The ghost in the machine: human reflections on building a digital text corpus about teachers.

This article reflects on the methodological process of compiling a specialized, digital corpora of extant texts about teachers – the Teachers in Conservative England Corpus (TCEC). In contrast to corpora used in previous, similar studies in the field, the TCEC was intended to be heterogeneous, evidencing a variety of contrasting views and perspectives on teachers and teaching. Texts included in the corpus were: media reports, school inspection reports, reflections on education by teachers and the general public, political speeches, responses to parliamentary inquiries, and academic and policy texts associated with teacher training provision. The paper discusses key decisions taken during the process of corpus construction, providing original and detailed insights into the process of constructing a heterogenous digitized collection of texts concerning teachers. Methodologically, the article rigorously reflects on the myriad of complex decisions which needed to be made during the process of building a digital repository of texts, emphasizing the human interventions, considerations and thought processes required throughout. Documenting such reflections is important and necessary, given increasing interest in the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in research and education.