Background: Although dialogue is often regarded as a vehicle for teacher professional development and learning, particularly in relation to verbal interactions between teachers, its uses remain limited. Deepening the understanding of dialogue in its fullest sense, and its potential applications in education, may help to unleash its power in…

This article considers the role of trust in teacher professional learning as a form of policy enactment. Drawing upon an experienced teacher's understandings of an assessment policy, "Growing Success," in Ontario, Canada, we foreground the sociality of trust and how trust is an essential ingredient for teacher learning as policy…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the governance of educational reform, as an interpretive process -- "interpretive governance" -- through a case study of five superintendents living in a predominantly Swedish-speaking region in Finland. Design/methodology/approach: To foreground superintendents' perspectives on reforms as…

In this article, the authors refer to key national policies, and associated politics, in the Swedish, Finnish and Australian contexts, to reveal the key discourses that characterise how ongoing teacher learning is constituted in these settings. Drawing upon Peck and Theodore's notion of 'fast policy', the authors identify what they describe as the…

This article investigates the implementation of the "förstelärare" or "First teacher" reform in Sweden. We draw upon the insights of a superintendent, union official, principal, three First teachers, and two of their colleagues in one school, and recent literature on career development reform. We employ Michael Fullan's…

The authors argue that the professional learning practices of teachers in precarious employment may have a significant impact upon their understandings of specific policy reforms. The analysis considers a teacher's understandings of learning about a new policy in light of the various 'epistemological resources' he brought to bear to his learning…

Drawing upon research into a case study of teacher inquiry in one school in Queensland, Australia, recent theorising into professional practice, and relevant literature on teachers' learning, this article reveals the complexity and particularity of teacher inquiry processes in support of teachers' learning. Specifically, the research reveals how…

This article seeks to extend current understandings of educational action research, particularly how teachers' actions, talk and ongoing relatings can serve as a vehicle for transforming their learning, including under current global conditions of more performative accountability. The research is grounded in Noffke's (2009) understandings of the…

This article reveals the multifaceted ways in which policy enactment was expressed as praxis in the context of assessment reform in Ontario, Canada. The research explores the way in which the Growing Success assessment policy was interpreted variously by different educators occupying senior roles within the district office in a single school…

Drawing upon recent theorising of numbers and data, and applications to schooling, this paper reveals how tensions between more accountability-oriented logics, and more contextually-situated conceptions of engagement with data, played out in one school in a regional community in northern Queensland, Australia. The research reveals that at the same…

This article reveals the multiple ways in which data are constituted as a vehicle for governing teachers' work and learning. Drawing on the concept of governance, including in relation to the sociology of numbers, and data from one school in Queensland, Australia, the research reveals how teachers' work and learning were constituted through…

This article examines evidence of teachers' work and learning in one school setting in the northern regions of Queensland, Australia, revealing how globalized performative practices that circulate around the collection and use of data in schooling settings are both confirmed and contested. Drawing upon the literature on the nature of…

This paper examines how policy pressure for increased performance on standardised measures of student achievement influenced the teacher learning practices that arose in a school setting in Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon research and theorising of governing by numbers, and applications to the governance of education, and particularly…

This paper draws upon Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field to better understand and appreciate the conditions which encouraged the productive professional development (PD) practices of one very capable teacher working in a secondary school in the British Midlands. Rather than celebrating this teacher's practices and perspective as…

This paper employs sociological literature on risk and the commodification of education to explain current schooling practices in a context of increased concerns about students' behaviour and results on standardised tests of achievement. Drawing upon teacher and student learning practices in three school sites in south-east Queensland, Australia,…