2024 Volume 50 Pages 46-65
The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the professionalism required of teachers in the context of recent reforms in teacher supply and demand, teacher training, and school governance, from the perspective of democratic educational management.
With the emphasis on individualized and optimal learning and the need for collaboration between schools and other institutions, the number of stakeholders involved in decision-making in schools will increase. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure the appropriateness and fairness of the professional judgments made by teachers through conventional, democratic decision-making procedures alone. Therefore, I focused on the “risk” response, which emphasizes deliberation by various stakeholders, and deepened our discussion of issues and research perspectives for maintaining the appropriateness and fairness of professional judgment by teachers with reference to related discussions.
First, some issues related to school decision-making were discussed. Taking a cue from the trend at school sites regarding the mandatory establishment of school management councils, I pointed out that the tendency to emphasize the use of outsiders to support schools rather than consultation to adjust the values and interests of various stakeholders may lead to neglect of democratic decision-making in educational administration and school management, and ultimately to a neglect of professionalism by the teaching profession.
Next, I focused on the debate within and outside of pedagogy on how to deal with “risk”, which is often discussed in relation to “deliberation” and examined the significance and problems of “deliberation” which developed between the teaching profession and various stakeholders from the perspective of ensuring “fairness” in risk recognition and risk assessment in the midst of the demand for individual optimization.
Based on these discussions, I discussed the current issues that educational administration should face in relation to the professionalism required of the teachers.
What I aim to emphasize in this paper is that under today’s policy trends, which call for “personalized and optimal” education, there may be situations in which “deliberation” among the parties involved is necessary but difficult to establish. In such an environment, if we refer to the discussion on how to respond to “risk” to ensure appropriate decisions based on the expertise of the teaching profession, the question is how to “accept” and respond to “risk” distributed among people, and decision-making based on “deliberation” among stakeholders is essential. In other words, decision-making based on “deliberation” among stakeholders is essential. It is a tentative conclusion of this paper that people’s agreement is not necessarily supported by “authority” within the organization or a certain scientific basis. If so, the mission and identity of educational administration as a “discipline” in considering the professionalism of the teaching profession can be found in how elaborately it captures the “politics” that exist among the various stakeholders.
