EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONALISM

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONALISM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS’ PERSPECTIVES IN ENGLAND AND GREECE EVANTHIA SYNODI CHAPTER Historical Overview of the Sociological Approaches to Professionalism Being a professional is a status much aspired and teachers in many countries, including England but not Greece, have claimed to be professionals As explained in the Introduction, the focus of this study is on professionalism in the early years, which entails defining the concept of a profession Historically the notion of professionalism was first analysed by sociologists In this chapter therefore a review of the approaches to professions will be undertaken because much of the literature on teaching as a profession is based on them The various theories can be listed in four groups: the trait approach, the functionalist approach, the power approach and the Marxist approach to professionalism The first three approaches offer a variety of occupational features defining professionalism The drawback of these approaches is that they place teaching in a position of being either a profession or not, without explaining why they use this dichotomy That is why this chapter is concerned with two topics First of all, with the description of the features of a profession on which there has been consensus among the sociologists of all approaches Johnson’s work (1972) seems to be inclusive of all features and for this reason it will be analysed here The second issue discussed is the different orientation to society and occupations that these approaches hold This way the shortcomings of each approach and its suitability for the purpose of this study will be shown Types of Control over Workplaces Johnson views professionalism as one of the institutionalised types of the workers’ control over their occupation (Johnson, 1972) The main factors this approach is concerned with are the producer (professional), the consumer (client) and the state Johnson identified the following orders of control: 1.COLLEGIATE CONTROL, expressed through autonomous professional associa- tions In such a case, professionals define the consumer’s needs and the means to cater for these needs Sub-types of collegiate control are professionalism and guild control 2.PATRONAGE and COMMUNAL CONTROL These types of control take place when the consumer defines the needs and the professional finds the means or manner to meet the consumers’ needs Control can either be oligarchic, when it refers to the needs of the aristocrats or corporate, when it refers to the needs of the community or any consumerist organisation 3.MEDIATIVE TYPE OF CONTROL, which presupposes a third party, the state, mediating between the consumer and the producer Collegiate Control Like Johnson, Caplow (1954), Millerson (1964) and Larson (1977) have argued that there here were certain conditions under which professionalism took roots and developed First, there should be an effective demand for particular professional skills from a large and heterogeneous consumer group, which has to be unorganised, dependent and exploitable Unlike the consumer group, the professionals should be a homogeneous community, with common outlook and interests To achieve homogene- ity, recruitment from similar backgrounds and a low degree of specialisation within the occupation were necessary, as high specialisation was considered disruptive A professional group could exploit such a consumer group and extent their authority to broadly control their practice This control over practice was evident in the norm of solo practice, that is an impersonal one-to-one relationship with clients (see also Parsons, 1954).The significance of professional associations with specific responsibilities was also stressed by sociologists Professional associations or guilds bestowed status and identity and attempted to sustain uniformity among practitioners The associations demanded auni-portal system of entry to the profession in order to ensure that shared identity of the professionals (see also Millerson, 1964) Uniformity was also maintained by assigning duties of a registering body to the association The uniformity of professionals referred to both occupational and non-occupational behaviour (see also Caplow, 1954; Wilensky, 1962, 1964; Barber, 1963; Flexner and Goode, 1969; Moore, 1970) The occupational norms were acquired after lengthy periods of training, which were characterised by close supervision within an apprenticeship system Vocational schools were directly or effectively controlled by the practitioners, thus achieving peer solidarity (see also Caplow, 1954; Millerson, 1964; Flexner and Goode, 1969; Moore, 1970; Starr, 1982) Uniformnonoccupational behaviour was provided by the referral systems or the contact networks This system aimed at avoiding isolation among professionals (Johnson, 1972) by demanding a ‘standard of conduct’ outside the service The community of professionals generatedrole-definitions and standards, which were maintained with the assistance of a code of ethics, autonomous disciplinary procedures and effective sanction mechanisms also generated by the community of the profession- als (see also Caplow, 1954; Greenwood, 1962; Wilensky, 1962, 1963; Barber, 1963; Millerson, 1964; Flexner and Goode, 1969; Freidson, 1970; Starr, 1982).To bestow status, which was enduring, the myth of equal competence was woven This encouraged the public’s trust in a system where the members of a community judged the competence of one another In all issues related to the service, the occupational community was believed to be wiser and to have an ethical sense of responsibility (see also Parsons, 1954; Barber, 1963; Freidson, 1970; Moore, 1970; Roth, 1974; Starr, 1982) Ritualistic elements, legends, symbols, stereotypes were also utilised to formulate a positive public attitude to the profession The professionals stressed the need for occupational and individual independence as a precondition of fulfilling obligations to customers (see also Marshall, 1939; Hughes, 1958; Freidson, 1970; Roth, 1974; Larson, 1977; Starr, 1982; Wilding, 1982) Jargon was employed to keep outsiders out and to provide autonomy for the occupation Johnson viewed the proliferation of professional grades as a possible consequence of the increase in specialisation However, the generalists were sufficiently powerful to maintain control of the professional-client relationship They accomplished that by establishing the notion that the lower the technical content in an occupation was the highest its status (see also Berlant, 1975; Wilding, 1982) Patronage Patronage arose when the dominant demand for professional services came from a small powerful clientele It was associated with a fragmented, hierarchical and locally oriented occupational group whose practitioners identified themselves with their employers rather than with the professional community of their colleagues While Johnson discussed this issue in detail, most sociologists moved on to analyse how this type of control was utilised by the state and expanded into mediation Mediation When the state attempts to remove either from the producer or from the consumer the authority to determine the content of practice in order to minimise the scope of exploitation on both parts, then the control over the occupation is called state mediation States attempted to extend services to consumers on the basis of their citizenship rather than their social origin or their ability to pay fees Instead of guaranteeing services to individuals, a state created agencies that directly served its needs as well as ensured a flow of services in the name of the public good The state itself became in effect the employer of all practitioners who, therefore, had a statutory obligation to provide a given service and the agency became the product of patronage This caused diffusion, which meant that it was difficult to determine priorities and professional responsibilities (see also Lewis and Maude, 1952) Therefore, to ensure that the public received quality service, the provision of that service was supervised Efficiency became a major yardstick in determining which form of organisation was best for the social welfare unlike the professionals, who organised their own practice themselves (see also Bennett and Hockenstad, 1973; Blau and Meyer, 1987).One of the consequences of such intervention was the lack of any referral system, which used to provide contact among colleagues in professionalism That reduced professional associations to occupational pressure groups, which lost the power to prescribe practice The purpose of professional associations came to be the improvement of pay and conditions The influence of professionals fluctuated, depending on the degree to which the state was involved in determining the manner in which the services would be carried out Another consequence was the undermining of the professional basis of recruitment, which was now open to the state The state tended to expand the academic channels into an occupation, which undermined the exclusion mechanisms of the professional associations The state also gave more power to academic institutions and that changed the balance of power at the expense of the practising members of a profession The occupational community as a whole was no longer a repository of specialised knowledge and they lost the initiative in developing knowledge to full-time research institutions (see also Etzioni, 1969) Under such conditions, technical and ethical questions were removed from the occupation’s control (see also Bennett and Hockenstad, 1973; Blau and Meyer, 1987) State bureaucratic agencies had an impact on the income and position of the profession- als too The latter’s income was not fees but salary or payments by level or amount of services per capita or unit It caused stratification of practitioners through hierarchy (as in corporate patronage) and varying degrees of self-identification with the professional community The simultaneous existence of organisational and professional affiliations affected the practitioners’ commitment to the administrative needs and the client groups Divergent interests and orientations destroyed collegial relationships and the controls that the profession imposed on its members When being in conflict, it was the organisational contexts that gave workers an orientation, not their judgement based on codes of ethics Ethical codes in state bureaucracy were largely encompassed in the rules of the state agencies (see also Merton, 1957) To make matters worse, these bureaucratic interests could have varied between those in managerial and non-managerial positions, between one agency and another and between the centre and the periphery (administration and the workers) (see also Bennett and Hockenstad, 1973; Blau and Meyer, 1987) Hierarchical organisation and the double systems of practice (bureaucratic andprofessional) caused major tensions, which gave rise to claims that professions were succumbing to a managerial offensive (Wright Mills, 1956).Having presented the main features of a profession, I move on to discuss the shortcomings of the conceptualisation of professionalism offered by the approaches Not only did such an analysis enable me to select specific professional traits for investigation, it also gave me a frame of interpreting these traits, when discussing teaching in the following chapters Critical Analysis of the Approaches to Professions A) The Trait Approach to Professionalism Major representatives of this approach are Greenwood (1962), Millerson (1964), Wilensky (1964) and Flexner and Goode (1969) They listed occupational features that they considered professional in the hope that all occupations could be compared against the trait list to determine whether or not they were professions The trait approach did not have a theoretical frame based on which the sociologists defined professional traits (Johnson, 1972) The criteria for determining professionalism were derived from certain occupations already regarded as professions This was a consensus, not an abstract model This approach also incorporated the terms and definitions that the professionals themselves used when they referred to their occupation Thus it took what the professionals claimed for granted making these criteria appear selffulfilling (Hoyle and John, 1995) Another criticism is that the bulk of the work within this approach employs categories of the Anglo-American culture of a particular period (Johnson, 1972) excluding occupations in other parts of the world Referring to the features of a profession in isolation from its wider context in order to describe professionalism is unrealistic and ahistorical The traits in this approach were presented as unchanged and as tenets without examining them in relations to societal conditions, such as the economical and political status quo B) The Functionalist Approach to Professionalism The functionalist approach is divided into two strands The first strand includes theories, which connect professional altruism with social stratification These positions referred to occupational elements which had a functional relevance either to the society as a whole or to the relationship between the professional and the client (Johnson, 1972) All the writers who emphasised altruism (e.g Marshall, 1939) or collectivity-orientation (e.g Parsons, 1954) are included in this strand The second strand focused on the effects of bureaucracy on professions All authors who, based on a list of characteristics, assessed whether occupations were professions are included in this strand functionalist approach (Macdonald, 1995) Since not all professions would score highly when they were examined according to these lists of features, new terms were used to classify them The terminology employed was ‘new professions’ (Marshall, 1965), ‘the human services’ (Riessman and Pearl, 1965), ‘semiprofessions’ (Etzioni, 1966, 1969), ‘aspiring professions’ (Goode, 1969), ‘personal service professions’ (Halmos, 1970), ‘people working professions’ (Bennett and Hokenstad, 1973) These authors considered teaching as the ‘archetypal’ semi-profession together with nurses and social workers (Bennett and Hokenstad, 1973) Functionalists attempted to explain why some occupations had more prestige and income than others based on their overview of society, which follows As Hall (1994) explained for society to exist there were tasks to be performed and each individual had to be motivated to perform these tasks Peoplewere motivated to perform tasks by differential rewards, which usually referred to employment, accomplishment or compensation Rewards were considered necessary because all tasks were neither equally important nor equally pleasant nor did they require the same ability or talent to be carried out.Even though work and occupations in modern society were seen as ethically neutral, professions were seen as ethically positive and as ‘embodiments of the “central values” of the society’ (Macdonald, 1995, p xi) The traditional morale of society was seen as deteriorating with new divisions of labour caused by trade and industry, which led people to competitiveness and to loss of common life (Nixon et al, 1997) Professions were believed to be able to bring cohesion, stability (Nixon et al, 1997) and morality (Macdonald, 1995) back to society because they inherited, preserved and passed on tradition and engendered modes of life, habits of thought and standards of judgement (Carr-Saunters and Wilson, 1933) This perspective on professions was based on the view of Durkheim (1957) that professions represented everything functional in society.Macdonald (1995) argues that this approach is criticised because it implies that the professionals’ knowledge is of equal importance to all groups in society regardless of conflicting interests in society It ignores how individual clients may benefit in a different manner because not everybody has the same access to professional knowledge and skill It is also suggested that the society will always find ways to ensure that professionals are motivated by community interest by highly rewarding Rueschemeyer (1964) rejects the universality of such rationale because central values not exist in society The functionalist approach towards professionalism presupposes a society of altruism because it excludes notions of social conflict and exploitation Moreover, this approach implies a behaviourist and mechanistic attitude to people because it perceives people as able to maintain their altruism just by being highly rewarded It neglected the historical explanation that any award system is the result of aggregation by groups with the power to secure their claims and create their own system of legitimisation (Johnson, 1972) C) Power Approaches to Professionalism The power approach is based on Weberian thinking, which views society as individuals pursuing their interests (Weber, 1978) Such an attitude places all responsibility, initiative, efforts and blame on individuals It excludes the effects of other factors influencing the favourable or not outcome of individual pursuits This approach is divided into three major sectors The first sector is expressed mainly by Hughes (1958) and Freidson (1970), which is referred to as ‘interactionalism and structure’ Another sector called ‘interactionalism and process’ is represented by Larson (1977) The names of the sectors were borrowed from Macdonald (1995) The last one is represented by the work of Johnson (1972) and it is referred to by his own terminology, which is ‘institutionalised order of control’ The various lines of thinking within the power approach to professionalism discuss how professionals gained their power to control their occupation in a society where members of the same occupation attempt to satisfy their interests None of the above positions acknowledged the power of other factors to influence the state, the professionals and their clients and how that takes place They were mainly concerned with these three elements i.e professionals, state and clients Weber also referred to social closure, which was ‘a process by which social collectives seek to maximise rewards by restricting access to rewards and opportunities to a limited circle of eligibles’ (Parkin, 1974, p 9) The rewards that social closure gave rise to were economic, social and of power.The particular model that I have presented earlier has also got shortcomings provided by Johnson himself His forms of control were to be seen historically using an analysis of the power of specific groups to control certain occupational activities The characteris- tics of an occupational activity and the historically variant forms of its institutional control are products of social conditions and should be distinguished (Johnson, 1972) Despite his auto critique, Johnson still limited his work to examining groups of people and not broader factors and changes in society.Furthermore, the definition of producer and consumer does not remain stable because we not always find producers, consumers and states in these fixed roles For instance, the state can be a producer as well as a consumer of a service or product, which implies a more complex picture than a triangle of agents This was not included in the examination of the social characteristics of the occupational and consumerist groups, which may influence the development of forms of occupational control Professionalisation of Occupations So far the basic features of professions were discussed Apart from these features analysed by most sociologists, the advocates of the trait and the functionalist approach also made reference to the concept of professionalisation Professionalisation was considered to be a complex process in which an occupation exhibited traits, which were core elements of professionalism The natural history of professionalism by Wilensky is an example of trait approach to professionalisation Wilensky believed that there was a determinate historical sequence of events through which all professionalising occupations passed in an identical series of stages (Wilensky, 1964) The stages included the occupation becomingfull-time and establishing formal training within universities Then its members would form local and national professional associations to define their own specific tasks as they competed with other neighbouring occupa- tions These associations were also involved in political activity aiming at legally controlling licensing and certification as well as at establishing a formal code of ethical practice for their members (Wilensky, 1962) Etzioni’s theory (1969), which is functionalist, went a little further In the continuum leading to professionalism, Etzioni identified two types of occupations: the fully fledged professions and the semiprofessions There are many occupations that not progress far enough on one or some of these continua but will steadily improve their position in the future; they will become professionalised The main points reflecting professionalism have been contrasted to the main points reflecting semi-professions in the Table Professionalisation is mechanistic because it considers that potential professions go through the stages in the particular order described or that certain occupations are always expected to undergo this process because of their essential qualities However, the relations of various factors in society (political, economic, cultural, etc.) change all the time and so does their power That means that occupations aspiring to be professions not have to face the same society and factors all the time or in all places, something which these authors did not take into account Table 1: The Differences between Professional and Bureaucratic Authority PROFESSIONAL AUTHORITY SEMI-PROFESSIONAL BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITY Extensive Formal Education Competence Certified By Professionals Professional Codes of Ethics OR Technical Competence Fellow Competence Certified By Superiors Bureaucratic Regulations Authority Based on Status and Prestige of Profession Authority Based on Formal Position in an Organisation Advancement Based on Expertise or Technical Knowledge of Scientific or Scholarly Discipline Advancement Base on Knowledge of Administrative Procedures Accountability to Peers and Accountability to Superiors Colleague Groups In conclusion these three major approaches to professionalism (trait, functionalist and power) and their references to professionalisation lacked one important element They appear to be too context-bound, which prevented the use of any of them as a frame of examining teaching as a profession However, the Marxist approach views the context where occupations develop in quite a different manner The Marxist Approach to Professionalism This theory examines two main aspects regarding the professions: the relationship of professions with the state and the proletarisation of occupations Marxists view professions in relation to the way society works, which refers to the capitalist relations of production, which are the means and relations of production (Macdonald, 1995) Processes, such as state formation, polarisation of social classes and monopolisation of means of production, are considered as affecting professions (Macdonald, 1995) A typical Marxist definition of profession is: “artisan or craft-like work in which the worker produces an entire product”; “where the worker’s pace, workplace conditions, product, its use and even to a degree the price are largely determined by the worker; where the same source of income is a more individually- regulated sale of a product or services under fairly loose market conditions established by face-to-face bargaining, rather than the sale of labour time (in advance of the creation of anything); and where virtually the whole income goes directly to the worker with- out any bureaucratic intermediary except perhaps an agent” (Oppen- heimer, 1973, p 213-214) In general, with professional work, the discretion and judgement belong to the worker, the work is not readily standardisable and it requires high levels of training and education (Oppenheimer, 1973) Marxists also believe that the society is divided in two classes; it is divided between those who own the means of production (the capitalists) and those who not (the labour) The owners are interested in maximising their profits with whatever means including labour However, the economic growth and full employment achieved over time gave power to labour and redistributed the income The owners of the means of production attempt to control these changes and they have the support of governments in doing so The role of governments in such cases is to ‘support the owning class with appropriate policies and rationalisations’ (Burchill, 1997, p 6) Concession and compromise are seen as temporary devices that the owners use to gain absolute control Labour relations are ways of ‘refining techniques of control’ over labour and of finding methods to deal with opposition (Burchill, 1997, p 6) The major contribution of the Marxist to the analysis of professions is the concept of proletarisation Marxists focus on how professional work becomes proletarised, which means whether work is transformed due to a major social change This change is ‘namely a trend towards increasing bureaucracy which draws a growing number of professionals into non-professional organisations’ (Murphy, 1990, p 23) Proletarisation refers to a number of elements affecting work such as the division, routinisation and intensification of labour, alienation at workplace, restructuring of skill, unionification and bureaucracy An occupation that is proletarised is: “an ‘ideal-type’ form of work in which (a) extensive division of labour exists so that the typical worker performs only one, or a smaller number, of tasks in a total process; (b) the pace of work, the characteristics of the workplace, the nature of product, the uses to which it is put and its market conditions are determined not by the worker but by higher authorities (private or public bureaucracies);(c) the worker’s primary source of income is his wage, which is de- termined by large-scale market conditions and economic processes (not excluding collective bargaining), rather than by individual face-toface bargaining; and (d) the worker in order to defend his situa- tion from deteriorating living and/or working standards, moves to- ward collective bargaining in some form’ (Oppenheimer, 1973, p 213) Marxists believe that the bureaucratic organisation of work leads to proletarisation because the bureaucracy brings into the professional’s workplace conditions similar to those in factories (Oppenheimer, 1973; Braverman, 1974) These conditions are hierarchies of power, rules made by the upper ranks, fixed roles and specialised work predetermined by superiors as well as mobility based on performance or achievement (Blau and Meyer, 1987) Under such conditions, work becomes ‘demeaning and boring’ as the worker’s training and education may have little to with work or because the worker has been trained so as to be able to have more say in work (Oppenheimer, 1973, p 214-215) There is also an alienation between what the worker does and the end- product (Oppenheimer, 1973) Moreover, the advantages of the educated professional deteriorate as the real income becomes stabilised or decreases due to fiscal crises The privileges also decrease, as unemployment and the employers’ pressure for accountabil- ity and measurement of “productivity” increase (Oppenheimer, 1973, p 215) The above proletarisation processes increase the control of the dominant class by reducing the amount of control exercised by the workers (Oppenheimer, 1973; Braverman, 1974; Hall, 1994) Proletarisation can lead to unionisation in occupations and professions The pressure for rationalisation at work, the threat of unemployment, a relative increase in repression of a political type (e.g loss of job for political dissidence) and contagion from non- professional employees who are organised in unions can result in the unions of white- collar workers starting to negotiate (Oppenheimer, 1973; Braverman, 1974) That means further bureaucratisation but also the beginning of a working-class consciousness (Oppenheimer, 1973) In conclusion, Marxists attempt to see occupations in relation to the status quo in political, economical, societal, organisational and philosophical terms They believe that all these factors are interrelated and influence each other All occupations, including traditional professions, are examined in connection with what happens in the rest of the society nationally and internationally at a particular point in time Instead ofprofessionalisation, the concept of proletarisation is employed, which leads to workers’ loss of control over their work, as their skills become obsolete or useless and as their working rights, privileges and benefits diminish Such a position can be constructively applied to teaching because it does not categorise teaching as a profession or not by definition, as the rest of the approaches How that is achieved will be discussed in more detail in Chapters and Moving on to the next topic, I will refer to the literature particularly concerned with teaching a profession Two main approaches to teaching as a profession have been recorded; the bureaucratic and the Marxist, which are analysed next CHAPTER Professionalism in Teaching In the previous chapter the main sociological approaches to professions and occupations were examined and major criteria of attribution of professional status were discussed With this part of the literature review, the analysis of particular approaches that have been put forward the last 30 years or so regarding teaching as a profession begins I have classified the literature on teachers’ professionalism into two groups They are: positions on the affects of bureaucracy on teaching as a profession and the Marxist approach to teaching as an occupation In England, both of the above directions about teachers’ professionalism have developed On the other hand, in Greece, although the bureaucratic structure has always been a characteristic of the educational system, teaching has always been viewed in terms of the Marxist discourse on teaching and labour In this chapter the first group of positions on teachers’ professionalism, which refers to the effects of bureaucracy on teaching, will be analysed In undertaking the discussion of this literature, the aim is first of all the presentation and critical examination of the literature on the difficulties that bureaucracy causes in the teachers’ professionalisation As teaching in the state sector has developed under bureaucratic structures, the literature focuses on the effects of the latter on teachers’ autonomy in order to describe the characteristics of professionalism (Barton et al, 1994; see also Lawn, 1988) The other purpose of this analysis is to show why this approach to teaching is found incomplete due to its lack of any reference to a theoretical frame Its authors usually chose features of professionalism that derived from exemplary professions and then they attempted to see how these applied to teaching The literature is difficult to appreciate as so many educational and social changes However, teachers seemed to have retained control over the assessment of their pupils in another area Even though record keeping has been legislated, teachers declined to become involved in it Not only that, no sanctions have been taken against them by the state It has been claimed that the intensification of the pupils’ assessment facilitates governments to the exercise control on the type of teaching and learning and on the pedagogical relationship as well as to shrink the teachers’ relative autonomy (Noutsos, 1997; Mavrogiorgos, 1998) As this research is focused on kindergarten teachers, it is necessary to note a difference between kindergarten teachers and the rest of the teachers, evident in the legislation Kindergarten teachers had more autonomy compared to the rest of the Greek teachers because they were the ones in control of the activities and the method they employed when teaching In spite of this autonomy, kindergarten teachers also experienced some regulation of work in terms of teaching numeracy and literacy skills, as it will be shown in Chapter 10 The evidence suggests that as a result of the reforms teachers’ work has been further regulated iii) Reskilling Teachers In Greece flexibility means assigning teachers extra subjects to teach rather than skilling teachers to tasks other than teaching, as it is in England Functional flexibility (see Chapter 5) has always been used in Greek secondary education, since primary teachers are considered generalists (Law 1566 / 1985; Presidential Decree 201 / 1998) For instance, it is not new for a historian to be teaching language or literature or even citizenship education in secondary schools That is because teachers have to cover certain teaching hours but the hours allocated to their subject specialisms not fully employ their time (Law 1566 / 1985) Furthermore, administrative or budget issues are mainly the responsibility of the headteacher and they have not been extended to classroom teachers Furthermore, managerial or marketing duties not exist in Greek schools Even though it varies from its English version, flexibility is an issue left untouched by the reforms iv) State Regulation and Initial Teacher Education This issue has been largely covered in Chapter However, mention is made here of secondary teachers whereas the particular situation with kindergarten teachers will be discussed in detail in Chapter 11 Until 1997 there was no provision made for the pedagogical preparation of secondary teachers Law 2525 / 1997 ventured to amend this situation by establishing a Postgraduate course for the training of graduates who wanted to work in secondary schools No national standards were imposed in this case too, as the existing Pedagogical Departments and the Departments of Philosophy and Pedagogy will offer these courses However, Education as a discipline is recognised as a necessary component of secondary teachers’ education because until 1997 subject specialism was adequate qualification for them to teach The impact of the state intervention on the quality of the courses (see Chapter 6) applies to this case, too The changes in teachers’ employment and work conditions follow New Employment Conditions and Trade Union Rights Proletarisation has been observed in these areas in Greece The jurisdiction of unions has been legally shrunk as representatives of teacher unions participate in educational bodies, which are advisory and not actually prescribe policy (Law 1566 / 1985) Also the state has included teachers in the particular group of workers not allowed to strike (Law 1264 / 1982), despite their constitutional right to strike Changes, which reduce teachers’ autonomy, have taken place in their employment conditions, too The state has been accused of intensifying its closer surveillance on work in order to gain better collaboration on the implementation its policy Closer surveillance of the work process was intended when inspections, staff appraisals and new pay structures were introduced Already fear has been expressed that the new conditions are likely to affect teaching practice and ideology as well as the organisation of the teacher unions (Andreou, 1994; Noutsos, 1997) The particular changes in employment were the following: i) Appointment to a Teaching Post Qualified teachers took examinations in 1998 to find a post in the state sector (Education Law 2525/1997) for the first time (then again in the year 2000) Nobody knows the impact that such a way of appointment will have on teachers’ employment It is early yet to know if such appointments will lead to contracts with specified duties or to pay according to nationally defined performance, which are indicators of proletarisa- tion ii) Induction into Teaching Presidential Decree 140 / 1998 introduced a process of induction into teaching The areas of teachers’ assessment during induction are various and carried out by three different assessors The headteacher appraises two areas: the responsibility, consistency and initiatives of the newly appointed teacher and the co-operation and communication with colleagues, pupils and parents In kindergarten, where there is no headteacher, the Head of the local Education Office will have to the staff appraisal However, the Head of the Education Office might be a former primary teacher That suggests that the quality of the inspection maybe compromised because the head may not be aware of the particular nature of work in kindergarten 2.The school advisor assesses the subject specialism, the age range specialism and the teaching ability of the teacher 3.At the end of the induction year, a three-member committee of Permanent Assessors (inspectors) examines the portfolios and the existing reports on teachers before deciding whether or not to recommend them for occupational permanency They also examine one assignment relating to the teachers’ specialism and one of their lesson plans The next step is the submission of all reports to the respective Office of Education If permanency is denied, the same process takes place again in the next year and the documentation is sent to the respective central Office of Education The decision of this Office is final but there is no clarification as to whether those who fail the second time are prohibited from working as teachers in the state sector The national standards of induction in Greece are little prescribed and thus more susceptible to the biases of the inspectors Even though the teachers’ assessors are educators, their criteria of assessment refer to ensuring that the state policy is implemented Not only that, teachers may even lose their jobs if their way of teaching is not on a par with state policy That suggests that induction leads to proletarisation because it acts as a filter, which allows only certain teachers to enter teaching in the state sector The areas of the appraisals echo a trend observed in England too: that of a generalist primary teacher with a subject specialism That type of qualification in teaching has been legislated, even though primary teachers are considered to be generalists according to Law 1566 / 1985 At this point it becomes clear that legislation is passed in Greece without examining if it clashes with previous laws That shows that reforms in Greece are patchy and that there is no clarified frame to inspire them iii) Performance Related Pay The Presidential Decree 140 / 1998 also linked inspections and appraisals to teachers’ promotion On top of the years of service, which were the only prerequisite for promotion until 1997, the Presidential Decree 140 / 1998 additionally foresaw an appraisal process for promotion purposes similar to induction This new process has also been introduced in the process of promotion to headship and to administrative, advisory and inspection posts Teachers have the right to object to the decisions of their assessing committee in which case the committee re-examines the whole case again but their second decision is final This is not a democratic attitude because teachers are not allowed to refer their case to a different committee to study it This promotional process makes teachers more vulnerable to state control because they are not led to base their practice drawing on various philosophies and to promote their professional development (see also Didaskaliko Vima, 1997) All changes in the teachers’ employment conditions echo the state’s intention to ensure that the teachers implement educational policy without attempting to question it, which indicates proletarisation However, teacher unions have protested and successfully boycotted the implementations of all new types of assessment, except the self-appraisal of the school unit Therefore, even though such changes have been legislated, teachers have managed so far to invalidate the Performance Related Pay mechanism, retaining some control over their working conditions The next area of reorganisation of education refers to the new culture introduced As one of its two aspects, that is the teachers’ professional ideologies, was analysed in Chapter 6, the next section will refer only to teamwork followed by conclusions on proletarisation in teaching in Greece A New Organisational Culture in Schools Teamwork in Schools As the Greek educational system is centralised, devolution of responsibilities and ofdecision-making as well as teamwork were never part of the agenda However, the Education Law 1566 / 1985 foresaw the creation of a teaching society within each school whose work resembled teamwork The purpose of a teaching society was to provide for the better implementation of educational policy and for the better operation of schools The responsibilities of the society were to ensure that the time schedule and curriculum are implemented, to prioritise school needs and take care of them, to co- operate with the agents of the local community and if desired to divide staff to fields (similar to curriculumco-ordination) The presidential decree 201 / 1998 restrains the discussions of this body It forbids the discussion of issues opposing the government policy at the meetings of a teaching society The result is that practice and organisation in school not assist towards the creation of close, collegial relationships among teachers, which are considered necessary for professional status The legislation either takes teachers’ consensus for granted or imposes policy rather than allow teachers to decide, as devolution implies In any case teachers lose control over their teamwork, which indicates proletarisation The conclusions about restructuring teaching in Greece follow The adoption of Hatcher's model for analysing teaching in Greece has shown that some control over teaching has been lost due to the reorganisation of education It has also indicated that the control teachers had had before the reforms was limited because they had always been state functionaries Some elements of technicist professionalism (e.g assessment) have been legislated since the 1980s but certain elements of proletarisation (e.g reskilling) were not observed No new skills have been required of primary and secondary teachers They have not been requested to more than they did before the reforms However, as it will be shown in the next chapter, educators in kindergartens and in Pedagogical Departments of Kindergarten Teachers were given more autonomy to organise their work Proletarisation in Teaching in England and Greece Some basic differences and similarities in the work of teachers in England and in Greece emerge from this analysis Elements of proletarisation observed in both countries were the regulation of teachers’ work, the restricted jurisdiction of teacher unions, induction and performance related pay Reskilling teachers for new duties, teamwork and two specific employment conditions existed in England and in Greece but varied in their essence Reskilling was more comprehensive in England as the new skills introduced were reflected in the teachers’ work conditions (e.g supervisory duties), in their induction (i.e in theother-professional-requirements sections) and in their initial teacher training (see Chapter 5) In Greece teachers were not assigned extra administrative duties especially these that refer to curriculum and assessment In secondary education reskilling assumed the form of teaching extra subjects The new method of appointment (i.e after examinations) to a teaching post is expected to change the employment conditions in Greece and is therefore likely to lead to job descriptions and individual contracts, as found in England However, new hierarchical posts within school were not created in Greece as they were in England Teamwork has existed but its scope was more limited in Greece than in England because in Greece teamwork did not involve shaping the curriculum and its assessment There were a few areas where teaching in these two countries varied considerably Intensification as job enlargement leading to extension of the working day was evident in England but not in Greece Initial teacher training in England became more and more constrained and regulated by state intervention whereas in Greece since 1984 the state has been releasing some of its direct control In terms of occupational ideologies (see Chapters and 6), in England teaching has been viewed as a profession both by the state and the teachers (Ozga, 1988) However, in Greece there was some shift from the ideology of teaching as a vocation to the ideology of teachers being state technicians The basic differences and similarities of the proletarisation of teachers in England and in Greece indicated that Greek teachers had more control over the areas of initial teacher training as well as of performance-related pay compared to English teachers Furthermore, teacher trainers in Greece had even more control over their work because it was not regulated as much as the work of other teachers in England and Greece was However, despite the proletarisation process in place, it has also been noticed that teachers in both countries resist proletarisation Examples of such resistance are the accommodating professionals in England (see Chapter 5) or the temporary suspension of inspections in Greece In the next chapter, the policy on early childhood education is discussed to illuminate the type of professionalism that the English and Greek states promote CHAPTER 10 Early Years Policy in England and Greece Governments have claimed that the reforms they introduce in education assist teachers in becoming professionals (see Chapter 3) In this chapter I intend to show if and how state policy in England and in Greece on early years education promotes teachers’ professionalisation Teachers’ professionalisation is examined in terms of putting theoretical knowledge into practice and in terms of autonomy As argued in Chapter 7, this body of theoretical knowledge derives from the interactionist approach to the early years State policy, which is permeated by the interactionist approach and which grants teachers autonomy to base practice on a body of theoretical knowledge will be promoting teachers’ professionalisation When empiricism underpins the reforms, teachers’ professionalisation in terms of knowledge and autonomy to put theory into practice is hindered because teachers are obliged to practice without resorting to theoretical knowledge When nativism underpins the reforms again teachers are not asked to base their practice on a professional body of theoretical knowledge However, since nativism implies minimum interference with children, it allows teachers enough autonomy, which can be used by teachers to be empiricist or interactionist practitioners Whether teachers are knowledgeable of interactionism and appreciate autonomy at work is a different issue Here I am concerned with the scope the reforms allow teachers for being professional To examine the impact of the reforms on teachers’ professionalisation, documentation on early years policy was scrutinised in order to find which major educational approach (empiricism, nativism or interactionism) underpinned each aspect of state regulation on classroom and schoolwork First the documentation on England is discussed in terms of empiricism, nativism and interactionism followed by Greek documentation Some aspects of the legislation were not clear in terms of which approach they reflected Therefore, separate sections have been provided for the discussion of these points When the theoretical basis of each piece of the reforms is determined, it is linked to the degree of autonomy that it allows to teachers This way whether the reforms promote teachers’ professionalisation as defined in this introduction can be concluded At this point it should be remembered that the age group of children this study focuses on is 3-6 That means that the analysis referring to England will touch upon nursery as well as reception and Key Stage years, even though the latter were mainly covered in Chapter Policy on Early Childhood Education Practice in England Empiricism When the empirical research took place (1996-1997), the content to be taught to young children was legislated, even though it had not been prescribed for the under 5s For the young children attending Key Stage One classes, a mechanist / basics curriculum with observable, testable outcomes (Alexander, 1988) is offered with the legislation of a national curriculum with designated subject areas and specific time selected for literacy and numeracy Some of the dangers of such a type of education have already been discussed (see Chapter 7) and some of them follow The hypothesis of the ruined disposition suggests that the early introduction into academic or basic skills can undermine the children’s disposition to use the skills they have learnt (Katz, 1987) For example, young children can learn to read but there is a danger that their disposition to become readers may be ruined because of the necessary amount of practice and repetition that learning to read requires The homogeneity of curricula is another issue Curricula that emphasise academic or basic learning tend to use one method and one programme Katz (1987) argues that if we want to have homogeneous results for all children, it is necessary to use heterogene- ous programmes That is based on the principle that the younger the children are, the more unlikely it is for them to have been socialised in a particular and invariable way of reacting to the environment It is more likely that their experiences and their past (useful for learning) are individualistic and temperamental rather than common and uniform A further danger is that the children who are unable to identify with the content of an activity or with the academic activity itself may feel incapable Even worse these children may start acting as if they were indeed incapable The National Campaign for Nursery Education argued recently: ‘The notion that the “majority” of children should achieve these goals will inevi- tably mean that many children are set up to fail; those particularly vulnerable will include summer-born children, bilingual learners, boys and those with SEN’ (NCNE, 1999) The potential harm of such a curriculum however was extended to reception years in 1999 The Early Learning Goals (1999) assume that the National Literacy or Numeracy Strategies are suitable to inform reception year planning, indicating the gradual increase of state intervention and the adultcentred curriculum for pre-primary children; an empiricist approach where children’s developmental needs are not fully considered That shows that the model of child underpinning this curriculum is the sinner child who needs to be taught and reformed As far as the content of the curriculum for the under 5s is concerned, there is a shift from the traditional interactionist curriculum to one defining areas of development [Desirable Outcomes (1996) and later of the Early Learning Goals (1999)] The areas of child development that the Foundation Stage should address are six; personal and social development; language and literacy; mathematics, knowledge and understanding of the world; physical development and creative development With the enactment of the Early Learning Goals (1999), state prescription increases further Even though the areas to be addressed remain the same, the language in the documents shifts from what children should be offered (Desirable Outcomes) to what teachers should to help children reach the goals expected on entering compulsory education (Early Learning Goals) The Early Learning Goals document is clearer about the expectation for children to reach the preset goals compared to the Desirable Outcomes The model of the child inspiring such aims of early years education is the empiricist model of the sinner child who has to learn what the adults think is useful Another basic difference between the Desirable Outcomes and the Early Learning Goals refers to their definitions of good practice In the Desirable Outcomes document, good practice (according to the state) means offering children time for learning ‘through sustained involvement in concentrated activity’ and developing a ‘sense of achieve- ment’ in children ‘through learning which is a pleasurable and rewarding experience’ (Desirable Outcomes, 1996, p 6) In the Early Learning Goals document however the above features of interactionist practice become aims of the Foundation Stage and its curriculum The feature of good practice are now (according to the Early Learning Goals) the practitioners’ knowledge of how children develop, of leadership and of planning a curriculum that leads to achievement of the goals, elements not mentioned in the Desirable Outcomes Legislating the results of good practice as aims of education takes autonomy away from teachers, which makes them more vulnerable to proletarisation especially since these aims are not defined in interactionist terms Teachers are requested to apply the interactionist principles of practice in order to achieve empiricist goals If the aims of the Foundation Stage were interactionist, then they would refer to the overall development of children rather than child development in the six areas or preparation for the National Curriculum Furthermore, according to the Early Learning Goals document reading and writing are to be officially included to the curriculum as well as the cultivation of a positive attitude towards learning and of attention and persistence skills in children However, such content of education and pedagogy are meaningless to children as such The children’s interests therefore and the particular stages of child development are not fully reflected in this part of the document Thus adult-defined aims are legislated for the youngest of children, which run against an interactionist tradition and fall under the empiricist category The shift in the model of pedagogy has meant a pressure to change the model of teachers’ attitudes and qualities in Foundation Stage The sharing, caring and receptive role of a professional teacher (see Chapter 7) may be difficult to carry out with all the pressure to prioritise goals or subjects to be taught and assessed, with administration duties or with high adult / child ratios The focus of all these duties does not derive from providing for the welfare of the children according to the children’s expressed needs but from providing primarily for legislated requirements The conceptualisation of the teachers’ sharing attitude by the Desirable Outcomes and later the Early Learning Goals matches the empiricist approach because it foresees outcomes to be delivered by teachers The professional formative assessment in the early years is replaced by assessment that measures achievement according to pre-set goals as a result of the reforms in the Foundation Stage and in Key Stage One Such an assessment is empiricist because it is against the early years principle of building on and scaffolding learning based on the children’s interest and stage of development Interactionist theorists argue that when adults authoritatively define skills, which children are expected to exhibit, they not enable children to progress nor does the presentation of children’s progress as ‘lists of competencies’ set by adults (Hurst, 1991, p 74) However, both the Desirable Outcomes and the Early Learning Goals as well as the Attainment Targets refer to lists of competencies that children should achieve and to the need to detect special educational needs as soon as possible For the Desirable Outcomes and the Early Learning Goals in particular the model of child that underpins them appears to be mixed but is mainly empiricist Both documents acknowledge in principle the particular needs and characteristics of young children showing a nativist or interactionist approach (see Chapter 7) However, these particular needs are not left untreated by adults (which nativism would entail) nor they lead children's learning and teachers’ planning (which interactionism would entail) They are overridden by the expectation that most children reach the goals set by the state The nativist approach would not be interested in a legislated curriculum The interactionist approach would not need national standards and goals to work towards because it does not define learning or development in such a limited sense That implies that the model of the ‘sinner’ child inspired the legislation on the type of provision that children receive In both documents the legislated content of education is seen as a sound foundation for the children to make progress towards the national curriculum, not towards their developing as a whole All these aspects of empiricism that are legislated limit teachers’ autonomy to practice based on interactionist philosophy They limit their scope for deviating or rejecting them if teachers want to follow the interactionist philosophy in their practice, which would be the professional thing to That implies that the reforms promote the technicist professional teacher who follows directives from above because these empiricist aspects of policy are included in their job description Restricted Interactionism There were also areas of policy, which reflected interactionism but did not allow it to be fully applied and practised Pedagogy in Key Stage One is at the schools’ and teachers’ discretion However, the decrease in the time available to devote to children (due to the teachers’ administrative and curriculum coordination duties), the tight structuring of the school day and the limited funding may constrain the implementation of interaction- ist pedagogy (e.g contact with people, play and variety of first hand experiences) These requirements can also affect the teachers’ caring, sharing and respective attitudes, which are essential for interactionist practice The Desirable Outcomes document states that the parents' continued involvement in school is crucial to the children’s successful learning It also states that a key prerequisite for partnerships with parents to be successful is for parents to feel welcome and have opportunities for collaboration with the staff and the children Parents are presented as experts whose expertise should be used to support learning within the school setting Curriculum information should be made accessible to parents and so is information about their children’s progress (Desirable Outcomes, 1996) The same attitude imbues the Early Learning Goals With the generalisation of the Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership Plans in effect from April, 1999 (DfEE, 2000), the home-school agreements in effect from September 1999 for primary and secondary education and with parents being allowed to participate in the governance of schools, teachers in England have been moving from the accountability model of the home / school relationships according to Rodd (1994) to the partnership stage Even though such policy sounds interactionist, it is not entirely so The interactionist approach also implies that parents are involved in decision making about matters including the curriculum (see Chapter 7) However, despite their legislated rights, parents not have the right to negotiate the National Curriculum or the Early Learning Goals (or the Desirable Outcomes at the time of the empirical project) Furthermore, the interactionist approach does not limit the parents’ input to children’s academic learning only, an issue not addressed by either document or the National Curriculum As far as teamwork is concerned, the only aspect of peer relationships touched upon by the Desirable Outcomes document was the need for staff to identify their training needs The Early Learning Goals have expanded further on that by referring to the leader’s role in developing training plans for the staff In principle continuing professional development accords with the interactionist approach However, in practice the legislation of goals and standards to be reached may be used to define training needs That may result in conflict among peers who hold perspectives different from those legislated In this sense the professional way of working as a team may be inhibited These aspects of state policy show that interactionism is promoted in the early years but it is controlled by the state This evidence cannot be categorised as empiricist because empiricism implies that the teacher agrees with state policy In this case we have the state controlling these aspects of work with parents and colleagues without necessarily having the teachers’ approval on the policy What this may mean is that the teachers’ autonomy is broader in these areas compared to the autonomy they have when empiricist policy has to be carried out Nevertheless, the teachers’ autonomy is not absolute as the professional status implies so they can only put certain aspects on interactionism in practice Interactionism Despite these shortcomings, play and language are viewed as means of learning and a pedagogy that ensures equality of opportunity and pluralism is also foreseen by both documents for the Foundation Stage The Desirable Outcomes document did not elaborate on how equal opportunities were to be ensured nor did it specify particular duties for practitioners The Early Learning Goals document however emphasises the teacher’s awareness of the legislation on children, discrimination, diversity of needs and child development All these aspects accord with the interactionist approach to early childhood education Working as a team of practitioners was always a part of nursery work with teachers and nursery nurses co-operating to provide for children The Desirable Outcomes and the Early Learning Goals not refer to this aspect of work but to partnerships with otherout-of-schools agents In this sense the interactionist model of peer relations is not inhibited However, it was not taken into account even though teamwork within a school unit is essential to professional practice In this respect this data suggests that the teachers’ professionalisation was slightly facilitated because teachers were asked to base practice on a professional body of knowledge and they were given autonomy to that In conclusion, it is not suggested that the interactionist approach to early childhood education has been eclipsed in England but that what is legally expected from teachers refers mainly to things other than socialconstructivism That implies that in many ways teachers are asked to be technicist and are largely confined into being technicist, thus their professionalisation is compromised However, whether teachers own a body of theoretical knowledge and whether they find ways to put it into practice, despite their limited autonomy, will be discussed in Chapter 11 Policy on Early Childhood Education Practice in Greece Empiricism In Greece, the major reform in Pre-School Education took place in 1985 and it was supplemented by the legislation of a kindergarten curriculum in 1989 and the reforms on parts of it in 1999 As I will show, empiricism has existed before and after the reforms The aims of pre-school education and of its curriculum are largely adult defined and empiricist In both legal frames (before 1985 and since the 1985 reform), there is emphasis on the formation of the children’s individuality and personality That is justified because people’s personalities will be useful to their country, which implies a reformist / egalitarian curriculum according to Alexander’s definition (1988) The law defines children’s socialisation in a very specific manner One of the purposes ofPre-School Education is the need for children ‘to get accustomed to the two-way relation between an individual and a group within an organised environment’ (Law 1566 / 1985, article 3) Furthermore, emphasis has always been placed on the children’s initiation to the best of Greek heritage, which implies a classical humanist curriculum in Alexander’s terms (1988) However, according to the interactionist approach, it is the children’s interests, needs and development, which are targeted That is possibly addressed indirectly because catering for human beings in childhood is seen as preparing them for their school careers and adulthood The initiation of children to the best of one particular culture also contrasts with the equal opportunities and multicul- tural aspect of an interactionist curriculum, which appreciates pluralism and caters for it (see Chapter 7) These two aspects of the Greek curriculum indicate that the holistic development of all children in kindergarten does not inform the rationale of the Law Another empiricist aspect of the legislation is assessment Guidance from the Ministry of Education urges kindergarten teachers to analyse the children’s behaviour and the product of their activities (Ministry of Education, 1990) The interest in assessing children’s behaviour shows the expectation of moulding children’s behaviour, which is an indication of empiricism Teachers are expected to inculcate in children certain aspects, which are the above aims of education and as I have shown they are empiricist The guidance even gives an example of how to assess an activity with construction material and offers the dimensions of assessment These dimensions are the amount produced, the variety produced, the complexity involved in the creation and the originality of the end product (translated terminology from the Ministry of Education, 1990, p 193-194) The guidance stops there How this information is to inform future action is omitted The purpose therefore seems to be finding out what children cannot according to what their teachers think they should have been able to do, which is empiricist The rationale behind the assessment is not the determination of the children’s stage of development so as to provide for them accordingly (interactionism) but the determination of their behaviours and their competence / performance (empiricism) In Greece parental needs are not fully addressed The relations have only reached the stage of communication and positive contact with parents according to Rodd’s definition (1994) As explained in Chapter 9, the organisation of the whole educational system does not allow for partnerships to develop and the legislated curriculum does not help either (e.g by expounding to other than its Greek and Christian Orthodox aspects) Furthermore, as the law (Law 1566 / 1985, Presidential Decree 486 / 1989, Law 2525 / 1997) foresees teachers are considered to be the qualified people to offer education and the success of education depends on them, their personal and professional qualities and the legislated curriculum; a purely empiricist perception Parents are not recognised as partners, even though they participate in school administration The same applies to teamwork, which was not aspired (see Chapter 9) That suggests that the potential benefit, which could derive from closer parent / school partnerships or from teachers working as a team according to interactionism may be inhibited Kindergarten teachers therefore were not asked to base their practice on a professional body of knowledge and be professional in that sense However, they were given autonomy in the sense that there was no headteacher to appraise them or inspections (until 2000) or publication of examination results That implied that teachers were autonomous enough to deviate from putting empiricism into practice Restricted Empiricism I used the term restrained empiricism to define policy which is empiricist but which also appears to protect children from empiricism through legislation In terms of content, the model of curriculum shifted from being based on basics and subjects to being defined mainly according to areas of development Kindergarten teachers used to teach children arithmetic and how to write and read until the early 1980s However, in 1989 these skills were reintroduced in the form of pre- mathematical,pre-reading and pre-writing skills That implies that the empiricist perception of the basics has not been eliminated, even though the content to be taught and the pedagogy reflected some consideration of the young children’s needs and characteristics Writing however has been gradually reintroduced by the state: notebooks with exercises for prewriting skills have been provided since 1995 The same happens with numeracy skills with children’s notebooks on pre-mathematical skills introduced in 1993 The harmful results that may come from implementing such empiricist policy were moderated by the law forbidding the use of these notebooks by 4-year-old children Perhaps also the lack of expectation of children reaching certain standards allows teachers more freedom in the use of these notebooks The Presidential Decree 486 / 1989 as well as further guidance from the Ministry of Education discuss assessment in kindergartens These documents refer to the teacher’s inviting children to become involved in an activity so that the teacher can observe That shows that the children’s autonomy and preferences are not given complete respect However, the legislation is not clear about what is professional because not forcing children to be involved in a teacher-organised activity (interactionism) is foreseen together with involving all children at some point in teacher–directed activities (empiricism) Assessment in Greece is not quite the same as in England because there is no baseline assessment or Key Stage One assessment in Greece The lack of targets to be achieved by children on leaving kindergarten reinforces the possibility of a nativist approach being taken according to which development will eventually take place and children will learn sooner or later This lack of formal assessment may show an attempt to smoothly transit children from family to school by means of the kindergarten In this case the law protects children from experiencing an academic environment too soon Empiricism and Nativism Some aspects of the legislation reflected a mixture of educational principles Before the reforms, the Law indicated an empiricist approach to the aims of work with pre-schoolchildren and the model of pedagogy included rows of desks, blackboards and no children moving around the classroom (Zabeta, 1994) However, another aim of kindergarten was to help children be autonomous and play as a pedagogical method was legally acknowledged Autonomy and play were obviously defined within the specific frame of the activities that the teacher organised Also the daily school routine was such that allowed children to initiate their own play because sessions followed by short breaks during which children were allowed to go outdoors and play After the reforms, even though the above empiricist aspects of pedagogy were abolished, there is no reference made to play as a teaching method or for children to have fun as it was before Whereas both language and play were legislated as teaching methods before 1985, since 1989 only language appears in the legislated curriculum The latter does not prohibit play but does not pay attention to it either, even though play is a major vehicle of learning in the early years (Wood and Attfield, 1996) This move shows that the state’s perception of young children is uninformed and empiricist The 1985 reform however expanded on how children can be autonomous by allowing them to take up initiatives in kindergarten The model of child that arises when considering the child-initiated activities is that of the innocent child (Blenkin and Kelly, 1997) and the nativist approach because children are left to express themselves and teachers are not to interfere Theteacher-initiated activities indicate the sinner child model (Blenkin and Kelly, 1997) because it is considered appropriate to stop young children from their play or exploration to respond to their teacher’s initiatives They not appear to entail the interactionist model of the scientist child, actively making sense of their world with the assistance of others The teacher-initiated activities may consider children’s interests and include play (interactionism) or may not (empiricism) So they indicate a decrease in empiricism because teachers are given the autonomy to organise these activities in an interactionist or empiricist manner That implies that the legislation was not informed by the interactionist approach, which would have promoted teachers’ professionalism but allowed teachers scope for autonomy to base their practice on theoretical knowledge Interactionism From the juxtaposition of the legal documents before 1985 and of the 1985 reform, it is obvious that the purpose of kindergarten has not changed It is still the emotional, cognitive, physical and social development of children The earlier reference to moral and religious education currently exists in the General Purposes of Education of the 1566 / 1985 Law and it was included in the kindergarten curriculum (1989) in the form of the social and emotional development of the children Such a conceptualisation of development for young children does not mitigate against interactionism The scope for autonomy teachers have however is crucial because it allows them to put these aims into practice based on any approach they feel is appropriate Therefore, the legislation for kindergarten remains largely empiricist Acknowledging some of the children’s needs and characteristics however has reduced this empiricism Interactionism is not the focus of the legislation on pre-school education in Greece, which suggests that kindergarten teachers are not encouraged to put a professional body of knowledge into practice The rudimentary nature of legislation however allows teachers scope for implementing many aspects of an interactionist perspective at work That suggests that the reforms indirectly have promoted teachers’ professionalisation A problem that may arise now is how aware kindergarten teachers are of the body of theoretical knowledge of early childhood education in order to use this autonomy in a professional manner These questions will be answered in Chapter 11 Conclusions The data reveal a similarity in the legislation of classroom and schoolwork in the early years education in England and in Greece The reforms tend to lead to empiricist practice, even though this type of practice has been refuted and cannot constitute a body of theoretical knowledge for professional practice That implies that the reforms in most areas did not assist teachers’ professionalisation but undermine their attempts to provide a professional service The reforms therefore promote technicist professionalism, which lends support to the proletarisation thesis However, it has also been shown that there is some scope for individuals to be autonomous enough to adopt elements of interactionist professional practice This scope was broader in Greece, which lacked an interactionist tradition and narrower in England where an interactionist tradition has developed over the years ... additional standards for early years Planning, Teaching and Class Management: standards for primary English and mathematics standards for primary and secondary planning and teaching and class management,... managerial and non-managerial positions, between one agency and another and between the centre and the periphery (administration and the workers) (see also Bennett and Hockenstad, 1973; Blau and Meyer,... interest of this study in early childhood education in the next chapter the particularities of young children and their education will be discussed Initial Teacher Education and Training In Greece