Hulme and Menter (2011) provide a comparative textual analysis of the most
recent key teacher education policy reform reports in Scotland (The Donaldson
Report) and in England (The Importance of Teaching). The article sets out to
explore how policy formation in Scotland and England is premised on different sets
of values and conceptualisations of professionalism. It does not make any explicit
claims to intended impact, other than to highlight the differences in underpinning
values in the two jurisdictions. It is outward looking in that it does not focus solely
on Scotland, but there is no reference to teacher education policy outwith the UK.
Interestingly, it is perhaps Anglo-centric in its presentation, despite being published
in the‘Scottish Educational Review’, as the presentation of the Scottish policy
discourse is presented in reference to the English discourse, yet the same approach
is not adopted vice versa. That is, the Scottish context is promoted as positive
through more negative presentation of the English context. The methodological
approach is very detailed and specific: it uses critical discourse analysis and corpus
linguistic approaches to devise a‘text analysis protocol’, aided by WordSmithTools
software. In addition to the two main policy documents, consideration is also given
to‘associated genre chain texts’, that is, texts which provide additional perspectives
on the two key reports analysed.
Kennedy et al. (2012) report on a critical discourse analysis of the‘McCormac
Report’:Advancing Professionalism: A Report of a Review of Teacher Employment
in Scotland(Scottish Government 2012). The motivation for the work comes from a
view that the title of the McCormac Report was perhaps misleading, or at least not
particularly reflective of the real purpose of the review which was to look at
teachers’pay and conditions rather than to look at how best to promote or advance
teacher professionalism. The study adopts a critical discourse analysis approach
focusing on three key ideas: professionalism, teacherflexibility and economic
concerns, and the analysis is then considered in relation to Whitty’s( 2008 ) cate-
gorisations of professionalism, in coming to conclusions about the underpinning
messages promoted through the report. That is, that managerial conceptions of
professionalism are much more prominent than democratic or collaborative ones.
This study was unfunded, carried out by an academic, and two teachers who were
also doctoral students at the time. It is inward looking, focusing on the Scottish
context only, but is explicit in its aspiration to highlight the semantic importance of
the concept of professionalism in this particular policy text. It also makes a plea to
stakeholders to be more critical about claims to enhance professionalism in policy
discourse.
Kennedy and Doherty (2012) focus on the Donaldson Report, claiming that the
prioritisation of‘partnerships’and‘professionalism’in the Report are presented as
policy panaceas. This article also uses critical discourse analysis, adopting a
sociocognitive approach to analyse how the terms‘partnership’and‘profession-
alism’are used in the Report. Theoretically, the piece draws on the concept of
policy panaceas and McConnell’s( 2010 ) three dimensions for measuring policy
‘success’. Again, this is a standalone, unfunded piece of work, which presents a
plea to stakeholders to balance the focus on operationalising policy reform with a
healthy critique of the panacea-type approach to solving policy problems. It also
574 A. Kennedy