Defining teaching for a global educational world: the development of professional standards

In August 2013 the General Teaching Council for Scotland launched a revised suite of standards for the teaching profession (GTCS 2012a,b,c). These sets of standards cover initial teacher education, full registration, advanced teaching and leadership and management. There is a danger that professional standards focus on narrowly defined behavioural competences and so reinforce a technicist approach to the practice of teachers and leaders in school (Murphy, 2005). The policy emphasis in Scotland (Donaldson 2011), however, is on the use professional standards as developmental tools to enhance practice (Ingvarson, 2005). A key element in the revision process of the professional standards has been to position the role and practice of the teaching profession in a global setting thereby fostering a future orientation in the development of teaching that reflects increasing social and cultural diversity. The foundation of this suite of standards has been the agreement of a common set of values for the teaching profession: “Professional Values are at the core of Professional Standards. The educational experiences of all our learners are shaped by the values and dispositions of all those who educate them. Values are complex and the ideals by which we shape our practice as professionals” (GTCS 2012a p. 10). The set of professional values cover the ethical dimensions of professional practice such as integrity, professional commitment, trust and respect. Importantly the professional values also cover wider issues related to social justice and sustainability. However, there is a question of how we move from these being a set of espoused values to a set of ‘values-in-action’. This paper examines the potential of this set of professional standards to bring to the fore issues of social justice as a means of developing culturally responsive teaching