Reclaiming professionalism for geography education: Defending our own territory

In a world where governments increasingly attempt to impose regulation on all professional activities, this paper advocates that professional standards for teachers be developed ‘by the profession for the profession’. Foucauldian archaeology is applied to two teacher standards documents recently published in Australia, one developed at national governmental level and the other by geography teachers through their professional associations. The excavation reveals that both students and geography teachers themselves are better served when teachers assert their own definition of professionalism and thus reclaim their professional territory, rather than being compliant with generic governmental agendas. Whilst we use Australia as an illustrative example, our findings are applicable to all other countries where governments attempt to impose external professional standards on the teaching profession.

► We identify two types of professional standards for teachers.
► ‘Standards for teaching’ are developed by teachers for teachers.
► ‘Standards for teachers’ are imposed by the government.
► Standards documents from each of these groups are analysed.
► We found that teachers are best placed to assert their own form of professionalism.