Bureaucracy and professionalism: the new ‘hidden curriculum’ for teachers in Scotland

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between national bureaucracy, teacher professionalism and inservice education in Scotland. It argues that centrally defined INSET priorities focus wholly on increasing the pedagogical competence of teachers, thereby excluding any provision for the analysis of education as an institution from historical, political, philosophical and sociological perspectives. This exclusion constitutes a ‘hidden curriculum’ for teachers which will render them uncritical of the bureaucratic framework in which they work, and which will reduce their role to that of highly trained technicians, devoid of any analysis of education itself. While the main argument is supported by details of recent government policies for INSET in Scotland, it is equally applicable to other national education systems which are purporting to strengthen central control of teacher education on the alleged grounds of ‘efficiency’.