Professional Practice in Education in an Era of Contractualism: Possibilities, Problems and Paradoxes

Recent policy changes have encouraged the development of a contractualist environment in Australian education, where social relations are organised around the promise of each party to fulfil particular obligations. Contractualism is evident not only in moves to expand contract employment and to organise service delivery around a contractual relationship between service providers and service consumer agencies, but also in government efforts to privatise public services so that individual consumers make choices about the kinds of services they will receive. The focus of this paper is particularly on the impact of the contractualist environment of teachers' professional practice. The paper draws on interview data to document what teachers perceive to be changing in education and in their professional practice, and to identify opportunities and constraints in this shifting policy context. On the basis of these data, some of the challenges and dilemmas of professional practice in an age of contractualism will be discussed.