcL': uarare and otigitu r!lw11lpetmceill the n!l'(jldq) 1110rld (pp. 13-30). New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Sergiovanni, T..J. 1992. Mom! kadmNp: to tbe heart?fsrboo! illtp/T)vl'I/II'ttt. San Francisco: jossey-Bass.

Shulman, L. S. 1987 . Knowledge and teaching: foundations ofthe new reform. Han'an! Edllmtiollol Ret/ifill, 57(1), 122.

Smith, Michael P.1983. The !ibef1Clfiam and edscario«. London:George Allen & 'Unwin; Boston: Routledge Chapman& Hall.

Stacek, J. J. 1987. Professionalism and the M.A. in TEFL.TESOL Newsletter, 13.

Stiles, L J., & Dorsey, M. F. 1950. Del/locratic teatbll~~ 111secondary scbools. Philadelphia. PA: Lippincott.

Sullivan, E. V. 1984. A critimlp{'Ycbology: lsuerprerario» cftbepersona/world. New York: Plenum Press.

78

Valsiner.]., & van der Veer, R. 1988. On the social nature ofhuman cognition: an analysis of the shared intellectualroots of George Herbert Mead and Lev Vygotsky.Journalfor tbe Theory 0/Social Bebaeior; 18(1), 117-136.

Wallace, R. CJr., Engel, D. E., & Mooney,]. E. 1997. Thelearning school: aguide to vision-based leadership. ThousandOaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Welker, R. 1992. The teacher as expert: a theoretical and historicalexamination. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Wenger, E. 1998. Commsnities o/practice: learning, meaning, andidentity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Willensky, H L. 1963. The professionalization of everybody.American Journal 0/Sociology, 70(2), 137-158.

Wright, S. 1988 (Oct.). TESOL: our evolving profession.IESOL Newsletter, 23 and 29.

Zeichner, K. M. Contradictions and tensions in theprofessionalization of teaching and thedemocratization of schools. Teachers College Record,92(3),363-377.

79