1. www.le.ac.uk
Pedagogic literacy – a framework for
understanding the growth of teacher
professionalism in a complex era
Phil Wood & Wasyl Cajkler
Lesson Study Research Group
School of Education
University of Leicester
2. Outline
• Current Trends
• Problems Relating to Changing Professionalism
• Foundations of an Alternative View
• Underlying Principles of Pedagogic Literacy
• Some Initial Reflections
• Outlining Pedagogic Literacy
3. Current Trends
• Education as economic tool
• Development of the ‘need’ to control education
• Global competition in education (e.g. PISA)
• Change in teacher work from professional autonomy to
‘quantification of value’ (Stevenson & Wood, 2013)
4. Problems relating to changing
professionalism
• Rise of performativity (Ball, 2003)
Ryan and Bourke (2013:412) make the case that,
‘…. Professional values are substituted by organisational
values. Bureaucratic, hierarchical and managerial controls
replace cultures of collaboration: there are competencies
and licenses rather than trust.’
• Loss of trust, leading to narrow view of teacher work
through quantifiable standardisation and accountability
5. Foundations of an alternative view
• Professional vs Business Capital (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012)
• Business capital – hard, but essentially easy work. Can
become expert relatively quickly through hard work and
use of quantitative data.
• Alternative is Professional Capital
Professional Capital = Human Capital + Social Capital + Decisional Capital
6. Underlying principles of Pedagogic Literacy (1)
• Pedagogic Literacy is an emerging concept from our
work on Lesson Study
• Theory and practice, action and reflection are
inseparable
• The notion of ‘professional growth’ as holistic change is a
wide area of research but is to a degree dispersed
across many subfields
7. Underlying principles of Pedagogic Literacy (2)
• Teaching is part of what it means to be human
• Teachers’ expertise comes form a conscious and long-
term engagement with pedagogy
• Importance of reflection, collaboration and professional
autonomy
• Pedagogic literacy is holistic and grows over a whole
career
8. Some initial reflections
Biesta (2014: 129-130) states,
‘because education is multi-dimensional, teachers constantly need to make
judgements about how to balance the different dimensions; they need to set
priorities - which can never be set in general but always need to be set in
concrete situations with regards to concrete students - and they need to be
able to handle tensions and conflicts and should be able to see and utilize
possibilities for synergy.’
• Pedagogic literacy is an emergent process
• A holistic process which is focused on generating ‘wise
educational judgement’.
• Professional trust (and autonomy) and responsibility are
central
