tandfonline.com – Persuasion and resistance. Large-scale collaborative professional development as a policy instrument

ABSTRACT

This study examined collaborative professional development (PD) as a policy instrument for relating external ideas to present teaching practices. The study interprets the global emphasis policymakers place on collaborative PD as a response to the devolution of responsibility in many school systems, accompanied or followed by increased external guidance to local actors. In relation to these tendencies, collaborative PD may function either as a support for professional self-governance or enable increased top-down control. Thus, by analysing collaborative PD as a policy instrument, the study contributes to the understanding of the contemporary governing of public education. The analysed empirical material derived from a large-scale PD program organized by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The results show that the investigated PD model appears as an instrument for persuading teachers to follow external ideas rather than for strengthening local self-governance. Collegial dialogue focused on the potential of enacting PD guidelines, and made teachers’ stances to external ideas visible, including expressions of resistance. Such visibility of resistance enabled suggestions for stronger adherence to guidelines. This focus on adherence may come at the cost of a meaningful adaptation of external ideas to local settings and decrease the sustainability of changes.