The subordination of teacher identity: Ethical risks and potential lines of flight

As we tentatively emerge from the imposed isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic and as – despite initial optimism about rethinking schooling in light of the lessons of the pandemic – the status quo reasserts itself, it seems timely to consider the current state of teacher professionalism. This task seems critical, given the wider backdrop of the neoliberal policy pandemic (Levin, 1998;
Vidovich, 2009) that has driven the commodification and instrumentalization of education over the last forty years (Porfilio & Malott, 2008) and contributed to the eclipsing of discourses of occupational professionalism, a profession-led discourse comprising collegiate forms of authority, by organisational professionalism, a management-led discourse involving more
hierarchical forms of authority (Evetts, 2009; Moore & Clarke, 2016).