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The Business
of Teaching
Becoming a Teacher in a
Market of Schools
Meghan Stacey
The Business of Teaching
“This book provides fascinating insight into the complex pressures that early
career teachers experience as they navigate the external demands of the market-
ised systems governing their schools and practice. The book draws attention to
the ongoing inequities of stratification and residualisation that such demands
continue to reproduce, and the ways in which new teachers within this compet-
itive and performative milieu are themselves products and subjects of the mar-
ket. Most notably, this compelling book supports the now powerful warrant for
re-thinking and re-structuring current market-oriented education systems and
schools to better reflect their equity purposes.”
—Professor Amanda Keddie, Deakin University, Australia
“Even as researchers have identified potential pitfalls with markets in educa-

tion, policymakers are enamored with their potential. But surprisingly little
attention has been paid to teachers in this emerging marketized environment.
Meghan Stacey provides a timely and highly insightful analysis of teachers nav-
igating the system from different locations in an increasingly stratified school
market, showing that—in many ways—they also are the market that policy-
makers have created.”
—Professor Christopher Lubienski, Indiana University, USA
“Meghan Stacey’s The Business of Teaching is a must read for sociologists of

education, policy researchers and policy makers, indeed for all those concerned
about career paths for teachers in a hierarchized, marketised schooling system.
The use of Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’ to analyse a significant data set provides
an insightful account of the experiences of beginning teachers in this system
with important implications for those concerned about the future of the teach-
ing profession.”
—Professor Bob Lingard, Institute for Learning Science &
Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University
and Emeritus Professor, The University of Queensland, Australia
Meghan Stacey
The Business
of Teaching
Becoming a Teacher
in a Market of Schools
Meghan Stacey
School of Education
UNSW Sydney
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-3-030-35406-0 ISBN 978-3-030-35407-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35407-7
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For a system that may not be of our creation, and a future that is
Preface
About four hours south-west of Sydney is a little country town, located

a short drive inland from the busy Hume Highway. The area around the
town is famous for its cherries, and its physical beauty, especially when
not in drought—the rolling green hills, the vibrant yellow patches of
canola, the pinks and purples of the cherry blossoms in spring and the
paddocks dotted with sheep and cows make it truly picturesque. The
town itself sits on the train line and is built around the agricultural pro-
duction of local farms, although some forms of local primary industry in
the town have recently been in decline, reshaping employment opportu-
nities for local residents. While it may not be a place of particular afflu-
ence, there is nevertheless something of a divide within the population:
between the farmers and local professionals, some of whom send their
children to expensive private boarding schools in the city; and those
who may be rather newer arrivals, perhaps having come in search of rea-
sonably priced real estate and a quiet life. It is, like many rural towns
in NSW, Australia, a place of contrast; contrast that runs much deeper
than the splashes of yellow canola against the verdant green of the hills.
I spent three years of my life in this town, working as a secondary
English and Drama teacher with the NSW Department of Education.
vii
viii Preface
As a recipient of a Department scholarship, I was guaranteed a perma-

nent teaching position as soon as I graduated and had agreed to move
anywhere in the state to take one up. As I packed up and headed off,
I looked forward to occupying at least the next few years with a life I
felt I had earned—a peaceful rural life spent walking in the countryside
or reading books on weekends and inspiring young people to love lit-
erature on weekdays. At least, I thought, I could open some doors for
my students into that world I loved, and get them to leave school for
whatever further path they chose with an open mind and more options,
perhaps, than they had before. I was pretty confident that the job was
something I could do, too. Having just graduated with a double degree
from the prestigious University of Sydney—with first-class honours, no
less—and having attended before that an academically selective public
school (one of the most exclusive types of schools in the NSW system,
whether public or private—but more on this in Chapter 1), I was, on
the whole, fairly sure of myself.
But things did not turn out as I expected. I was, like many others,
a teacher with a middle-class background, coming to teaching having
experienced success in the system as we know it. I valued, as the system
does, the more ‘academic’ subjects within the curriculum, and having
had positive experiences as a student in an academically selective school,
rather enjoyed the sense of competition that a high-stakes, exam-based
system entailed. Although I knew, having an interest in the sociology of
education, that social class played a significant role in the achievements
of students, I never quite took the next step of thinking in more con-
crete terms about what that would or could mean for me, as a teacher
with a classed, as well as raced and gendered identity of my own. I felt,
as I still feel, that education should be about social justice; yet somehow
I had retained the vague notion that my teaching role would be about
‘giving’ to students something that they ‘lacked’. I had not only misun-
derstood and underestimated the general demands of teaching, but also
the demands of teaching in such a context, and from such a perspective.
I spent the next three years scrambling. I wrote teaching programmes
(which were not routinely shared in my faculty); created and found
Preface ix
resources; navigated the school staff- and common-rooms; and as the

only Drama teacher in the school, wanting to provide opportunities
for access to dominant socio-cultural experiences that would impact
students’ work in the subject, organised and ran excursions to see dra-
matic performances (no mean feat being located rurally) as well as per-
formance nights at the school. I also ran extra-curricular vocal group
and debating programmes. These were some of the things I did, but lit-
tle of what I did was to my satisfaction. Areas of particular challenge
included attempts to make the curriculum ‘relevant’ to students whose
life experiences—some of them—were so very different from my own,
counter-pointed with the additional tension of the prescriptions of an
academically oriented syllabus; noting and responding appropriately
to welfare concerns; being a Year Advisor (which meant having addi-
tional welfare responsibilities for a particular year group); making and
maintaining contact with parents; teaching (and programming for) my
senior classes with confidence; and teaching more generally in such a
way as to keep all my students engaged, motivated, attending, happy
and achieving. The thousand daily interactions, both with students and
staff, full of exuberance (sometimes feigned), weariness, affection, anger,
worry and (at times) despair. A general sense of doing as much as I
could, and it still not being enough. It was utterly exhausting, and I felt
that I was alone.
For although I had a number of teacher-friends, I found I could
not always relate to the kinds of difficulties that they described in their
work. Some peers complained of the incompetence of other staff rather
than seeming to feel it in themselves. Some were drowning in marking
loads, while for me—being in a small school, but one that did not rou-
tinely share programming—the chief time-killer was preparation. While
some of us were trying to teach secondary students to read, others were
navigating interactions with large numbers of parents. Some teachers
seemed to feel fully engaged in their chosen profession, enthusiasti-
cally participating in school events and appearing confident enough to
present at Teach Meets and other practitioner-based teaching forums.
Others seemed to become more withdrawn. Some regularly broke up
x Preface
fights in the playground; some never had. Many felt overworked and
under-valued, seeming to feel they were one of only a few staff mem-
bers actively contributing to the life of their school; others felt under-
valued for a different reason, with limitations placed upon their scope to
run extra-curricular activities or teach senior classes. Some fled particu-
lar schools (located without exception, within my circle at least, in the
public sector) for others, often private and seemingly always of a higher
socio-economic status. Still others may have rather liked their places of
work, but felt strained and insecure because of their casual or temporary
employment status, unable or unwilling to move to a rural town as I
had done to secure a permanent position.
Meanwhile, on television and online, Christopher Pyne, the federal
education minister from 2013 to 2015, would regularly espouse the
importance of teacher ‘quality’—not funding, or any other systemic
issue—in raising student achievement across the board. Yet how could
this one factor be expected to fill in so many gaps, some seemingly so
much more precarious than others? And where was the recognition of
the different schooling contexts found across the system? This differ-
entiation of schools, it seemed to me, had many complexities; while
there were obvious differences related to seemingly intractable issues of
classed geographic segregation, there were also more deliberate, more
explicit differences, such as those of the schools labelled as ‘selective’,
‘boys’, ‘girls’, ‘sporting’, ‘creative arts’, ‘Catholic’, ‘independent’ and so
on. While schools (and teachers) were to be measured by the same sticks
(such as Australia’s national standardised testing system, the National
Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy, or NAPLAN; or the
NSW senior leaving certificate, the Higher School Certificate or HSC),
some were to have more money, homogeneity and discretion than oth-
ers; some were to select students, others were to accept students. Some
were winning in the educational marketplace, others were losing. This
was irrelevant, it seemed. For if Pyne was right, then the only reason I
should feel I was so constantly failing in such myriad ways was, quite
simply, me. But this answer was not just one that I found difficult to
hear. It was also one that seemed too easy.
* * *
Preface xi
This book is based on my doctoral research, undertaken from 2014

to 2018, in which I sought answers to the contradictions, considera-
tions and complexities outlined above. I wanted to know what the job
of teaching looked and felt like for other people in my stage of career.
I wanted to know whether it was just me or, perhaps, if it had some-
thing to do with the system I had been employed in. For this reason,
my project was designed around conducting detailed, in-depth case
studies of nine teachers working in highly contrasting schooling sites.
I wanted to talk to teachers about their work, and I wanted these dis-
cussions to be clearly contextualised. For this reason, I also spoke with
a colleague and a friend, partner or family member of each teacher
participant. In the pages and chapters that follow, I outline how this
project unfolded and the kinds of answers I was able to glean, first
introducing the political and academic context, including the structure
of the schooling system in NSW; and then, for the bulk of the book,
the experiences of these nine early career teachers working within it.
Throughout, I emphasise both the individual characteristics of the
teachers concerned, as well as—crucially—the specificities of the
schools in which they found themselves situated.
This centrality of contextual specificity is important to flag because it
is a specific aim of this book to actively analyse the market position of
the schools discussed within it. The kinds of differences between school
settings that I observed during my time as a teacher were not random
or the result of accident. Nor were they necessarily the result of con-
scious design. Instead, they were, and are, the result of years of accu-
mulated policy decisions both made and not made, and through which
secondary schooling in this country has become excessively marketised,
with schools opened up to ‘choice’ between differently resourced stu-
dents and parents. This cumulative policy approach has had a number
of effects, some of which have been well-documented and these are out-
lined in Chapter 1. Other effects of this system—namely the effects on
teachers—are what I explore in the rest of it, with another aim of this
book being to demonstrate these teacher cases as both unified and yet
distinctive. The reader will take away, I hope, an understanding that
teachers’ work is highly contextualised: personally, socially, culturally
and politically.
xii Preface
Everyone knows that being an early career teacher can be tough. It

is a common enough story in the media and is also a frequent focus of
academic research. But, in contrast to how it is often reported in such
outlets, is it really a common experience, a universal trial by fire that all
new teachers must go through? Or is the business of becoming a teacher
in today’s marketised education system somewhat more nuanced than
this? Does market context come into play, and if so, in what way? These
are the questions I address in this book.
Sydney, Australia Meghan Stacey

Acknowledgements
There are a number of people without whom this book, as it is, would
not have been possible.
To the participants of the study upon which the book is based, thank
you for being so generous with your time and reflections.
I would also like to extend my thanks for the formative experiences
had during my time as an employee with the Department of Education,
and to the staff and students of the school where I worked from 2011 to
2013. This experience continues to shape who I am and the work that
I do in many ways.
I extend warm and abounding thanks to my thesis supervisors, Helen
Proctor, Debra Hayes and Susan McGrath-Champ for their hard work
throughout my candidature as well as for their continued critical friend-
ship and support. I also thank all others who proofread and provided
feedback on drafts of the doctoral thesis upon which this book is based;
I have effused my gratitude to you all at length in the thesis itself, and
I won’t repeat it all again here, but thank you.
Thanks are also due to Helen Proctor and Nicole Mockler, who
read early drafts of this book manuscript and provided highly useful
xiii
xiv Acknowledgements
feedback during its gestation. Eleanor Christie and Becky Wyde at

Palgrave Macmillan have, during this time, also been invaluable.
Speaking of the publication process, I must in addition acknowl-
edge that this book has been derived in part from an article published
in Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 24th May 2019, copyright
Taylor & Francis, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/
abs/10.1080/13540602.2019.1621828, as well as an article published
in Critical Studies in Education 5th August 2019, copyright Taylor &
Francis, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080
/17508487.2019.1650383.
Finally, I thank my family, and especially my husband Nigel, for your
love and support, always.
Contents
1 Born into the Business: A Study of the Early Career

Teacher as Market Native 1
2 Who Are Our Teachers? 35
3 Teachers’ Work Within the Market: Cases from Schools

in the Lower-Tier 59

in the Mid-Tier 89

in the Upper-Tier 115
6 Supporting Early Career Teachers Across the Market 143
7 A Bad Business: Implications of the Market

for Teachers and Systems 163
Index 183
xv
Abbreviations
AITSL Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership

HSC Higher School Certificate
ICSEA Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage
NAPLAN National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy
NSW New South Wales
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
SES Socio-Economic Status
xvii
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Numbers of selective, specialist, and junior/senior

campus schools in NSW 5
Table 2.1 Summary of participants 38
xix
1
Born into the Business: A Study of the Early
Career Teacher as Market Native
In 2006, I began the first year of my initial teacher education. I brought

with me an ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975) in secondary
teaching from a public, academically selective school located in suburban
Sydney, where I had witnessed and been subject to particular examples
of the kind of work that I was now looking to undertake myself. White,
female and very much middle-class, I was in many ways a fairly typical
candidate for the teaching profession.1 But I was also something that
generations of teachers before me had not been: a product of the market.
The past 50 years has been a time of political, social and cultural
change around the world. In education, schools are ‘chosen’ by parents
and students, operating with more or less resources in their navigation
of new and complex systems. These are the systems within which many
teachers in the process of beginning their careers have grown up; they are,
quite literally, the systems within which they have been schooled. Teach-
ing is and probably always has been a difficult job, and to some degree
it is difficult wherever it is done. The evidence presented in this book
bears out that fact. But teaching, while always challenging, does not look
the same everywhere. In a market-oriented2 system where concentrations
of student population are becoming increasingly polarised (Bonnor &
Shepherd, 2016b) and the ‘quality’ of teachers and their work is under
© The Author(s) 2020 1
M. Stacey, The Business of Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35407-7_1
2 M. Stacey
increasing scrutiny (Mockler, 2018), there is a growing need to look at

teaching in context. In this book, I examine the process of becoming
a teacher specifically in relation to the system-wide, marketised hierar-
chy of schools in which teachers now work, with the aim of drawing
out often unseen, unacknowledged and under-appreciated connections
between system, structure, student and teacher.
This opening chapter fulfils a number of functions. First, I explore the
unique historical position that early career teachers around the world,
and in Australia and the state of NSW particularly, are currently in, hav-
ing been produced by the market-oriented systems of schooling in which
they now seek to find work. I outline the broad dimensions of this sys-
tem as well as the effects it is known to have on educational equity. These
effects can be termed ‘second-order effects’, a conceptual structure taken
from the work of Stephen Ball which I introduce here and use through-
out the book to examine the implications of a market-based system for
teachers and their work. Following this, I discuss the current position-
ing of teachers in Australia as a focus of policy intervention. The chapter
then presents the complementary theoretical tools of the work of Pierre
Bourdieu, also used throughout the book, before outlining the method-
ological approach taken in the study.
Teachers and Markets in Australian Schooling

Teachers in Australia have a wide and complex employment terrain to
navigate. With the states retaining responsibility over education after
Federation (Cranston, Kimber, Mulford, Reid, & Keating, 2010), public
education has historically been a state-based endeavour. The federal gov-
ernment, on the other hand, came to assume primary responsibility for
the private sector, although this settlement has been eroding, with grow-
ing federal intrusion into a range of schooling matters since the 1970s
(Campbell & Proctor, 2014). The private sector consists of both sys-
temic Catholic schools and independent schools, with most of the latter
also having religious affiliations. Overall, school education in Australia is
therefore a shared responsibility between federal and state governments
as well as private concerns, in particular the Catholic Church. A divided
1 Born into the Business: A Study of the Early … 3
schooling system since its inception, this has been exacerbated over the
past 50 years with the rise of neoliberal ‘choice’ policy leading to growing
diversification of both private3 and public school ‘options’. Today, Aus-
tralia is known as an extreme case of marketisation when considered on
a global scale (Windle, 2015). It is this system within which Australia’s
new teachers, by and large, have grown up. It is this system within which
they have conducted their ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975),
picking up on what schooling is and should be; its purpose, role and
function.
Teachers are likely to have experienced particular extremes within this
market landscape because, especially when compared internationally, the
Australian private schooling sector is quite large (Nous Group, 2011). It
is therefore unusual in its scale, but it is also unusual in its nature. With
virtually all schools subsidised to some extent by federaland state govern-
ments, the private sector remains largely government-dependent. More
than half of private sector schools have been shown to rely on the gov-
ernment for more than 50% of their funding (Musset, 2012). Recently,
and since the move to a new, shifting and supposed-to-be ‘needs-based’
funding model in 2013, independentand Catholic sector schools in the
state of NSW actually receive a higher percentage of the base School-
ing Resource Standard4 through combined government funding than
public sector schools (Goss & Sonnemann, 2016); a recent analysis by
the national Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC, highlights the
enormous disparities in wealth between the sectors, and also finds that
public funding for some advantaged private schools has been increasing
much more than for some public schools (Ting, Palmer, & Scott, 2019).
These details are important as although many countries have shifted to
choice systems, they differ greatly according to the way in which their
private school ‘options’ are situated in relation to government require-
ments and funding (Dronkers & Avram, 2015; Koinzer, Nikolai, & Wal-
dow, 2017). In some ways Australia could be described, using the cate-
gorisations of Dronkers and Avram (2015), as having a relatively strict
form of control of private sector schools through adherence to a national
curriculum and all teachers needing to be accredited.5 Australian private
schools do, however, have greater flexibility related to staffing decisions
4 M. Stacey
and pay. It is also important to note that despite being publicly sub-
sidised, the private sector is not subject to governmental constraints in
relation to the charging of student fees. These fees can be substantial and
are also growing, with the cost of education for the consumer reported to
be “outstripping inflation” over the past ten years (Rowe, 2017a, p. 89).
While generally enrolling relatively more advantaged students than the
public sector (Lamb, Jackson, Walstab, & Huo, 2015), however, the
private sector nevertheless consists of a wide variety of schools, includ-
ing older private schools known to be highly exclusive, newer Chris-
tian schools which can be lower-fee and Catholic schools which range
from those which are elite, independent and high-fee, to those which are
local, systematised and often relatively low-fee (Campbell et al., 2009).
As noted above, the sector has also been growing: while approximately
73% of students were enrolled in public schools in 1988, this market
share had shrunk to around 66% by 2018 (Australian Bureau of Statis-
tics, 2019). Overall, there is greater differentiation within the secondary
school market, with the proportion of public school enrolment more like
59% (Rowe, 2017b). As such, the study presented in this book focuses
only on secondary teachers.
Differentiation in the employment landscape of secondary school-
ing is also a feature of the public sector, which despite the increasing
popularity of private schooling remains the most common employment
context. Although teachers generally apply to the public sector over-
all rather than particular schools, recent devolutionary initiatives are
opening this up considerably (see Gavin & McGrath-Champ, 2017).
More importantly perhaps, understanding diversification in the sector
is important as it creates different contexts for the experience of teaching
through the constitution of distinct student populations. Diversification
within the public sector includes distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’
comprehensive public high schools, with some ‘good’ public schools—
which tend to be those with more advantaged student bodies (Rowe &
Lubienski, 2017)—having long student waiting lists (Campbell et al.,
2009). The NSW system also includes a significant number of public
selective and specialist secondary schools, which choose their students
based on perceived talents. The academically selective versions of these
schools are one of the most exclusive school choice categories in terms of
social class, with an average of 73% of selective school students in 2016

being from the highest quartile of socio-educational advantage (Ho &
Bonnor, 2018). The proportion of such schools has grown over the past
three decades, as outlined in Table 1.1. In addition, recent shifts towards
devolving control over public schools across the country are in play
(Fitzgerald, Stacey, McGrath-Champ, Parding, & Rainnie, 2018; Gavin
& McGrath-Champ, 2017), and have been shown to contribute to mar-
ket effects through creating greater scope for differentiation (Fitzgerald,
Stacey, et al., 2018). There have also been recent moves to create new
public schools, ostensibly comprehensive, but designed around more
“unconventional” approaches to education: one such school, Lindfield
Learning Village, was reported in January 2019 to have a waiting list of
3000 students (Baker, 2019, January 24). At the time of writing, there
has also been the announcement of a new academically selective school
for Sydney’s South-West (Singhal, 2019, June 4).
The marketisation of schooling outlined above is understood in this
book as a manifestation of neoliberal approaches to governance. Harvey
(2005) defines neoliberalism as
a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-

being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial free-
doms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong
private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state
Table 1.1 Numbers of selective, specialist, and junior/senior campus schools in

NSW
School Type 1988 2019
Selective 11 47
Specialist 1 33
Junior/senior campus 0 33
Total non-comprehensive 12 113
Sources Esson et al. (2002) and Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation
(2019)
Note Some schools have categorisations that overlap. The selective category
therefore includes four fully-selective agricultural (specialist) high schools, two
partially-selective language (specialist) high schools and three partially-selective
junior/senior campus schools. These have not been counted twice
6 M. Stacey
is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such

practices. (p. 2)
Arising in the 1980s, neoliberalism has been described as a global phe-

nomenon (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010) in which “the unattached individ-
ual—as a consumer—is deraced, declassed, and degendered” (Apple,
2005, p. 273). As Harvey (2005) notes, neoliberalism involves a “pre-
sumption of perfect information and a level playing field for compe-
tition”, something which is “either innocently utopian or a deliberate
obfuscation of processes that will lead to the concentration of wealth
and, therefore, the restoration of class power” (p. 68). In its focus on
economic freedom and competition over systemic support, a neoliberal
approach to schooling thereby emphasises what might be termed a more
economically oriented, ‘business-like’ approach. It is this conceptualisa-
tion of education that is referenced in the title of this book, and drawn
on throughout its pages, looking at the positioning and experiences of
teachers to further understand the effects of a system that is now at least
partially based on market principles.
In taking up this metaphor, I situate the study and its data as glob-
ally resonant, yet particular. Although clearly in play around the globe,
as Peck (2010) argues, neoliberalism is not so much a thing in itself but
something that is repeatedly (re)formed based on contextual specificities.
In Connell’s (2010) view, it is therefore important to look at neoliberal-
ism in its specific, varied manifestations in order to properly document
“the formation of a determinate social reality by a specific, historically
located, practice” (p. 14). It is an aim of this book to contribute to map-
ping the historical, political and social forces at work in schools and on
teachers within the secondary schooling system in NSW, as an illustrative
case of market-oriented reform and its implications.
Market Effects
There is an argument that encouraging privatisation in education will

“quicken the pace of progress” (Friedman, 1955, p. 144). In his classic
essay, ‘The role of government in education’ (1955), Milton Friedman
argues that governments should take responsibility for funding, but not
providing, only minimum education levels, leaving the remainder of edu-
cation open to private enterprise and to the choice of individual families.
Friedman’s essay works from an explicit assumption that the “freedom
of the individual” is “the ultimate objective” (Friedman, 1955, p. 123).
The argument goes that by enabling such freedom, ‘healthy’ competition
would be fostered and that such a move would not exacerbate, but rather
reduce, patterns of stratification, by increasing local control and innova-
tion and opening up choice to more than just a privileged few. That is,
a system and its teachers “driven” to “satisfy the customers” (Friedman,
1997, p. 343) is what is needed. Part of this logic is that with competi-
tion as a motivator for schools to improve, the system will automatically
be able to “weed out” (Chubb & Moe, 1990, p. 190) the ‘poor’ or ‘inef-
fective’ schools that do not.
There is already a considerable body of research on how such markets
operate in education in relation to parents, schools and students. There
is much less on teachers. Nevertheless, understanding the effects of the
market on parents, schools and students is important as it is these effects
which shape and contour the landscape within which teachers work.
Research on parents has explored the perceived obligation to choose,
felt particularly by the middle class (Campbell et al., 2009; Proctor &
Aitchison, 2015) and even affecting decisions regarding where to live and
work (Doherty, Rissman, & Browning, 2013). Factors taken into con-
sideration include such things as location, as well as perceptions of the
student body and the ‘values’ propagated by the school (Campbell et al.,
2009). In some cases, choices seem to have been made on the basis of
the dominant cultural backgrounds of the students attending the school
(Ho, 2011), suggesting that the “healthy intermingling of children from
decidedly different backgrounds” (Friedman, 1955, p. 129) is, in fact,
impaired under a choice-based system. In other studies, middle-class par-
ents in affluent areas have chosen the public system, both in Australia
(Rowe, 2014) and overseas (Posey-Maddox, McDonough Kimelberg, &
Cucchiara, 2016; Reay, Crozier, & James, 2011). Yet middle-class par-
ents’ reasons for choosing public sector schools are not simple, and often
still reflect an active engagement in the market (Reay et al., 2011; Rowe
& Lubienski, 2017; Stacey, 2016). In addition, as Lubienski and Myers
8 M. Stacey
(2016) argue, the relationship goes both ways, with “an incentive on the
part of these schools collectively to attract certain populations in order
to either retain or enhance their market position” (p. 12).
While the Australian school system was by no means equitable prior
to the introduction of market principles, many argue that marketisa-
tion has exacerbated existing, as well as created new schooling hier-
archies. Such hierarchies intensify opposing poles of more advantaged
‘socially restricted’ and more disadvantaged ‘socially exposed’ school set-
tings (Windle, 2015), leading schools to become “increasingly segregated
and unequal” (Vickers, 2005, p. 264). This segregation is not only in
relation to advantage, but also student achievement—because the two
are linked, as studies have repeatedly shown (Lamb et al., 2015; Perry
& McConney, 2010; Teese & Polesel, 2003; Thomson, De Bortoli,
& Underwood, 2016). And while Australia’s overall level of equity is
around the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) average, the slope of our socio-economic gradient6 has steep-
ened between 2006 and 2015 (OECD, 2016a), indicating greater dispar-
ity in achievement alongside the intensification of choice policy. Research
by Bonnor and Shepherd using NAPLAN data tells a similar story (see
Bonnor & Shepherd, 2016a, 2016b).
These findings of increasing inequity across schools indicate that
the contexts in which teachers might work are becoming increasingly
polarised. One consequence that has been identified is known as residual-
isation, a relational process which, especially when combined with demo-
graphic divisions in residential patterns (Rowe, 2015), results in students
with greater and more diverse needs becoming concentrated in particular,
often comprehensive, schools (Considine, 2012; Preston, 1984; Vickers,
2004). For instance, Lamb et al.’s (2015) research identifies that while
public schools take 59.3% of all secondary school students, they enrol
greater proportions of marginalised groups: 76.4% of students with dis-
abilities, 79.4% of Indigenous students and 76.2% of “the lowest mathe-
matics achievers” (p. 68). Concentrations of disadvantage in schools—or
conversely, advantage—have been shown to have an effect on individ-
ual student achievement, regardless of that individual’s social class back-
ground (Nous Group, 2011; Perry & McConney, 2010; Thrupp, 1999).
The Australian system works towards equity in that it is not largely verti-
cally stratified, with students tending to move up grade levels according
to age rather than ‘ability’; and sorting of students—in terms of cur-
riculum—primarily occurring relatively late at age 16 (OECD, 2016b).
Yet the system nevertheless maintains an academic curricular hierarchy
(Teese, 2000, 2007), taken up differently according to level of advantage
and sector (Perry & Southwell, 2014); as well as problematic patterns of
social and cultural segregation across both public and private schools, as
I have just discussed.
There has therefore already been considerable research reported con-
cerning the effects of market policy in education on students, schools
and parents. In this study I shift the focus to teachers, who have rarely
been at the centre of these kinds of analyses, often seeming as if they are
somehow of a piece with the schools. To engage in this work, the notion
of what policy scholar Stephen Ball refers to as first- and second-order
policy effects is used. Ball defines these as follows:
First order effects are changes in practice or structure (which are evident
in particular sites and across the system as a whole); and second order
effects are the impact of these changes on patterns of social access and
opportunity and social justice. (Ball, 1993, p. 16)
Within this book, first-order effects are understood as changes to the

structure of the schooling system into that of a market emphasising
choice; second-order effects are defined as those felt—correspondingly,
if not necessarily intentionally—by such affected stakeholders as stu-
dents and teachers. This study therefore takes as its primary focus a
world created by policies intended for particular targets or purposes, but
which have potentially significant collateral consequences along the way
to achieving them. I look not at ‘conscious’ responses to policy by those
to whom it is ostensibly directed—at the ‘doing’ of policy—but at its
more indirect costs. In the setting up of schooling markets which seek
to diversify schools and set them in competition with each other, schools
and parents are the apparent targets, needing to change in response to
one another. It is the related but not identical issue of what happens to
10 M. Stacey
teachers during this process, as illuminated via detailed and highly con-
textualised interview data, that is the key point of focus in this book.
While these second-order effects, rather than policy creation or first-
order effects, are to be the focus of the current research, it is important
to point out the way that policy is understood and operationalised in
this book. Ball (1994) theorises policy as ‘text’ and ‘discourse’—two ele-
ments that are “implicit in each other” (p. 15). While this distinction is
helpful in highlighting the more material aspects of policy on the one
hand, as well as what and how it allows one to think about the issues
involved on the other, it should not limit us to what might be termed
‘paper’ policies—policies which can be clearly listed and identified, and
which derive from specific sources of authority. For while the Education
Reform Act may have set up much of the marketisation of schooling in
England (Ball, 1990, 1994; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995), the creation
of the comparable system in Australia has been the product of a much
more cumulative process, pushed in various ways and for various rea-
sons by both major political parties, at both state and federal level over
the past 50 years. Reforms contributing to the encouragement or facili-
tation of choice range from changes to funding structures favouring the
private sector under the right-leaning Liberal Prime Minister Howard in
the 1990s, to the introduction of the My School website allowing par-
ents to view and compare school results by the (somewhat) left-leaning
Labor Prime Minister Rudd in 2010. Changes at state level have included
the partial de-zoning of public schools allowing a limited but impor-
tant amount of choice between comprehensive schools, devolution, and
the establishment of specialist and selective public schools. While some
reforms have been more influential than others, there is no specific pol-
icy or suite of policy texts which can be concretely identified as the core
enabler of choice. And, as Rizvi and Lingard (2010) note, policy also
exists in decisions that are not made, when things do not change, and
when things are not said; a view with which Ball (e.g. 2003a) is himself
sympathetic. In Australia, the idea of choice is firmly entrenched, with
the ‘right’ of parents not only to choose a school within it but to choose
what can be significant material advantages and to have these advantages
supported by state funding, has tended to go relatively unchallenged.
Issues of school funding feature frequently in the media and yet reflect
a normalised national view of what is a rather unique schooling sys-

tem; school funding debates today are a “technical issue of ‘how much’
instead of a political issue of ‘whether’” (Morsy, Gulson, & Clarke, 2014,
p. 450), leaving the segregated, differentiated nature of the system itself
unquestioned.
Teachers as a Problem in Australian Schooling

While the market system of schooling has been developing in Australia,
another strand of thinking in relation to school education has also been
taking hold: a focus on teachers and their quality. Australia is not unusual
in this regard; a relatively recent policy focus on teachers has been iden-
tified throughout the global North, including in New Zealand (Thrupp,
1999), the United Kingdom (Ball, 2003b; Larsen, 2010) and the United
States (Cohen, 2010; Goldstein, 2015; Kumashiro, 2012; Larsen, 2010;
Ravitch, 2010, 2013), as well as broadly by the OECD (Savage & Lewis,
2018).
In Australia, a focus on teachers has been evident across both policy
and research. In research, the work of John Hattie has been particularly
influential, in which he argues that “the quality of teaching makes all the
difference” (Hattie, 2012, p. 149). In policy, a key example is the estab-
lishment of national teaching standards. Talk of establishing national
teaching standards had been present at a federal level since 1998 with
the release of A Class Act: Inquiry into the Status of the Teaching Profession
(Savage & Lewis, 2018). Interestingly, at the time, the introduction of
standards was seen as a way to protect the status of teachers, although this
narrative has since shifted considerably (Mockler, 2018; Savage & Lewis,
2018). The establishment of the NSW Institute of Teachers in 2004
(Sherington & Hughes, 2012) soon gave way to the National Partnership
Agreement on Improving Teacher Quality in 2008, which required all states
and territories to agree to national teaching standards, to be developed
by the newly established Australian Institute for Teaching and School
Leadership (AITSL). The national standards were released in 2011, and
as of 2018, all teachers in NSW must be accredited. The standards are
now tied to both graduation requirements and teacher registration across
12 M. Stacey
states and territories (Savage & Lewis, 2018), as well as sometimes to

teacher pay scales as is the case in NSW public schools (Stacey, 2017).
Accompanying such developments has been a shift from the
improvement of ‘teaching quality’ towards a discourse of ‘teacher quality’
(Mockler, 2014). Discourses around early career teachers specifically as
‘lacking’ and as a reason for declining international results have intensi-
fied over the past 20–30 years, as Mockler’s (2018) policy analysis work
has demonstrated. This is also apparent in recent discussions in the state
of NSW regarding the quality of entrants to initial teacher education,
who are now required to have particular schooling results7 to ‘get in’,
are required to undertake a standardised literacy and numeracy test dur-
ing the course of their degree (Stacey, 2017), and to teach within the
public sector must as of 2019, among other things, receive a particu-
lar grade point average8 and undertake a psychometric assessment to
demonstrate “superior cognitive and emotional intelligence” during their
initial teacher education (NSW Government, 2018). These measures
come alongside increasing discussion of declining tertiary admissions
rankings for those entering teaching degrees (e.g. Goss, Sonnemann,
& Nolan, 2019). Yet such discussions need to be contextualised within
Australian higher education more broadly. With the Bradley Review of
2008 and the subsequent uncapping of university places, domestic enrol-
ments increased dramatically across the sector as a whole (Norton, 2016).
Although this move was critiqued as economically based (Chapman,
Mangion, & Buchanan, 2015), it also saw a growth in enrolment of
students from low socio-economic (SES) backgrounds. Across the sys-
tem, this is not to a degree of equal participation (Harvey, Andrewartha,
& Burnheim, 2016), however a recent workforce profile report released
by the NSW Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (2018) does
put 26% of initial teacher education students in NSW as coming from
a ‘low-SES’ geographical area.9 Overall, given the relationship between
social class background and entry to higher education, a decline in entry
scores for some degrees may actually be a sign, at least in part, of widen-
ing access to tertiary institutions outside of more traditional, privileged
groups. And as I will argue in this book, ensuring a substantial enrolment
of students from less advantaged backgrounds in initial teacher education
could be a very good thing for the teaching profession.
A policy focus on teacher quality, or the quality of teaching, needs

critical consideration for two key reasons. First, it is notoriously diffi-
cult to measure. In the United States, attempts to develop ‘valued added’
measures of teaching efficacy have been widely criticised for a lack of
validity and reliability through reliance on student test scores (Berliner,
2013b, 2014). In addition, a focus on that which can be measured has
been argued by Skourdoumbis and Gale (2013) to lead to “a narrow
and reductionist interpretation of learning” (p. 904). Critics argue that
while teachers can certainly make ‘a’ difference, it is not ‘the’ difference
(Skourdoumbis, 2014), leading to the second reason why a focus on
teacher quality can be problematic: it can downplay what many see as
potentially an even more significant factor, that of student SES (Berliner,
2013a; Gonski et al., 2011). This then narrows understandings of the
complex contexts in which teachers’ work takes place, distracting from
the more entrenched systemic issues which may impact upon it (Larsen,
2010; Little, Bartlett, Mayer, & Ogawa, 2010; Skourdoumbis, 2017;
Thrupp & Lupton, 2006; Vickers, 2015). In the words of Smyth (2001),
‘quality’ can function as an “aerosol [word] … sprayed around our ever-
so-slightly decaying educational institutions” (p. 38). And as Ravitch
(2013) argues,
[the] belief that fixing schools will fix poverty has no basis in reality,
experience, or evidence. It delays the steps necessary to heal our society
and help children. And at the same time, it castigates and demoralizes
teachers for conditions they did not cause and do not control. (p. 98)
Yet it is these conditions that some teachers today must work in, at a
time when they themselves are seen as being increasingly important, as
well as increasingly problematic.
This Study
Teachers’ work has many dimensions that will look similar across con-
texts. They do, for instance, mostly spend their time on face-to-face
teaching and, of course, the planning and preparation required to
14 M. Stacey
undertake this (McGrath-Champ, Wilson, Stacey, & Fitzgerald, 2018).

There are additional aspects that have been found to ‘blanket’ much
of teachers’ work today, such as an increasing push for administrative
documentation of work, at least in the public sector if not elsewhere
(McGrath-Champ et al., 2018). However, as this book will show, there
is much to gain by looking beneath this overlay to examine the qualita-
tive, potentially small but notable differences in the experiences of teach-
ers in specific, contextually defined schooling spaces (see also Fitzgerald,
McGrath-Champ, Stacey, Wilson, & Gavin, 2018; Parding, McGrath-
Champ, & Stacey, 2017). In this section, I outline the core theoretical
and methodological tools employed within this book, to help me achieve
this goal.
Theoretical Tools: Bourdieu on Habitus and Field
In this book, I adopt a Bourdieuian perspective to assist in the analy-

sis of the participants included and the experiences they describe. The
key tenets of Bourdieu’s work centre on the ‘misrecognised recognition’,
and consequent ‘symbolic violence’, of the dominant ‘cultural arbitrary’
(Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970/1990). The negotiation of this cultural
arbitrary and associated societal structure will depend on the habitus
and accruing stocks of capital—both ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ (Bourdieu,
1986/2002a)—that ‘agents’ bring to the fields they encounter.
According to Bourdieu, habitus is an individual’s “embodied history”
(Bourdieu, 1981, p. 305), described in The Logic of Practice as consisting
of “systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures
predisposed to function as structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1980/1990,
p. 53). That is, the habitus tends to favour choices which “reinforce it”
(Bourdieu, 1980/1990, p. 61), and when habitus encounters “objectified
history” (Bourdieu, 1981, p. 305), the individual will be more or less
aware of these constant collisions depending on the degree of congru-
ence between the two. As Bourdieu explains, “when habitus encounters
a social world of which it is the product, it is like a ‘fish in water’: it
does not feel the weight of the water, and it takes the world about itself
for granted” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 127). This experience of
being a ‘fish in water’ involves the alignment of habitus and field and,
at its most congruent extreme, creates positive interpersonal dynamics
in which individuals feel successful, capable and as though they belong.
Such situations tend to feel ‘natural’ for those experiencing them. In this
book, the habitusof early career teachers is analysed in relation to a range
of contrasting schooling fields, producing a correspondingly contrasting
and complex set of effects. It is for this reason that the question of par-
ticipants’ ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975), referred to at
the start of this chapter, is important; what a new teacher has known in
their own schooling will, I argue, affect how they engage with what they
encounter when entering the system from the other side of the teacher’s
desk.
A focus on the relationship between habitus and field is important
because, in Bourdieuian fields, questions of power are always at play and
“profits … are at stake” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1989, p. 39). In this
book, the primary field of interest is that of secondary schooling in NSW.
Yet nested within this field is a further set of schooling fields, distinct
yet—crucially—related. I should note, however, that the habitus is not
only subject to the forces of the field; the field can also be changed by
the habitus of the individuals within it. Thus while this study is primar-
ily concerned with how a particular set of schooling fields have affected
teachers—how their actions in, and responses to those fields are enabled
and constrained by them—these teachers are also significant actors in the
ongoing formation of these fields.
A common complaint related to the use of Bourdieuian theory in edu-
cation research is that it is ‘deterministic’. The “despairing stability in
patterns of social selection” (Teese, 2007, p. 8) that is rather the hall-
mark of Bourdieu’s work has been seen by some to displace a stronger
discussion of the capacities for change and growth that are present, if
sometimes obscured, within his oeuvre (e.g. Noble & Watkins, 2003;
Yang, 2014). Throughout his career, Bourdieu was careful to note that his
ideas “do not entail a mechanistic determination” (Bourdieu & Johnson,
1993, p. 183) and that “the structural constraints inscribed in the field
set limits to the free play of dispositions; but there are different ways of
playing within these limits” (Bourdieu & Johnson, 1993, p. 66). It is
a question, then, of possibility within constraint. In his later writings,
16 M. Stacey
Bourdieu argued that human behaviour has only a “loose systematici-

ty”, and that “the habitus is not a fate, not a destiny” (Bourdieu, 2002b,
p. 29). Even more striking is the argument Bourdieu makes about the
“generative capacity” of the habitus, being as it is “a dynamic system of
dispositions that interact with one another” (Bourdieu, 2002b, p. 30):
being a product of history, that is of social experience and education, [the

habitus] may be changed by history, that is by new experiences, education
or training (which implies that aspects of what remains unconscious in
habitus be made at least partially conscious and explicit). Dispositions
are long-lasting: they tend to perpetuate, to reproduce themselves, but
they are not eternal. They may be changed by historical action oriented
by intention and consciousness and using pedagogic devices. (Bourdieu,
2002b, p. 29)
While “any dimension of habitus is very difficult to change”, such change

may nevertheless be achieved “through this process of awareness and of
pedagogic effort” (Bourdieu, 2002b, p. 29). Through a focus on how
the habitus becomes formed, its potentially educative qualities become
apparent, as including a necessary space for learning that could be con-
sciously contrived; that could, in a sense, be taught (see also Barrett &
Martina, 2012; Noble & Watkins, 2003; Yang, 2014). A further space of
possibility within Bourdieu’s work lies in the moment of conflict between
habitus and field. In Distinction, for instance, Bourdieu (1984/2010)
writes of “an accident of social genetics” which will lead to individu-
als entering worlds with “inappropriate stakes and interests” (p. 47). The
“relation, the tension, the dynamic friction” (Bourdieu, 2002b, p. 32)
between habitus and field is key to the concerns of this book. When a
habitus finds itself unmatched; when one is a fish out of water rather
than in it (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), such conflict can cause “pow-
erful emotions” (Reay, 2015, p. 11).
The analysis of social class is a final area that needs to be outlined,
an area where Bourdieu’s work again provides a useful resource, describ-
ing the illusory provision of equal opportunity found in modern edu-
cation systems globally (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970/1990). The rela-
tion of the system with the dominant social class in a society serves
to support this class while also hiding the mechanisms through which
such support is provided. For instance, in relation to art, Bourdieu pro-
vides the example of the museum, which although ostensibly open to
‘all’ is a form of “false generosity, because free entrance is also optional
entrance, reserved for those who, endowed with the ability to appropriate
the works, have the privilege of using this freedom and who find them-
selves consequently legitimized in their privilege” (Bourdieu & Johnson,
1993, p. 237). Social class has an insidious character, hard to see because
we are all positioned within it. Here, Bourdieu uses the metaphor of the
patron at the art gallery who, wearing glasses, looks through them in
order to perceive and understand the painting. Eventually, however, the
person no longer sees or notices the lens through which they are look-
ing, and which they require in order to see and understand (Bourdieu &
Johnson, 1993). An individual’s habitus, which is inextricable from their
social class, thus becomes part of how they see as well as what they see.
Similarly, one can come to accept these definitions of oneself through
having a “sense of one’s place” and “a sense of limits” (Bourdieu, 1985,
p. 728) and fail to recognise their arbitrary and inculcated nature.
In this book I understand social class as a “complex amalgam of the
material, the cultural, the emotional and the social” (Maguire, 2005,
pp. 428–429). “We think and are thought by class. It is about being
something and not something else. It is relational” (Ball, 2003a, p. 6).
Social classes are not defined by any singular factor, or by any combina-
tion of factors, but by “the structure of relations between all the perti-
nent properties which gives its specific value to each of them and to the
effects they exert on practices” (Bourdieu, 1984/2010, p. 100). With Ball
(2003a), I therefore employ
a view of class as relational, emergent, contextual, dynamic, localized, and

eventualized. Class is not the membership of a category or the simple
possession of certain capitals or assets. It is an activation of resources
and social identities, or rather the interplay of such identities, in specific
locations, for particular ends. (pp. 175–176)
18 M. Stacey
In this book, analyses of social class take into account factors beyond
material resources, including those that are cultural and social, and how
these resources are deployed within particular contexts.
Such a view of social class as involving a range of ‘pertinent properties’
also has resonance with an understanding that, while social class might
be a core focus of this book, other identity markers need to be taken
into account too, such as gender, ethnicity, age and geographic location.
Given the existing scholarship suggesting an important link between
schooling markets and social class (see, e.g. Ball, 2003a; Campbell
et al., 2009), I do have a primary concern with unpacking its nature
and operation in this book. However, there remains a “need to account
for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world
is constructed” (Crenshaw, 1991), and as such, I aim to maintain a sen-
sitivity to the interaction of multiple factors, with the intent where I
can of bringing “often hidden dynamics forward” (Carbado, Crenshaw,
Mays, & Tomlinson, 2013, p. 311). As Carbado et al. (2013) explain,
“intersectionality is what intersectionality does”, and taking this theo-
retical perspective can help to unravel the effects of multifaceted social
locations for the participants in this study as well as the positioning of
the students and families in the schools in which they work.
I unpack the interplay of such factors for the early career teacher par-
ticipants in the study throughout this book. At the same time, I keep
in mind my own positioning in relation to these dynamics, as a white,
middle-class, female cisgender researcher operating at the time out of
the elite, sandstone environment of the University of Sydney. This priv-
ileged positioning is also affected by my experiences as a former teacher,
something that I unpack further in the section below regarding ethical
considerations.
Methodological Considerations: A Multi-case

Study of Teachers’ Work
The project reported on in this book consisted of nine cases of early

career teachers working across nine contrasting schooling sites within
the NSW market of schools. The project design is similar in structure to
what Stake (2005) describes as a ‘multiple’ or ‘collective’ case study, with

a number of data sources used to shed light upon the ‘subject’—in this
instance, the teacher in the context of their school. It also reflects what
Flyvbjerg (2006) describes as a “maximum variation case study” (p. 230),
with each case differing by ‘school type’, but in other ways being similar.
Such an approach is useful for obtaining “information about the signifi-
cance of various circumstances for case process and outcome” (Flyvbjerg,
2006, p. 230), thus appropriate in this study that seeks to unpack the
impact of market context on teachers’ work.
Schools
The selected cases ranged across a series of different context types:

Catholic systemic schools, elite independent schools, and public schools
serving disadvantaged, advantaged and remote communities. These cate-
gories were intended to capture a breadth of somewhat ‘typical’ contexts
within the NSW market, with five public schools, two Catholic systemic
schools, and two independent schools. This set of categories broadly mir-
rors the overall distribution of students between sectors, with 65.7%
of students in public schools, 19.7% in Catholic systemic and 14.6%
in independent schools Australia-wide (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2019). The selection of schools was Sydney-focused, reflecting the geo-
graphic distribution of the population of NSW (Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 2012). As a large suburban city, Sydney incorporates markets
both large and small across suburbs that differ significantly in their social
and cultural profile. Given the large landmass of Australia and of the state
of NSW relative to other contexts internationally, however, the study also
included one remote school for the purpose of capturing some of the
geographic complexity in play. The study was never going to be able to
include all types of schools—the Catholic sector, for instance, includes
significant difference in levels of advantage, and the independent sector
includes a large range as well. However, the range of schools that have
been included have allowed the significance of context to be placed in
sharper relief than might have otherwise been the case, had I been less
focused on ensuring a contrast in settings.
20 M. Stacey
Participants
Early career teachers were the focus of this study, with ‘early career’
defined as having completed initial teacher education at least two but less
than five years ago. Also interviewed were colleagues—usually someone
with a supervisory role, such as a mentor or head of the department—
and a friend, partner or family member.10 These additional perspectives
enriched my understanding of each participant, as well as the context
in which they worked and, in the case of the colleague, experiences of
working in it. I like to think about this approach using the cinemato-
graphic metaphor of ‘coverage’, in the sense of capturing a single scene
from multiple angles. Such a view emphasises the importance of see-
ing different sides to an individual, with differing play of light and dark
allowing for contrast, contradiction and complexity. In addition, friends,
partners and family members have assisted me in my aim to see these
early career teachers as more than just workers in the shadow of stu-
dents, schools and families. This design dialogues productively with the
ideas of habitus and field (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), as it provides
additional information from additional perspectives on both aspects of
each case.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with each

participant, in which general topics were covered, but with scope for fur-
ther probing and discussion (Merriam, 2009). Detailed reflective field
notes were made subsequent to each interview; this allowed for my
thoughts and impressions of participants and the data collection pro-
cess to be recorded but also afforded an opportunity to take account of
the kinds of facilities and resources available at each site. In each case,
I visited the school during the data collection phase. Data analysis was
based on Stake’s (2006) approach to case study analysis through the con-
struction of case reports. These reports were then considered in light of
the literature and theoretical tools outlined above so as to develop a the-
matic structure for the data, grouping cases into qualitatively different
‘tiers’ within the market and exploring the evident clash, or lack thereof,
between habitus and field in play for each teacher.
Defining Market ‘Tiers’
The grouping of schools into three market ‘tiers’ in this book provides a
way of discussing schools with particular characteristics related to market
position. These characteristics included: the ways in which participants
described their school and the kinds of students they understood it to
typically serve (for instance, those who may be perceived as experiencing
particular forms of disadvantage); the challenges teachers described fac-
ing in their work; and the ways they described their school as responding
to, seeking to create or to maintain a particular kind of market posi-
tion. These categorisations also broadly map against schools’ ICSEA11
values as presented on the Australian Government’s My School website
(www.myschool.edu.au). Schools with ICSEA values below the median12
of 1000 are categorised as being in the lower-tier of the market, while
schools with ICSEA values from 1000 to around 1100 are categorised as
being in the mid-tier, with the remaining schools, those with the high-
est ICSEA values in the study, categorised as being in the upper-tier.
Notably, these ICSEA values are somewhat skewed, with all schools in
both the mid- and upper-tiers having values above the median; the divi-
sions are relative and based on the data gathered. It is also important
to note that despite some general patterns, there is considerable diversity
within each grouping, reflecting slightly different positions of the schools
within each tier, as well as the way in which some had characteristics
that went across categories. These nuances are important points of dis-
cussion in Chapters 3–5. In addition, I emphasise that schools identified
in this book as having a particular market position would not necessarily
always or still be that way, or understood in that way; these categories
by no means tell us all, or even much, of what there may be to know
about individual schools. The categories are imperfect and are employed
in order to facilitate discussion of the data, rather than reflecting clear-
cut or essentialising labels for the schools in question.
22 M. Stacey
Ethical Considerations
Participants in this study have been de-identified, with pseudonyms

used for both people and schools. Generic descriptors are used when
discussing such things as participants and locations, allowing for rele-
vant features to be indicated without confidentiality being compromised.
Upon occasion, some details have been omitted or altered to further de-
identify data, where doing so has not substantively impacted the anal-
ysis. Ethical approvals from relevant bodies were received.13 Through-
out the book, I approach my discussion of the information and stories
provided by participants from the perspective of someone who has them-
selves been a teacher and is now in a position of relative privilege through
my positioning as a researcher. Acknowledging this perspective is impor-
tant as it enables something of an ‘insider’ view of the world of teach-
ing. The book is therefore a product both of the data shared by partici-
pants, understood through the theoretical lenses described above, as well
as my own experiences as a student, pre-service teacher, practising high
school teacher, doctoral candidate and now pre-service teacher educator
and researcher. Like the participants in this study, I too am a ‘market
native’, and attempting to ‘bracket’ my own perspective out of this study
is at best futile and at worst dishonest, given my personal interest in its
content.
This Book
The remainder of this book has the following structure. In Chapter 2,
I explore the habitus of the teacher participants—who they are, and
what they brought to their particular schooling fields. In Chapters 3–
5, I examine the experiences of these teachers working across contrasting
schooling sites in the schools in which they were situated at the time of
the study. These chapters are divided according to market position, with
schools positioned in the lower-tier discussed in Chapter 3, schools in the
mid-tier discussed in Chapter 4, and those in the upper-tier discussed
in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, I look at the ways in which support for
teachers, including in relation to executive and leadership was, and was
not, related to the market position of each of these schools. Chapter 7

provides a concluding discussion, summarising the experiences of rela-
tively privileged teacher participants across the three tiers, working at
one end with students who are frequently excluded from wider society
and its institutions; and at the other, those who are actively allied with its
projects, structures and demands. Chapter 7 also considers recommen-
dations for research, policy and practice in increasing the equity of our
schooling system, arguing a need to restructure the system or, at the very
least, better prepare our teachers to work within it.
Notes
1. The profile of Australian teachers is explored further in Chapter 2.
2. In this book I sometimes use the terms ‘market-oriented’ or ‘marketised’
rather than simply referring to a ‘market’. This is in recognition of the
fact that other researchers have carefully defined educational markets
using the term quasi-market (e.g. Ball & Youdell, 2007, July; Considine,
2012; Marginson, 1997), to indicate that they are less than a full market
due to the remaining reality of government intervention and control.
While I acknowledge this, I do often use the simpler term market, as
this is also common within the field (Campbell, Proctor, & Sherington,
2009; Forsey, 2010; Vickers, 2004). The term market is understood as
being chiefly constituted by explicit and encouraged, as well as implicit
and perceived differences between schools, both within and across the
private and public sectors. Marketisation, then, is anything which helps
to create or encourage these differences, or which drives competition
between schools, as competition can drive difference (and vice versa).
3. The terms private and public may require some clarification for the
international reader; public schools in England, for instance, are what
would be considered private schools in Australia. In this book the term
‘public’ denotes a school “controlled by a state department of educa-
tion”, while the term ‘private’ refers to “any non-government school”
(Campbell, 2014, pp. 3–4).
4. According to the Australian Government (2019), the “Schooling
Resource Standard (SRS) is an estimate of how much total public fund-
ing a school needs to meet the educational needs of its students”.
24 M. Stacey
5. Accreditation requirements in Australia consist of teachers needing to

provide evidence of their proficiency and then maintain this (or move to
higher levels of accreditation) through logged professional development
hours and an annual registration fee.
6. The slope of a socio-economic gradient “refers to the impact of socio-
economic status on performance” (OECD, 2016a, p. 215), reflecting
the extent of disparity in achievement rather than the strength of that
relationship.
7. School students wishing to enrol in an undergraduate teaching degree
in NSW are required to achieve ‘three Band 5s’, one of which must be
in the subject of English. A ‘Band 5’ is the second highest achievement
band for the Higher School Certificate, undertaken in the final year of
secondary schooling.
8. Students must achieve a ‘credit’ average. In Australian tertiary institu-
tions, a credit is generally the band above a ‘pass’, usually meaning a
mark between 65–74 out of 100.
9. That said, it is worth noting that this finding is based on the ABS Socio-
Economic Index for Areas or SEIFA (Centre for Education Statistics and
Evaluation, 2018), which does not provide information about the actual
individuals in question, only the geographic area.
10. Two of the nine cases were left slightly incomplete, perhaps reflective
of the kinds of competing demands constantly in play within the busy
world of schools.
11. The ICSEA measures the socio-educational advantage of a school’s
enrolments in any one year. As ICSEA values are publicly available
on the My School website, only indicative values are provided in this
book so as to avoid identification of participating schools. ICSEA
values range from about 500, denoting extreme disadvantage, to about
1300, denoting extreme advantage; with a standard deviation of 100,
the large majority of schools have a value between 900 and 1100. For
more information on the calculation of the ICSEA, please refer to the
guide available on the website (Australian Curriculum Assessment and
Reporting Authority, 2015).
12. While individual school pages available on My School refer to the ‘aver-
age’ value as 1000 (www.myschoool.edu.au), explanatory documents
refer to this value as the ‘median’ (e.g. Australian Curriculum Assess-
ment and Reporting Authority, 2015). Communication with ACARA
staff confirms that as ICSEA values approximate a normal distribution,
the mean and median are very similar (D. Bradburn, personal communi-
cation, October 9, 2017). However, the term ‘median’ is the more accu-
rate term (D. Bradburn, personal communication, October 4, 2017),
and therefore throughout this book I refer to schools as being above or
below the median ICSEA value of 1000.
13. The project was approved by the University of Sydney Human Research
Ethics Committee, the NSW Department of Education, and the Sydney
diocese of the Catholic Education Office.
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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
ONNI.
Maa liian kaunis, taivas liian kirkas on, sen sini liian väkevä ja
polttavainen. Maan lapselle on armo ansaitsematon, jo täällä
saada onni, autuus taivahainen.
Kuin jäinen puu, mi alastonna raukenee

tuoll' alttihiksi kevätpäivän syleilylle,
niin sieluni mun asunnoksi aukenee
nyt ilolle, ah, ikävöiden itketylle.
Kuink' onkaan suurin ihme yksinkertainen!

Vain haaveksia, rukoella hartahasti,
niin saapuu kaikki myötä hetken ainoisen,
ja malja kallis täyttyy kukkuroilleen asti.
Elämän riemu katsoo silmin palavin,

ne polttavat niin syvän, taivaan siintävinä.
Mit' ikävöisin enää, mitä kaipaisin?
Jo tulin liian, liian rikkahaksi minä.
ME KAKSI VALKOISTA LINTUA —
Me kaksi valkoista lintua nyt lennämme pilvien taa. Niin

kauas, niin kauas jää allemme pieni maa. Me raikkaita tuulia
halkoen nyt uimme avaruutehen, ja huikaisun meri soi ympäri,
suonissa humisee veri. Me sineä juomme riemusta
humaltuen.
Me kaksi valkoista lintua nyt lennosta väsähtäin alas

syöksymme pyörtyin kautt' ilmojen häikäiseväin. Kaks
ruumista maassa värisee, sydän sydäntä vasten kylmenee.
Kylän pienokaiset ne laulaen pitävät hautajaiset, laps'äänet
heleät yllämme helkkyilee.
Me kaksi valkoista lintua nyt varjossa pähkinäpuun unt'

onnesta näämme ja tuoksuista toukokuun. Sinivuokot
kummulla kukkivat, ja ylhäältä pilvenhattarat niin hauraina
hymyy … Ah, sinne sinisyyksihin lymyy ilon ihanin hurma ja
haaveet puhtaimmat.
HELLUNTAIKELLOT.
Halki aamun terhenen soi ääni armahani. Herään — soivat

huomenkellot kautta ikkunani.
Nousen nuorna, hymyhuulin — huomenkellot soivat.

Heleätä helluntaita huomenkellot soivat — aavistuksia
autuaita sieluni kellot soivat!
Kuinka sentään ihanaa on ihmislapsen elää! Sävel elon

suuren laulun suonissani helää — suonissani soiden helää
ilo, kaiho verten nuorten. Oi, jos kelloin kaiku kantais minut
kauas yli laaksoin, vuorten —!
VALKEA PÄIVÄ.
Ajatukseni lailla auringon säteen säihkyy, karkeloi. Sinä, ken

ani armaasti tartuit käteen, kuuntele, kuuntele, kuinka mun
syömeni soi!
On kuin joku jouhisoittimehen siellä kajoais, kiviraunion

karuun tummuutehen valkea pensas luntansa varistais.
Suvilämminnä siintää taivaan kaari yllä kaupungin. Tule,

jossain on tuoksuva jasmiinisaari, linna ja portaat, johtavat
pilvihin!
VIHREÄ HUMALA KUKKII…
Vihreä humala kukkii, lehtii tuuhea niini. Onnen pikarista

vuotaa loppumaton viini.
Taivas, pilvien anna ratketa itkemähän! Pieni sydän

pakahtuupi autuuteensa tähän.
PILVINEN PÄIVÄ.
Rannalta kurjenmiekkoja poimin

ja kuuntelen kuikan ääntä.
Miksi nyt niin tuulessa valittavat kaislat

ja pilveen on peittynyt taivas?
Eikö eilen kurjenmiekat aurinkoa juoneet

ja nurmi ollut houkuttavan lämmin?
Eikö mua kutsunut hän nurmilinnuksensa,

kun poveansa vasten minut painoi?
Pilvipäivät saavat, ah, aurinkoisten jälkeen,

kun huikaisevan kirkasta on ollut! —
Pääskyset jo liitelevät alahalla aivan,

ja apea on kuikan ääni.
ORJANRUUSU.
Mua kutsuu metsäsaari pois vainioiden taa.

Käyn sinne kesäyönä, kun kaste kimaltaa.
Ma karhunsammalmättäälle vaivun itkemään,
ja kyyneleeni virtaa maan multaan viileään.
Ah, orjanruusupensas mun oli rakkautein!

Sen oksat sormin vertyvin seppeleeksi tein.
Ja kukkaterät puunsi kuin sisus kirsikan,
mut joka piikki myötään toi kivun katkeran.
Nyt polkeako täytyy mun ruusut rakkautein,

suur ikävä ja riemu ja tuska sydämein?
Oi lausu itse, armas, sun kuinka kieltää voin,
kun silmiesi loisteen ma sieluhuni join!
Oi lausu itse, kuinka sun poistan muistostain,

kun läsnäolos autuuden tuntea ma sain,
kun öin ja päivin äänes mun korvissani soi…
Ah, liian paljon lemmin, sua unhottaa en voi!
SCHUMANNIN »TRÄUMEREI».
On ilma kellanhimmeä — se tuoksuu jasmiinilta, ja lyhdyt

tanssipaviljonkiin heittää säihkettään. Mut huvilasta, korkealta
köynnösterassilta soi sellon tumma ääni yksinään. On ilma
kellanhimmeä — se tuoksuu jasmiinilta… — Mun joku pyytää
soutelemaan venheellään.
Yö samettinen, lämmin, vedenpinta peilityyni, kuin sulaa

kristallia venhe hiljaa halkoilee. Oon soutajasta haaveksinut
salaa — tunnen syyni: kuin pieni lintu sydän vapisee. Yö
samettinen, lämmin, vedenpinta peilityyni… — Jo sellon syvä,
tumma ääni vaikenee.
DOLCE FAR NIENTE.
On alla auringon
heleän
niin lämmin rinteellä maata mäen.
Ma kuulen hyttysten
hyrinän
ja muurahaisten ma saatot näen.
On olo rauhaa
ja unelmaa.
Näin oman sykkeensä sydän kuulee.
Nyt toistaan lempivät
taivas, maa.
Vain metsäsaarelta salaa tuulee.
Kuin kimalainen,
mi laskeuu
tuon kelta-angervon kukinnolle,
niin olen ahnas
ja herkkusuu
ma kesän tuoksulle, auringolle.
Jo täynnä kennot on hunajaa, ja uutta tuo joka uusi
huomen. Ah, autuaasti mua unettaa. Se painaa umpehen
silmäluomen.
V.
OCEANIA.
(à la Pierre Loti).
Maa merellinen kookospalmuines,

yöperhoines —
ma poimimaan käyn koralleja rannoilles.
Sa mitään muista, mitään toivo et.

Sa mieti et.
Vain valtameren hengitystä kuuntelet.
Ja Tyynimeri suolavuoteellaan
sun autuaan,
sun onnellisen suutelee yön unholaan,
kun yli basalttisen louhikon

lyö vallaton
veen hyöky. Valkojasmiinis kuin vaahto on.
Ei laula ykskään pieni siivekäs

sun metsissäs,
vain kaiku vastaa varjoisista siimeistäs,
laps aaltojen ja aavistusten maan
kun kaipuutaan
yön hiljaisuuteen huhuu ruokohuilullaan.
FANTASIA.
Jossain pyörryttävän
kaukana —
öljytyynen, kavalan valtameren
villin rehevässä saaressa
kelluu hunajankeltainen jättiläiskukka
höyryävän lammen pinnalla
niinkuin oudon suuri, samettinen
dahlia —
Loistavat, myrkylliset hyönteiset laskevat miljoonia muniaan

limantahmeiden terälehtien lomiin. Metsän kuumehorteisista
puista tippuu helmeilevä tuskanhiki jossain pyörryttävän
kaukana —
MYRKKYLILJAT.
Voi häntä, jolle nykyisyys ei riitä! Hän vaatii myöskin ajan

mennehen ja poimii niinkuin polttoyrtit siitä jok' ainoon
lemmittynsä askelen.
Hän suven hyvää hedelmää ei niitä, hän myrkyttämä

mustain liljojen. Hän saamastaan ei sallimusta kiitä, vaan
itkee maata, joka vajos merehen!
Ah, kesken suudelmia suruun vaipuin voi värähdellä

mimosan hän lailla ja vaiti on, ei nosta katsettaan.
Kuut kauniit katoo kyynelusviin haipuin, ja unen lempeätä

lahjaa vailla hän öisin vääntelehtii vuoteellaan.
MUSTANPUNAINEN MELANKOLIA.
Kookospalmujen siimestämä tie, jota käyden askeleeni

kantaa pitkin ahnaan, huohottavan meren liejuista rantaa.
Luode kaikki rakkaimpani vie, muodottomia ruumiita
mukanaan vuoksi kantaa.
Kookospalmujen siimestämä tie, tumma loimu

aarniometsäin yllä — raskas murhe sydämessä hyljätyllä.
Mikä tähti palanutkaan lie kerran unikoilla peitetyn kehtoni
yllä?
Kuuma, vereen kastettu tähti paloi!

ODALISKI.
Hän lojuu pieluksilla divaanin, ja olkapäältä liukuu silkkihiha.

On huulet punaiset kuin luumun liha, mut kasvot kuultaa lailla
balsamin.
Ja ikkunansa peittyin ruusuihin kuin hiillos hehkuu —

silmissään on viha: ei riitä niille puisto, pylväspiha, ne
köynnösverkoin kietoo seraljin.
Niin tukehduttaa lemu myrhan, myskin, ja unhottunut ilmain

heleyskin on tällä puolen tumman ristikon.
Ah, siellä virta välkkyy auringossa, ja täysin purjein keinuu

aallokossa nyt laiva lähtövalmis, levoton —!
LOTI AZIYADÉLLE.
Oi Sirkassian metsien myrttikukka,

joka suot minun juoda huultesi hunajaa!
Sinä suloinen! Syvin lainein aaltoaa
alas olkapäillesi ambrantuoksuinen, tumma tukka.
Aziyadé!
Valot kirkkaat illoin syttyvät Stambulissa,

väri silmäisi fosforiloistein kimmeltää.
Sisin sielus arvoitukseksi aina jää,
sinä Aasian poloinen, silkinpehmeä pieni kissa.
Aziyadé!
KEVÄISET AROT.
Tuulen siivin lempi toi mun halki aromaan.

Kukkaverho kirjava sen peitti kokonaan. —
Nauratko, kaunis Katinka?
Kukkasiksi muuttua jos onnemme nyt vois,

tuoksuavan tulvan alla laajat arot ois! —
Uskotko, armas Katinka?
Mutta niinkuin hyasintit, liljat, tulppaanit,

helle polttaa nuoruutemme riemut kaunihit. —
Itketkö, pieni Katinka?
LAULU KITARAN SÄESTYKSELLÄ.
Lauloi nuori gondolieri hämyssä Venetsian yön: itkettävää niin

ei ole mitään kuin on kylmä, lemmetön syön!
Sulaa vuorten sininen jääkin,

ei sula sydämesi sun,
säihkyvän ihana, julma Judith,
riistäjä rauhani, toivoni mun!
Kukkivat visaiset viikunapuutkin, lempeen ei puhkea

lemmetön syön! — Hiljaa kapea gondooli liukui hämyssä
Venetsian yön.
RAKKAUS.
Ruusu puhkesi punainen keskellä keltaista poutaa. Tumma,

polttava viini sen suonissa soi ja soutaa. Pisaran yhden jos
viiniä juo ikuinen onni vuottaa, kaksi pisarta tuskan tuo, kolme
kuoleman tuottaa.

The Business of Teaching Becoming A Teacher in A Market of Schools 1St Ed 2020 Edition Meghan Stacey Full Chapter

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The Business of Teaching Becoming A Teacher in A Market of Schools 1St Ed 2020 Edition Meghan Stacey Full Chapter

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Available Formats

The Business of Teaching: Becoming a

Teacher in a Market of Schools 1st ed.

“Even as researchers have identified potential pitfalls with markets in educa-

“Meghan Stacey’s The Business of Teaching is a must read for sociologists of

ISBN 978-3-030-35406-0 ISBN 978-3-030-35407-7 (eBook)

Cover image: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com

About four hours south-west of Sydney is a little country town, located

As a recipient of a Department scholarship, I was guaranteed a perma-

resources; navigated the school staff- and common-rooms; and as the

This book is based on my doctoral research, undertaken from 2014

Everyone knows that being an early career teacher can be tough. It

Sydney, Australia Meghan Stacey

feedback during its gestation. Eleanor Christie and Becky Wyde at

1 Born into the Business: A Study of the Early Career

2 Who Are Our Teachers? 35

3 Teachers’ Work Within the Market: Cases from Schools

4 Teachers’ Work Within the Market: Cases from Schools

5 Teachers’ Work Within the Market: Cases from Schools

6 Supporting Early Career Teachers Across the Market 143

7 A Bad Business: Implications of the Market

AITSL Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership

Table 1.1 Numbers of selective, specialist, and junior/senior

In 2006, I began the first year of my initial teacher education. I brought

increasing scrutiny (Mockler, 2018), there is a growing need to look at

Teachers and Markets in Australian Schooling

social class, with an average of 73% of selective school students in 2016

a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-

Table 1.1 Numbers of selective, specialist, and junior/senior campus schools in

is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such

Arising in the 1980s, neoliberalism has been described as a global phe-

There is an argument that encouraging privatisation in education will

Within this book, first-order effects are understood as changes to the

a normalised national view of what is a rather unique schooling sys-

Teachers as a Problem in Australian Schooling

states and territories (Savage & Lewis, 2018), as well as sometimes to

A policy focus on teacher quality, or the quality of teaching, needs

undertake this (McGrath-Champ, Wilson, Stacey, & Fitzgerald, 2018).

Theoretical Tools: Bourdieu on Habitus and Field

In this book, I adopt a Bourdieuian perspective to assist in the analy-

Bourdieu argued that human behaviour has only a “loose systematici-

being a product of history, that is of social experience and education, [the

While “any dimension of habitus is very difficult to change”, such change

a view of class as relational, emergent, contextual, dynamic, localized, and

Methodological Considerations: A Multi-case

The project reported on in this book consisted of nine cases of early

what Stake (2005) describes as a ‘multiple’ or ‘collective’ case study, with

The selected cases ranged across a series of different context types:

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collection involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with each

Defining Market ‘Tiers’

Participants in this study have been de-identified, with pseudonyms

not, related to the market position of each of these schools. Chapter 7

5. Accreditation requirements in Australia consist of teachers needing to

Ball, S. J. (1993). What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. Discourse:

Bourdieu, P. (2002a). The forms of capital (R. Nice, Trans.). In N. W. Big-

Cohen, J. L. (2010). Teachers in the news: A critical analysis of one US

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five misunderstandings about case-study research.

Kuin jäinen puu, mi alastonna raukenee

Kuink' onkaan suurin ihme yksinkertainen!

Elämän riemu katsoo silmin palavin,

Me kaksi valkoista lintua nyt lennämme pilvien taa. Niin

Me kaksi valkoista lintua nyt lennosta väsähtäin alas

Me kaksi valkoista lintua nyt varjossa pähkinäpuun unt'