Abstract

As education's main workforce, teachers have been the target of policies designed to shape and affirm new versions of professionalism. This paper examines this issue as it is exemplified by the Teachers of Teachers Network (TTN), a program developed by Chile's Ministry of Education. As a program designed to identify and reward high quality teachers, it draws from New Public Management's version of professionalism, which promotes managerial cultures based on individual, test-based incentives. TTN members are granted the opportunity to become entrepreneurs, offering professional development (PD) services to other teachers. As a program designed to develop high quality teachers, it draws from a sociocultural version of teacher professionalism based on the development of interpersonal relations that enhance the collective capacity to solve problems. The results of the current study highlight limitations of implementing teacher quality policies that simultaneously draw from contrasting ideas of professionalism. The five TTN teachers participating in the current study resolved these contradictions by concealing their TTN status and (re)presenting themselves as members of the regular teaching force (peers). Through these discursive moves they subverted the possibility of trust, a key nutrient for collegial learning. These findings are interpreted through Hargreaves' capital theory of school effectiveness and improvement.