The ethical practice of teaching literacy: Accountability or responsibility? Alex Kostogriz and Brenton Doecke
Abstract:This article focuses on the recent introduction by the Australian government of standardized literacy testing, and raises questions about the impact of this reform on the professional ethics of English literacy teachers in primary and secondary schools. We draw on data collected as part of a major research project, involving interviews with teachers about their experiences of implementing standardized testing in Victoria and South Australia that focused on the changing nature of their work practices through the implementation of such tests. The paper traces the ways in which teachers’ work is increasingly being mediated by standardized literacy testing to show how these teachers struggle with the tensions between state-wide mandates and a sense of responsibility towards their students. Through an analysis of research data collected in public schools, the paper challenges circumscribed understandings of ethical practice on the part of teachers as a matter of being publicly accountable through mechanisms like the publication of standardized test results. It invokes, instead, a situated notion of professional ethics as responsiveness to those around us. The paper argues the primacy of an ethic of care that cannot be measured, and which is enacted in resistance to the judgments made by standardized tests.
Key words:ethical practice, teaching literacy, Accountability, responsibility
总 结:在过去的三年,各地的教师世界已经见证了无数的实例的想法教育问责。在大多数情况下,这种想法被实现在“知情权”政策需求的公共访问学校绩效数据教育的质量越来越关注和教育成果理应更透明的。更大的责任要求经常被公众对生产力的合理关注学校制度和教师,在时代的提高经济竞争力在全球的市场的地方。许多国家的政府已开发策略这是为了提高性能他们的教育系统,和大多数的这些策略关于严格控制教师的工作的更大的责任需求引发因此从对价值的信仰更明显的转变教师专业自主权的相对(如“经典专业化”(哈格里夫斯&古德森,1996,4页))来测试基于问责制度作为一种手段外部控制(通过国家规定的教师绩效监控机制合规矩)。虽然引入的原因这些表演机制各不相同的发展国家,很明显,今天是一种责任在教育的新自由主义政策的核心概念世界各地。事实上,它是不是夸张说教育问责制是塑造什么是教师专业化和标准化在审计社会教学质量(功率,1997)。