Challenging notions of teachers’ work: Critiques, proposals, and bilinguisms from the teaching profession

Abstract

Accountability policies and economic incentives to improve teaching have extended internationally. The System of Teacher Professional Development (STPD) established merit payment in Chile, and it was resisted by teacher organizations, such as the Campaign for a new education: to dignify the teacher career! This study analyzes the conception of teacher work underlying the campaign’s criticisms and proposals, and its strategies to persuade others, using frame analysis with dissemination documents. Findings identify the re-location of criticisms from the STPD towards previous regulations, the proposal of teacher work as collective, reflexive, and affective work, and the bilingualism of the campaign, which stablished criticism from in and out the New Public Management logic and used scholar´s and social movements’ discourses. This study contributes to expand the knowledge about teacher discourses for resisting accountability policies.