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Gender Politics andConceptions of the ModernTeacher: Women, identityand professionalismJo-Anne DillaboughPublished online: 28 Jun 2010.

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British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1999

Gender Politics and Conceptions of the Modern Teacher:women, identity and professionalism

JO-ANNE DILLABOUGH, University of Cambridge, School of Education, UK

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this paper is to critique the concepts of ‘teacher professionalism’ and‘professional identity’ as they are currently manifest in the �eld of teaching and teacher education fromtwo related feminist perspectives. In the �rst instance, feminist critiques of liberal democracy are drawnupon to expose the gendered assumptions which underlie dominant conceptions of the ‘professional’ teacher.Particular attention is paid to the now dominant view of the teacher as a rational and instrumental actor,and its gendered dimensions are explored. Second, the gender dualisms which reside at the heart of theconcept ‘teacher professionalism’ are identi�ed and discussed. The discussion is then widened to examinethe role of gender politics in shaping the epistemological premises upon which teacher professionalism isdeveloped and its more formative role in the exploitation of women teachers’ labours. Drawing uponexamples of current feminist research and my own preliminary empirical data, the paper concludes bypresenting an alternative conceptual framework for assessing the gendered nature of identity formation inteaching.

Introduction

When the idea for reason was conceived, it was intended to achieve more thanthe mere regulation of the relation between the means and the ends; it was theinstrument for understanding the ends, for determining them. (Horkheimer, 1947,p. 10; original emphasis)

For at least a decade, sociologists have claimed that British teacher education and the� eld of teaching have been restructured in line with a kind of neo-liberal rationalismwhich positions education more effectively within the capitalist hierarchy (see Gewirtz,1997; Mentor et al., 1997; Whitty, 1997). In consequence, the modern teacher andteacher educators are now viewed as the pivotal agents of educational reform. Forexample, the notion of the teacher as a rational and consumer-oriented professional isheralded by the state and mainstream scholars alike as key to the success of ‘educationin the market place’ and thereby central to the transformation of the nation as a globaleconomic force.

Paradoxically, while a strong neo-liberal emphasis on schooling is emblematic of new

ISSN 0142–5692 (print)/ISSN 1465-3346 (online)/99/000373–22 Ó 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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374 J. Dillabough

capitalist formations, the ‘rational’ vision of the modern teacher is not. Indeed, the notionof the rational actor in the state has an extensive history in philosophical and politicaltraditions, most notably, in Kantian and Cartesian traditions of thought. Nevertheless, 20years ago, it may have been dif� cult to argue that ‘teacher professionalism’ (as apotentially progressive idea) had any similarities to idealised Cartesian and/or Kantiannotions of the rational individual. Yet, it is clear that many of the constituent elementsfrom which contemporary models of teacher professionalism are constructed resonatewith the same sort of Kantian and Cartesian assumptions about the modern politicalsubject that have plagued liberal democratic societies for three centuries; most notably,the notion of the teacher as a ‘rational, instrumental actor’. Within education, theseelements frame, albeit problematically, the state project of reforming the public’s visionof the modern teacher.

There has been enormous scholarly interest in the dynamics of educational reform andits link to the state’s conception of the modern teacher. However, two key issuespertaining to this debate still remain unexplored. The � rst of these concerns therelationship between male power and the construction of the rational teacher. Thesecond relates to the part played by feminist theory in exposing the gendered nature ofcontemporary educational concepts such as ‘teacher professionalism’. Until such ques-tions are addressed, attempts to critique or theorize the relation between teacherprofessionalism and gender will remain rare [1]. In this paper, I therefore attempt topursue such issues on exploratory and critical grounds.

The paper will seek to demonstrate that questions of gender and the history of maledominance in political thought are central to our understanding of contemporaryteaching and its character. To do this, I engage in two related forms of feminist critiquewhich permit an analysis of the role of gender in the formation of the teacher asprofessional. The � rst section, entitled ‘The Gendering of Teacher Professionalism’,draws upon feminist critiques of liberal democracy—in particular, feminist concernsabout the ‘rational individual’ in the state—to critically assess the gendered constructionof the modern teacher. The central goal here is to illustrate how liberal concepts, whichare most closely associated with Kantian and Cartesian notions of the ‘self’, resonate withdominant conceptions of ‘teacher professionalism’ in the � elds of teaching and teachereducation. I argue that these conceptions not only endorse particular forms of masculin-ity, but serve, at least in part, to regulate the production of the modern teacher.

The second section, entitled ‘Women and Teacher Professionalism’, deals less withgrand theoretical concepts and more with substantive educational concerns about thegender dualisms which lie at the heart of ‘teacher professionalism’. Consequently,seminal feminist critiques of the relation between the concept of rationality and women’smarginal position in the teaching profession are described and explored.

In the third section, ‘Gender Politics and the Teaching Profession’, I draw uponexisting feminist research and my own preliminary empirical data to illustrate the waysin which rational and instrumental notions of teaching frame the often exploitativeconditions of women teachers’ work. Since the paper is based largely on research withthree different groups of women teachers in the UK, I refer here to teaching in thebroadest sense, including female university teachers in teacher education and femalestudent teachers [2].

In the � nal section, ‘Alternative Feminist Conceptualisations of Identity Formation inTeaching’, I draw extensively upon feminist political and social theory to construct analternative conceptual model for assessing the role of gender in the identity formation ofteachers. I justify the development of this exploratory model on two levels: � rst, it is

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 375

essential to unravel the ways in which dominant knowledge forms in any � eld bearresemblance to a historical narrative which most scholars assume are long-forgottenmemories of the past. This involves critique in the � rst instance rather than simplycharting the actual pragmatics and discursive practices of liberal democracy itself.Second, since feminist critiques of male epistemology are linked to questions of women’sidentity and gender identity in the broadest sense, it is useful to draw upon them in orderto rethink the part played by gender in the identity formation of teachers.

The Gendering of Teacher Professionalism:a conceptual analysis

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the notion of the teacher as aprofessional. For example, Nixon et al. (1997) have argued that the ‘identity category’,which has the widest popular support in contemporary teacher education, is the notionof the teacher as ‘professional’. Despite this support, a uniform notion of ‘teacherprofessionalism’ does not exist. There is, however, a more general view which circulatesabout teacher professionalism, at least with regard to the way it is de�ned by centralgovernment, related agencies in Britain (e.g. Teacher Training Agency (TTA)), andexpressed within teacher education reform initiatives. Broadly speaking, this moregeneral view of ‘professional identity’ is characterized in terms of the teacher’s ‘rational’capacity to ‘behave competently’ in the name of student achievement, and social andeconomic change [3]. This conception tends to be de� ned in terms of the instrumentalityof the teacher as reform agent and his/her role in subverting personal interests (e.g.political concerns, personal wisdom) to accord with objective standards of practice. Carr(1989) writes:

Technical rationality continues to provide the dominant epistemology ofpractice, and central government’s predilection for technological views ofteaching is inevitably creating conditions under which a re� exive approach toprofessional development becomes impossible. (p. 5)

Teaching is portrayed as an unre� ective technical process and ‘quality’ assynonymous with meeting pre-speci� ed standards through a system of supervi-sion, inspection and control. Teaching Quality may use the rhetoric ofprofessionalism, but in reality this amounts to giving teachers a little more thanthe right to exercise a limited technical discretion […]. Education is seen assomething which serves extrinsic purposes such as national interest, theeconomic needs of the society, or the demands of the labour market. (pp. 2–3)

Within this model of teacher professionalism, the liberal discourse most commonlyassociated with the modern teacher is the rational, instrumental actor.

Many sociologists in education have critiqued this rational view of teacher profession-alism, arguing that it represents one attempt by the state to marginalize egalitarianprinciples in practice. For example, Mahoney & Hextall (1997) argue that teachers’notions of professional practice are constrained by the now abstract and so-called‘neutral’ descriptions of the new Standards Teacher. Similarly, Jones & Moore (1993)argue that a mainstream neo-liberal culture of ‘professionalism’ now dominateseducation and serves to constrain educational professionals’ authenticity in practice.This culture serves to undermine the political authenticity of teachers and leads toinstrumental forms of ‘technical control’. Jones & Moore (1993) write:

the effectiveness of ‘competency’ resides in the manner in which it codi� es and

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regulates behaviour through constructs of ‘skills’ and the manner in which itsmethodology, active within a particular policy and institutional context, facili-tates technical control. (p. 387)

Similar ideas have been put forward by Lawn & Ozga (1981), suggesting that ‘teacherprofessionalism’ is used by the state as a political device which gives the impressionof liberation (e.g. collaboration, ‘empowerment’), but simultaneously de-skills and de-professionalizes teachers to the point of exploitation. Taken together, this work hasexposed the formidable links between teachers’ professional identities and the changing,and increasingly centralised, modes of state regulation over teachers’ labours. It hasalso pointed to the underlying ideological orientation of ‘teacher professionalism’ asexpressed in educational knowledge and discourse.

While this line of reasoning is valuable, critics within this discourse have ignoredquestions of gender. Consequently, the stress within sociology on ‘neo-liberal’ politics orrestructuring as sole motivations for understanding ‘teacher culture’ (see Gewirtz, 1997)or the ‘professional teacher’ is limited insofar as the goal of scholarship is simply toexpose state practices, rather than relate such practices to broader sociological concernssuch as gender relations. In the next section, I attempt to redress this imbalance. I doso in the � rst instance by summarizing feminist political and social theorists’ concernsabout the gendered nature of ‘idealized’ Kantian and Cartesian inventions such as the‘rational, instrumental actor’, and their relevance to current debates about the modernindividual. An engagement with this body of work is pertinent because it affords theconceptual re� nement needed to reinstate gender as a key issue in the construction ofteacher professionalism. Having drawn upon feminist political theory in this way, I shallbe in a position to illuminate some of the gendered tensions which arise as a consequenceof relying, within an abstract liberal conception of identity, upon two concepts—rationality and instrumentalism—in the development of the teacher as professional.

The Problem of Rationality in Liberal Democratic Theory

Like Western thought generally, political theory […] relies on and reproducesits dualistic foundations, where knowledge and citizenship are equallygrounded in hierarchical oppositions that value mind over body, culture overnature, reason over emotion, order over chaos, transparency over opacity. Thefeminine, a metaphor or identity for the denigrated terms, emerges as anarchicand wild; a threat to clear thought, self-discipline and political order. (Coole,1993, p. 18)

Theoretical debates which concern the gendering of liberal democratic discourse nowhave a lengthy history in feminist political and social theory. The most notable of thesedebates is the now long-standing feminist concern with Kantian and Cartesian notionsof the ‘rational man’—the ‘disembedded’ political subject—as expressed in liberaldemocratic theory. For example, as feminist political theorists argue, both the Kantianand the Cartesian view of the rational political subject re� ected a certain disdain foranything ‘coded as feminine’ (see Coole, 1993, p. 1), and con� ated femininity with thesubjective element of political participation. As a consequence, the objective andreasoned elements of political participation were privileged and thus dominated theconstruction of the active citizen. In such a context, women could not possess politicalidentities because their ‘emotionality’ and sexuality were viewed as a threat to the

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 377

rational state (see Coole, 1993). Male rationality and reason have thus emerged asnormative political ideals in liberal democratic societies.

One contribution of feminist political theory to our understanding of the genderednature of liberal democratic practices is feminist critiques of both Kantian and Cartesianphilosophies, and the concept of reason. For example, both Coole (1993) and Braaten(1997) have argued that ‘reason’, although a rather idealized political concept, is stillrevered as the centre-piece of liberal democratic practice and remains central to thesuccess of the modern individuals, that is, to possess reason is to know, and to be aknowing subject is to possess political power. However, as feminist theorists argue, inconceding to rationality as the sole foundation for a political identity, women mustremain (at least in abstract terms) outside the domain of the polity since they areconstructed symbolically as that which stands in opposition to rationality. As such,women cannot ‘know’ in the purest sense; they are instead viewed as the mediumthrough which the rational individual is cultivated. Women stand outside the politicalprocess as ‘Other’:

From Plato to Descartes to Kant the self is the unitary substratum; reasonreigns over the passions, the I reigns over the will; otherness must besuppressed. (Benhabib, 1997, p. 198) [4]

‘Identity’ viewed in this manner reproduces dominant notions of masculinity in two ways.On the one hand, it gives rise to a cultural vision of ‘inclusive’ political participationwhich favours a masculine conception of the modern subject/individual. It achieves thisthrough the formation of stable gender categories which differentiate, as if natural andlegitimate, between the ‘rational’ man and ‘irrational’ women [5].

On the other hand, this strand of political thought constructs an ‘exclusionary’ notionof the modern identity which can only justify itself through the practice of reason. In sucha case, men stand as legitimate representatives of the public sphere, while women, as Clark(1976) suggests, remain in the ‘ontological basement’ of political life. As a consequence,women can only achieve political status on par with that of men if they fully embrace thesymbolic gender dualisms which frame state practice and have their roots in the Europeanphilosophical tradition, that is, they must separate from the ‘self’ when it is entrenched inany formal attachment or intimate connection with another (see Weir, 1997).

The Problem of Instrumantalism in Liberal Discourse

The Kantian focus on the separation of ‘self from experience in the search for alegitimate political identity exposes another gendered tension which underlies traditionalconceptions of rationality. This tension is best expressed as follows: by conceptualisingthe ‘self’ as detached, the individual symbolizes a position of complete independencewhere he/she no longer appears ‘to have intrinsic needs for others’ (see Weir, 1997).Weir (1997) views this strong liberal characterization of the individual as an unrealisticabstraction. Such a view ‘runs against the structural features of the self as a being whoexists in a space of concerns’ (Taylor, 1989, p. 51). An over-reliance on this instrumentalconception of identity does, however, lead to two problems which are central to thereproduction of Weir’s (1997) ‘disembedded subject’ in the state.

First, this view of the modern individual negates the role of social context, structure andparticularity in the formation of gender identities, i.e., it fails to view identity as an embeddedpolitical construct which ‘always depends upon larger social meanings’ (see Benhabib,1997; Weir, 1997 for self-de�nition. Second, the language of instrumentalism (e.g.

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detached political subject, freedom, autonomy) falsely implies that women will acquirethe necessary freedom to act politically in their own name if they extract themselves fromtheir social experience [6]. Consequently, in this model, the social element of identityformation is denied; unrealistic expectations are thus circulated about the capacity forwomen to be ‘free’ despite the now obvious and well-documented social constraintsplaced upon them.

Liberal Discourse, Gender and the Construction of the Modern Teacher

On � rst examination, feminist critiques which have exposed the idealized modernindividual as a masculine entity may seem unrelated to educational concepts, inparticular, teacher professionalism and women’s position within it. However, as discussedat the outset, in recent years ‘teacher professionalism’ has been rede� ned by the state tore� ect a certain strain of rationality which privileges male theories of the polity.Therefore, on any systematic application of feminist critiques of the modern subject todominant views of teacher professionalism, a number of tensions arise which poseparticular dif� culties for feminists.

The � rst tension emerges when the part played by Kantian or Cartesian representa-tions of the ‘rational man’ are rendered visible in contemporary notions of teacherprofessionalism. For example, state-centred notions of ‘teacher professionalism’, such asthe Competent Teacher or the Standards Teacher, are closely associated with Kant’sidea that personal perspectives (e.g. emotions, experience) should not inform politicalaction in the public sphere, and in this case, the actions of teachers. Instead, it is nowadvocated that teachers’ identities should conform to a more objective and proceduralaccount of professionalism, as expressed by, for example, government agencies (e.g.TTA) [7]. However, if we accept feminist critiques of the Kantian position as valid, onecould argue that women’s (and men’s) diverse emotional experiences and political beliefs(and, hence, differences) are repressed in this abstract model of teacher professionalism.As such, this model gives a misleading picture of teaching by attending to what has beentraditionally viewed as the masculine sphere of the political spectrum (i.e. the rationalpublic sphere). The other sphere—the realm of the private [8]—is not viewed aspolitically relevant in this model of teaching (see Noddings, 1996), at least as far asabstract knowledge structures about professionalism are concerned.

Second, the dominant notion of ‘professional identity’ appears to be premised on arather simplistic and instrumental model of teacher development. This abstract model ofprofessionalism characterizes teachers as individuals who do not make meaningfulconnections with students or other ‘professionals’, but instead respond to the instrumen-tal goals of the state (see Mahoney & Hextall, 1997). Thus, the teaching self is notconstituted through complex and meaningful social interactions; it simply asserts itself inthe name of progress. This notion highlights a:

forging of a concept of profession with the quest for order in a period of rapidsocial change and with middle-class male anxiety about proving one’s self, inways that are highly reminiscent of the themes of the masculine cultural projectas is already visible in relation to bureaucracy. (Davies, 1996, p. 669)

Since, as Davies (1996) argues, women are typically associated with ‘feminine’ codes,they are often excluded from, or controlled by, this ‘masculine cultural project’.Consequently, a discursive notion of the teaching ‘self’ is lost, and the complexity ofeducation and its socializing mechanisms remain unexplored.

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 379

A third tension emerges when one considers the instrumental forms of trainingcurrently in operation in teacher education. Whereas earlier perspectives on professionalteacher training emphasized the idea of meaningful student–teacher relationships, schoolcommunities and progressive pedagogical approaches, current approaches point to areturn to traditional assessment methods and idea of the teacher as the transmitter ofknowledge (e.g. whole-class teaching). As Gewirtz (1997) writes:

there is a decline in the sociability of teaching; and there is pressure on teachersto adopt more traditional pedagogies, with a focus on output rather than theprocess and on particular groups of high-attaining students […] These shiftsare in large part a consequence of a deliberate strategy on the part of the policymakers attempting to ameliorate particular problems of the state—problems ofcapital accumulation, legitimation and control. (p. 230)

Paradoxically, this legitimate ‘authority’ and control is not gained through creative andauthentic insight nor through shared social experience in the classroom. Rather, it isachieved through teachers’ and teacher educators’ individual efforts to commit tostandardized procedures which are created by an objective body of so-called ‘experts’. Ifa teacher succeeds at this task, she will be labelled ‘competent’. However, such notionsare constrained by masculine ideals of professional autonomy and agency,

an ideal that can be achieved—in a world of ‘hostile strangers’—[…] throughimpersonal relations that are distant and emotionally detached. (Davies, 1996,p. 672)

Since knowledge about teaching appears to be tied to very particular gender codes andcategories, the reproduction of masculine ideals through the concept of ‘teacher profes-sionalism’ leads to the devaluation of those gender codes which are typically associatedwith the ‘feminine’. This not only means that gender dualisms are re-represented ineducational thought. It also implies that dominant conceptions of teacher professionalismyield to gendered teaching identities which are always unequal.

In summary, feminist critiques of the modern subject provide the necessary analyticaltools for exposing the relation between gender and rationality, and their complementaryroles in the gendering of professional knowledge. They also problematize the genderdualisms which underlie a notion of teaching as rational, instrumental action. This viewreconstitutes the teacher as Kant’s individuated ‘rational man’—a teacher devoid ofmeaningful connections to those whom she is expected to educate. Feminist critiques ofconcepts such as ‘teacher professionalism’ also point to the implicit theories of genderidentity deployed in educational and professional discourses, and their representationwithin hierarchical systems of educational knowledge.

Women and Teacher Professionalism

The contradictions inherent in the liberal concepts of ‘rationality’ and ‘instrumentality’can be more clearly understood when one examines how their deployment in teachereducation over time has led to a diminished view of women teachers as ‘professionals’.Therefore, at this level of analysis, the problem moves beyond that of the simpleexclusion of women’s knowledge from a dominant and, indeed, abstract notion ofteacher professionalism. Rather, it is concerned more directly with the contradictory andproblematic nature of women’s inclusion in the teaching profession itself.

Interestingly, not unlike feminist political theorists, feminist educationalists are alsoconcerned with rationality and its gendered manifestations. However, their arguments

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move beyond a concern with political thought to professional knowledge and itsimplications for women teachers. In this section, therefore, I address the ways in whichfeminist educationalists have critiqued the application of male-centered concepts (e.g.rationality) to the teaching profession, and in particular, to the lives of women teachers.

Inclusion, Rationality and Women Teachers’ Experiences

We are arguing that the proof of masculinity as rational, as possessingknowledge, as superior, has constantly to be reasserted and set against its equaland opposite proof of the failure and lack of femininity. To say this is not tocollude with the idea that women, and all other excluded groups, really ‘are’lacking, but to demonstrate the great investments in proving this to be the case.(Walkerdine & Lucey, 1989, p. 201)

In 1989, Valerie Walkerdine and Helen Lucey published an important book entitledDemocracy in the Kitchen. In this work, the authors were concerned with the question of howliberal democratic ideals (e.g. freedom) framed the lives of girls and women, bothnormatively and symbolically, outside the domain of rationalism. Consequently, as wasthe case in feminist critiques of liberal democratic theory, Walkerdine & Lucey (1989)argued that women’s political identities had been constructed against, and in subordina-tion to, male theories of the rational individual. Women were thus seen as bothconditioned and constrained by essentializing images of ‘irrationality’—an image ofwomen dating back to the Enlightenment.

Their work also served to illustrate just how Enlightenment concepts, as a largely maleenterprise, continued to re-emerge in education over time. According to Walkerdine &Lucey (1989), for example, it is still the bourgeois male teacher or student who ishonoured with the title ‘rational being’ because it is he who is ‘endowed with reason’ (p.200) in the purest sense. By contrast, women teachers and female students cannot possessknowledge in their own right because they are viewed as moral vessels through whichliberal democracy and the rational society are cultivated. At the same time, however,women teachers and female students are still seen in the abstract as ‘free’ and equal tomen in their capacity to explore the possibilities and opportunities of liberal democracyin practice.

It is within these debates that concerns about the role of ‘rationality’ have emerged inthe � eld of teaching and teacher education, particularly as they concern the lives ofwomen teachers’ who work in the ‘feminized’ professions (e.g. teaching, teacher edu-cation). Many feminists have suggested, for example, that an over-reliance on ‘rationality’within dominant educational discourse in both schools and higher education masks thehistorical constraints imposed upon women teachers and their capacity to be ‘rational’agents within the profession (see Blackmore, 1996). As Casey (1990) and Steedman (1985)argue, the very structure of teaching has been shaped by biologically determined genderdualisms which have led to the coding of women as ‘feminine’ and, hence, therepresentation of ‘women teachers as mothers’ (see Casey, 1990, 1993). As a conse-quence, the professional status of women teachers is closely tied to domestic work in theprivate sphere. This linking of women teachers to the private sphere remains dependent,at least in part, upon traditional distinctions within political consciousness between‘public man’ and ‘private woman’.

The now seminal work of Walkerdine & Lucey (1989) and others (see Steedman, 1985)has been key to feminist critiques of women’s social positioning in education. Not onlyhas it pointed to the part played by the rhetoric of ‘rationality’ in marginalizing women

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 381

teachers (and girls). It also suggests that women teachers are represented as symbolic ofthe private sphere, and deemed responsible for the cultivation of the ‘rational’ ideal offreedom through their role as moral regulators of the state (see Walkerdine, 1990). Thehistorical role of teacher thus becomes one of regulating and governing liberal demo-cratic subjects who uncritically support the ‘freedoms’ that are thought to underliemodern capitalism and its gendered manifestations. Walkerdine (1990) writes:

the primary school forms an important place where this ‘free-will’ is estab-lished. It is in this sense that we can begin to understand the position of theteacher as ‘the responsibility and the spur of freedom’. The freedom which shehas to foster is, I would argue, the notion of bourgeois individuality … Theteacher, then, is responsible for freedom. (p. 61)

Paradoxically, this responsibility for ensuring the ‘freedom’ of students often contradictsthat which is articulated about the professional identity of teachers, that is, theprofessional is ultimately one who is free to the extent that rational and independentchoices about educational practice can be made. However, women teachers are at thesame time constrained by the very ‘illusion of freedom’ as they are continuallyreconstituted as ‘mothers’ and ‘guardians’ of the nation. These constraints are clearlylinked to identity narratives which concern women’s reproductive capacity rather thantheir ability, as it were, to be ‘rational’.

As these arguments imply, educational discourse which pertains to women teachers isoften essentialized by traditional notions of the female identity. However, at the sametime, such notions are often construed as irrational, driven by emotions and/or deemedinappropriate by society (see Blackmore, 1996). As such, the social construction ofwomen’s professional status points to the naturalization of women’s teaching identity asinferior to that of men. It also suggests that women teachers’ professional identity canonly be found amid the so-called ‘virtues’ of the private sphere, which is ultimatelyviewed as contemptible in the context of a ‘real’ profession. Consequently, the onlyremaining option for women teachers is to take up an instrumental stance where‘mothering’ is replaced with procedural forms of quality control or an identi� cation withmasculine forms of competence as the sole mechanism for achieving professionalautonomy. Arguably, however, this formal identi� cation with masculinity becomes aposition of dominance rather than a position of re� ection or female agency: ‘the selfbecomes all too pro� cient at the domination of nature, at the repression of drives, atdefending identity against otherness, against difference’ (Weir, 1997, p. 66).

Consequently, as was the case with the representation of women in political thought,some of the most dif� cult questions concerning the signi� cance of women teachers’professional identities are collapsed into an oppositional view of gender categories, whichlead to the defense of one essentialized teaching ‘self’ over another. However, thedominance of an essentialized teaching ‘self’ in teacher education—the rationalteacher—functions to mask the reality that most women teachers are situated on theinferior side of the gender binary. This position ultimately leads to women’s exclusionfrom the formal language of teacher professionalism, yet simultaneously de� nes theirinclusion on the basis of female subordination.

Gender Politics and the Teaching Profession

The dual obsession with polarized identity discourses which concern teacher profession-alism—‘teacher as mother’ or the ‘rational’ teacher—has very speci� c consequences for

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understanding the institutionalization of the gender order in the teaching profession.These consequences are bound up in the gender relations and political formations whichlead to women’s experiences of exclusion in the teaching profession. Within education,the most obvious of these exclusions is the often subtle exploitation of women teachers’labours in education.

At this point, therefore, I turn to a consideration of the many and varied aspects offemale exploitation in the teaching profession, drawing upon current examples offeminist educational research together with some preliminary work of my own. Inreviewing my own work, I focus largely on women teacher educators and, to a lesserextent, female student teachers since their gendered positioning in teacher education stillremains unexplored [9]. However, I also draw upon research which concerns theexperiences of female academics who teach in the feminized professions. I do this withthe intention of forging links between the working experiences of women teachers inthose academic professions which ‘institutionalize women’s labours’ and the lives ofwomen (both students and academics) in teaching and teacher education. In so doing, Ihope to illustrate how educational institutions function within a broader gender orderwhich supports the essentialization of male and female identities, yet remains committedto a rational notion of teacher professionalism in both schools and teacher education.

Gender, Exploitation and the Contemporary Teacher

There is now a detailed, if limited, body of feminist research which attempts to exposethe exploitation of women’s labours in the teaching profession, some of which includesthe study of women teachers in the academy and the work of women teachers morebroadly. Much of this work has exposed the gender hierarchies and Kantian dualismswhich continue to shape knowledge production about the role of women teachers andtheir subordinate status. For example, both Acker & Feuerverger (1997) and Brooks(1997) have provided evidence to suggest that female university teachers are exploited asworkers; they are overloaded with administrative responsibilities, encouraged to functionas caregivers, and given responsibilities which may lead to their exclusion from an equalchance of success as ‘professionals’. In referring to empirical work conducted with femaleuniversity teachers, Acker & Feuerverger (1997) write:

[Women academics] experience a ‘bifurcated consciousness’ (Smith, 1987) or‘segmented self’ (Miller, J.L., 1983) or ‘outlaw emotions’ (Jagger, 1989) as theytry to live up to the contradictory prescriptions for ‘caring women’ andproductive academics. They see themselves working too hard, with high levelsof anxiety, in reward systems that they dislike and without suf� cient recognitionfor the aspects of the work they care about or have to do. Althoughself-selection may play a part in producing the anxiety and perfectionismdemonstrated by many of these women, we have argued that their ‘outsiderstatus’ in academe, combined with narrow institutional criteria for success,result in a situation where they suffer considerable pain. (p. 418; emphasisadded)

Acker & Feuerverger (1997) also provide some illustrative and provocative examples ofwomen teachers’ concerns about the nature of their own exploitation in practice. Theyquote Lucille, a female academic in their study:

I sort of am used: as a departmental resource, like the � re extinguisher … AndI’m the shoulder for students to cry on. And I’m the person who can be

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counted on to teach well. Who can be called on to do whatever needs to bedone … I don’t mind, I mean those are things that I would do anyway becausethey’re what one does. But, certainly, as far as recognition for it, or the rest ofit goes, forget it. (Lucille; quote extract taken from Acker & Feuerverger, 1997,p. 414)

Other feminists have pointed to the signi� cance of the gender binary in the exploi-tation of women teachers’ labours. For example, Luttrell (1996) argues that womeneducators are more often employed in non-tenured, part-time or contractual posts, whereteaching and pastoral responsibilities are greater than they would be in permanentpositions. This kind of employment status often leads to a situation where women aresometimes overwhelmed by the extent to which they have been conceptualized as serviceproviders in education. Recent evidence for this claim in the everyday work of femaleteacher educators is also present in my own research. In the words of one female teachereducator participating in an interview which I conducted in the UK on educationalrestructuring and women in teacher education [10]:

I was asked to be a year tutor. I was asked and I remember feeling valuedwhen I was asked. Then I got told that ‘they only asked you because you’re theonly one that will do it. Everyone else has said no’, but I didn’t know that then[…] A year tutor is like everyone’s mother. You’ll be stuck with everything […]It was dif� cult to cope with. […] One set of problems after another […] SoI was seen as a mother �gure […] I just didn’t realize how I became everybody’sdogsbody […] So I did that for two years and I wouldn’t do it anymore. Itstopped me from doing any research […] I remember saying I wanted to goback and engage in research […] I was getting really fed up with that and Iremember sitting in the staff room and somebody said ‘you’re year tutor’ andI said ‘I’m not’ but I let them do that to me. Now I think why? […] Is it becauseI’m a woman. (Sylvia, Interview 1; emphasis added)

Sylvia’s comments relate directly to issues which concern the con� ation of the categories‘teaching’ and ‘motherhood’, where the latter category emerges as symbolic of dimin-ished status and working conditions which further marginalize women. Consequently,any institutional attempts to demonstrate ‘inclusion’ through role status or professionalresponsibilities such as year tutor may lead to experiences of marginalization, which mayultimately constrain women teachers’ professional agency in practice. This is largelybecause inclusion as a ‘professional’ (i.e. the position of year tutor) may be premised uponfemale submission, male hierarchies of knowledge, or a conceptualization of teaching as‘motherhood’. It thus becomes clear that certain understandings of ‘inclusion’ takepriority over others, such that the exploitation of women’s labours is legitimized withina formal political structure.

Sylvia’s remarks also expose what Luttrell (1996) identi� es as the illusions of ‘maternalomnipotence’ (p. 352), which form part of the structured gender relations of labour inteaching, and their conscious and unconscious manifestations in the everyday languageof individuals in the workplace. These ‘illusions’ are not restricted to Sylvia’s experience.They emerge as signi� cant in the lives of other women teachers. As Helen, anotherfemale teacher educator, remarked:

There is always this feeling that if you’re a woman I think that you do your workfor the sake of your job. Then you wish somebody will appreciate you. Butthey’re (men) not in it for the job. They only appreciate you if you’re servicing

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them. Somewhere there is a serious con� ict. I don’t know what it means.Because sometimes it’s like slavery. (Helen, Interview 3; 1998, emphasis added)

As is evident in Helen’s remarks, there is a tendency to invoke very particular and indeeddichotomous understandings of gender identity. However, such understandings serve toelucidate the paradoxical nature of women teachers’ work. This paradox emerges whenthe history of women’s service role re-emerges in contemporary practices and invokesboth conscious and unconscious feelings about one’s social positioning more generally.According to Helen, for example, the act of service should lead (at least in theory) to acertain appreciation for the work women do. However, as she suggests, appreciation canonly emerge as a response to the con� ation of women and service. Women teacherstherefore emerge as a devalued entity unless they are serving others. Clearly, this processof devaluation not only has serious consequences for women teachers’, but also invokesa particular understanding of the structural dimensions of gender inequality in highereducation:

When I came here (to the university) I still saw a very male, white middle classpower structure which shocked me. It all seemed so male. I went to examboards and it was all me and these males making the decisions […] All thepeople who seemed to be in a position of authority were men, like principlelecturers. It seemed that there were very few women, and they were all middleclass, and I saw the world as a female tutor and I couldn’t believe how few […]female tutors there were. There were hardly any […] But I am still shockedand I am still pretty peeved when I sit in exam boards and meetings where yousee who holds the power. (Janine, Interview 2, 1996; emphasis added)

Emergent Feminist Political Identities and the Sociological Constraints of Gender Relations in Teaching[11]

The empirical work cited reveals some of the complex ways in which the teachingprofession is both modelled on, and illustrative of, the broader gender order. In otherwords, as was particularly noted in the � rst section of the paper, women’s labours inteaching cannot be separated from the historically constructed knowledge claims whichcirculate about gender relations in society. However, such assumptions contradict manyof the new modes of regulating the ‘competent’ teacher. And so the paradox re-emerges:notions of the ‘good teacher’ are premised upon rational action and instrumental formsof expertise. Nevertheless, women teachers and teacher educators are still constructedoutside this dominant view of the professional, despite the demands placed upon themto conform to it. Consequently, the search for a meaningful and coherent ‘professional[and political] identity’ thus becomes a fraught, complex and ambiguous process:

I’m trying to reclaim my identity now. I felt as soon as I’d come here, I’d beenturned into some sort of workhorse and that is a gendered position to be in[…] So I’m very much trying to reclaim and establish a way of working herethat isn’t at odds with my political situation. I haven’t done it yet but that’swhat I am trying for. However, I am going about gaining political control ina fragmented way (Sylvia, Interview 2, 1997)

I was doing an executive job and that was all I could do but I couldn’t beresponsible for both ends, so then we were inspected for the second time andit was exactly the same situation I realised I was going to have to protect myself

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 385

[…] I made it very clear that I was not going to take responsibility for that[OFSTED inspection results]. I said [to OFSTED] that’s not my job, that’ssomebody else’s job. I learned the second time around not be in the great catchall area. I laid down precisely where I was going to walk and what I wasprepared to take responsibility for. (Helen, Interview 3, 1998)

And so the battle for women to assert themselves as ‘professionals’ continues. Yet, inmany cases, such political assertions appear to be based on women’s desires to bothprotect and set themselves apart from any blame for institutional failure; in other words,such assertions seem necessary for survival in the teaching profession. The need forself-protection, as expressed by both Sylvia and Helen, point to the struggle womenteachers engage in to both resist and get beyond their marginal positioning in theprofession. In exposing this struggle, the gender dualisms which frame the constructionof the professional teacher come sharply into view. These dualisms are represented inmultiple forms; women teachers as subordinates, as ‘mothers’, and as scapegoats for whathas not been achieved in teacher education. What is signi� cant is that each of theseimages is consonant with the kind of Cartesian and Kantian dualisms which form thehistory of women’s representation in political thought.

In charting teachers’ struggle to gain political status, one also achieves some insightinto the ways in which gender hierarchies are implicated in the production of knowledgeabout the ‘professional teacher’ and her role in tackling gender inequality in the schoolclassroom. One also begins to see how gender dualisms manifest the lives of womenteachers across diverse domains of education. As one female student teacher, Louise,commented in response to a question about her own ‘feminist practice’ in the classroom:

I’ve thought about it. I see it in the classroom, in the sort of cliche of the girlsbeing very conscientious and having beautifully presented pages and takingendless trouble and the boys have got very different agendas. There seems tobe a maturity gap so I sort of thought as a teacher of my subject I couldovercome that and focus on the boys because one feels it is fairly close to a lossof face to show much willingness with a young women teacher when they’reworking hard to establish that they’re men and all the rest of it. These poorskinny lads. They’re like tadpoles. You have to kind of grace that and dowhatever. So the line I’ve taken on the class really is to try and focus them bysubject material that they won’t feel is to girlie to talk about or too wet. (Louise,Interview 2, 1996)

As Louise’s remarks imply, it is here that the manifestations of gender dualisms—codesof masculinity and femininity—have both in� uenced, yet rendered problematic, thepossibility of feminist practice in teaching. Indeed, the very idea of tackling genderinequality may lead to the reproduction of a professional stance which impugns thesigni� cance of women. Such a stance emerges in multiple forms. As Carry, anotherstudent teacher, comments:

Carry: The boys always draw more attention to themselves than girls. Girls area lot more subtle.

JD: How would you describe their tactics of getting attention?

Carry: Well, they’re vocal. They call out […] The girls are a lot quieter. Theytend to talk amongst themselves whereas boys will shout across a room. Theyhave a more physical presence. They will pull you by the arm and drag youback to their chair …

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JD: When the boys do that in the classroom how does it make you feel? If youwere monitoring all that?

Carry: Well I tend to get annoyed because my time is being taken up in anunproductive way … I’ve noticed that if you are not careful and not aware youwill spend all your time with the boys and that’s really bad. (Carry, Interview2, 1996)

Carries’ dif� culties, of which she, herself, is well aware, are not con� ned to the classroom.Even the most politically aware feminist teachers � nd the struggle to identify withwomen’s concerns a formidable challenge. It is a challenge which not only involves theproblem of gender relations, but which is also a broader political struggle over therecognition of women’s work in the labour force. The following extract from an interviewwith Sylvia, a teacher educator, serves to illustrate this:

JD: How would you characterise your feminist strategies in practice?

Sylvia: Well I don’t think on my own I can change anything. I can listen toother women. I do see parts of my job as constantly looking at this […] I cameinto education on a political trip. I wanted to change things and I wanted tosay that it’s OK to be you and it is OK to recognise that you are you, althoughyou might not be able to affect institutional change. You’ve got the right tohave a personal view and I very much think that has to be fought for […] Iwant to be in a position to say that what you are � ghting for is worth � ghtingfor. It’s worth having. I see it as a � ght.

JD: If there was anything that held you back (constrained your agency) assomeone who wanted to express your feminist beliefs, what would that be?

Sylvia: OFSTED for instance. Well they are policing. I stood in front of themand told them there was a race and gender issue and I didn’t know how theywould react. But I did it anyway. I thought it was the right thing. I was shockedthat none of the students could see it. None of them […] I am aware that Ican’t pursue my own agenda here because my agenda is too radical. I amaware that I am working in the market economy. I am aware of the pressureon management. I suppose I am aware of the tensions—the reality is the same… To at least keep a position and still to recognise that my position is notgoing to be achieved in one institution. (Sylvia, Interview 3, 1998)

The social constraints which limit women teachers’ political agency are complex. Itappears, for example, as though women construct their political identities (and agency)in relation to broader social structures, including those exploitative structures which equatewomen teachers with subordination in the polity. More signi� cant, however, is the linkbetween gender relations and capitalist restructuring in the broadest sense, along with themanifestation of market thinking in the everyday lives of women teachers. This link,while seemingly peripheral to Sylvia’s larger discourse about the maintenance of afeminist position in practice, is absolutely central to both the recon� guration of the polityand the teaching profession in late modernity.

Alternative Feminist Conceptualisationsof Identity Formation in Teaching

In the previous sections, I have been arguing for a need to understand the complex waysin which historically determined gender dualisms serve as identity-framing devices in the

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 387

� eld of teaching. I have therefore sought to illuminate, either through critique or throughthe representation of data, how gender dualisms which reach back to the Enlightenmentcontinue to inform the construction of the modern teacher. These dualistic forms are notonly linked to a crude and abstract form of gender determinism in political theory, butare manifest in educational concepts (i.e. the rational, competent teacher) which privilegemasculine ‘gender codes’ in shaping ideas about the modern teacher and their practices.As I have argued, these concepts presume a de-gendered, ‘disembedded’ and de-contextualised notion of teacher professionalism. Therefore, I now turn to explore analternative conceptual framework for assessing the role played by gender in the formationof teachers’ identities. Such an approach does not resolve all of the problems identi� edthus far. It does, however, offer a feminist sociological response to instrumental andrational conceptualizations of the modern teacher. It also makes a case for understandingteachers as discursively formed, as individuals who construct meaning through socialmediation, and as agents who are ‘embedded, embodied, localised, constituted, frag-mented, and subject to systems of power and exploitation’ (Weir, 1997, p. 184).

As a point of departure, I wish to argue that we move away from an instrumentalassessment of teacher identities and focus instead on a social and political analysis of theirdevelopment. Such a shift calls for the elucidation of an alternative feminist frameworkwhich embraces two antithetical notions in identity theorizing; (1) the post-modern notionof the authentic and discursive self; and (2) the modern conception of the embedded orcollective self (see Fraser, 1997; Fraser & Nicholson, 1990; Benhabib, 1995; Weir, 1997).Any over-arching theory of identity formation must therefore consider the relationshipbetween, for example, teacher authenticity [12], the social mediation of gender relationsand the capacity of teachers to re� ect critically upon their social positioning as genderedsubjects within the state. I would therefore like to posit an ‘intersubjective’ theory ofidentity formation (and ‘teacher professionalism’) [13] whereby teachers can be seen asembedded in relationships ‘between active subjects’ (see Weir, 1997); they are, in otherwords, bounded individuals who possess some degree of political agency. This view standsagainst the now dominant view of the ‘disembedded’ professional as an ‘object ofknowledge’ or as a passive and de-professionalized object of discourse (the ‘professional’)whose identity is merely reconstituted through neo-liberal political forces.

It thus becomes necessary to move beyond the instrumental study of identity formationin teaching, where concepts such as ‘voice’ or ‘narrative’ are drawn upon as the onlyexplanatory tools for theorizing the teaching ‘self’. Instead, I suggest we view identity assomething which is not solely determined by one’s own narrative, but which is alsoshaped by social and structural relations both within and beyond education. Such anapproach suggests that identity formation (in education) be studied, at least in part,through an examination of what feminist critical theorists (see Braaten, 1996; Benhabib,1997; Weir, 1997) refer to as ‘communicative thinking’ or what Habermas refers to as‘communicative action’. According to Habermas (1993) and his contemporary feministfollowers, we can only know ourselves and recognize others when we have come to termswith, and re� ected upon, our structural ‘embeddedness’ in formal and informal politicaland language structures. As a consequence, the ‘embedded’ subject is one who commu-nicates, negotiates and acts upon difference in relation, and response, to meaningfulsocial interactions with others. This social position of the ‘embedded subject’ is thus saidto be situated ‘intersubjectively’—in social and dialectical relation to others. Gender,both as a social construct and a powerful social force, is therefore also situated‘intersubjectively’.

In emphasizing an adapted, yet novel, feminist version of the embedded ‘self’, one can

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388 J. Dillabough

begin to view teachers as political agents who reveal and act upon their differencesthrough a shared and meaningful process of critical re� ection. This process does not justimply a negotiation of one’s identity with those of others. It also involves the negotiationof larger political meanings in language across a variety of diverse social contexts(Habermas, 1974; Weir, 1997). However, as is expressed in frameworks such ascontemporary hermeneutics, the meaning ascribed to identity formation is never � xed orpre-determined. It arises out of the relation between those who interpret and ascribemeaning to action, language and everyday practices in varied social contexts andcircumstances. Such a framework provides more complex theoretical tools for challeng-ing two critical, yet oppositional, views of the modern teacher, both of which form partof the socially constructed nature of women’s subordination: (1) the teacher as aninstrumental and unmediated form of masculinity; and (2) the ‘teacher as mother’.

In adopting a more sociologically driven feminist framework, we may get closer tochallenging and thus transforming the ‘real’ existence of the gender binary, as expressedthrough formal knowledge structures in education [14]. This approach might also allowus to see ways forward in theorizing a conceptual understanding of the role of gender inteachers’ identity formation which combines both critical modernist conceptions of theself as re� ective agent and post-modern notions of the ‘self’ as authentic and discursive(see also Apple, 1996; Gewirtz, 1997). In my judgement, three conceptual notions whichhave their roots in contemporary versions of feminist critical theory will be most helpfulin re-thinking the role of gender in the study of identity formation in teaching. It is tothese themes which I now turn.

Intersubjective Identities

As many feminist theorists have argued, self-de� nition is contingent upon diverse and‘sometimes con� icting contexts of meaning’ (see Weir, 1997). Such contexts condition theprocesses which underlie identity formation: ‘my identity is produced through a complexprocess through which I am identi� ed, and identify myself, in terms of intersubjectivecontexts of meaning’ (Weir, 1997, p. 185). Clearly, such a position on identity formationbegs a more complex story about the modern political subject than many of themale-centred traditions of philosophy which have preceded it. Such complexity, asexpressed through feminist dialogue, has much to offer in understanding the genderednature of identity formation in teaching. For example, in applying the notion ofintersubjectivity to identity formation, educational researchers might consider studyingwomen teachers’ political ‘identity’ not as a rational entity, but as a complex, subjectiveand multi-faceted phenomenon which is embedded in the tension between the desire forpolitical agency and the necessity for mutual recognition (see Benhabib, 1997; Weir,1997) in diverse and social contexts.

It is through the study of this tension that we might better understand the genderednature of ‘intersubjectivity’ as central to identity formation in teaching. Studying howteachers reconcile multiple and often con� icting gender identities in the struggle toengage in politically motivated educational practice would be an important contributionto study of identity formation in teaching. However, such tensions can only be examinedin relation to the institutional and social contexts within which women currently operate,and have encountered in the past. Such efforts should therefore consider a study of the‘gender regimes’ and hierarchies (Connell, 1985, 1990) of educational institutions fromdiverse perspectives (e.g. differently positioned women) and their impact on the genderedexperiences of teachers over time.

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 389

Difference and ‘Narrativity’ as Normative [15]

Difference has become the heralded concept of late modernity. It is posited as thede� nitive term upon which modern narratives about identity have been crushed.However, feminist critical theorists have argued that ‘difference’ carries enormous poweras a normative concept, which explains, theoretically and empirically, how one comes toidentify oneself and others within the state. The work of such theorists has importantimplications for the study of women’s political identity in teaching because it assumesthat teachers, in order to identify and re� ect on their position in the profession, need torecognize others (e.g. teachers, students) as different from themselves. This commitmentto difference in the study of teaching avoids the dif� culty of universalizing the ‘rationalteacher’ as masculine, while simultaneously recognizing the value of particularity inwomen’s lives. It also avoids the trap of equating difference with marginality and allowsfor a novel understanding of teaching as an act of social mediation and re� ection inwhich difference sits at the centre of identity rather than lurking on the margins. Thebinary is thus challenged and the category of the teacher and its representations can shift.However, identity is not simply a recognition of difference as a part of oneself, that is,the authentic individual as expressed in liberal theory. It is a recognition that teachersare embedded in a meaningful social and political context where multiple selves meetwithin a dialectical frame. It is at this moment of ‘meeting’ that one can identify withdifference as part of oneself and others. At the same time, one can also view differenceas a discursive entity which is heavily regulated in fragmenting social spaces.

Within this framework, one might also consider what Benhabib (1997) refers to as‘narrativity’ in the study of identity. In Benahabib’s (1997) view, narrativity—the selftelling the story—becomes the medium through which the embedded individual ex-presses himself/herself as a gendered identity in the state. However, this self must be seenas embedded in a ‘web of gendered narratives’ (Benhabib, 1997; emphasis added) whichconstrains teachers’ autonomy to merely express a singular and authorial view of theirprofessional role. In so doing, the teacher identity transcends the gender binary andbecomes a more complex and multi-faceted entity.

Human Agency and Political Identity

One of the most salient yet neglected aspects of identity formation in education is theassessment of teachers’ beliefs about human agency. I would therefore argue for a greaterfocus on the study of human agency in educational theorizing in relation to gender andthe professional lives of women teachers. However, in so doing, we must re-de�ne humanagency as a phenomenon which is not simply concerned with the exercise of freedom inthe struggle for political status, but as a bounded and gendered construct which can onlyexist in relation to other social structures and human relations.

As a further step, we may also wish to draw upon feminist critiques of human agencywhich concern the masculinization of women’s freedoms in the state and argue thathuman agency is not simply that which exerts power with some effect, but somethingwhich cannot be fully exercized without a recognition of others in the act of meaningfulcommunication. My own research suggests that women often see themselves as agents,yet they are incapable in many social circumstances of achieving the kind of agency theyhave described themselves as possessing. This observation suggests the necessity fordismantling the liberal notion that agency simply represents unconstrained action.Rather, it suggests that ‘agency’ be reconstructed to include an understanding of how the

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390 J. Dillabough

gendered ‘self’ is constrained, and how such constraints impact on the construction ofpolitical identities which then attempt to make claims to agency as a form of politicalliberation. This implies identifying, for example, the psychological, political and sociolog-ical forces which in� uence one’s capacity to be a re� ective ‘agent’, rather than simplyassuming that in a liberal world all individuals are agents in their own right. It alsoimplies attending to the ways in which women teachers re� ect upon the contexts inwhich they work and attempt to resolve identity con� icts which emerge as a consequenceof their contradictory and gendered position within education. This view of agency issimilar to Connell’s (1985) theoretical assumptions about how identities are shaped bythe ‘gender regimes’ of social institutions—the communicative symbols and ‘gendercodes’—of everyday life. Three general assumptions about agency which could form thebasis of a feminist analysis of teacher identities can now be sketched.

(i) Educational theorists need to return to the idea that the teacher ‘agent’ may serveboth as a form of social constraint and a re� ective and active agent in the processof change (see Apple (1996) and Gewirtz (1997) on the question of simultaneity).However, this conceptualization of agency must take into consideration the genderedpositioning of teachers and the role that structural inequality plays in constrainingwomen teachers’ agency in practice. It must also consider the many ways in whichthe teaching profession (and the men and women who work within it) re� ects thecomplex and contradictory nature of contemporary gender relations. It musttherefore break with oppositional and narrow-minded views of teacher professional-ism, such as the caring subject or the abstract and rational object. Such views ofteaching should not be conceptualized as separate entities, but instead seen as twoof many interdependent forces which condition the formation of teachers’ pro-fessional identities in practice. Consequently, there is no ultimate need to rejectKant’s rational self for Steedman’s (1985) ‘mother made conscious’ or vice versa.Rather, one is in the position to theorize a feminist form of teacher identity whichcuts across such crude gendered distinctions, thereby providing a theoretical basis forassessing the complex ways in which teacher identities are formed through everydaypractices.

(ii) Women teachers are still constrained by what Arnot (1982) identi� ed almost twodecades ago as ‘dominated gender codes’ that are embedded in human interaction.It may therefore be more relevant to study the actual gender codes embedded in thelanguage of political agency and related forms of ‘communicative action/thinking’than it is to de� ne an abstract, idealized or universal notion of teacher agency. Thisimplies observing the ways in which teachers construct meaning in everyday actionand ‘internalise the objective structure’ (see Arnot, 1982) of gender relations, ratherthan simply assessing the ways in which they express themselves in isolation fromothers (e.g. narrative accounts). Such an approach may challenge the notion of theteacher as the ‘disembedded’ and neutral actor, and bring into relief the part playedby gendered subjectivities in the construction of teachers’ political agency.

(iii) Agents are constrained by new modes of regulation and ‘governance’ (e.g. educa-tional reform) which lead to the development of differently positioned forms ofagency and political self-expression. New educational structures and modes ofregulation must therefore be assessed in order to expose their gendered manifesta-tions (e.g. gendered nature of new teacher education reforms) and the role they playin shaping teachers’ political agency in practice. This suggests a novel interpretationof the agent which accounts for the gendered trajectory of the teaching profession

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Gender Politics and Conceptions of Teachers 391

and the ‘recontextualization’ of gender relations over time as taking a leading ratherthan a marginal role in the formation of teachers’ professional identity.

Conclusion

I have offered a feminist re-reading of the concepts of ‘professional identity’ and ‘teacherprofessionalism’ and attempted to chart their ‘exclusivity’ as gendered terms. I have alsosketched a preliminary conceptual framework for assessing the gendered nature ofidentity formation in teaching and teacher education. This work points toward a feministperspective critical of mainstream conceptions of teacher professionalism as relying tooheavily upon traditional liberal concepts, as failing to provide adequate recognitionfor the multitude of potential teaching identities in education and, consequently, asincapable of comprehending the gendered tensions to which they give rise.

What has also become clear is the manner in which an acceptance of the gender orderas natural is manifest in, and aggravated by, such mainstream conceptions in the � eldof teaching. These views not only represent teachers’ ‘professional identity’ as a form ofhuman agency closely tied to masculinity, but are also linked to women’s contradictoryand devalued position in relation to the state. To put this another way, educationalconcepts which concern the modern teacher are not simply free-� oating, de-genderedentities. They are social constructs which yield to, and are located within, broader andmore powerful state structures which serve to legitimize what Taylor (1989) has called‘disengaged instrumentalism’—a state committed to instrumental goals and individualprogress over and above any concern for marginalized peoples, human exploitation orthe welfare of a community. As a result, identities conditioned by the forces ofindividualism are, by necessity, operating under a ‘logic of exclusion’ (Butler, 1990)where the ‘other’ in teacher education becomes what the prescribed identity is not.

In conclusion, the principles of rationality which underlie state-centred views on themodern teacher may provide an outline of what constitutes teacher professionalism but,simultaneously, they also serve to de� ne its epistemological boundaries. A failure tochallenge this reality merely justi� es, rather than critically examines, what are no morethan the educational conceptions of a particular time. Sociologists of education havederided this approach because it commits to an uncritical acceptance of instrumentalgoals which lead to further, yet newly reconstituted, forms of inequality. However,beyond this, as I have attempted to argue, it also leads to a retreat from a feministanalysis of the social and political dimensions of identity formation in teaching. Thefundamental effect is that teachers are no longer seen as political participants, and areonce again removed from contesting the very meanings which are attributed to theirprofessional identities in practice. It is now up to feminists to reclaim the political andsocial dimensions of teaching. The ongoing struggle to engage with feminist theory as away forward in the study of teaching constitutes one vital attempt to achieve this goal:

We need new models of identity, of individuation, of agency and autonomy,which will take account of the important critiques of these concepts which havebeen generated by feminist theorists […] We need to uphold a commitment towomen’s struggles for identity and autonomy, in the context of feministcritiques of defensive, atomistic individualisms and critiques of the disembed-ded subject as the free and unfettered author of his destiny. We need to makea space for an understanding of self-identity which will not clash with ourconviction that individuals must be understood as embedded, ‘embodied’,

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localized, constituted, fragmented and subjected to systems of power, op-pression and exploitation. We need, still to understand ourselves clearly asactors capable of learning, of changing, of making the world, and ourselves,better. (Weir, 1997, pp. 184–185)

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to Madeleine Arnot for her ongoing mentorship in the develop-ment of the ideas which underlie the work of this paper. I am also grateful to PhilGardner, Wendy Luttrell, Patrick Brindle and the anonymous reviewers for their helpfulcomments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also wish to thank the women teachers andteacher educators who participated in this study. Without their commitment, this studywould not have been possible. I gratefully acknowledge the � nancial support of the SocialSciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Correspondence: Jo-Anne Dillabough, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning,OISE/University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6,Canada.

NOTES

[1] I know of only one serious attempt to examine the relationship between teacher professionalism andgender as it relates to educational change (see Mahoney & Hextall, 1997) .

[2] I refer here to women teachers’ lives in the broadest sense. The reasons for this are twofold. First, thewomen involved in my study were from three different yet related domains of teaching: (1) womenteacher educators in the academy; (2) female mentors in schools; and (3) female student teachers.Interestingly, many of the key issues concerning these women teachers were similar regardless of wherethey were placed professionally. For example, the intensi� cation of work seemed to be comparable acrosseach of the groups. In addition, experiences of exploitation were congruous across the three differentprofessional groups. Second, recent work on women teachers in the academy (in particular, serviceprofessions) suggests that the working conditions of female teachers in the ‘education professions’ are alsosimilar. As a result, in this paper, I attempt to link this literature to my current work in teacher education.

[3] I do not wish to argue that there is only one view of ‘professional identity’ in teacher education. I merelypoint to the dominant view of the teacher as professional and argue that this view has gained publicappeal at the cost of marginalizing women teachers (as will be discussed later in the paper).

[4] Benhabib is re� ecting upon the concerns of feminist political theorists who have been in�uenced bypost-modern critiques of the ‘self’.

[5] These categories are indeed illusory, as many feminist theorists have argued, yet it remains vital torecognize that they maintain a very real presence in rational theories of identity, such as those expressedin traditional Kantian and Cartesian view points. They also shape the nature of gender identityformation, at least in part.

[6] See Phillips’ (1991) notion of the degendered subject.[7] See the recent work of Mahoney & Hextall (1997) on this issue.[8] I do not wish to make distinctions between the public and private spheres as a theoretical goal. However,

since such distinctions are made in formal educational discourse, I do wish to map out which ‘abstractspheres’ are neglected in educational knowledge.

[9] I do not outline any methodological details of this study here since the representation of quotes fromteachers is merely intended to illustrate, in preliminary fashion, issues which concern the relation betweengender and teacher professionalism.

[10] As part of the larger study described earlier, I am also investigating the formation of feminist politicalidentities in teacher education. This work involves interviews with women teacher educators, studentteachers, and mentors, both individually and in focus groups in a rural and urban English context. It alsoinvolves extensive observational work in both the university setting and the school-based context todetermine the social and political forces which impact on the formation of feminist political identities inteaching.

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[11] I do not deal extensively with the theme of ‘emergent political identities’ in teacher education practice.I am currently exploring these issues in another paper in progress (Dillabough, 2000) and in relation toother sociological issues (e.g. race, class). Consequently, the empirical data presented here is merelydrawn upon to illustrate a concern about the representation of gender dualisms in the everyday lives ofwomen teachers.

[12] I am referring here to what teachers, as authentic individuals, bring to the practice of teaching (history,narrative, subjectivity, positioning).

[13] Intersubjective theory is a conceptual position on identity formation which has it origins in the FrankfurtSchool of Critical Theory. Within the feminist wing of this school, a form of feminist perspective takingis argued for whereby it is assumed that individuals always have multiple and competing identities whichare gounded in social circumstances and re� ected upon through social mediation.

[14] Unlike theorists who take an extreme post-modernist position, I argue for the existence and manifestationof the gender binary in historical and contemporary thought. I do so for two reasons. First, I believe itis essential to chart and critique the representation of gender dualisms in contemporary thought, i.e. malepower over women and its presence in knowledge forms. I argue such a position on the basis of the nowdetailed body of work charting women’s exploitation in many national contexts. To deny the existenceof the binary (as part of the gender order) is, in my view, to deny women’s struggles for social and politicalchange. On the other hand, I also believe it is necessary to expose the illusory nature of the binary. Inother words, we need to examine representations of the gender binary on multiple levels and expose itsillusory nature. On a theoretical level, for example, one can assess how women have been conceptualizedhistorically as non-citizens in traditional philosophical thought. On an empirical level, however, it is alsopossible to challenge false representations of the gender binary—the categorical separation of masculinityand femininity—through a study of diverse women’s lived experience. Such approaches force feministsto consider simultaneously both the ‘real’ and illusory nature of the gender binary.

[15] ‘Narrativity’ was a term used by Seyla Benhabib in a paper presented to the Department of Social andPolitical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, April 1998.

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